New Study Piece
Reflecting on this pieces at the moment. I’ve certianly got a ways to go, yet the question is which direction? How do we find the flow in our work method while also selected design elements that express the subject or message we desire in a piece? In one direction there is maintaining the mark making and sketched value balance that is working on the toned paper and letting it evolve as a open piece with flow and expression.
A second direction could be be focusing on relating the current marks to additive anatomical information. Looking for pivotal bones and porportions.
I’ve kept working with the intention of merging more modeling and anatomical marks. My aim is to paint from the drawing itself, and this will involve a well understood form, in addition to interesting design shapes.
I’m looking forward to it.
Creative Cast Studies
A creative way to prepare for cast painting
Looking a white plaster is such an interseting experience of the color that exists in white! So much color
After I enjoyed creating a thumbnail I begin makeing other studies. Below I am testing different pigments, and their capacties to makethe greys I am seeking for the final painting. I am looking to find a feeling of smooth thinking on my palette in this process. I ask repeatedly, how will I cool this efficiently and how will I gently warm this pigment efficiently….
All of these side by side studies help me create a tactile and visual experience for the planning of how the future piece will evolve
seperate sketch, graphite on gessoed stonehenge oil paper
alla prima WIP 6”x4” Burnt Umber, Ivory Black, Titanium White, Flake White
2.5 “ thumbnail in graphite on bristol board
This sketch was an exploration into how I can manipulate warm and cool light on a white object using a palette of just three colors. For me, this was so interesting as my eyes opened to more chroma on the subject and I felt my drawing/painting begin to search for using changes in chromatic planes to suggest value. This is a quality I believe is very tough to learn and teach. I am thrilled to be exploring this section of working with oils alone in my studio. More than ever, I am believing that color is so relative that personal exploration is the most sane way to learn about color. At the end of the day, no one sees what you see…..
3 Color sketch! Ult Blue, Quindocent Red, Cad Yellow
Pilea Peperomioides
I’ve been playing with how I arrange my easel for set ups and catching light from my window. I’ve also been enjoying mixing from a minimal palette with more chromatic yellow lately (cad yellow light), to play with how I express my visual experience of a subject I am entranced by. Hope you enjoy these small piece and the set up images below.
The chromatic highlights were might focus for this entire piece. The rest of the painting is designed to serve the bright greens and blues in the upper most leaves.
The block in before the fun begins!
The set up, using comparative measuring and visual impression for this painting.
On the Easel
The comical picture above summarizes well what it can be like to paint in a studio space during the storms of life. We all do our best to ride the wind when we can hold our ground when we must!
I created this miniature oil painting to interpret John Singer Sargent’s “ Blonde Model.” I aimed to convey a light effect similar to the painting he created but to let loose while I painted and disappear while I sorted out the colors in my own experience. It isn’t very easy to develop a sensation-based painting while being heavily analytical. Not that either process is separate from the other…. but enjoying the intensity of creating a painting while being free in connection to the subject is an indescribable experience. The sense of balance I experience is like nothing I’ve ever felt.
Cheers to balance, living through storms, and learning to enjoy it all.
Fresh from Life
The light in my space has improved since November - January …. yay for a hint of spring and some indirect light in my space.
The top photo shows the setup, the first phase of the sketch, and the second phase of the sketch to prep for the painting.
The second group of photos shows how I look for flat shapes and local value, color, and temperature, and then all smaller shapes following the same design principals on top of the the larger shapes.
In Her Studio Publishing
I remember reading In Her Studio magazine in high school and imagining my studio… shew 20 years later Here I am in the magazine I loved looking through so much. Follow your dreams and try new things!
Head Studies with studio Escalier
This week I was so excited to begin meeting up to listen to lectures and utilize videos of models posting with Michelle Tully at her Atelier , Studio Escalier near Paris. I have love her holistic and thorough knowledge sharing and resources she is sharing. Its very autonomous and asynchronous which I really enjoy when it comes integrating ideas and finding focus.
In the first sequence I believe the middle phase of this portrait is the most successful. I enjoy the shape design, number of values, simplicity, and the darkest darkest are reading really well. The later phase of the drawing there are some added planes I will edit out now. But for the sake of keeping on keeping on…. I tend not to dwell and just analyze my efforts and move on. Below is another drawing sequence from week 1.
This drawing is also early on in the phase of work. By the 3rd drawing its only 4 hours of work. I have added enough value to seek where I will changed some structural points and then continue to add value. However, these are intended for paintings so I am leaving the graphite for now and moving onto the painting. :)
Thanks for reading.
Enjoy some drawing today.
Portrait Master Study of Mau-Kun Lim portrait drawing
This drawing study felt poetic while I was creating it, and I attribute that to two things…. the original artist is absolutely a poetic synthesizer of life, light, and form. And secondly, I drew it with feeling.
We are in different states of existential experience every time each of us stands at our easel… For me I was experiencing enough this day that I needed to feel the flow and energy while drawing. A bit of natural chaos was around me in the form of death and loss. Letting myself find the balance of my tools and allowing myself to sense whatever came up in me is how I feel I am truly alive and suffering loss like so many other people. None of us are alone.
To me, while it is definitely more difficult to focus and drawing when a good bit of life is stirring around me… and yet there is something so soothing about studying a poetic drawing like this to feel the flow of the skills I have honed. I imagine it would be like playing a familiar song for a musician.
Any way, here are the notes I left behind on the paper that day.
warmly,
Laura
Our Companions
Still drifting in my thoughts and memories of a family loss I found solace in drawing this beautiful dog, Oliver to lift my spirit as a gorgeous subject. My friend Katrina is also an artist and dog momma, and this boy of hers is very special.
I am taking commissions for the end of the year :) in case there is someone you’d like to gift a portrait to please do be in touch.
warmly,
Laura
Head study and personal expression
Check out this journey of progress shots on how I see and move this drawing along. I am beginning to see, that I actually see a lot more than I give myself credit for. So instead of looking for a smooth perfect drawing, I really allow myself to leave the patches of light I chose to create. I believe it’s my eyes perceiving warm and cool next to one another. I’m not controlling the drawing process at all and therefore leaving room for my brain and eye to do as they please while Im studying this image. The inspiration image is sourced from “ Drawing the Head”, by Oliver Sin. I can sense that when I made this drawing I was definitely thinking of painting. To me, for work to not be grueling I have to be able to lose control. So fun. here is the video below.
study from Drawing the Head , by Oliver Sin
Courses and Musings
In this post, I share a bit about the course I’ve been doing, a philosophy of realism teaching, and my favorite painting from the course.
July was a full month! I am thrilled to say I have a new stamina and working schedule from being enrolled in a 6 week intensive this summer with honestly fantastic instruction. I am am part of the future graduating cohort of 2025 for a Master of Studio Art at the Florence Academy.
The stimulation of being with instructors and fellow students seeking to work from nature felt like an oxygen boost for my artist soul.
It was interesting to throw on my student hat again. I felt the need to pause what I knew, slow down, break down information, put aside what is inspiring, and focus on the exercises at hand. And may I say, as someone who desires inspiration to work this was a challenging mental game, ha. The outcome is not the masterpieces of my dreams, which I believe is a common misconception among students of art. We all want to see work in the present as the master we hope to become, but the reality is that there is a mountain to hike to reach this point of understanding. To me, being in a class is about a space to mindfully yet rapidly create what the exercise demands, and then do everything you can not to hide from the issues and failings you find in your own method during the exercise. This is where having gracious and serious instruction is so helpful. I’m very grateful that while these 6 weeks felt similar to boot camp, it also allowed me to see where weaknesses with a kind group of folks. The overall aim of the course is to help the students experience certain drawing and painting practices and therefore embody them and their lessons for our own students.
Me, I left with a list of things I change in the exercises themselves for my students and for myself to repeat the exercises. I also really benefitted from the lectures and types of critiques I received. My dexterity in my hands and shoulders is improving again. And I discovered a vast amount of online resources and books I’ll be using for my own growth and as tools to share with my students.
Transparency in teaching is something I believe in maintaining. Meaning, we are all typically striving to grow. The pitfall of artistic practice can be perfection versus the understanding that everything we create is a simulation, reflection, or symbol of the subjects. Perfectionism is more than a little off-putting to students. And balance to our artistic pursuits is a huge part of the growth journey. My aim is to be an authentic teacher who is able to explain the goal of learning visual science and artistic representation without crushing the soul of artists. The goal, in my opinion, is not to copy “thing thing” perfectly, but to convey it honestly…. and honestly will have variation and interpretation in how a subject is conveyed while carrying strongly the tools of the visual realm. Which are proportion, value, composition, color, and edge quality.
A large part of studying to work from observation, or drawing and painting naturalistically, is choosing a process and school of thinking that works for you. There are many methods. During this course, I was most surprised to see myself transitioning from one school of thought and beginning to sense the need to integrate another school of thinking about form and painting. This may sound silly, but for myself, I have always aimed to work in a way reflected by rendering at the end of the process and I am now beginning to integrate rendering some areas in my work at the start of the process. I am excited about this because I believe it to be a sign of evolving processes and potential new work I’ll really enjoy creating. I also think being able to utilize both types of processes will allow for more simple yet well-stated drawings and more potential in alla prima painting.
here is what I mean…
To see what I mean, look at this painting to the left. While it is still in process, I believe you can tell I sculpted the lights first by using a first-phase shadow value in the entire shadow areas just barely darker than the imprimatur. Then, tested the values for the dark halftones and shadow lines, as dark as I could believe them to be while looking for hard and soft edges in the shadows. Now I will work where on lightening and warming areas of the shadows a bit to create more transitioning dark halftones. Then I’ll return to highlights and areas of challenging reflections that are slightly lighter than the darkest halftones and areas of reflecting rim lights in areas of contours on the small bottle.
So interestingly, to me, while the processes of rendering at the end verses rendering and the beginning seem at odds with one another as far as process, I think they aren’t. I think both skills allow the artist to work how the subject is speaking to them and provide more options.
To conclude, you might have guessed this is my favorite piece from the intensive, simply because of the experimentation process I encountered and the beginning of a shift in my understanding of painting that I hope will bring on the best kind of frustration and a good bit of fun painting.
Pattern and Portraits
exploring patterns in fabric combined with a portrait was a really fun way to draw and design
I have been looking forward to creating this study for a painting. I managed to get a progression together of this study as it came along. Here it is!
Progressions of Pet Portrait
Progressions are one of the best ways I keep track of how I am painting and what I enjoy about my process. Here is a fun recent progression from a dog portrait. I kept painting on this painting after these images. Tracking the evolution was only something I managed until this point in the painting. Check it out.
Line, Mass, & "the wipe out" method in oils
Oil paint is such a fun and flexible medium. This underpainting was massed in with a mix of ivory black, raw umber, and light amounts of gamsol. The primary effects are done with a smooth consistency of mostly paint.
The set up is an adjusted sight size set up. An actual sight size would be performed with the easel directly beside the still life. I really enjoy doing this adjusted set up to test my ability to use a visual approach to sight size concept.
I mixed up some color for the next layer, and I’m looking forward to creating a simple painting that has a graphic and modern feeling using this traditional approach to image making.
I’m rearranging my studio space lately, which I’ve only been in for 7 months… so I’m still getting used to the space. I’m excited to get a set up going that will allow me to be sure I’m getting more life drawing in. I’m so grateful for the latest emergence and openness of other artists working from photos and ipads which helped me getting painting and drawing again. We all need the touch stone of why we feel in love with realism in painting…painting from life.
Cisco Drawing
Well folks, Sometimes what you have been seeing in paintings sticks with your brain and shows up in your work. Hopefully, when this happens it happens with an authentic energy that makes the essence of what you observed become your own and show up in a personal form. I am into all things energetic…. it’s everywhere. I love noticing it and riding those waves to tap into what I am seeking for that day… a feeling, a skills use, or an effect…. you get it…
My puppy Cisco is slightly older than 1 year and has the coolest personality coming through and I was delighted it showed up in a drawing I did of him last week.
What got me there was sorting through the paper I’d collected and being picky about what I felt like using that day. I had also recently stocked up on willow and vine charcoal and got lucky that all the pieces I had purchased were accurate in their hardnesses. I sharpened everything and organized it on a table the day before…. and you guessed it, being prepped let the drawing time truly take place.
Here is the progression. And if I can link it I’ll share the french musician I was listening to for the piece.
1 Start broad
- Begin with a rough envelope block in of the entire form and then move forward once you have drawn lines around the “exterior” of your form. Use soft mediums and light lines so that as you determine your interior shapes that will truly dictate the entire form you can get rid of envelop lines.
-Follow up by looking for big shapes, and blocking them in the same way you did the exterior shape. Be soft still and remember to squint
- Add a bit of mass to help you check for the overall impression and accuracy you would personally like to express.
2 Darks & Shapes
- Be as concious as possible while you are looking for shapes and the quality of shape edges , and think like a painting is being created. Remember you are NOT photo printer this is about how you are experiencing the subject and how you are seeing the light.
- experiment with how you can hold and use various edges of your tool/medium to create the feeling you see in particular areas of the form.
Focal Area
- Be selective as you go so you maintain the feeling you got at the start of the drawing. This will keep the drawing feeling fresh and avoid “overworking” certain areas.
- If you recognize anything, remember to celebrate! This will balance out the inner critic and allow you to have the bravery to change areas you might be
hesitant to change yet truly they need to be edited.
- Take a break and ask if you have the feel you intended and be sure to stop when you answer yes!
Have a lovely weekend, Laura
Rocko Portrait Drawing Progression
Hey There, happy new year. I am sharing a drawing progression I worked on last month. This was a really fun little buddy to draw, his name is Rocko! This year in my drawings I am really loving drawing animals and searching for shapes and structure relationships. I love the start of a drawing. I think the initial stages of a drawing reveal where the piece really began in the eyes and mind. To share clearly the initial stages of this drawing I’ve shared large images below.
This drawing was originally started with the intent to be painted over. However, the surface of this paper and the structural nature of the drawing inspired me to maintain it as a drawing. I hope you enjoy the images and have fun drawing.
Have a great one, and reach out if you’d like to chat about drawing or teaching.
cheers,
Laura
Process Blog
In these post I offer a breif peak into my studio and process. This is part of sharing my teaching and contributing to a collective knowledge I believe should be accessible to everyone.