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Thanks Paula and Ramona. I appreciate your comments.
Thanks Joshua. Regarding your reply, would you suggest keeping the forms more graphic? Would minimizing the number of values be something you’d suggest?
I lean away from graphic and towards 3D.
Paul, I mean that the overall 3D structure, box or cylinder for an arm–“mass conception” to use Robert Hale and Bridgman’s parlance. Those forms can be whatever you want but the big forms should be more of a priority than this smaller forms.
So if you’re doing a man’s ribcage the overall idea of the egg underneath is more important than the muscles etc over that. So when you decide how to break it into light and shadow side, or which forms or tones to emphasize or downplay all of that needs to follow the hierarchy (unless there’s some narrative reason that this small form is more important). Obviously hands and faces are more important than their size justifies. That will help you get a clearer “read” as the illustrators say. It’s the clarity we want so that if you blurred your eyes or saw the piece from far away you can tell what’s happening.
This is a more sophisticated level to think about the artwork but I think you’re there.
Steve Huston explains this well in his figure course.
Hmm. The scan didn’t post. The internet is poor where I am. I’ll try later at home. Don’t want to double post again.
Here’s day 24. Went over the ink sketches with gouache. Didn’t get to the fifth sketch. May try to finish it later. Trying to loosen up a bit and go faster. Still ended up noodling too much.
Love this! Your drapery is very lively. Could I ask how long have you been practicing with art?
Hi Chi. Thank you for your kind words.
I’ve been doing art for quite a while. I was a freelance storyboard artist primarily doing advertising for television commercials in Southern California for nearly 25 years. The first 15 years were awesome. Back then we worked in markers and Prismacolor pencils. The advertising agencies would often call in anywhere from 4 to 10 artists to work at the same time. Many times all of us would work at a large conference table or in the same room. In this way you could see how all the artists worked. Some of these artists were absolutely amazing! It was extraordinary how differently these artists worked. You could learn more in a week than you could often learn at school in a semester. Unfortunately as the artist’s rates rose the agencies did this less and less and then the digital era began. The last ten years were almost entirely digital. While I enjoyed learning how to work digitally, I was usually working alone in a cubicle and working 12 to 16 hours a day on my Cintiq took a huge toll on my eyes, (I started getting serious headaches), and eventually my hand went out. I find the Cintiq pen, (at least the one back then), to be much too bulbous, plus I had bad drawing habits that made things worse. Eventually I was unable to use my right hand for several years.
Had to take a day off for mother’s day, which transitioned into a day off working on household projects.
Here’s Day 25. A pen and ink study of a George Bellows painting. I plan to do a gouache version of this tomorrow, but I’ll have to rework it considerably. Really missed the likeness here. I’m amazed at how something can seem to look good until I scan it and look at the scan. Trying to figure out how I can do something like this quickly while working to spot problems in my work earlier on. This seems much better than looking at my work in a mirror or stepping back from my work and looking at it from a distance
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Decided my ink sketch from yesterday was too far off so I decided to rework it with ink and a little gouache before I went on to do my gouache piece for today.
Here’s my gouache study for today. Since I’d already started working gouache into the ink sketch, I decided to just keep working over the ink with gouache. I did this with the figures sketches a few days ago and I’m liking this technique. Never tried it before.
I’m noticing there’s quite a difference in the colors of the sketchbook pages. The first one was scanned with a flatbed scanner. The second was from a photo I took with my camera and this one was scanned with a different flatbed scanner.
As per Joshua’s suggestion, I tried to work more in masses and pay more attention to the transitions. Not sure I succeeded though. I’ll keep trying.
Those little ink studies have great gesture. You seem like you are focused on the most important movements and forms so yes you’re on the right track. This would also apply to more rendered pieces.
I think when you moved into gouache though you add so much contrast in the details (folds) that is starts to break down the big form movement which would be more of a gradient or soft transition.
So you don’t want a low key grey shirt with white details like folds. You want a simple form that has six sides like a box (only up to three visible at once without twisting) and those corners taking gesture into account get the biggest change in value. The details like the folds must be subordinate to that! Does that make sense?
Thanks Joshua. That really helps. You’re right, definitely too much contrast on the folds with far too many highlights or “hot spots.” I appreciate the sketching over my image to explain what you’re saying. I’ll try to put this into practice. I love dramatic lighting. Big fan of film noir, Caravaggio etc. I can see though, that what I’m doing isn’t embracing that, instead it’s distracting from the overall image and form.
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