New Ink

Chris got the outlines of his new tattoo started yesterday: a circus themed sleeve of epic proportions, done by the talented and prolific Jason Kundell at Artwork Rebels in Portland. I brought my sketchbook along.

Life Drawing at Hipbone Studio

A page from my sketchbook of some recent life drawing. I haven’t been since June, so the drawing felt rather labored the whole time. Also, I didn’t eat breakfast. Always, always remember to eat before going to life drawing. You don’t want to be that guy breaking the silence with your gargley stomach noises. Trust me it’s awkward.

I recently bought some screentones at a local Japanese bookstore, and I’m aiming to do more mixed media experimentation in my sketchbook. I’ll post some samples soon.

More Life Drawing at PNCA

So I’m trying to take things a step further this week. Still working with straight ink, but moving away from thinking so linearly about the edges. Instead, I wanted to construct the body mass by mass, not line by line. It’s like working from the inside out, rather than the outside in. Or, you can think of it in terms of sculpting. I have one of those refillable Japanese brushes (can’t remember the brand), that I filled with some watery ink. I just worked light to dark, building up the shape volumes in layers. At the very end, I used a black brush pen to define some of the poster edge and a few particularly dark folds in the skin. Next week I may bring some white gouache to go back into the highlights a bit. 5-20 minutes on these.

Life Drawing at PNCA

Some friends and I decided to check out the open life drawing session at PNCA this week, since it is a little bit cheaper than at Hipbone. The space was a bit more crowded, but I actually liked the model much better. All of these are 5-10 minutes, just straight ink. It’s sort of an exercise in deliberacy; just putting down a bold line, and thinking in light and shadow. Since I can’t erase or manipulate the line so much (versus dry media), it’s interesting to look back and observe which areas of the body I have a tendency to exaggerate or minimize.

Study in Gouache #3

Here’s another color study that I came across while cleaning out my harddrive earlier. This was sometime last year when I was still at Laika. A few of us in the art department decided to go out after work and paint. Such a challenging time of day to work plein air–the light changes so fast, you really have to be a keen observer and deliberate color-mixer.

Life Drawing at Hipbone Studio

Trying some new things in my approach to drawing the figure. Not seeing the results I want yet, but this is a marathon, not a sprint. Also, I’ve decided I need to bring a bigger brush when I paint at life drawing.

Color Study in Gouache #2

I did this little study on my way to Phoenix recently for my brother’s wedding. There must have been some good Karma floating around out there for me, because I scored a whole exit row to myself. I’m still not sure how I want to handle the gouache–in transparent washes? fat-over-lean? direct wet-into-wet? Right now I think I’m over-working it, trying to control too much, which is what happens when I start to think about line and detail before color and light. The two big things I want to really hone in on with these studies are: value and color temperature relationships.

Color Study in Gouache #1

The weather was really amazing today so Chris and I got crepes for lunch at a nearby cafe. I brought along some gouache and decided to do a little painting after we had finished our food. That truck, involved in some nearby construction, must have moved 5 or 6 times during the course of my painting it so I had to do a bit of improvising. I’m terribly shy about drawing or painting in public, but it’s something that I’d like to get over. I was also reading something from George Pratt recently about how landscape painting really brought his studio art to the next level. I think it’s an area of study that I have pretty well neglected, but that I’d like to give some whole-hearted attention to. I really have no excuse now–this is the best time of year to be outdoors in Portland.

Lately…

I’ve been hard at work in a new studio space on some pieces that I think will develop into a larger series. I’ve been experimenting with some new processes, trying to get back to traditional methods and away from the digital realm. Nothing is ready to be shown just yet. Hopefully soon. In the meantime, here is some life drawing from a couple weeks past. A 20 or 30 minute pose I think, focused on brushing up my sighting/measuring practices.