Thursday, February 28, 2013

Painting: A break from Little Portraits

Last night I took a break from working on Little Portraits.  We had a model for class so it was time to delight in just how bad I am at drawing/painting figures.

Before I show it off, let me preface with WARNING:  NUDITY.  Not graphic nudity but technically, the model was wearing no clothing and the painted figure is not wearing any either (translation:  ohmygawd I think that's a boobie).

Oh, and don't expect this to look GOOD.  I warned you, I'm not very good at this BUT I am improving (really, you probably won't be able to tell from the painting, but I swear, this is probably the best "model paintings" I've ever done--at least this nice woman didn't end up with Snookie hair).


I warned you, it's not good.

But it has far better proportions than previous model paintings and my angles are fairly decent.  I know the legs look really wonky but part of that is how she was sitting.  Her feet were pointing back and one was curled over on itself (bent at the side along the ankle, kind of tucked under itself).  Tons of funky fore shortening and all those technical drawing terms I now feel empowered to use incorrectly.

Her head is a little big (in the painting, not in real life).  The positioning changed a bit as she sat, so I had to kind of go with the flow.  As far as heads go, this one is one of my best.  And yes, I deliberately didn't get too much into the facial details because I'm HORRIBLE at them and this painting was kind of decent and I didn't want to muck it up with wonky eye blobs and a sausage nose.

It was a good painting night.

Next week, back to the Little Portraits.

4 comments:

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    1. Thank you. It's definitely the best model painting I've ever done. I like seeing my skills improving.

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  2. For some reason I always thought live model classes were for sketching, not paint (must've got that idea from tv...) I really like the shading on the closest arm. I can only draw stick figures to that's gonna be the extent of my waxing poetical about arty things ;)

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    1. I thought the same thing before I started painting. The trick is to "water" down the oil paint with liquin (oil) so it's thinner. It makes it easier to sketch with (and wipe off when you make mistakes!).

      I prefer sketching with paint to pencils because it feels more forgiving. I'm such a control freak I'd erase a hole through paper if I used pencils/charcoal (and charcoal is so messy, I'd have to wash my hands a million times).

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