charcoal drawing

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Adriana is drawing like this at 12! A six minute charcoal sketch.  Life drawing is KEY! I can not express enough how Life Drawing will teach you every drawing element. It doesn’t matter what skill level you are at, Life Drawing is essential. 

Graphite Drawing

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Graphite drawing by Jordan. Learning to draw is not as hard as some make it. You need a good teacher; someone who understands realism and wants to teach you foundation. I can’t express enough how important Foundation learning is. You must learn to understand form and how to create it with warm and cool tones in graphite. Starting to draw with a “Hill and Valley” concept { which I created in my teaching experience } is key to understand more complex skill sets.

I guarantee I can teach you!!!

portrait painting

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Oil painting is easy when you have knowledge about drawing forms. Realism in any medium is about layers and lighter layers of building forms. I will add more on this later, don’t have the time now, but stay tuned. This is titled, “The Un-sent Letter”. It is about a young woman sitting getting ready for her wedding day. She is holding a letter she never sent to an old love. It is about life decisions and “Letting Go” of the past’ heart wrenching. There will be several clues painted to add to the story, which line up with my recent photography. More to come.

Oil painting

Here we go again…..second canvas ready for new painting. I am working on an oil already titled, “The Un-sent Letter”. It is about a young woman reading the letter she never mailed to an old boyfriend on her wedding day. Second thoughts about walking down the aisle? I can’t answer that, but she is beautiful. Sometimes life decisions are made not knowing the end results, love I guess? Anyway; I started this first oil with the intention of painting looser than realistic. Good luck with that! Why do I beat myself up about my painting, drawing style? I paint and draw realistically and that’s how I role as an artist.

Here are pictures of the beginning work and the mannequin that is freaking people out in my wedding dress in a still life I put together for the painting. It is better to work from a still life vs. a photograph. 007005

The face is nice in the first oil but I painted over it thinking I was going to approach this with an Impressionistic style. I ended up wiping the paint off and well, it didn’t come out so well.

Fine Art Studio

The header I currently have the pictures are not as clear as in shop? When I have more time to play I will work on it.

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I have been busy working on my own portfolio as well as working with my artist friends when I could. Summer has flown by and here it is mid August already! Time for school and getting back to a regular routine schedule.

As far as my artwork goes I finished the large black and white watercolor shown in the center of the header, which I like. Plus, I do need to matte it yet.  Now, I will start to put thought into action on the photography series that  I was working on last spring semester. Not one hundred percent sure where this art series is going, but I have several ideas.  I will know when I get there; plus in the duration producing some beautiful photography. Over all it has been a really great experience thus far.

In between the darkroom come Fall, studio time and family my hours will be filled; just the way I like it. I will make time though for my artist friends. I like to be productive and moving in the right direction.

watercolor

In the past few days I have been able to work a bit more; fine tuning the details. I still want to recess the background some. 7/27/13.

This is how far I was able to paint. I really enjoy the lace and the material is moving. It’s pretty cool to see my growth as an artist since the first time I painted; better known as my first watercolor. Just the skill level alone……awwww right!002 - Copy

Learning to see.

Learning to see the details around you; what a leaf or tree for example looks like when you are standing next to it versus  how a tree or the detail of a leaf look in comparison farther away or distance. Take the time to look and notice color and how the color changes and the details or realistic details slightly become unfocused as they go back or a way from you in distance.

I advise you to start thinking about color or graphite in values [one to ten; light to darkest]  for all colors as well as grays/blacks. Are they warm or cool in tone? Warm tones will come forward in space and cools will sink in space. The way God designed it, not an artist trick.  Think about how color fades in distance and lack of detail in landscape.

Don’t worry so much about the name of the color printed on the tube of color, look to see if it is warm or cool in tone and where would you use it on form, shape etc.

Wanting to learn to draw and paint.

I want to share a few thoughts with you about drawing and painting. If you are becoming frustrated with your painting skills and it seems like you can paint to a certain point, but you know something is wrong? Something just doesn’t look right or you wish you just knew how to proceed and improve your skills. This is why you are frustrated, you do not have a solid foundation to work off of. Remember: VERY IMPORTANT; also draw in the direction of the form. Once you are a master of drawing then you may shade in opposite and various directions. Once you completely understand drawing and your skills can hold their own and understand form and shapes {how to bring them to realism} then painting will be easier and you wont be as frustrated. Trust me with this.*********
***********TRUST ME::::::::once you learn to draw and control value and use the warm and cool tones to your advantage the painting and form will be easier. Always draw in the direction of the form or shape of the objects you are drawing. I will be adding video demos in the next few weeks which will help.

I suggest and recommend you go back to learn the basics  and fundamentals in drawing. Drawing 101…….I have several post regarding drawing and improving your skills, in the search tab in the menu. Also, in the menu there are tabs regarding drawing and papers.

Start with re-learning the values in graphite; the H graphite pencils, [warm tone] and B graphite pencils [cool tone]. Make a value scale from one to ten; the first block is just paper white and the tenth block is the darkest you can get the block. Number five is middle tone; therefore number two block light until block five and block six to ten shaded in gradual increments.as seen in the graph. Learn what each pencil can do for you. Notice the hardness and softness of the graphite. H’s are hard and B’s are soft.

Then work on perfecting a sphere. Use a 4H to begin, once drawn well, then add a 2B to the core, the darkest part.