Sunday Figure Painting

This painting is from the Sunday Open Figure Session at PAFA that is run by my teachers Scott Noel and Peter Van Dyck. Every week during the semester a bunch of us students and Peter and Scott get together to paint the figure in a great communal atmosphere at school. Its much more informal than class and everybody just hangs loose, has fun and paints. You can ask for feedback, or not, just sit there and paint away and have fun.

This was my first go at painting a figure from life in a little bit since I have been doing landscapes a lot lately, but I always feel you have to change it up, and since I have also been working a lot with photography its good to go back to life. the paintings is in oil on museum board and roughly 24 x 36. The sessions run 12-4 and everybody chips in for the model so it only costs about $5 each. You can't beat that!

Peter decided to use this older paining as the canvas to paint over for today's session. He claimed that there were a few paintings underneath this one. He has a very casual way about doing these paintings and recommended a lot of use use museum board which is like mat board and throw a coat of gesso over it, its cheaper than canvas and I think he also feels this makes things less expensive but also less precious. Its interesting to watch peter paint and he seems to build his work up in sometimes a very loose and informal way, and then POW! Suddenly he pulls it all together. Peter will also use very odd or unique or "evocative colors" as Scott Noel world call them. In other words they don't seek to match exactly the colors as they see them in a literal way, but to interpret them in a more poetic way. It took me a while to understand this and then to work this idea into my own work in a natural way.

Here is Peter's painting after I would say and hour or so, I was pretty wrapped up in my own painting so I did not follow what he was doing as much this week.

Here is Peter's final painting and you can see how after a very loose beginning he had some "meat" on the canvas and then really started to build in a lot denser paint and work the cool warm to turn the form. Another thing that both Peter and Scott do is keep the value range very close. I tend to like a great value range in my work, and under the natural lighting we paint under the range will never be that great anyway. It was a great start to the semester and I really look forward to doing this every week if I can.

SPRING SEMESTER 2011 Week 8

We tipped over the halfway mark this week for the spring semester and I have picked my classes for the fall semester which will start my final semester as an undergrad at school. This time next year I will have applied to the masters programs for my terminal degree. As much as I do love being in school and at PAFA I really do look forward to the day when my classes will also be done and I can fully move on into the next phase of my art career.

The study above is for the new pose in my class with Mike Gallagher which will be the last pose in his class. All of my classes are either starting the a new pose or just ending one this week. I will have tow final in class paintings and one outside painting to do on top of my "wall" for the ASE--so I am gonna be a painting fool!

I am very aware of the time I have left to do my paintings for the ASE, so I must be very diligent and apply even more pressure for the next few weeks to get what I want done and ready---then the summer, a little vacay--and then back to the studio full time.


Here is the newest support ready to roll, it's 4 x4 canvas mounted over Luann panel and cradled on the back. I oil primed this one so the surface is really nice! this one will get started on today.

Since my buddy Ricardo is visiting for a while he often comes down to the school to hang out while I am there. He came down recently and gave my friend Will Sentman a few pointers on the study for the illustration he was working on--a great benefit you get knowing a guy like Ric!

Scott Noel's Painting Class

I had another great class this week with Scott, the best one yet, maybe it also had something to do with the fact I had a bit more sleep than usual...

Scott is my favorite teacher, he's demanding, dynamic, talented as hell and challenging. He's right there, like a keg of TNT every week, POW! BAM!

Scott revs you up and takes you to the mat at the same time. Its always my most challenging class and often I have the greatest feeling of absolute failure and frustration---though I probably learn the most.

This week Scott had us painting in the 4th floor elevator landing and racing the sun. He's really trying to force us think think quick, but think well--make good choices and plan, but to also be brutal and be willing to wipe out and change what we have done as the world changes before out canvases. He always brings plenty of books to cite examples of what he,s talking about--this week it was Antonio Lopez Garcia, the great Spanish, realist painter. You can see an movie of him on youtube of him battling the crowds and elements live as he works on one of his monster size landscapes.
Scotts wants us to see the big picture, the inside vs outside and to push our thinking and grouping of colors to create these domains of envelopes, of color. Its observational, but its also not literal, it very much a very demanding idea. Is this a cool or a warm? A warm cool? Do you need to push that color more into this group or that one?
Scott doesn't abandon you but he will ride and chide me a lot, which is good, I will flat out get him to paint on my painting to demonstrate a point--too me that is the best way to work--to see what he means literally. He did this on this painting by taking what I already had down with the male figure and basically just mashed it more together, unifying the model and the foreground shadow and then basically mashed the lights there together there as well. To little moves and it really united the two distinct areas. Working fast is where my years of doing storyboards and comics give me the upper hand with the drawing chops--that really helps when you have to block in fast so you can race the light.

Week 11 The Final Countdown Continues

Here are two more paintings underway in school, the one above is in the block-in process in Renee's class and the one below is a study in Al' Gury's portrait class. Both are in oil.

Life Painting Mid-Term

This is the final, or the point at which I stopped on my second painting in Al Gury's life painting class. I guess this would be my Mid-Term assignment. I had to use a photo to finish this up at home since I missed one week due to my cold and the fact that I am not able to get the second uninstructed class with the model every week as I teach that day. So that meant I had half the time most of the class had to do the painting, hence the use of the photo to help out--which also can lead to other issues like distortion of color and the camera does have a slight fish-eye/wide angle distortion as well. It's also from a fixed point which doesn't allow me to move as see more angles on the model to understand something better.

there are parts I am happy with and parts I am not, but with these class paintings I always feel rushed and like i never get a good footing at times. Out of a 3 hour class, once a week, about 90 minutes painting time is all you get with set-up, breaks and clean-up. So it's a sprint to the finish to be sure.

Below is a more detailed picture.

Cold Case Monday

Today being Monday, it was Life painting with Al Gury this am. But man, I was sloggin' it with this head cold. I woke up late and debated about heading in to school, but since I missed a week for work I really didn't want to miss it for this cold. So with teary eyes do to my sinuses killing me I went in late as there is only one more session with our model--next week, and I am not able to take the uninstructed class on Tuesdays, so I have one more shot at this. So I snuffled my way to school late, and through the two poses I had, a 20 and a 10 minute and was able to dash in some bolder block-in colors. Not quite sure how this will turn out in the end...