After a regrettably long hiatus, I am back with a new cat head painting! And for the New Year!
Circumstances in life prevented me from getting into my studio to paint for the past several months. I tried to compensate for that by doing some drawings at home. (More on that later.) But now I am back, and am working on some new paintings! This little cat head is the first to be completed. I especially was trying to capture the fluffiness of this kitty with soft brush strokes and lost edges. Also, warm and cool temperatures were used to show depth (I hope).
With this painting I also attempted to go looser! It was fun!
Words cannot express how much I missed painting, and how WONDERFUL it felt to be back to it!
But, I did do some fun pencil work, and below is my latest piece. It probably needs some more tweaking. It’s simple graphite pencil (0.05mm mechanical pencil, HB lead) on smooth paper.
“Untitled” (so far), pencil on paper, approximately 6×7″. Probably still needs some tweaks.
“Jon Erik Hexum” ink on paper, approx, 9×12″. Drawn many years ago, using my trusty Rapidographs.
I loved Rapidographs at art school. I didn’t “get” pen and ink at first, always having worked in pencil when I was a teenager and before going to Otis. But they were really stressing ink in the Illustration classes, so I wanted to learn. Continue reading “Blast from the past—Rapidographs!”→
I haven’t posted a figure sketch in a very long time, so tonight’s the night. I was working on a painting (agonizing, is more like it) and it’s just not going to be done tonight. So the heck with it! Here’s a figure drawing instead. Continue reading “Quick Nude Sketch (NSFW, obviously)”→
Time for more figure drawings! For a very long time, ever since I took my first figure drawing class at age 18, I’ve kept returning to life drawing classes and sessions. This kind of drawing discipline helps keep skills sharp. You have to draw the model in front of you—no time for lots of erasing and fussing, as the model won’t stay still forever!
Portrait of Young Woman, from life. 8-1/2″x11″ graphite on sketch paper
And here are a few more sketches from a nude model. These sketches are usually done from 15-30-minute poses. Never longer than 30 minutes.
When I went to art school (Otis in Los Angeles) many moons ago, I knew I needed to get better at figure drawing. I had already taken several semesters at the local Community College (Glendale College, aka GCC) and had a wonderful teacher there. But after a while, I’d exhausted all my possible semesters of life drawing and it was time to move on.
I happened to see an ad in the L.A. Times for this art school, called Otis. I had never heard of it before, but I sent away for a catalog. And when I got the catalog, I knew that it was where I wanted to go. (I also considered Art Center in Pasadena, but it was a no-go, because it would have been too difficult to get there by bus. So, that’s how I made my decision for Otis. Bus routes.)
Anyway, I had some semesters of wonderful classes there, which showed me more about anatomy and figure drawing and I was doing okay, and improving. Then one semester, the new schedule came out and among the figure drawing classes listed, was one taught by . . . Burne Hogarth.
No, that’s not good enough—just typing it out like that—that doesn’t have enough gravity. BURNE FRIGGING HOGARTH.
There.
Cropped page from my sketchbook. Class notes from Mr. Hogarth’s class. Click on image to see the full page.
Oh my goodness. I think I shrieked right there in class (wherever I was) and made a complete scene in front of everyone, pretty much babbling, “BURNE HOGARTH! BURNE HOGARTH!!!” over and over again. Several other students wondered what my problem was, and then I explained, between excited shrieks, that this guy has written one of the best instructional books on figure drawing and anatomy and I had studied his books from cover to cover and they rocked my world. And now he was going to teach there. At Otis! Sign me up!
Several of the other students who heard me shriek about Hogarth signed up for his class too, just based on my reaction. They later told me that they were soooo glad that they did.
Cropped page from my sketchbook. Class notes from Mr. Hogarth’s class. Click on image to see the full page.
Mr. Hogarth (as we all called him) was a wonderful teacher, very old school. Always full of information and ideas. He’d draw these biiig drawings on an easel at the front of the class and lecture on whatever part of the anatomy he was covering that week. It was amazing to watch him work.
He attracted some very advanced students. There was an art teacher from one of the Cal States (who was already a fantastic artist) who asked everyone to not mention to Mr. Hogarth that he was a teacher too; he was just there to learn from the Great Hogarth. There were some illustrators, comic book artists, and a guy from Disney as well. Some really amazing people. And some “regular” students, like me! It was such a fun class and I know it helped me improve my skills a lot. I was lucky to have a couple of semesters with him. I’ll never forget.
Yay, GotART has resumed its figure drawing sessions, every other week. I’ve missed figure drawing so much. It’s my belief that every artist (especially figurative artists—but seriously, every artist) needs to return to the fundamentals, and one of those is figure drawing. It’s one of the hardest things to draw (so they say) and so it’s a wonderful way to keep on your toes.
We had a new artist join us last time. She said she hadn’t been doing any sort of art that long, and she was worried that her life drawing wasn’t good. She said it was the first time she’d ever attempted anything like it. Well, I thought she was awesome, especially considering her relative lack of experience. She knows she needs to practice (don’t we all) but I think she’s off to a great start.
That’s something I feel very (VERY) strongly about. That you get started and you don’t give up. Even if you don’t think you’re very good, you’ll never get any better if you don’t keep working at it. I hold great respect for anyone who plants their butt in a chair and struggles through something difficult like figure drawing. It doesn’t matter how well their drawings turn out, but that they’re THERE. Doing the work. Improvement will come in time. What matters is the commitment to doing the work. Without that, there’s no hope, is there? That’s true for everything.
Okay, here’s a few of my sketches from that session. Done in my 9×12 sketchbook, with one of those mechanical clickie pencils. Most of the poses were maybe 5-20 minutes, I think. I was not feeling very perky (it’s always hard coming back to figure drawing after an absence), but it’ll be better next time.
I found this old newsprint sketchpad from a figure drawing class I’d attended years ago at Glendale College. The paper was in pretty bad shape, but I took photos and tried to Photoshop some of the sketches into something presentable. Here’s my favorite of the bunch:
I am a big believer that every artist, especially those who are going to draw and paint representationally (not abstracts) should take some figure drawing classes. There’s nothing quite so humbling and challenging as drawing the figure from life.
A cowboy drawing from my sketchbook. I was watching a TV show where this guy had this great black cowboy hat, and so I tried to draw it (the hat, and also the guy wearing the hat). The drawing doesn’t look anything like the guy on TV, but it was still a lot of fun to do such a sketch, and it’s my firm belief that such sketching keeps our skills sharp!
Okay, so I didn’t make the cowboy hat black, like in the original. But I know that it’s supposed to be black, see? 😉
I think I might make this into a little oil painting someday.
