Paintings, Drawings and Atelier projects (weekly #22)

Been busy busy in the past 2 weeks. Finally started painting this week.

Here is the first painting I did this year, during a 2 hour sitting:

(Enlarge all images by clicking on them).

I also went back to my dear skull, this time to finish the battle. Indeed, it is a glorious one. One which will be remembered in the Ifat history books of painting progression. This is the second skull I am painting, in the same setup. I worked on the first for 3 months and decided to start over because I judged it to be overworked and too far off.
In working on the current one I realized that I am unclear on the global value relationships and did a small study to figure it out. It’s a very analytic process, not a lot of fun and surfing going on there. Here is a neat photo I took of the painting, the study (middle) and the setup of the skull itself.

At the bottom of my easel is attached a new note I wrote to myself with some stern reminders on proper work methods. This is my attempt to assign myself as my own enforces. I even added some dramatic emphasis to make sure I understand how serious I am about these rules! It’s working great so far.

The one thing I still need to add in my studio is a note my brother wrote me for my last birthday which made me feel very good about what I’m doing.

 

More stuff:

The sketch I discussed in this blog post has developed into a fully developed skeleton on which I planned to overlay muscles, flesh and ultimately make into a full human being with invented lighting and all. Now that I started painting this drawing will have to take a second priority, but it is wonderful to be able to draw something from imagination and see it come to live without a model. It will be interesting to see it through. Here is the skeleton I drew (the sketch from which it started on the right):
 

Another quick and fun drawing I did a week ago:

Turns out that sometimes being in a bad mood helps me bring more emotion into an artwork. The art process can become an outlet for what I’m feeling if the subject matter fits.
At this time I kiss goodbye to the quick block-in’s section of the curriculum. Here are a couple of the last block-in’s I did:

  

 

One of the forms of analysis that come to me most naturally, as a natural desire, is to understand the form I’m looking at in 3D. I think every artist has different tendencies in this regard. Some tend to see more graphical shadow shapes, some focus more on gesture lines. For me it’s been the planes and 3D connections. I don’t remember experiencing it when I drew from photos before joining the atelier, but once I started doing long drawings from life, it was one of the main things I was thinking of when drawing. I find this pleasurable in rendering as well, because I feel that by pulling my lines in the direction of the turning of the form I’m creating something real inside the page, as if I could almost slide my hands on it as if it were a solid object. Sounds a lot like how a sculptor would think. Indeed, I love sculpting too. I would definitely do some of that in the future, if time permits.

I find that painting does not come as easily to me as drawing does. But slowly I’m beginning to remember how to paint. I’ve had nearly a whole summer to forget it, with exception of a painting I consider successful which I painted in August.
I wish you all a good week, I appreciate your interest,

Ifat

2 thoughts on “Paintings, Drawings and Atelier projects (weekly #22)

  1. The skull under the lamp: your painting of it. Did you learn something? And the full skeleton drawing: really superb.

  2. Hi,

    I learned a lot from working on this skull.
    I learned the significance of figuring out the global values before starting to work on a piece.
    What I mean by “global values” is the separation of all areas of the subject matter into 6 value categories (6 degrees of brightness). Establishing this relationship beforehand helps later on, when working on a local value not to isolate that area in relation to the rest in terms of value. It is easy to do when staring at just one area to start using too wide of a value range to render it, so you might end up with too much contrast in an area, or it might be too light for the “big picture”.

    Another thing I learned is Paint handling: The significance of not moving paint around after placing it, and the significance of working into a wet surface and not wet into dry.

    This project was really “showing me the ropes”. I finally finished it a month ago, I am yet to post a picture of it finished.

    Thanks.

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