Street Painting Week

For this week, our oil painting class was assigned to do a street painting of a master copy. The art instructors Julie Kirk and Melanie Stimmel do street painting on the side and are quite famous for them. So maybe they want their students to get a taste of what it's like.
I chose Caravaggio's St Jerome. Drapery + human figure = fun.
Turns out, I had mega fun doing the street painting. They were done with pastel. At first, I didn't have a very good relationship with pastel... but oil painting has really helped. And mucho thanks to the lovely weather that was provided for us while we were out drawing away.
We weren't required to finish, but we still had to give it our all. We were provided 3' x 5' rectangles to draw in.
And it really wasn't that bad. I didn't get to finish but I'm still happy with the results.
I can't even imagine the humongous street paintings that Julie and Melanie do :P
Mucho props to them!




St Jerome looks a little wide...
Haha. I think it would've been nice if I included the book so that it looks like he's at least holding something.
But that's ok. This really was a fun turn of events.
And next week, back to regular oil painting.

Dance is the hidden language of the soul - Martha Graham

I may be having a crummy drawing week, but I am most certainly having a great dance week.
For as long as I can remember, dance has always been just a hobby and something that I greatly admired.
And taking some dance classes here and there was my way of being involved with it.
It never got serious.
But here I am, dancing 12 hours per week now in preparation for the spring dance concert at Irvine Valley College. I was chosen to be in a work in progress, and wasn't going to be formally shown.
But soon after, I was asked to take the place of another girl in another piece.
A few days later, same thing happened. Today, I attended my first rehearsal for a modern piece. It's fast, it's challenging and it's fun :)
It's my first time being taught by a professional dancer. He is stern, strict and straightforward but does not hesitate to answer questions. I guess I'm really lucky that my jazz teacher saw something in me and recommended me to the choreographers who ended up with people dropping out.
I'm also really glad that I'm doing all that I can with dance before I enter art school.
I know that there are priorities in life, but dance is something that I never want to stop doing.

Anyways... I just had to document this day. It was really great :D

I can't draw!

It's only Wednesday, but I couldn't help but notice that I'm having a very weird off week.
Yesterday was my life drawing class, and I wasn't feeling my gestures. I was excited about having life drawing
but I was drawing the model out of proportion.
I was making her legs too short, which I normally don't do.
And at the last session, I tried to do a quick portrait study, but it was terrible.
Usually I'm pretty confident about portrait studies... yesterday was a bit of struggle.
And I struggled in my oil painting class this morning too. We're finally painting a full color still life but from a photo. If all goes well, my painting will turn out something like this:
I was just not feeling this painting either today. I hope I snap out of it soon, I have drawings and paintings to finish!
But on the other note, I finally borrowed my parent's camera to take pictures of my recent work.

We finally finished our limited palette oil painting, and it turned out really well.
I noticed I forgot to fix the shape of the bottle :P But what I really liked about this painting was the drapery.
At first, I was just blocking in the drapery and kind of struggling with it. Then I decided that I would just finish it the next day. But when I came in the next class, I liked the way the drapery looked and I didn't touch it after all. That's always a nice feeling :)Also, I've been wanting to post up my work from the portfolio program.
The first piece is a still life using graphite and is a work in progress. It's been taking a while but I'm liking the way it's turning out. I'm very comfortable with graphite but I've never done such an extensive still life before :P
I don't know why blogger decided to rotate the next 2 pictures...
but the next few drawings are also from the portfolio program.
I've been having a lot of fun with ballpoint pen.




The one above is a portrait study of the model. I think some of the color needs to be toned down a bit so her nostrils and face don't look like they're glowing. She's supposed to be hugging her knee, but I'll probably get rid of that because it doesn't really matter in the end, it might just end up looking like some strange body part.

The next two were done at a figure drawing workshop in Costa Mesa.
http://www.meetup.com/ocfiguredrawing/
It's a great workshop to go to if you're looking for a small group to draw with.
I've only gone once and we had a great model. It's Monday and Wednesday nights, $15 per session.
I would like to finish this piece, add some more shadow and whatnot.
At first I used green for the face. Which was a bad idea because it made her look like an evil sea queen.
It's a cool idea, but not what I'm going for in this drawing.

The next piece was done on a cut up grocery bag and different pieces of pastel.
I also need to tone down the color because the blue turned out really bright towards the bottom.
Which reminds me of Mystique from X-men...
And my teacher said maybe the glowing nipples aren't such a good idea
XD
Enough blabbering for now.. I need to rest or something.
I hope this weird drawing streak won't last for too long..

Good Morning

For my birthday, my boyfriend decided that he would get me a new art box. Because the one that I currently have is not really an art box.... more like a craft box. The handle is on the lid which makes it look like my art box will fall at any time. And it was 4.99 :P
But I've been wanting a new art box and I got one.
Or more like... a boom box. My boyfriend thought that this behemoth art box would be best for me.
And I thought I would take a few pictures of it before I return it.
Haha... my boyfriend had an inkling and knew that I might want another art box.
So he kept the receipt and we're returning it tomorrow for a more practical art box
XD
It really does crack me up though. As cool as it is, it isn't very practical in the end
I would'nt even be able to fill up all the compartments.

I think I will name this art box Zeus.
My camera is currently dying right now. I was very lucky to get these pictures.
And I've been meaning to take pictures of my most recent work because I've been experimenting a lot
with color and different media.
It's been a lot of fun and puts a whole other twist on figure drawing :)
Maybe next time, I plan on borrowing my parents' camera.

Good bye Zeus.. you really were the life of the party last night.