New Year Resolution: Exploring oil painting

Unbelievable, that's is almost the end of the year again, already. Where has the time gone? And what happened to all those plans, goals, dreams and resolutions one tends to set oneself at the beginning of a new year? Well, one of my plans for 2013 had been to explore oil painting. It's something I've always wanted to do, but never dared. Then, at the end of last year, all determined, I bought some oil painting supplies. One day in spring, I set up a little still life, did a pencil drawing...

...made a value study with charcoal on a separate piece of paper....

... transfered the pencil drawing on to a canvas board, and started with the underpainting.

And that's as far as I got, I'm afraid. But at least the underpainting is now well and thoroughly dry, and ready for the next layer. And one of my New Year's resolutions for 2015 is to finish this painting. And explore and play with oils.

Life Drawing

I had been thinking about taking a life drawing class one day at the beginning of the year, but thought I was far from ready for that. In spring, I went to a portrait drawing classes again, which I had taken two years ago. I really enjoyed exploring the human face and drawing real people rather than working from photographs. Drawing the hole figure was the logical next step further. I wasn't sure if I was ready for the class yet, and I was thinking about it and arguing with myself all summer. But then, one's never really ready and fully prepared, and just a few days before class started at the end of September, I went for it. And I'm so glad I did. Every Saturday morning we explore a new technique or concept - mass, contour, line, tonal values, chiaroscuro etc. I love the structure of the class, starting with a bit of theory first, followed by putting it into practice, and building up on the past lessons. And as we are a small group of only seven, our teacher has enough time for helping each of us in turn with practical advise and critique. While the models in the portrait class had been volunteers, who did not always sit completely still, the models here are paid professionals, who are able to hold a pose without moving. Drawing them is a very different experience, not easy, but so rewarding. Most of the time, anyway. There's always the one or other drawing that just doesn't work, and is just frustrating, of course. We've had a different model for every class so far, mostly young women - only one man so far. Below are some of the drawings I did in class so far (I'm sorry about the bad quality of the photographs, but the days are getting shorter and greyer). I still got lots to learn...

Last Saturday, we went to the Archaeological Museum at the University, to draw in their cast collection. After having spent a good hour listening to our teacher explaining about different epochs and development of representing the human body in carved stone, we all wandered off to find a cast to draw. I liked the expression of this cast of a Roman copy of a Hellenic original, representing a man sharpening a sickle. I decided to concentrate just on on that, drawing only the head, instead of the whole figure (which was rather complicated, I save that for another day). There were some in my class who weren't happy about drawing dead models instead of life ones, but I must say I quite enjoyed it. It was nice not having to worry about time and instead being able to take as long as you need without having to fear your model changing the pose. I think it's a good exercise to draw such casts from time to time, to really study the features, proportions, expressions, poses etc., to get a feel for the human face and figure, and I'm sure it will be very useful for drawing from life.

I have a long way to go still, but I'm so glad I'm taking this course now. And I want to go back to the Archaeological museum too, and there are weekly life drawing sessions (not classes) here in Zürich too, which I yet have to check out. After all, it's practise, practise, practise that makes you improve your skills.

100 portraits: #32 and #33

Two more portraits in my series of 100 portraits. I still have a long way to go, but I'm getting there. Slowly, very slowly, but I'm enjoying the process of trying out different styles and mediums. And that's the main thing, and what this my challenge is all about - trying out different things, and having fun, and getting lots of practice.

Portrait #32, N., charcoal and white pastel. I don't usually bother much about likeness when using a reference photo, it's more about getting the proportions right, and making it look like a human face. But here I wanted to get the likeness, and I'm happy to say that I did. I think it helps when you draw someone you know, instead of using images from magazines or the internet, as I usually do. Knowing someone's character, the twinkle in his eyes, the smile etc. all these things somehow help to catch the person on paper.

Portrait #33, done in pastels. For this I used a magazine reference again. No likeness to the person, but I like how she turned out. Her name's Miranda King, a headstrong young woman who wants to become an actress, and to conquer the big city's stages with her renderings of literature's heroines. And I think she might well achieve her dream.

Portrait #4

Finished portrait #4 last night, using some charcoal sticks I bought earlier. I bought them because I liked the fact that the box contained a range of grey tones in addition to white and black. But  I wasn't  too happy with them, though. The consistency reminded me more of those chalks used on blackboards, and they're very dusty.

At the moment, the portraits seem to develop a "life" of their own, with me having only limited influence in the process. I use pictures in magazines as a reference, but I'm not too bothered about producing any real likeness. It's the pose, the angle, the proportions, the highlights and shadows I'm interested in, and I just add layer after layer, wondering how she will turn out, what kind of emotion, mood will emerge. Here, I think it's a kind of pain or distress. Maybe she's having a slight headache, or remembering/thinking about something unpleasant. I'm quite enjyoing this rather intuitive process at the moment.

After I took the photo, I actually worked some more on her, I just couldn't stop. Maybe I'll replace the photo later on with the finished version.

#3 is finished

I finished portrait #3 yesterday last night. I'm quite pleased with how she turned out. Of course, there are still 100 things that could be improved, corrected, made better. Especially on the cheek, which looks a bit flat. I also planned to add a background at first, but I'm going to leave her like this, at least for the moment :)

And now, on to #4 :)

Some more thoughts on the 100 portraits project

On Wednesday, I talked about my 100 portraits project I was planning to do this year, in order to improve my drawing skills. The idea was to use my sketchbook to draw in, and the "100" wasn't so much a definite number, but more meant as "a lot", or "as many as possible". But I have now decided to really try and do 100 portraits this year, and not just into my sketchbook, but instead 100 individual portraits. Right now, I'm working on 40x40cm sketching paper, and this suits me very well. I want to use different paint mediums as well, but for the moment, I think I'll stick to the pastels for a little while. I really don't know why I haven't used these pastels more often before. I've used them only for sketching on to a canvas, really, but never on their own as such. But just love them!!!. And I think they work so well for portraits. :).

The good thing with my 100 portraits project is that it not only won't give me a lot of practice, it also means that I will have a perfect stock of reference images for all kinds of poses, postures, moods, and characters, etc. which I will be able to use for my paintings. And I just really enjoy spending some evenings doing them, and that, really, is already reason enough to continue.

This is portrait #3 I'm working on at the moment. Still lot of work to do on her, but I quite like her, and I just hope I won't spoil her.

I think I'm really going to enjoy this portrait thing!

Working on an other portrait tonight, and I'm am really beginning to enjoy taking my time to complete a drawing, working on the shading, blending and highlights. I was a bit sceptical about the attempting portraits, but I think I'm going to like it a lot. I'm usually too tired to take out my paints and stuff by the time I finally get home in the evening. But a bit of pencil or charcoal drawing, that is manageable. And so relaxing and satisfying.

This is a charcoal and pastel work in progress. I can't wait to continue working on it tomorrow!