Stacy Weitz Minch

Ugh, I've had the hardest time with this one. About 3/4 of the way through, I realized that when I started, I didn't pull over any lines. Usually when I start one of these, I grab the navel height, and the knee height, and maybe the chin and drag those lines all the way over to the other paper, and they make a bit of a framework to double check new lines with. Didn't do that this time, and it was a challenge (totally unintentional, just got a little overexcited or lazy or forgetful, maybe? ha). Anyway, maybe it was good for my eye. Or maybe it was just frustrating. And no doubt it's still a little off here and there, but I just can't take it anymore (I'm in one of those knocking peoples' hats off kind of moods right here, so I guess this isn't my zen at the moment... where is that Montana sky when I need it? ;). Okay, enough griping from me. I totally love this stuff (every other time ;).

6x4", water mixable oil on linen panel I realized the other day that I've been pretty intimidated by painting lately. I've been focusing mostly on drawing, which has been really, really good. But I don't want to neglect painting to the point where I'm afraid to pick up a brush. Not that I haven't good reasons for being afraid--painting is incredibly complex and there is so much I don't know. But at the same time, I don't want to let fear control me--not good. And with painting (like many other things), I think the way to fear it less is to do it more. So I'm going to try to whip out some really quick, tiny studies a little more often (this one was probably a little under an hour?).  I think when you paint more often, you learn from your mistakes faster too, because you actually remember them the next time you go to paint something (like, the last time I painted flowers and they ended up spilling over the top of the canvas--yep, it happene

Nothing too exciting here. It's been crazy busy the past few days with family coming into town (a couple of these sketches are of my sleepy "baby" brother) and all sorts of other house project shenanigans ;) But in the midst of it all, I've been trying to do a little opportunistic sketching when the moment arises. These range from about 15 seconds to 15 minutes, and well, it's better than nothing. I've also been working on another little Bargue figure when I can, but I think I'm losing steam on those guys--may be time for a change of pace, but I will try to get that finished here soon. Happy Memorial Day!

I was trying to focus a little more on line quality last night, as well as making interior indications more consistently as I went along. In the process of doing that, the accuracy of my proportions suffered. It'll all come together one of these days, ha :P  I seem to always want to put those shoulders too high. I think I need to find a more salient spot to pull over. The shoulders are usually a fairly sloped plane--I think I have a hard time deciding where to pull a line from, so maybe I try to average the height of where those shoulders come in instead? Or perhaps just go for the spot where the shoulder meets the neck, but lay it in at the wrong place? I don't know. Whatever I'm doing, it's not working. So next time, I will try to find a more obvious spot on that shoulder plane to draw in, try to be really specific about it, and see if that helps--even just a clavicle or something would probably help--but I guess that remains to be seen. There was also some t

5x7", oil on linen panel It was calm and sunny when I headed out to paint, but within a few minutes of setting up, the wind had started blowing across the lake, pushing that ominous-looking cloud directly my direction (and whipping my hair in every other direction--next time, ponytail!!). I painted as quickly as I could, and I'm pretty happy with how the clouds/mountains/water turned out. The foreground is a bit of a segmented mess, but I was in a major hurry, so I'll forgive myself (this time). After that plein air workshop in April, I was all fired up to get outside and paint, but finding the time in my real life is another story altogether--I'll count it a success that I got outside to paint at all! It's always a fun adventure, if nothing else :)

I've had a hard time carving out time for any of this stuff the past few days. It's the end of the school year for my daughter, so we've had dance recitals, circus days, etc. going on (and she's only in preschool!). On top of that, we're losing our regular weekly routine, which always throws things off a bit for all of us. So we need to find a new routine quick to help maintain our sanity throughout the next few months (can we please institute year-round school? ha).  About the drawing--my line quality hasn't been great lately. And I'm still trying to get this whole relating all the parallel lines to each other thing. I think at some point the lightbulb would turn on and it will click for me. But those neurons haven't quite found their preferred path just yet ;)

16x20", water mixable oil on stretched canvas I don't know what comes over me sometimes when I decide to start a big painting, ha! When I get those urges, I should really remind myself I have no idea what I'm doing--not that it would matter when the idea strikes my fancy. Anyway... this thing sits up on the shelf mocking me as I pass by, and taunting me whenever I try to make a little progress. It might not be so bad if I hadn't chosen an image that includes two faces, three hands, and all those tangled clusters of limbs, what!? I'm insane.  But I'm not quitting, I'm not quitting, I'm not quitting (I keep repeating this because I really, really want to--quit, that is). Maybe I'll hide this away for a couple weeks and come back to it with fresh eyes (and when I say hide, I really mean it. I don't want to see it). Anyway, I do feel a little better about Steven's left hand as a starting point. And the color really doesn't seem a

I'm not liking this one. There was a lot of variation in the position of the arms with this pose and it was throwing me off a bit. Not like I'm trying to make excuses, because I know I'm just not very good at this yet, but sometimes you could see that little section of abdomen where it turned in, sometimes you couldn't, sometimes you could see both pectoral creases there, sometimes you couldn't, etc., etc. Which I should be able to deal with, but I kept moving things around and erasing and chasing around and around. And, as per my usual, I was having a hard time getting the lower legs/feet to look right. And that's not because they were moving--no good excuses there ;) Also, I glance at that head and it just doesn't look like the model, so that bugs me. I'm not sure what's off about it, but there's definitely something. Soooo better luck next time (have I mentioned how much easier it is to copy a drawing on paper than a real living figure? h

Another couple-hour Bargue study. I'm trying to rely mostly on my eye as I do these, and not measure more than I absolutely have to (which still ends up to be quite a bit). It looks like the right shoulder is probably a little high. It's funny how it's so much easier to see the differences in the photo. Anyway, more good drawing practice, even though it's nothing too terribly exciting ;) Changing gears, I just have to say that my "sea" is the easel--or sitting around stargazing in a hot tub in Montana on a clear winter night (it'll make more sense after reading the quote below:) I just love the line about knocking peoples' hats off. How come I haven't read this book!?

Still working on trying to capture the overall sweeping rhythm of the gesture from the beginning. When I direct my focus toward rhythm, however, a lot of other things seem to fall apart ;) Practice, practice, practice.

6x6, water mixable oil on gessobord, 5/16/16 The subject matter likely reflects poorly on my housekeeping prowess. But if I kept a good eye on what was going on in the bottom drawer of the fridge at all times, I never would have ended up with this cute little subject, right? Silver linings...

While in the midst of some spring closet cleaning, I recently ran across my painting portfolio from my very last class at MSU-Billings (I needed a few more upper division credits for graduation so, of course, I went for the art credits ;). This was just about exactly 10 years ago--a six-week summer course of 3-4 hours of painting Monday-Thursday, which was the perfect way to spend my last summer at home. I can be pretty hard on myself sometimes when my vision extends so far beyond my abilities. But looking at these old paintings of mine reminds me that even though I'm not where I want to be, I have come a long way. And because I believe that you (whoever might be reading this) probably enjoy a good laugh as much as I do, I'm going to share some of these characters with you: My professor really liked this one. I remember him telling me that many of the MFA students he had taught wouldn't have been able to do this. Which cracked me up a little because I'd been to a

about 7x10" Sargent drawings are tricky to copy because so many of the lines are just fluid and lyrical--I don't worry too much about getting those ones terribly exact. On the other hand, I could probably push those facial features around teeny tiny fractions of an inch at a time for the rest of eternity! But I'm stopping here (the paper thanks me).  As I'm doing this, I'm beginning to see the way Sargent set the proportions--and I'm recognizing the method. There are all these little tick-like marks throughout the drawing--tiny straight lines. I'm doing a horrible job of putting into words what I mean. But since starting to do the sight-size stuff, I can recognize the way he's laying this drawing out. And it's really cool. So unbelievably and sickeningly good, though, it's almost maddening. Yay, Sargent :)

I was having a rough time with this one. Overall, I got most of the placement pretty close (except for the legs and feet, clearly) but it was a struggle--any confident-looking lines you see here were most likely placed by Ryan. So that's that. 

Tuesday's pose. I'm not loving the portrait or the feet. But I think (after a lot of erasing and redrawing) that the top half of the body looks as though it could feasibly fit on the bottom half. Ha ;)

I was getting ready to do another Bargue figure yesterday, but really wasn't feeling it, so I started cruising the web for Sargent drawings. I had never seen this one before, and it is just so darling. Me and babies--I just can't resist those sweet little squishy faces :) And it's a pencil drawing, which is nice because charcoal kinda scares me. I really have to be in the right mood to jump into that mess! Anyway, this is just about 45 minutes of blocking in the placement of some key areas, and it will need quite a bit of tweaking before I move on.  When I hear a song I really love, sometimes I just can't get enough of it until I pick up my guitar or uke and learn to play it on my own (and then sing it until everybody's sick of it--ask my husband ;). I've noticed a similar feeling towards my copy drawings--just can't get enough of that drawing until I've come to understand it on the level of making it my own. And Sargent, oh boy. Every little li

Alright, this thing was driving me absolutely nuts as I watched it dry on the shelf in my little studio. I either had to throw it away or try to fix it, and since I figured it might be something of a learning experience, I decided to try to fix it.  And the good news is I do like it better now than I did before. I have a tendency to over-exaggerate the angle of lines when I draw, and I have a feeling that I may also have a similar tendency of over-exaggerating value contrasts in painting. So I tried to simplify the glass and bring it down to blend with the mass of the background (also brought the value of the background up). Technique-wise, I was trying to paint things into each other as opposed to right up to each other, and well, there it is. I'm still not in love with it, but it's better, or at least, closer to what I'm going for. As long as I'm making small improvements, it's alright. This may warrant another layer of paint in a few days. It's sti

I'm still determined not to give up on this thing!! Ha. I made another pass today. It's going to need a lot more work, but I'm inching a little closer up that crazy hill (am I insane for attempting this? yes).  I swear the color isn't quite as dead as it looks in these photos (even though the limited palette is a little different, and I'm certainly not a pro). I'm having a really hard time getting photos of this one because of the extreme value differences. Of course those hands are going to need some serious refining, but I 'm trying to keep the paint thin and soft so I can go over it again and make more adjustments on the next round. I have a hard time working up the motivation to work on this thing, because I feel like I need at least a couple hours at a time to make any progress--and time is always limited.  On another note, doesn't Steve have the most beautiful features? (he just loves it when I call him pretty!). Our little girl looks

Ryan is telling me I need to base my relationships on parallel lines and "opposing thrusts" to take my drawing to the next level. Conceptually, I get it. But in practice? It could take a while.

7x5", oil on linen panel This was about a one-hour study at a park near our house (what a beautiful day!!!). Okay, I was trying to figure out why this was feeling a little bit weird to me, and I think it's because those pines in the distance are darker than the shadow on the grass in the foreground. Even though I think they were darker, this might have been a good place to force some atmospheric perspective.  Anyway, I have this new goal to try to be a little bit nicer to myself in terms of my art, so maybe I'll start playing a little twist on the Polyanna glad game in my posts and list a couple things I like about what I've done (because you know I can't resist picking it apart--maybe this will balance things out a bit ;).  I think I did a much better job of simplifying the mountain down to a manageable color mass than I have in the past--and it's a pretty color :) I kinda like that I incorporated the goal net for a little added interest--thoug

I was really loving this beautiful pose. But with about 15 minutes left of the 2 hour session, a little bat flew into the studio, which sent this animal-loving model on a wild bat chase around the room (amid shrieks from one of the other female students). I just couldn't stop laughing. They eventually caught the poor little thing and released it outside. Ha. As far as the drawing goes, I would have liked to make a little more use of those last 15 minutes! But overall, I'm not too unhappy with it. There's something a little weird about the head/neck connection and the face isn't right. Also the relation of the model's right knee to foot seems odd.,. things I may have honed in on in the last 15 minutes if not for that pesky bat ;) I'm becoming more consistent with transcribing a fairly accurate placement, but now I need to work on making the drawing more cohesive, and relating all the lines to each other as I go along to give it a better flow/rhythm.

Okay, this intensive, studious stuff is feeling a little lackluster after all that fast-paced fun with color this weekend. I'll admit, it was hard to get back into the groove yesterday afternoon. But one thing I noticed while out there painting the landscape--I'm using the principles I learn here in everything else I do, even if it doesn't always seem like it's crossing over into painting. I'm getting better at eyeballing where I want to place things on the canvas and establishing more accurate relationships from the start (though still not as accurate as I would like!). So, here I go with the Bargues again. I am going to try to paint more than I have been lately, if I can find the time! But I've gotta keep up with this kind of practice. Also, I'm getting into an almost subconscious habit of backing up every couple minutes, and that really helps catch errors along the way!  The head and shoulders are still off, but I had erased and redrawn about 5 ti

This weekend will go down in history as the best Mother's Day gift to date (hats off to the tall, dark and handsome fella who took two days off work to hold down the fort!). I went to Paradise, UT for a plein air workshop with Josh Clare. It was the first time I've  ever attended a workshop, and it was a blast. Paradise is all sorts of nestled-up-in-the-mountains gorgeous--sweeping purple-mountain views, larger than life clouds, and rustic, historic buildings every which way you turn (but if you're looking for a gas station, you're outta luck!). Josh seems like a very down-to-earth, small town kind of guy with a darling little family. They live in a charmingly restored century-old brick home (I loved that the interior doors have windows above them so the light flows from one side of the house to the other). He paints in a small studio attached to the home (killer north-facing skylight, too!). I've been admiring Josh's paintings for a while now online, and th