Figure Painting Studies

These are three of the weekly figure paintings I have done in Doug Martenson's figure painting class, the same one where I do the fruit of the week homework. he introduces the color of the week, orange on blue, red on gree, etc in the class and we do a life painting using that color combo along with the limited palette.

We have about five 20 minute painting sessions during a class, after the weekly crit. I always fight the ever changing light conditions as by the time we get into painting the combination of the fast-changing fall light coupled with the fact the majority of the north light is blocked by the building across the street (the new school building). So the light goes from cool to warm, shadows change a great deal so there is some chasing involved and depending on the model, they either shake around and constsantly jerk, breaking the pose and the set-up between sessions chnages A LOT adding an extra challenge in.

I feel like I am indeed racing, not comfortable and the model Tom, my least favorite model because he doesn't hold the pose well, makes the sessions difficult at best. I always feel frustrated after these classes, though I am learning.

But nobody said painting is easy. The first two are oil on board and the last was on canvas.