J Dunster Art Blog – Oil Painting, Portraits, and Cats
Figurative art, oil & acrylic painting, figure drawing, and cat portraits
Still Life at the Studio
I don’t do many still lifes, so it was a big treat to be able to do this little painting. It was done as a class project with my student. We were supposed to paint an apple, but I forgot the apple. (I’m so prepared.) Continue reading “Studio Teapot, & more awards (WUT?!?!)”
This is a painting started about a year ago, and now finally finished!
The Winter of 2014 (January or something?) I was attending a local painting group run by a fellow artist (and my sometime teacher), Adam Clague. We’d get volunteers to pose for us each week. It was such a good experience for all of us and I hope we can start doing it again. Continue reading “Micah, from life”
An interesting little story behind this painting.
I had a simultaneously fun, exhausting, and crazy evening (and night, and morning!) at the studio yesterday. I was visiting with a fellow artist, we were yakking about art, doing some painting, just having fun, and some circumstances were created which made it necessary for us to both stay overnight at the studio. (It’s a long story. Continue reading “THE HEAD”
I’m loving this new portrait drawing group! We meet weekly (won’t meet next week due to the holiday, alas). Each week we get a volunteer model to pose for us—three 20-minute poses. We are a diverse group, and use a variety of mediums—oils, acrylics, watercolors, pastels, charcoal, and good old pencil. I’m doing pencil so far, but hope to drag my oils in soon! I rarely get a chance to do a “long” (one hour being relatively so) pose.
Here’s this week’s offering:
Karen was a wonderful model, very patient with us! She said it was hard to keep a smile on her face (we all understand how that is!) and so her expression ended up being more somber. She wore a lovely and colorful print dress, which I didn’t bother to capture since I was just drawing in pencil.
I just started attending this art group that meets once a week (more or less) and draws or paints a volunteer model. It’s a wonderful group of people and allows us all to get some valuable practice from life!
I often harp on how important drawing from life is. Photos don’t capture things the way they really are—not quite. I don’t mind using photo references, I won’t be ashamed of using them, but at the same time I realize how important drawing from life is!
I hope to bring my paints to one of these sessions, as other artists have. We have an hour of model time (one pose) so that should be enough time to do something!
Very, very excited about this.
Last week’s model was “Marisol” who came with her adorable little dog, who was a rescue. The dog was nervous but at the same time, a great model! As was Marisol. I used the first two 20-minute pose sessions to draw Marisol, then used the last 20-minute pose to draw her and the dog. Here are the results:
