a different painting process

i just came across my phone pictures, and found a few process photos that i took. they're not great quality, but it's interesting to see how a piece comes about. sometimes.

this was from bob barrett's head painting class last year. i love taking classes from multiple artists, because the techniques are always different. i try to emulate each professor and eventually i find what works for me and what doesn't. for example, in justin taylor's class, we often started with tight drawings underneath. in bob's class, we painted directly onto the canvas as shown below. 

similar to figure drawing, i found that i painted these best when i blocked in whatever was most obvious to me in the particular composition. in this 3-hour study, there was a strong light/shadow contrast. so i blocked in the darks and background first, because they were most prominent. the background created a cradle for the shape of her face. then i was able to work my way into refining the edges and shapes.

the end result may look familiar, because it was shown in this post.

that family class

remember this post? it was from justin taylor's head painting class. first off, justin taylor is an excellent artist (i want to paint like him!) and just an all-around stud. secondly, my classmates and our models were great. in fact, my tiny class was like a little family. or a therapy group. probably both.

after we practiced drawing for a good chunk of the semester, we started to paint. (dangit, i was supposed to post the drawings first but they're too light to photograph; i'll have to scan them. so you'll see this process backwards)

i really jive with justin's painting style: it's very drawing-oriented. when we eventually began painting, we did a drawing of our models first, transferred it to our substrate, then painted monochromatic over it, like you see in the first painting here. justin demoed on my drawing, so i finished fairly quickly and did another painting straight onto the board after (which is on the right):

then we did some studies without drawing first.
meet david. he has an awesome neck. 

then we did a series of short 20-minute paintings (left). eventually, we delved into color (right). 

(our model amanda is great, so though i'm really not a fan of this particular piece on the right, i put it up for her sake)....

...after we added white to our monochromatic paintings.

(i had to end with my favorites of this batch)

of course, we had a final project in full color, which was more conceptual in nature, and i finished it...two and a half months later. well, finished-ish. you'll see soon enough.

purple

whoops! forgot one painting. i was rather fond of this one. 

by the way, you should be very excited for my next post. 

it's all ready and everything. i'm just not posting it yet for pure suspense. 

just so you know. 

painting heads and such

as usual, this post is quite a bit late. 

the following are from bob barrett's head painting class from the winter '11 (january-april, 2011) semester. since then, i've improved significantly. as artists, we're told it's a good thing to look back on a piece of work we once thought was good and dislike it, because it means we're progressing. so i just wanted to post these asap before i really despise them all. which may or may not be...really soon. hopefully.

{notes: all are oil paintings, either on canvas or board. the second painting was the first one i did that semester. the second-to-last painting was one of my favorites, mainly for the color scheme. to see drawings from that class, click here.}

old school animation

i was so fortunate to take cynthia hogan's 2D character animation class this semester (cynthia is absolutely amazing, both as an animator and person). we had to choose a character from a film to animate, and i chose sawyer from cats don't dance, a favorite of mine as a kid. then we chose sound clips from our character's voice actor/actress (mine was jasmine guy) and animate scenes of our own using that character and sound clip. finding and editing the clip was actually one of the hardest parts for mine in particular.

due to some file format issues and some computers being exchanged, i sort of, um, lost my first animation (*aaarrrgghh!!*) .....but then i found it! the paper version, at least. so i re-shot it, though the timing wasn't perfect since i'd readjusted it when i first shot it. however, it was the best i could do with the limited time i had, so here it is.



the second and third animations were to include a hook-up, or a shift of camera in one scene ("hooking up" one shot to the next).

keep in mind, i hadn't animated since i took the intro class back in '09 and this was my first time animating to a sound clip. my shapes are all over the place. when she critiqued it, cynthia attributed this to the fact that i was drawing like a clean-up artist, rather than an animator. ah. that was the key. i wish i would have known the difference before i animated it. meh, live and learn. after i shot it, i realized i totally could have taken away one of the poses because it moves really fast. but i only got one chance to shoot it and that happened to be right before it was due, so, c'est la vie.

even looking at it now after having turned it in a few days ago, i know i could go back and make it SO MUCH BETTER. but i did what i could with the time i had to spend on it. someday this knowledge will make itself manifest in some brilliant project i work on. anyway, here's what it is for now:


even though the outcomes could have been much better, i'm seriously excited that i learned so much. and i'm stoked to apply it in the future.