Stacy Weitz Minch

I was having some fun with the Flipagram app the other day...

I'd really kind of like it if my window wasn't placed in such a way that everything I set up ends up being very softly back lit. I mean, I'm sure it's really great for helping me see subtlety and all, but sometimes I'd just like a big old drastic shadow, you know? Anyway, I don't mean to complain. It's a very nice window and I'm glad I have it. I'm very fortunate to be one of the few humans in this world who have the means to paint at all. I decided to use a limited palette for this mini sketch session (50 minutes for both roses). So I had white, black, naphthol red, and yellow ochre on my palette. It's kind of cool to see what that simple color combo can do. Not that this was a very complex subject as far as color goes. But it does somewhat simplify your color decisions to have just a few piles of paint on the palette. Painting is so stinking hard. It's something I realize more and more each time I try. But someday I'll be a

I was still feeling a little drained from that stomach bug last night, but I'm glad I got out and drew anyway (though by the end of the session, the couch was sounding mighty nice). Anyway, I brought this through the door and the first thing my husband said was, "Hey, it's me." Ha. It does bear a slight resemblance (more in the drawing than in person, I'd say).  Anyway, line quality. I'd like to figure this out. I think I spend so long just trying to get the drawing down accurately, I don't have time to think about it. And it would be optimal to multitask and see the line quality at the same time as the proportions, but that might be a little too much to ask of myself at the moment. I guess what needs to happen is I get the figure down a little quicker so I can have more time to really notice the gradation of line. But this one took a while to block in. I'll blame it on the fatigue and lingering feeling of off-ness (because one must always ass

vine charcoal and white chalk on gray paper I knew I was feeling off Tuesday night, and when I woke up all queasy-like in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday, I suddenly realized why. Being sick on Wednesday was a bummer, because I was really kind of hoping to go catch a portrait session in the evening (I really like the look of the model that was coming), but no such luck. Instead I sketched this squirmy little darling (I like his look too... but he doesn't give me much time). He rolled over before I got to refining the legs/feet, so they're pretty wonky. This was probably somewhere around 30ish minutes. Tricky foreshortening. And I know my charcoal work is a mess. I have no idea what I'm doing--I just go for it, no eraser or anything, yikes.  The one nice thing about sick days is all the snuggles. But hey, universe, enough sickness already--I thought we were supposed to get a break from being sick in the summer.

This one started out slow, and ended up a little messier than I would have liked, but here it is. My paper was a little bent for some reason, so it was popping away from the board a little bit, slipping each time I touched it, and making all my marks messy, even with tape on every side. Good thing to remember for the future--straighten out that paper... And I'll try to do a better job on the portrait (and everything else) on Thursday :P

This drawing has a much tighter line quality than the little Bargue studies I've been doing lately--such a beautiful body too :) Looking at what women wore back then, it's hard to believe such lovely shapes could have possibly resided under all that yardage of fabric, but I guess they did. And I printed out a couple copies of the reference drawing--one lighter, one darker, and tried to find a happy medium between the two. The images I found online had a lot of variation, so I did the best I could with what I had. I had to look up the story of Clytie since I was curious about this painting. Clytie, in Greek mythology, was a water nymph and lover of Helios, the sun. Helios dumped Clytie for someone else. Clytie tattled to the new lover's father about her affair with Helios, and the father had his daughter buried alive in the sand (since she had been 'ruined' by Helios). Clytie thought Helios would come back to her after his new lover was out of the picture, but

Well, I'm not particularly loving this figure (or the portrait either, ha). I'm tired, I got thrown up on twice in the middle of the night last night, and this whole thing was just sort of bumming me out tonight.  I'm really tired of wondering why I bother with pursuing art. It's got to stop. Yes, there are quite likely a zillion people in this world who will do this better than I ever will. Fine. But no one will ever do it just the same as I would, so can't that just be enough?

4x6" "I'm always doing that which I cannot do in order that I may learn how to do it." -Picasso.  What he said. About 45 mintues on this one :P

This one I almost kind of like... mostly because it seems to be moving in the general direction of having enough information to describe the form without feeling either uncomfortably incomplete or gaudy. My natural tendency is to overstate things--angles, values, etc., and I really admire the beautifully understated, yet natural drawings I've seen. That's the goal, and while there are still things I'd change here...  maybe? it's just a baby step closer to where I want to be :)

Well, my babies and I were wandering through the grocery store yesterday morning in search of some sundry items when this beautiful yellow rose caught my eye. Now I haven't been too successful at painting yellow flowers in the past. But for some strange reason, my past failures just make me want to paint them all the more (I don't know why I like to torture myself, but I sure do ;). What I've concluded today is that the subtlety of a yellow flower is probably just a little beyond what my eye can currently accurately see. Or maybe a little beyond what I can successfully translate into paint (clearly). But then again, I'm not going to get any better at seeing the yellows if I just avoid them. Most of the torture of painting something difficult like this isn't in the actual struggle of finding the right colors and values--it's in battling the inner voice that makes me want to just quit trying when things get tough. The mind can be a vicious place, but al

It seems that life is always feast or famine in some way or another, and this past weekend has been a flurry of out-of-town visitors. We're sort of an island here in terms of having family around, so I'm always happy to have visitors, but I would love it if they could evenly space their visits throughout the entire year so I could consistently have company to look forward to... pretty please? ;)  Well, life doesn't work like that... however nice it would be (maybe) if it were always steady and predictable. Life is a roller coaster. And when it all comes down to it, I really do like roller coasters (just not those horrible little spinny carnival rides--I can't hack those anymore--though I can't quite see their parallel to life at the moment--maybe just letting it get too predictable and spinning around in nauseating circles of vertigo, ha). That's a long way of saying that I didn't have much time this weekend, but I did manage to squeeze in an ho

Okay, I may have gotten just a little overly-zealous on this one--I swear sometimes that pencil has a mind of its own ;) This was a really cool pose, though.

5x7", water mixable oil on linen board Strawberries have such great individual character. Whenever I arrange them to paint, it feels like they're huddled in some kind of social gathering. This particular situation is something quite relate-able to human experience--at least my human experience. And I'd be willing to bet I'm not the only one :) This was a pretty quick little sketch--maybe 30ish minutes. Here are a couple behind the scene photos.

I've spent most of my waking hours this past week curled up on the couch with my feverish baby boy, catching up on all of his favorite PBS Kids TV shows... and doing a little reading when he lets me.  It would be hard for me to get too many baby snuggles. And I do like reading (and boy do I love watching Curious George's A Very Monkey Christmas 17 times the same week, haha!). But all that sitting does get a little overly sedentary. So it was nice to get out and draw last night. And I'm not too unhappy with this one, really. I wish I had had a little more time to refine the hands/arms and feet, but then, I'm always wishing for more time :)

“There is freedom waiting for you, On the breezes of the sky, And you ask "What if I fall?" Oh but my darling, What if you fly?”  ― Erin Hanson I almost distinctly remember the time that I decided I just  could not be  an artist. It was about 12 years ago on a cold and unbelievably-windy November day in Chicago. I was 18, and I had spent an entire day wandering the galleries at the Art Institute of Chicago's art museum. It was the best day, really. I remember standing in front of beautiful painting after beautiful painting, just staring at brushstrokes--I had never seen real paintings up close like that before, and I could  feel  them--I could see the artist at work there, and it was almost mind-blowing. I was completely overwhelmed. I wanted to soak it all in. I wanted to be a part of it. But there was this pervasive thought that kept running through my mind: "I could never do this." I wonder, now, why that thought--"I could never do

12x9", charcoal & white on gray paper This sweet little fella has been chanting the mantra "I need you" almost incessantly the past few days, which generally means, "hold me and don't put me down." Poor guy--just about breaks a mama's heart :( He finally fell asleep curled up on the rocking chair, so I grabbed some charcoal and sketched him quickly (about 12-15 minutes, I think).  I haven't been doing a lot of quick sketches lately. But I think the more careful study I've been doing these past few months is definitely helping when I go to draw something more quickly. And the charcoal is not something I'm very comfortable with, but I think I could learn to like it :)

About 10x8", pencil on paper Well it's been a hectic few days over here. My baby is still sick... and the way my sleep schedule has been turned upside down lately is making me feel like I'm suffering from some crazy jet lag (unfortunately no fun trip to show for it). Apart from checking Instagram WAY too many times a day (some little sick people like to be held at all times), I've also been working on this little drawing of my sister when nap time comes around, just to give my hands something to do and keep me sane. It's reminding me a lot of assignments from high school and introductory college art classes--you know, grab a picture out of a magazine and copy it? I also thought this might look really good on the back of an off-brand drawing pencil box at a big box craft store. My future is looking bright, folks ;)  The reason I'm not loving it right now is probably just because I drew it (the problem is real). But joking aside, also because it just g

This girl is a gymnast and she's just lovely, but it was a tricky pose (mostly the legs and feet) to nail down. And after looking at it this morning, I realized the head was (still) looking too big... so I whittled it down a bit after the fact--it's messy and still not looking quite right to me, but oh well.   Also, we spent half the night in the ER last night with a sick baby boy (we were a little worried about appendicitis, but turns out all was fine--likely just a viral GI thing). Anyway, another night of minimal sleep. Let's hope for a nap or two this weekend (and please forgive the big grease spot in the corner of my paper... mom life ;).

I think the hardest thing to learn about drawing so far has been setting the initial dimensional limit and sticking to it--getting the proportions to fit within that limit with no fudging. Second, to get the width correct relative to the set vertical limit (I tend to lean towards making things too wide). Third, incorporating the subtle nuances of line and edge quality and such, which is rough water into which I am just beginning to navigate.  But there I go trying to rank all these aspects of good drawing, when in reality, every little part of it is incredibly challenging and inseparably related (which is probably partly why I find it so irresistible--I do love a good challenge :).

Eventually, I just had to buckle down, quit stressing about the perfect nuance of expression, and finish this thing before it sat there on the easel for the rest of the summer. I was starting to feel a little paralyzed by its presence, and that's never good! So I attacked all those remaining fluid lines with a fervor ;) I like to finish things and get them out of my hair--an unfinished something lying around can really eat at my nerves. So, here. Imperfect, yes, but at a point where I don't want to touch it anymore--finished? Sure.  I think my printer makes things a lot darker than they should be, so that's a problem. The HB pencil doesn't match the blacks that my printer puts out, so that makes it feel a bit different (and no doubt quite different from the original), and there are subtle differences in the portrait. But despite the imperfections, these studies are good practice in drawing, and they fit into my crazy summer schedule right now. So if they're

I've been working on this little copy on and off for the past week in very short bursts. As a parent, summer is just rough. I wish I could be better at creating a routine and sticking to it and giving my kids the structure that seems to be what their little brains crave. I could do better. I'll try to do better, but it's hard to change the way I approach my life--which seems to be a little more "go with the flow" than pulling out a daily planner and mapping out my time every week or morning (and planning meals? Ha! I guess that's a thing). Anyway. Five-year-olds want a map of what is going to happen each day, and right when they wake up in the morning (at least mine does). And, btw, it had better be something fun ;) So this copy. I feel like it reflects my harried state of mind right now. I'll keep working on it. But it's not singing for me yet. I feel like my copy is looking almost sardonic in expression, whereas the original is so sweet and

It's not every day you meet someone named Beccafer (must be a combo of Rebecca and Jennifer)! She's very good at holding a pose. It's usually a figure pose on Thursdays, but the model was thinking she had been asked to sit for a portrait, so that's what we did. I don't feel like I quite captured her likeness--I think there was probably just slightly more fullness/width on the right side of her face. And again, I was struggling a bit with how to approach blocking in those masses. I think I zone in on each little area too much when I'm trying to see the value, and lose sight of the whole--like trying to include the graded value on the eyelid, when just blocking in a solid mass gives a truer impression of the thing--at least at first. I don't know why simplification is so difficult a thing, but it is. Anyway, I clearly didn't finish, but this is as far as it's gonna get . And that pink glow on the bottom of the image is just the reflection