A few sketches from Drawing class

Two with china markers and one with aquarelle stabilio pencils.

Emphasis on the Eyes, Week 3, Portrait Drawing

Our portraits are getting stronger each week. We reviewed value scales and hopefully everyone will try a value scale this week: 1 to 10. This week we mainly talked about the eyes in detail, and you can see that a lot of new information is being added to the drawings, many good observation of our model, Heidi. Who could have asked for a better model for a lesson on eyes?

Drawing the Head, Emphasis on Eyes Part 2

We continued with our good habit of doing 1 minute thumbnails first.

Working from the Model with Thumbnails, part 2

More great drawings, note the one minute small thumbnails, a great quick gestural tool for seeing the big shapes. It's fun to compare quick thumbnails to more developed drawings, and how much information was captured in those quick sketches.

The Tricky Nose, Week 5

This week we talked specifically about the nose. We identified 5 basic areas: the keystone at the top, the top, 2 sides, and the area underneath. We talked about characteristics of each area, and looked at old master drawings to see how different artists have rendered the nose. Our model, Rosa, was fantastic today!

Beautiful Eyes, Looking at Features

We couldn't have had a better model today, especially with today's lesson about the eyes. Grace, who drew with us last session was wonderful! And, she gets the Stone-Statue Award. We first talked about our homework, thumbnail sketches of various portrait paintings, leading into the idea of starting a portrait with a quick thumbnail to help with the composition. We felt our own eye anatomy and looked at our neighbors eyes as well. We talked about the eye socket, the lids, shadowing on the eyeball, the shape of the iris, and where the highlights are. Today's work was very good from everybody.

Beautiful Eyes 3, looking at Features

A big thank you to Matt for hosting our class at Gallery San Juan's new space. We all enjoyed looking at his and Rick's paintings.

A Stellar Start to Our Portrait Class Feb-March Session 2

This is going to be a wonderful class, I can see already there is a lot of skill in this group, we will be seeing some wonderful portraits. Check back each week this spring to see how we are progressing.

Week 5, Expressive Mouth Part 2

Today we took a close look at the mouth, noting the philtrum, above our lips. and the curve of the upper lip. We saw how the upper lip is often in shadow, and the lower lip catches light. The cast shadow from the nose moves over the topography of the philtrum. We saw that the line across the mouth isn't a straight line, instead following the lobes of the lips. We also noted that the corners of the mouth have soft indentations. Our model today was outstanding, local musician, Dave M., held fantastic expressive poses. I have a photo of Dave and then a posterized version, showing how the shadow shapes become a flat shape before we add details. It's hard not to go straight to details, but artists will get better drawings by mapping out bigger shadow shapes and major construction lines first, and adding details later once things are in place. Across the board, everyone is making great progress!