Dahlia Flower

Today's painting is inspired by my trip to Seattle last summer and when I visited the Public Market and walked down the rows and rows of flowers. I loved seeing all the flowers, especially dahlias. I never really had a favorite flower until  saw them there. The painting was a good challenge because I used lighter colors than yesterday and there was a lot more layering. Below are pictures of the step-by-step process I took with this painting.

I had to use the white paint a few times to lighten some spots that were over-saturated with red.

I was really excited to start a new painting when I woke up this morning. It's a really good feeling.

I Think I Am Loving Life Drawing Even More

This week we did another six hour sitting in life drawing class. The model was wonderful, she did not move AT ALL, truly a professional. I struggled for a bit with the shadowing around her collar bones and I still feel I need to lighten the shadowing on the final drawing. I wish we had more time so I could get more detailed on her facial features. Overall, satisfied with the drawing, just gotta manage my time better and get to the face next time. Three stages of the image:

Life Drawing

The class that has been one of the most challenging this semester has been Life Drawing. Here, I will be sharing some drawings from the beginning of the semester, middle to recent. [gallery order="DESC" columns="1"]

I have a long way to go, but I feel as though I've gotten a better grasp and understanding about the process of it all. What really held me back in the beginning was the fear of not getting it perfectly in accordance to standards and rules that have been set. I didn't allow myself to fully see what was in front of me, instead I just drew analytically. This was frustrating and at times, I wanted to give up.

After a few weeks of this, I was up late one night  doing sketches. The answer came to me so easily. I was caught up in my head! I finally decided to just say, "The hell with it all! I am going to really draw!"

I will continue to learn the guidelines and styles, but use those as tools, not as constrictions. Once I stopped worrying so much about restrictions, I felt much more free during class. I enjoyed class far more, and I could see a change in my drawings.

One important thing this has taught me is that, patience really works! I took time to learn and implement guides that were taught to me. From gesture drawing, to carving out the figure and finding shadow shapes. Everything is vital and important.

Many times we just want to jump in and draw, but as with anything, we need tools, and these teachings are all tools to use with our intuition. I used to dread this class, but now I am disappointed when time is up and we have to pack up our things. Even when the semester is over, I want to keep working on my drawings and am more confident about attending other drawing studios.

How have you overcome roadblocks in your creativity process?

The Final Drawing

Here it is! Over 40 hours of drawing time later, this is my 20"x30" drawing. It started as this and here it is now! This was a long, but meditative process. I spent class time and alone time on it and it was wonderful. I seriously doubted myself a few times, but I pushed forward and kept drawing what I saw. I measured, remeasured, drew, erased, drew and erased, then drew and kept.

I am very proud of this piece of art because I don't think I ever spent this much time on a drawing. It was this assignment that has made me look forward to Drawing 2, and it was this assignment did I start to really think about the process of drawing and creating. It has always come natural to me, but now, I respect the process so much more. I respect the time and effort that goes into something, and I respect that quality things do take time.

I can see myself doing a couple more pieces like this and really sharpening my drawing skills. I've borrowed some books from the library and want to get better at it. The process of a dimensional figure come off a piece of paper always intimidated me, but now, I know I can do it and I'm hooked!

Technical Stuff: 

For the drawing I used graphite pencils ranging from B to 9B. I did not use stumps for the faces (I don't like how stumps tend to soften a drawing, kind of like adding a soft filter to photos). I did use it for the cloud portion to differentiate it from the faces.

After I turned it in and stepped away from it for a few days, I still want to go back and refine  it some more! It's always really hard for me to say this piece of art is done, so I'm going to say it's an almost finished piece of work in progress.

Also, I listened to a LOT of hip-hop on my Jay-Z Pandora list in the process to keep me going during those late nights and even an all-nighter. So this one is for you, Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, Tupac and The Fugees.

Progress

It's been a few days and I wanted to share my progress so far with the grid drawing. Before diving right into adding value, I spent a few hours meticulously drawing outlines of all my images. This required me to measure where lines began and ended on the small grid and then convert it to the size on the larger grid. Instead of measuring twice and drawing once, I probably measured about 4 times just to ensure it was the right distance away from each grid mark. Square by square, I worked my way around the image, until finally I was ready for adding value.

I was nervous about starting the value because it seemed so daunting, but I told myself to do it one square at a time, and focus on that instead of worrying too much about the other 29 squares. So one, by one, I worked. And despite measuring 4 times, I was still slightly off in some areas!

What has really helped me progress with this project is, I've been drawing the whole thing upside down. My high school teacher used to have us do this exercise all the time. I looked up the reason and this site explained the reasoning behind this very well:

"It is because the left side of our brain is very good at what it does and is in charge most of the time. One of the things the left side is good at is assigning symbols to common objects which makes them quick and easy to reference. For example, a wheel is always round, an eye is almond shaped, etc. The left side is also very good at being abstract--taking a small bit of information and using it to represent the whole. Both are very powerful and useful skills for quickly dealing with most obstacles we face. Here is an example. The following letters in the following paragraph are all mixed up but I doubt you have any problem understanding it:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and youcan sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed erveylteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

Let's hear it for the left side of the brain! It quickly solves thousands of puzzles a day without us even thinking about it. So why do we need the right side?

The very things that make the left side of the brain such a powerful problem solver, limit our ability to see creative solutions. Because it is quick to make assumptions and jump to conclusions, we are not even aware of the assumptions that are limiting us. In addition, symbols and names that it assigns have meanings attached that we don’t question.

Back to the upside down drawing exercise. When most of us draw, the left side of our brain uses its common symbols to help speed the process. If we're drawing an eye, it is almond shaped with a little circle in the middle. If we're drawing a wheel it is always round. Two arms are always the same length etc. Trouble is, once perspective gets involved (which it always does), rarely is a wheel in a picture round nor are eyes almond shaped. I know, I know--your left brain is telling you that is a lie. But it's not. Look at these pictures."

Pretty interesting stuff!

So far, the most challenging parts of the drawing were the eyes and the hands as they were in the photo. I kept wanting them to look perfect by drawing what my brain thought they should look like, rather than what they actually DO look like. Once I broke it all down and saw everything as it's own shapes and value, it all started to come together. Also, I was seriously doubting the nose for a while, but I kept at it with looking at every value change and after about an hour, a nose was finally developed.

I plan on dedicating about 20 hours to this drawing this week and next. Hopefully I'll be able to be finished with it by next Thursday.

In addition to this, I am doing a portfolio review for my this drawing class and midterms are next  week. That means a load of assignments from all of my classes. Wish me luck!