Another Portrait

Jada 11" x 14"

oil on linen

Jada posed for our Saturday morning group. She is eighteen years old and moving to California this year to go to college. I think I've made her look a bit older than she actually is.
Jada won Miss Buckeye State, which is a huge honor. You have to be smart!

This painting was done 90% from life in one pose and I finished her dress and the background home using a photo reference.

Tegan

This young lady modeled for our portrait group last week. She was so professional and we appreciated her steady gaze, excellent posture and ability to return to the pose--and her beautiful costume, of course!

Ami, a Portrait from Life

I like how this one turned out. Our model, Ami, posed nicely. She hardly moved, and I had a very good place to paint in. This is a 9" x 12", oil on linen, painted at our Saturday morning painting group.

Vanna from the Ukraine

Another talented and lovely model who posed for us at the Scottsdale Artists School: Vanna. She is posing in a dress she made herself, one that would be a ceremonial dress in her native Ukraine. Just a super model who was so much fun to paint.

11" x 14"

oil on linen

Another Head Study

This gorgeous looking lady was out model at the Hyter Group last week. It is very helpful when the model actually holds their head in one position and can maintain a bright and alert pose. It's not as easy as it appears. I had to leave early and they started late so this is about an hour and a half. When I know the time is limited I do try to pare things down to the essentials and I am not always as careful with my transitions between dark and light. Still, this sometimes results in a positive result. I toned the 1/2" birch board the night before with a light mixture of black and yellow ocher so it was dry when I started the portrait. The light green really created a dramatic contrast to her red hair so in a way it was just a lucky choice of colors for the underpainting.

11" x 14" oil on birch panel

$150

The Importance of Anatomy

I want to talk about anatomy today and why it’s necessary to study it a bit if you ever hope to paint recognizable people on a regular basis. In the past, anatomy was taught at all the great art schools. It was only with the advent  of newer and more modern painting methods that techniques that had developed over centuries and had been passed down from artist to artist via apprenticeships disappeared. 

As an artist who has always been intrigued by the human form, I have studied anatomy, both on my own and by auditing life drawing courses at local universities. Life drawing, both short pose and long pose, is THE best way to develop skill in rendering the human form. You can copy all the Victoria’s Secret catalog models you want but you still won’t really “get” how the human form turns and moves in space if you don’t invest some time in the study of anatomy and how it relates to ‘real people’.

What is the best way to do this? Find a life drawing or painting group in your area and attend as often as you can. You say there aren’t any? Star one yourself.  I paint with a portrait group in Toledo on Saturday mornings whenever I can make it. The group meets in an old school cafeteria and it costs just $5 for a two hour session. We pay the model $30 for the session and we have the same model for four weeks. That’s a bit too long for most of us, who would prefer to have the same model for two weeks because we’re usually done by then. But everyone works at a different rate so I suppose we have to be flexible. My painting speed has increased greatly since I started painting with this group five years ago. I live about 45 minutes away so I can’t attend every week, which means I ALWAYS try to get my painting done in one session and I am usually close enough to finish it at home using a photographic reference.

A little painting I did of the group a couple years ago.

Teri Bersee runs a small rural art school 30 miles from my home. It’s called Bountiful Arts. Teri sponsors a life drawing session once a month and I attended this group last week because she promised we would  have a female nude model for three 2 hour sessions over a period of three months. I hadn’t been to any unclothed model sessions in awhile so I made a point of showing up to this one. I brought along my easel and paints because I knew I could finish an 11” x 14” piece in two hours. Our model was great and I was happy with my little painting.

I think painting or drawing from the nude is always time well spent. Nowhere else can an artist learn so much about human anatomy than from close observation of the muscles, forms, light and shadow of the nude subject. You might be thinking to yourself, "Fine, she's lucky, she lives in an artsy community and she has all these opportunities to work from life." Nah, that's just an excuse. A determined will does find the way. You make your own opportunities. Network and get to know the artists in your area. I live in a city with less than 8,000 people and I have to drive 30 minutes to shop at a mall. It may not be convenient, but if you're serious about improving the quality of your art you will find a group that encourages you and you WILL achieve your goals quicker.

Here's my painting from last week: 11" x 14", oil on linen

Painting from the Live Model

Most of the students who sign up for a painting class with me are surprised to learn that I believe it's easier to paint from life than it is to paint from a photograph. I need to qualify that statement a bit. It's easier if you are a fast painter. Of course you don't become a fast painter until you put in the hours necessary to make quick decisions while you're painting. That is where practice comes in. A photograph is never going to duplicate all the colors our eyes can see. It's a flat rendition of one view of a subject. The human eye, on the other hand, is capable of discerning subtle value changes and luminosity that is quite foreign to the camera lens. A photograph captures the line and the value, while the eye sees the shape and the forms. I enjoy painting from life very much and I take every opportunity to do so. All mys still life subjects are painted form life. It would be very boring for me to take a picture of some "things" and then copy the picture,. The joy arises when I am in the moment and making the decisions about where I want the light and shadow to merge, how much I want to push the color etc. It's hard to explain to artists who have never tried it.

In the warmer months I paint landscapes outdoors: plein air painting. The subject needs to be captured in two hours or less if you're not planning to return another day. This kind of painting forces the artist to make snap decisions about line, form and color. It effectively increases your speed and makes you a better painter. It's great training for painting the human form from life, another very enjoyable but not always easy activity.

Painting from life will train your eyes to look for and find variations in color that artists who depend on photos will never see. After you've put in hundreds of hours directly observing and painting what you see in nature you can use a photograph for reference and safely invent the color, shadows, and highlights you know is missing from it.

Here are a two recent paintings done from life. The woman was a five hour pose and the boy posed for two hours.

A two hour portrait of Andre, size 16" x 20", completed from life.

Christine from our Portrait Group

I finished this painting Saturday. Her hair was so much fun to paint- it just went all over. Christine was a great model who sat very still and meditated the entire time she posed.

100th Post!! Scott in Open Studio

I can't believe I have posted 100 times. That means I have painted at least 100 paintings since I started this log in November 2005. Not really being a math person I think that's about 15 months or 62 weeks. Divide 100 paintings by 62 weeks and that's almost 2 paintings per week. I am actually painting about three a week now and more of them are successful so maybe the average will go up. You really can't count a painting that ended up being painted over and turned into something else. That was the fate of Cowboy Jim, who is slowing morphing into a fireman's coat, hat and boots. Today's post is the second session of a guy named Scott who was the model for our open studio last week and this week. I had to repaint the glasses three times. I keep putting them on the wrong place. Sigh.. Maybe one more time and I will be finished hopefully. Unless I give up and try to finish at home.