Mountain Man

Thanks to Jeremy for sitting for me.

Struggles with Stripes

If you look carefully you may notice that the apple in front has a slightly warmer tint than the apples behind it. They get progressively cooler. That's the newest painting trick I've been practicing with this assignment. When an object is warmer than those around it, it seems to be closer.

It didn't take me long to paint these apples, but Jeff did a demonstration on one of them to encourage me to use more paint and give more form to the apple (see pics below). I adjusted his brush strokes a bit later on to make his apple more cohesive with the rest of my painting.

The bricks had to be corrected a few times to get the proper temperature and to make sure they look straight and like they're moving towards the same vanishing point.

The stripes were the biggest challenge to this piece and they took me a long time since I had to paint them three or four times before I got them right (see images and captions below). The cloth in the shadow was too cool on my first attempt and it took me a couple more tries before I got the values and temperature correct on each stripe. But it was worth it. I learned A LOT and I'm happy with the final product.

final painting

my apple before Jeff's demo

the same apple after Jeff repainted it

Jeff's apple in better light

I took this pic before I adjusted the temperature of
of the fabric. It's too cool, which is noticeable in
top left corner of the cloth. Also, the stripes weren't
dark enough as they recede into the shadows.
Especially notice the yellow, which was
incorrectly lighter than the white fabric next to it.
And the blue stripes in the darkest fold (in front
of the apples) are too bright.

This is the same painting as above, shown again
to compare with the previous version. The yellow
stripes were tricky because I had to mix an
orange-brown color to make them look dark enough
at the back of the fabric.

Charcoal Portrait

Here's a charcoal portrait from last week. He sat for us for six hours (in two sessions).

Memory Lane

I ran across this photo of a model painting I did several months ago. Maybe a year ago? I kinda like it.

blue goblet, green book, yellow string

Does anyone use the word goblet anymore? This blue goblet is one of a set used by my family for Sunday dinners as I was growing up. I saved it from a trip to the D.I. a few weeks ago and decided to memorialize it in paint, along with my mom's french dictionary and a bright red book.


From this assignment I learned that more saturated colors (brighter, less gray) make the object come forward and duller/gray colors recede. The reflected light from the books onto the sheet (above the green book and to the left of the red/green stack) was originally more saturated, but those folds were competing with the books, appearing closer to the viewer. Jeff pointed this out to me and I dimmed the colors down a bit. The light shining through the goblet has more color than I originally noticed too.

After taking a pic of it on my easel, I moved the painting under a skylight in Jeff's studio and am impressed with how much better the colors look in natural light! My camera phone isn't very high resolution either but more light helped the definition. 

finished painting photographed on my phone under a skylight

finished painting photographed on my phone in the darker, artificially lit studio

When I first painted the bricks in the background of the painting, Jeff thought they looked a little off. He suggested that set a string at eye level where the bricks' vanishing point would be, and use the string as a guide to see if I drew the angles of the bricks correctly. It sounded like a difficult task at first, but Jeff showed me where he thought the vanishing point would be and I set up the string...

I was surprised and impressed to discover that Jeff's vanishing point was spot on, and that my angles were basically correct! I just used a ruler to make the lines straighter, which helped the bricks feel more solid.

Great lesson in perspective! Way to go, Jeff!

Hey there, Roman guy.

Here's the final picture of my first color painting at the Hein Academy, which I finished about a month ago. It's not perfect but Jeff mercifully allowed me to move on to the next assignment. One thing I could have done better is creating more defined planes of color in areas, such as the beard, to give it more form.

3 year anniversary!

This month marks my three year anniversary of studying at the Hein Academy of Art! I dug up an old self-portrait from college and it's kind of amazing for me to see how much I've improved. My progress has been so gradual that I didn't realize how much I've learned until I see the difference side by side. 

AFTER

BEFORE

Below is a progression of  self-portraits I've drawn or painted, starting with my most recent, and working back 18 years! All of these were done from life, looking in a mirror.

January 2013 (after 2.5 years at the Hein Academy)

April 2012 (after 2 years at the Hein Academy)

2004 (during college)

1998 (senior in high school)

1996 (sophomore in high school)