Saturday 31 December 2011

A few more artists


I am back home in Huntington Wv for Christmas and got a chance to look through a few books an american realism. A few artists are worth looking at later:

Winslow Homer



Eastman Johnson, especially "Cranberry Harvest"


George Caleb Bingham - "Fur Traders"



John Singer Sargent's painting called "The Daughters" looks amazing. I think Madame X is incredible and I might see if I can paint a similar pose one day.

Childe Hassam "Rainy Day" reminds me of Richard Estes but in 1885





Andrew Wyeth "Tenant Farmer"

Norman Rockwell

Charles Bell "Sixteen Candles"


Ralph Goings

Richard Estes "Downtown"

Steve Hawley "Descent from the Cross"


John Nava "2nd of May, Los Angeles"

Wednesday 14 December 2011

Gammel, Gurney, and Random Thoughts

Today I read a few interesting things about Gammel and the death of academic painting in the 20th century.


Gammel wrote a book lamenting the loss of technical ability caused by the impressionist war on the french academy.


Since I study at an Atelier you can probably guess my position ;)

Gurney posted a few more interesting things about forgotten artists



Thursday 8 December 2011

Francis Oneil's Dec 8th

The model didn't turn up so Francis ended up modelling himself. As usual this is 1.5 hours, although I spent 10 minutes finishing up the shirt after class

Francis Oneil's on Dec 1st

This is the result of 1.5 hours at class last week - I didn't feel like touching it up after class.

Friday 11 November 2011

Francis Oneil's again

Another 1.5 hours at Francis Oneils followed by 20 minutes of clean up

Saturday 1 October 2011

Wednesday 21 September 2011

Lavender Hill Day 1

A few brief notes of things I learned yesterday

When boxing in the form always start with the top and bottom, then draw the left and right lines to get the proportions correct.

Sculpt when dividing the form

Don't go through the figure when sculpting the shape

Hold charcoal on its side and stand back further - clean smooth motions

Use an economy of straight lines when dividing the space. No curves for now

Movement and motion comes from lines off the horizontal and vertical


Wednesday 14 September 2011

Another 2 hour sketch from Francis Oneil's. This girl is a squatter who mentioned that she was chased from a squat she just entered by a gang of drug dealers on the previous day.

Saturday 23 July 2011

Ashmolean sketch crawl

Result of a little over an hour (maybe 1.5?) at the Ashmolean today during the sketchcrawl

Thursday 7 July 2011

Francis Oneil's class



This is about 1.5 hours at Francis Oneil's class followed by about 20 minutes cleaning up the background


Sunday 3 July 2011

A few great artists




A few years ago I went to the Musee d'Orsay and photographed all the paintings that I found inspirational. I figured I would post a few images to my blog as a source of inspiration. In the unlikely event that someone else is reading this, I highly recommend checking out these artists!








William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Thursday 30 June 2011

The results from about 1.5 hours at Francis Oneil's class today. I figured I would post this directly without any cleanup. I might see what I can do with another hour working from memory.

Thursday 23 June 2011

This girl was sitting beside Alan and I at the Turf on Sunday. Trying to get a likeness on computer without someone noticing can be tricky, so I had to make up the majority of this from memory and only glance over occasionally for reference of broad feeatures. I started to over work this as well so I am posting it now. About 3 hours in total, which is way too much time for this stage.

Saturday 18 June 2011

Another sketch from imagination. I started to over work this so I am posting it now so I can move on

Thursday 16 June 2011

The results of 1.5 hours at Francis Oneil's class tonight. I think I might be getting a little faster since I didn't feel the urge to spend ages correcting this sketch.

Monday 13 June 2011

Another image from imagination. I adjusted brightness and contrast to save the original composition early in the painting process. About 3 hours total on this one.



Sunday 12 June 2011

This was a 30 minutes sketch of a girl sitting near me in the bear. I rotated her mentally to a straight profile view and changed the lighting slightly to get the basic tonal drawing. I refined this for another 20 minutes at the half moon while listening to folk music. Normally I am a bit disappointed with my digital work, but this one seemed to work out well.
This is the result of a new 2 hour exercise I am trying. I glanced at someone walking by and tried to memorize as much about their appearance as possible. I then moved to a rough tonal sketch and finished things off by referring to Loomis for any mistakes with features.



Thursday 28 April 2011

Saturday 19 March 2011


a 15 minute speed paint




Another Ashmolean sculpture

Sunday 13 March 2011

A two hour painting of a sculpture at the ashmolean. I got into a long conversation about CAD software with a random person who stopped to see what software I was using. He said that he was a fan of sketchbook pro. It is funny how sometimes it seems that everyone is an artist.