week 15 Done!

Wekk that's it, all she wrote, next week is crit week, which means maybe we draw a bit and have an hour crit in each class--but the spring sememster is really done. While many friends in the BFA nash, moan and tearr at themselves getting ready for the ASE, i can look forward to a few brews and a BBQ.

These are the last two pieces I've been working on this semester and I am basically finished with the painting but have one more class to "pick-at-it". The pastel, which I am calling "sleepers' was finished yesterday, I stayed after class to finish up the skeleton. Monday is the day we drop off our paintings and drawings for Spring prizes at the school. I have many pieces I will be entering this year from my last several months of drawing and painting and who knows, one might even make it in--though I don't hold my breath over these things as it all depends on who judges what.

This semester was frankly a bit mixed bag for me at school. Due to a financial crisis I ended up taking less classes than intended, but I think what that did was allow me to concentrate more on each piece of work as I had no liberal arts classes to take. I also feel I was able to build on what I started last summer but doing the plein-air and commuter paintings as well as the Super Sad paintings. In short, I feel I could focus more on what I wanted to bring to the canvas and not feel like I was serving the teacher or assignment--I reversed that i think to make it all serve me--which is as it should be. For the first time in my life I will also be renting a studio for just painting and separating my work spaces--and head spaces. I'll be renting a group studio with friends at school, my Dirty Palette amigos and amiga.

I can safely say I am so gaoddamed ready to be in my third year and my studio doing what I really want as a painter and look forward to the summer to spin it up and get my "paint on".

Susan MacDowell Eakins--final

Here is the final painting--or I should say the state of the painting as I left it when the clock signaled the end if the session and the two-day competition.

Congrats to the winners. It was a mad rush it seemed but thems the breaks at the end. We got free pizza as the judges Carolyn Pyfrom and Peter Van Dyke went in and choose the winners and honorable mentions. It was fun and I don't really dig what i did in the end as much, but it's way better than my painting last year. I should have changed things up more, maybe been less literal as my spot didn't have the best view of elements in the background---but I'll do this next year for sure.

Susan MacDowell Eakins

Here is a slightly doctored pic from my cell phone of the first pass of my painting during the two-day Susan MacDowell Eakins painting contest I'm in this weekend at school. We have two models and two rooms with 15 painters in each room who paint the model from a position chosen by lottery.

I'll post more tomorrow including the winner...

Week 13 Done!

Two weeks left till we roll out to the summer hours and I can't wait. As much as I enjoy being in school I am soooooo looking forward to this summer and not being on as much of a grind.

I'm posting my second pass at the large pastel drawing I have going on in Life Drawing and a quicker, one session drawing from life drawing with Sidney Goodman this morning. I was much happier with this quicker study done in pastel on Ingres paper.

It seems this semester I had a lot more male models than any previous semester which was a different challenge in some aspects.i think the male models were less graceful that the females and this makes doing an interesting drawing a bit more of a challenge at times. I'd want more dynamic poses than dudes standing or sitting.

I plan on working more from private models this summer and trying some more interesting poses.

More Parker Progress

I thought I would upload some more process on the Judge Parker strip. This is the Sunday from the this past week. below you can see my inks and then the pencils. I am using a lot of brush on this and seeing the strips in print, and how dismally small they are has caused me to boost up line weights in upcoming weeks strips. Things really close up and get lost in the repro in the papers, but look so much better on-line.

Here are my pencils for the Sunday, if I can find my rough I'll post that as well. I'm working into the June strips now trying to build up more time and feeling more at home with the characters as the weeks roll on.

Week 12 Done!

Week 12 draws to a close here for the Spring semester and everybody is anxious for the end which tastes soooo close now. Our minds are also turning to the annual Spring Prizes at the school which allow students from all levels to compete for prizes in all areas of study, some include a nice amount of $$ as well.

The drawing above of John is the last pose for my drawing class with Al Gury. I'll have three more sessions, including the last day of class to continue to work on it, Its 24 x 30 on Rives BFK in pastel.

Week 12 Spring 2010

This week all 3rd year students had to put in one drawing and two oil paintings in application for their studio, along with a written request explaining what type of studio you'd like and why. The drawing above was done in Al Gury's Life Drawing class that I have on Thursday and it was the drawing I submitted along with the painting of my friend Alina and one of my Super Sad paintings.The drawing above is in charcoal on Rives BFK.

In my Escroche class we are slowly working our way along the figure week by week. I doubt we'll get a chance to even really begin to finish the figure but I will try and finish it up over the summer.
This painting I am moving along pretty fast on, I think I might be finished with it in the next week or so and then I might have some time to do another quick one before the class ends.

Week 11 Spring 2010

the great little portrait of me was done this morning by Al Gury, the head of the painting dept at PAFA. I sat for Al's portrait class so he could do a demo for the first year students. Al is great at being able to do these fast-fun and juicy little portraits. And he was kind enough to give it to me as a gift!
Here is another step in the painting I had going on in Al's life painting, I'll get a chance to finish this up soon.
This is the last painting we have going in Al's life painting class, I have 3 many 4 more weeks on this so i'll likely finish it up and even start another one. This is on an oil primes surface over an old painting which somebody abandoned and I sanded it down and covered it with oil primer so the surface has a slickness but lots of texture which is interesting. Monday is the studio evaluation for our fall studios, i have my two paintings and a drawing picked out and already filled out and dropped off my application. I will be happy the semester is over so I can get into my new studio at school over the summer and do lots of painting.

More Parker Progress

I thought I'd share some more of my working process on Judge parker for some of the dailies that are out this week. Above is my pencils for the Monday and Tuesday strips running this week which features the return of Neddy and the introduction of her French boyfriend, Jules. This was a big weeks as Neddy has been off in Europe and out of the strip for a while. So I get to basically re-establish her in the strip, which is nice.

You can see where I hand write in the script to place the word balloons, which at this point I was still doing by hand, I have now moved to doing them in photoshop, which makes it easier. I would prefer the whole thing done by hand, but I don't have a letterer on staff and it saves a lot of time to do them in photoshop--and time is of the essence as I am still close to King's deadlines on the strip. With my busy schedule now, school, etc., plus the strip--every hour counts--I might even get to use it to sleep. Woody Wilson, the writer wanted Neddy dressed in a sexy little black number, to show she's grown up a bit since she 'went away".




Here are the two dailies inked up and I added some zip as well. Upon seeing the strips printed I am not sure if I'll keep adding zip as the strip is now often printed so small I don't know if it really looks good. every week I feel I get a little looser and the strip is a little more my own take, I "Feel" the characters more, they become actors in my mind, not just drawings or symbols.

I wish the strips were run bigger and I wish I could work bigger as well, but I need to keep things able to fit on my scanner and with the size of the strips being run today drawing more into them would make it much harder to read and reproduce well. Luckily all my years in storyboards helped me work smaller.

Week 10 Spring 2010 --4 weeks to go!

I thought I'd post a few things that are done and are being worked on at school.

This is a painting underway or rather was underway in my Life Painting class. I have some pics of the models so I can still work on it. I have taken it further than I have here.
This is a drawing I've been working on in my Life Drawing class, I posted an earlier version of it, I still have a ways to go with it. There are just 4 short weeks left now till school is out for the summer break, and one crit week, which really means there is not much going on for me, though all the 3rd and 4th year students as well as the 2nd year MFA students will be stressed for their wall in the ASE (Annual Student Exhibition). next year this time I'll get to show my work and have my wall. I look forward to it.