PAINTING STUDIES - Exercises in Colour, Value, Temperature and Paint Handling


SHOES

STUDY ONE: RED APPLE

STUDY TWO: SOAP AND DUCK EGG

STUDY THREE: RED ONION

STUDY FOUR: MINI PUMPKIN AND ORANGE BERRIES

ROSE AND SILVER DIPPER

Ribbons Still life

COLOUR STUDY

BLOCK IN

END OF WEEK 2 STAGE

Summer Plein Air Sketching - Peak District and Royal Greenwich

Roy - 4 week Pose Charcoal on Grey Toned Canson

Charcoal portrait of Leyneuf on Canson Paper

'Leyneuf' - Charcoal on Canson
Completed over 10 hours

This was my first portrait drawing done in the studio at LARA and I really enjoyed having the luxury of a model shared between two other students. I wasn't able to share in all the sessions as my study at the school is only part time, but I took full advantage of the time I did have. You learn a lot from portraiture and have to make sure that all the rules and principles of setting up your drawing are not thrown away as you hurry to capture the likeness on the page. As with all rep drawing, the block in is really important and so are the truth points that you need to identify early on and keep referring back to. As ever, I seemed to lose sight of all of this at the beginning of the drawing and didn't capture the right gesture or proportions until some way into the drawing. I didn't really ever get it quite right but was happy that I was at least able to capture a degree of likeness. The importance of value relationships is what struck me most about doing this drawing. It seems to me that so much of the likeness comes from seeking out good values. The plane changes can be very subtle and the way the light falls on these planes is so key to describing the form. I loved chasing the angle breaks in the eyes to convey a better sense of personality and emotion. Looking forward to doing many more portraits and receiving advice as to how to improve.

Monochrome Cast Painting - Feature Project

SUMMER TERM AT LARA 2014 - 4 week pose

4 Week Pose - Charcoal and Chalk on Grey Toned Roma Paper

SUMMER TERM AT LARA 2014 - 2 week Pose

Summer Term at LARA -

I can't believe the Summer term has arrived, it doesn't feel like long ago that I was hoovering up the last traces of the Christmas tree scattered all over the living room floor. Seems to be the way life rolls these days, the transition from one season to another seems to blur seamlessly. Although, I have to say that the arrival of Spring did not gone unnoticed this year as it arrived so suddenly and resplendently.

This term will be an exciting one as I am about to embark on a new phase in the atelier training at LARA which is the move to painting. The long and arduous hours of drawing from the model and casts will hopefully pay dividends as I attempt to learn and get to grips with oils. I am going to try and be very disciplined about keeping my blog up to date and record the many stages and new insights that I uncover along the way. I am continuing to explore the figure through charcoal and chalk and am hoping that there will be improvement in my handling as I practise painting in parallel. One should complement the other and effectively enable you to see and build your drawings as masses as you would when painting.

POSE 1 (2 week pose) - 'Ruta'

THE BLOCK-IN

I really liked the contrapposto in this pose and Ruta is such a brilliant model to draw from, she has an exquisite combination of elegance and strength. Her body type and proportions are hard to pin down as it is almost inconceivable that someone can have the long and slender legs that she has been blessed with. Although my block-in gained some idea of the pose and gesture, it was only when the drawing progressed as masses that I noticed my widths were way off. I struggled to capture her likeness in the portrait on the first attempts which meant I didn't really have enough time in the 2 weeks to bring the entire drawing up to the same level of finish. I wasn't particularly bothered by this as you can't fight time and I regard the 2 week poses as a warm up to the longer ones anyway.

FINAL DRAWING