Massing In

Been a little frustrated lately with the painting. I decided to revisit the idea of "massing in". Having years of drawing (and a fascination with the pencil), I tend to be a little over devoted to line. This is one of the challenges I face with painting, and one of the reasons that I started painting. I really wanted to learn how to build an image with shapes of light and dark.

Above you see a digital sketch, done on my Nintendo DS, without lines, only massing in. I can't quite put it into words, but there is more for me to learn here. This sort of exercise is going to help me with painting, I can just feel it!

From Life or From Photos: Rockwell and Degas

After Degas' In the Orchestra Pit
done on the Nintendo DS

Yesterday I brought up the debate over drawing from photographs or from life. Today I thought I'd look at the practices of two famous artists, Norman Rockwell and Edgar Degas.

Norman Rockwell began his career drawing from life only, but as models grew more expensive and photos less so, he started using multiple photographs to work from. (To be clear, he hired a photographer and directed all the shots.) He defended his practice by saying that he had drawn from life for decades in his professional life, so he knew what he was doing. I agree, he knew what he was doing. And of course, he drew from black and white photographs and painted in color.

Edgar Degas was fascinated by the cropping and distortion that photographs brought to a scene - in some ways the same attraction for him as with Japanese prints. Many of Degas' paintings have a "snapshot" quality to them - of course, that was revolutionary at the time.

I would venture that in both of these cases, these artists used photographs to enhance their work. They were not slavishly addicted them, were able to extrapolate from them, and understand the differences that the photographing process brought.

From Life or From Photos: A Personal View

Two Peppers, drawn from life

done on the Nintendo DS

There has always been a debate about drawing from life versus drawing from photographs. It is very common for someone who is learning to draw to begin with copying from photos. This can be a very useful method of learning to translate to two dimensions. (When you copy from a photo, it is already in two dimensions. If you do enough of them, in connection with looking at a similar subject in life, you see patterns and then can make the translation instinctively.)

However, at some point, they say you ought to move to copying from your own photos to drawing from life. I have heard many artists say that they use photographs, but just bring multiple photographs together in their minds. It is important to learn to compose your own piece, beginning with putting "the scene" together.

Personally, I have learned to draw from copying photos, both how to translate to 2D and principles in composing a piece. These days I only use photos in two situations. First, if I am doing something for my own practice (technique or composition), I find using a photograph to eliminate complication and focus on the element that I am interested in very helpful. Secondly, if I am doing something that isn't possible to observe from life while I am creating the piece. In that second instance, I usually use a reference (or two) to get the lines right, and then ignore the reference and just work from my mind.

All that to say, I definitely see a use for photos, but as my goal is not photo-realism, they aren't my constant companion.

Tomorrow, a look at how two famous artists used photographs, unashamedly.

February Goals Review

After Rembrandt's Simeon in the Temple
done on the Nintendo

The end of February is here and to keep to my commitments, I should look at how I did compared with the goals I set at the start of the year. (Did you catch the dread in there?)

Composition research
I finished reading Dow's Composition book and reviewed it here. I did a brush and ink drawing inspired by my reading. I didn't get to Greg Albert's book yet, nor did I do all the research or experimentation that I intended.

Rib Cage Anatomy
Sadly this goal was barely begun. I looked at a few drawings one evening and that was it.

Mendelowitz drawing exercises
For the second month in a row, this goal was neglected.

3 starts
Two-thirds of a check, I did two starts this month, these two portraits.

1 Polished Piece
Check, I did these flowers.

Update Website
Check, my online studio has been updated to reflect this month's progress with colored pencils.

Beyond all that, I did some successful experimenting with colored pencils this month. I even tried a portrait copy - several months ago I attempted a CP portrait copy and it was a disaster. So, a little progress.

All in all, not a bad month, considering that lots of "life" things happened this month and my art was on the back burner a fair bit.

Digital Playground

The other night I picked up the Nintendo DS again. It's been a while since I played around with it. For my newer readers, I use the gaming device as a pocket sketchbook, see my earlier post on the Nintendo.

At right you can see a few quick portraits. Note that the lines are not for effect, they are part of a known vectoring problem with the Colors! program.

60 Minutes to Better Painting - a review

One of my goals for the year is to complete 50 painting starts, spending about an hour on each. Much to my delight, I recently found a book all about that. Here's my review of that book.


60 Minutes to Better Painting: Sharpen Your Skills in Oil and Acrylic
by Craig Nelson

Overview
This book is designed to encourage beginning artists to learn to paint, by painting quickly. So, it is ideal for someone considering joining the daily painting movement or a project like my 50 starts. The opening chapter lists the benefits of this sort of effort.

Structure
The book is structured by the above-mentioned list. There are chapters on process, editing, color and light effects, finishing a painting (not part of the 60 minute scheme), and a summary chapter on exploration in painting.

Topics I Liked

• Chapter on Process - gave an outline to steps to follow with a time line. (Obviously, this will differ with every artist, but it at least gives you a starting point.)
• Quick Analysis - he gives the reader a "push" towards learning to edit quickly and analyzing both the subject and your painting quickly.
• Surveys of Color Approaches - a few different ideas to try - ones that can be implemented easily without new supplies
• Tips for Finished Paintings - this is both about lessons learned from quick studies and how to refine a quick study a bit more

A Note About the Acrylic Side
It says oil and acrylics in the title, but almost every example is in oil. There is one acrylic study shown (that I found). For the demonstrations he lists supplies in both oil and acrylic, but then does it in oil. I think a better second title would be "why you should learn to paint quickly," this book doesn't list good skills to have or good practices to follow, it's more like a signpost to a path of learning.

Rating
If I was to give it a pencil rating, I'd say three out of five pencils. I enjoyed it, I'm glad I read it, glad I took notes to refer to later, but wasn't tempted to plunk down money when I saw it in the used book store last week. (But someone else was, because it wasn't there this week!) I did really like it as an encouragement to get on with my project - above you see start number one. It was done on the Nintendo "sketchbook". Honestly, I'm embarrassed to post that image, but one has to start somewhere! :-)

Still Playing Around

This is tonight's effort on the DS. Hmm, not thrilled with it. A few interesting problems cropped up, things to ponder over as I crawl into bed:

• that red soil just doesn't look right - the texture isn't there, but I also think that the interaction with the greens is creating a problem.
• I pepped up the color of the distant mountains (thinking about the red issue), that wasn't a successful fix
• there is difficulty here with distance

Thanks to Susan Borgas for yet another reference photo.

For your wish list...

Christmas gift-giving has begun around the Welty house - at least for the adults who buy their own presents. :-) A couple of weeks ago I read about converting a Nintendo DS (one of those annoying portable game systems that teenagers are constantly hanging over) to a digital sketchbook. I read about it on Charley Parker's Lines and Colors blog in this post. So hubby and I decided to get one for each other for Christmas.

It arrived yesterday and I can you tell already, I love it! You know that 50 starts project for 2008? Well, you better believe that several of those are going to be done digitally. I can play with color, learn about values and color interactions, learn to handle something looser than a pencil - and all this in something that fits in my pocket. No mess, no spills, no bulky storage, no canvases to buy, no paint to waste, just all fun. (Another benefit - no photographing to get it in a blog post, just copy a file and there you have it.)

Of course, if you wanted "finished works" for printing and the like you'd have to invest in one those digital drawing tablets (beginning around $1K), but for a play-around, this is excellent.

Above you see a few images that I did on my DS today from WetCanvas references. Thanks to paul444 and kdkbrown for the photos. To see what can be done with this little setup, check the Colors! gallery - you will be amazed at what people can do with something that is no larger than your hand! Oh, and if you have java installed on your machine, be sure to watch the playback on some of the images in the gallery - very interesting. And yes, you can watch your own playbacks right on the DS!