Master Copies in Marker

I recently went to the MFA and tried an experiment I have been meaning to try: copying famous paintings in marker. It was challenging and interesting and I am definitely going to continue. Turns out half-dry markers are great for copying impressionists! Very painterly.

"Ballet Dancer with Arms Crossed"

Edward Degas

Detail of a mural

John Singer-Sargent

"Lilith"

Kiki Smith

"Still Life with Three Skulls"

Max Beckmann

Detail from "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?"

Paul Gauguin

"A Capriote"

John Singer-Sargent

Copying Things: Hands and Figures

Hey Everyone. The latest focus of my class Drawing for Illustrators has been various aspects of the human form. Namely the Figure and hands, two of the most coplex subjects you can draw. We learned how to break hands and bodies down into their basic forms and build up the details from there. I was advised in my figure drawing class this summer to practice more hands, so this was really great for me! 

These are master copies of hands:

And these are my hands!

We ventured to the MFA to draw hands from statues and this statue of Medea caught my eye. I looked up her story and she was a woman scorned from Greek Mythology! That's why she looks so angry and is holding a knife.

 

Some practice sketches of the human figure:

And my figurative master copies:

Drawing the Expressive Figure (Nudity! Heads up!)

I spent this past week doing an intensive art class as part of the Illustration Certificate at the SMFA. The class was "Drawing the Expressive Figure" and it was basically eight hours of art-making every day-- 9 AM to 6 PM. It was fantastic! It got me so jazzed about creating figurative work (since I have been doing so many landscapes lately). Focussing so closely on the nude models and doing observational work also made me really loopy and zoned-out at the end of each day, which has never happened to me before, so that was cool!

We experimented with different mediums including ink, chalk pastel, permanent marker, paint, and oil pastel on a variety of different surfaces. I am just going to go ahead and post all my best stuff (If you didn't want to look at nude figures, this is your last chance to turn back):

DAY 1: We did contour drawings with permanent marker and added chalk pastel over top!

This one is huge! It is 22" x 30"

DAY 2: Ink! I loved working with ink-- I had never attempted realistic figure drawing with it and it was great to work with. We talked a lot about the power of suggestion. With ink, you can suggest a whole face with just a few marks. Also, the model's hair lent itself well to being represented in ink.

We tried some silhouettes as well:

DAY 3: More ink! Yeah! I felt really good about almost everything I did that day. I was able to get pretty detailed renderings of faces.

We then created our own textured paper by putting down thin washes of acrylic paint and then placing the figures on top:

DAY 4: We tried out oil pastels on yupo, which is a plastic paper. I don't know how they make it, but it creates an interesting surface to work into. The materials really want to slide around on the yupo.

The model brought some really great wigs and when she put this long, pink wig on, it seemed like she was really building a character and a story, which I totally love! I asked what her super power would be if she could have any power and she chose time travel and the ability to solve unsolvable math problems. I imagine those two powers would be related, she could somehow use her knowledge of math to find her way through the time/space continuum. Thus The Naked Time Traveler was born! 

This pose looked to me like she had just lost a battle of some kind and was down for the count, so is this the end for the Naked Time Traveler?!

DAY 5: Another morning of figure drawing from the model, then finishing touches and group critique.

The above figure and the head below are from the same painting and I am super proud of both of them, but unfortunately the head is super small in comparison to the body, which I am really embarrassed about. Alas!

One project that I didn't quite get the chance to finish up integrating pattern into the figure, or the figure into a pattern, so I created a pattern and then translated some of my sketches from the week on top of that pattern. Here is what I came up with:

My next steps are going to be definitely continuing to work with ink and also practicing drawing hands and feet. I didn't realize until my teacher pointed it out how much work I have left to do in terms of my hands and feet drawing skills. 

It was productive, fun, and eye opening week. I was totally immersed in drawing and my classmates were fantastic and talented! I actually wish the class had been longer. There is so much more we could have done!!

Collage, the Excitement! The Danger!

So, I am really into collage. I think it is a pretty cool medium when done right and I have spent a lot of time making collages in my day. During the summer between my freshman and sophomore years at college, I failed to get a summer job, so I spent months sitting on my bedroom floor making endless collages. It became almost like an addiction: I couldn't NOT collage if I had the time. I was happiest when I was surrounded by scissors and tiny paper clippings. I also noticed that over the course of the summer, the way I made collages changed. I started expanding my ideas and taking the images in new directions. I started using the images I found in new ways. It was awesome. 

These are collages from that first set I did that summer:

After that, I started getting into the idea of mixed media, that is combining found images with painted elements. My work started shifting in that direction on paper, canvas, wood panel, and found objects (usually found at the Salvation Army). The following are the next incarnations of collage in my life:

The most recent collage style I have been experimenting with is using figure drawings as source material for collage. I carry out a ridiculously elaborate process involving tracing paper, a system of sorting colors and textures I find, and incredibly tedious cutting of tiny puzzle-piece like shapes. The result is worth it:

My drawing and painting professor in college thought this one looked like paint by number porn. Thoughts?

Anywho, I think collage is one of the most exciting things you can do when you do it right! The danger of collage happens when you start using it as a way to avoid drawing or painting. When you start to rely on the found images to create your work for you, that is when it stops being a valuable medium. I know this because I went through some time when I fell into that artistic rut. Some of the best advice I got that helped me through that was to think about why I was attracted to the images I was choosing and figure out how I could express those artistic interests with my own hand and my own voice. The second piece of advice that helped me was simply to trust myself as a painter.

Oh collage, you fickle mistress.