Painting progress this week

A 15 minute conte sketch of a man from Tuesday night sketch club.





Worked on smoother version of baby portrait. Now need to refine and make less flat.

Fixed eye on less smooth version. Think I should stop here.

Blogger is not a WYSIWYG editor with pictures.

Another in process baby portrait

My husband says it's done but I think the right eye is too flat. It's done enough for a sketch but needs more work for a painting. Or if I'm going to leave it less finished at least finish the right eye. I like the purple carrying into the portrait. I could push one of my other versions further and leave this one right here except for the right eye. Tonight Milwaukee Sketch Club drawing meeting.

Finished baby portrait

I think this portrait is basically done. I started out doing value study in pink, then finished by adding in more colors.

Terry Stanley portrait pastel workshop through wpa

Attended an excellent workshop given by Terry Howell Stanley, http://terrystanley.com , through the wpa (Wisconsin Pastel Artists) http://www.wispa.us

Brief discussion of materials and having enough respect for yourself and your work to use professional grade materials that will last.

A lot of different kinds of pastels:

• Terry Ludwig - terryludwig.com
• Unison by Richeson, richesonart.com : besides their soft unison pastels they now supply colorfast version of a hard (like nupastels), medium (a little harder than rembrandt) and hand rolled (very soft but a little less than unison) pastels.
• pastlesgirault.com - a little harder, have a set of 72 gray which is great for animals
  
• Holbein - a little harder
• Rembrandt - some fugitive colors
• Winsor Newton - some fugitive colors
• dakotapastels.com - a good supply of general pastels and materials
• schminke pastels - www.schmincke.de
• She hasn't tried pan pastels because she likes using a sanded surface and sticks.
• Blaire low odor fixative - only uses when has to ship something. Applies a light coat after knocking the excess pastel off by tapping substrate back.
• Can make your own gray pastels by saving dust, moistening it with water, rolling and letting it dry slowly on a paper plate
• In addition to water can use rubbing alcohol, turpentine etc to resolubize pastels in an underpainting
• packing peanuts can be used to blend. Also tortillons, stomps.
• Can remove pastel with old bristle brush or stencil pouncing brush.
• Recommends a set of at least 72 because pastels are not a blending thing.
• generic baby wipes, barrier cream- gloves in a bottle
• sanded substrate - whisper pastel on lightly stroking in different directions
  

General application of pastels: usually bottom is hard, middle layers medium and top layers soft.

Short discussion on anatomy + handouts.

Color temperature, edges & value: In general soft edges and cool colors recede, hard edges and warm colors come forward. In the sky faraway clouds are warm while close clouds are cooler.

The lightest part of the darkside is equal to the darkest part of the light side. Use a value card to help you. Generally paintings only range about 5 values except for very small highlight and darklight areas.

Working from life is better than from a photo because our eyes see 2000 colors while the camera only sees 400. Study the model 5' before starting to work.

When Terry does a portrait she talks to the person for about an hour to learn about their expectations, personalities and how they move. She does take pictures. Does color study. Tries to get an initial 1 hour setting at the beginning and the end of the painting.

Discussed how eye highlights are not in same place. Light enters eye on one side and where it comes out the cornea is lighter. Color banding like old masters, Sargent and Flemish artists; Forhead yellow, face red (nose even redder), neck blue. Violet around eyes, olive green tones around the mouth. Helps skin glow and appear more 3D. Bottom of cornea and eyelid shape are different and distintive on people. Lightest value in eye - lightest value in face - No white.

Artists mentioned; (look at paintings you like to study how they were done.)

• http:/davidkassan.com , can download artist anatomy. has articles in drawing magazine.
• www.judithcarducci.com
• http://www.everettraymondkinstler.com/ (one of the originals in the www.portraitsociety.org ?)
• http://www.danielgreeneartist.com

In the morning we learned how to get our proportions correct using triangulation and a dowel painted with medium gray stripe. Basically you pick one point that you always measure from. Then you draw a second point. Then holding the dowel at the correct angle from the 1st point to a 3rd point you make a mark. You do the same from the 2nd point to the 3rd point. Where your two lines intersect that is your third point.

In the afternoon we did a underpainting, damped it down with a brush to redissolve the pastel then painted some more over the top. Here's my unfinished picture.

Finished takehome midterm & Milwaukee Sketch Club origins

We had to copy an approved picture for our midterm in digital illustration. Here's my result.

Went to Thursday night painting group at St. John's Evangelical Catholic Church. Worked on the baby portrait. Addition of yellow does improve the color. The pink was to bright. Found out it was started by a now deceased member named Charles Versh. He advertised in the bulletin and taught oil painting. Bob & Joyce have been coming since 1974.

The (Mens') Milwaukee Sketch club was started in 1922 by a group of professional men. The formation of this club was aided by a chapter from Chicago that had started earlier. Now we have more women than men so now it's just called the Milwaukee Sketch Club.

AC (Allis Chalmers) Art Association meetings

At the Milwaukee sketch club tonight learned about the AC Art Association. It meets on the 1st & 3rd (week?) Mondays of each month. They meet downstairs in the City of West Allis City Hall. On the 1st (week?) is a demo and on the 3rd (week?) is a critique. Good motivation to work on and finish paintings.

Milwaukee Sketch Club critique

Our critique was Denis Sargent, a professor at UWM Kennilworth art building in their graduate program, http://www.markmillstein.com/diweb/sargentbio.html . He showed us 2 of his textile art pieces. He takes pictures of figures out of magazines then cuts them out of plastic yogurt containers, then attaches them to contact paper, puts a black fabric over the top. Then he rubs them with encaustic, making the figures darker at the bottom of his fabric painting and lighter at the top. For one painting he had a tree the other a ladder. He cut those out of linen which he put under the black fabric and rubbed.

UWM Peck school of the arts had an open house last saturday too. http://nathanielstern.com/blog/2008/10/14/peck-school-of-the-arts-uwm-open-house-this-saturday-kenilworth-sqare-east-milwaukee-wisconsin/

I took my baby & young girl picture to the critique. I had used black on the eyes for the baby and now they're too dark so need to lighten them. He also suggested I put in the shoulder and bring in some yellow. The pink is too bright. For the young girl portrait I need to work on the neck & shoulder. Some people don't bring their stuff to the critique because it's not "good enough" but I try to bring something because you more ideas how to go.

In process pastel portraits, baby & young girl

Still working on the baby portrait & started a young girl last night. Tonight is live model night with Milwaukee Sketch Club.

Some in process pastel portraits

Some more experiments with one tone of pastel on bristol. The old woman was sketched live and the baby from a photo. Letting them sit a bit before I finish them.