Stacy Weitz Minch

Tonight's figure.

"In a time of destruction, create something." -Maxine Hong Kingston I won't go into details here, but I was pretty distracted while working on this. Thankfully, it gave me something with which to occupy my hands on a difficult day. So while there's a lot I could pick apart about it, I'm not going to. The world seems a whole lot bigger right now than this drawing's imperfections. Here's the painting this study was used for--that shining armor, whew. Stunning. "Lamia" (first version) by Waterhouse

In Birge Harrison's book on landscape painting, he tells a story of a young painter who came to him and told him he was quitting painting. For months this fellow hadn't turned out anything worth looking at, and he felt it wasn't worth trying anymore--he was throwing in the towel. Birge replies, "My dear fellow, I congratulate you. If your pictures had not already shown you the consummate painter, you have just given me the most inconvertible proof of the fact. You are simply soaked in temperament. Get down on your knees, my boy, and thank your lucky stars for that. If the pendulum has swung unconscionably low at present, you may rest assured that it will swing all the higher on the return stroke. The only man who never doubts himself, who plugs stolidly on to his goal, deviating neither to right nor to left, is the man who is born wholly without temperament. If he never falls to any depths of despair, neither does he rise to any heights of glory, and if he is neve...

7x5", oil on linen panel Ha, well, plein air painting is hard. Painting flowers in plein air, harder. Painting YELLOW flowers in plein air, impossible (at least if you're me). I think I went way too dark on the background. The shadows seemed really dark out there in the sunshine, but I overdid it.  Sometimes I get to a certain point and just don't know how to move forward from there... soooo I don't. This is looking like a very rudimentary underpainting, and I froze at this point.  The light had changed pretty drastically (dappled shade) by the time I got here, so it seemed that if I tried to make it more complete I would have to change it completely. On the positive side, I don't think the drawing of the flower was really all that bad. Those petals all fit together pretty much how they should have, so that's something anyway ;) But I apologize if you come here looking for pretty pictures. It's not always pretty here.

I wrote a paragraph about this last night when I was pretty worked up for no particular reason. But I thought better of posting it in the moment ;) I can get a little depressive about this sometimes--the thought of doing what I want to do and actually doing it well is just really daunting. And somehow, standing at an easel working over a flailing drawing for two hours provides ample opportunity for overthinking.  I know I shouldn't get so worked up about this stuff. It's irrational, and I know it. I'm doing fine for the amount of time I've been trying. That one semester of figure drawing when I was 16 wasn't really much prep for what I've been learning here. It's a crazy steep learning curve, so it's silly to be so hard on myself. I know that. But then, there have been other thoughts I've known were completely irrational at the time, and that knowledge didn't stop me from thinking them over and over and feeling their effects. I'm not...

When I started this copy, I was pretty exhausted, and the next time I went to work on it, whew, there were a lot of errors that needed to be fixed (like, for instance, her right arm being about 1/4" too short, ha!). I probably should have just started over :P But I didn't, so I struggled through the mess. I think the darker gray paper was throwing me off a bit--I really haven't done much of the darker gray + white thing. The way all the different landmarks were tilted at different angles was pretty difficult too. I wanted to straighten everything more toward the vertical or horizontal. And the foreshortening of the legs--tricky.  I had a lot more trouble with this copy than I usually do, is what I'm trying to say. I almost quit halfway through, but decided to keep pushing. That deliberate persistence is really important if I'm going to get better at this stuff. I really believe that. And I hope I'm building my confidence for problem solving by pushing ...

"Don't be afraid of taking measurements. Every one who did anything worth looking at took measurements." -Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst This horizontal pose was super tricky for me--I've gotten kind of used to setting proportions on the vertical, sight size (I hope it's not becoming a crutch, but I'm just gonna go ahead and assume it's not since I think, in general, my eye for proportions is getting a lot better because of the sight size stuff I've been doing). It did take me a little longer to get the proportions looking relatively okay, because I was doing a lot of comparative measuring and angle checking (and the head is still a bit small--I didn't have time to correct it, and didn't dare do it without the model in front of me ;) . It's good to shake it up and see what I can do without the scaffolding of sight size, anyway. But for a while there, I was thinking this drawing would end up looking pretty scary, ha. As it is, I don'...

8x8", water mixable oil on canvas panel Quick little sketch of a sunflower. This was purely for fun. I wasn't too careful about the drawing on this guy (it's hard to be when you only spend an hour on something). My main goal with my painting these days is just to get a better sense for color. Not much else to say, except sorry (again) for the bad photo quality. I'm too lazy to use anything but the iPhone camera these days.

I guess I had a good start to one of the feet here... but the face just wasn't going to happen. Sometimes I feel alright about all this stuff, and sometimes I feel like donning a turtle shell and burying my cute little turtle head for a while. The latter is the way I've been feeling lately. And not because of the way these drawings or anything else I've been working on have been going--I think I'm making slow, steady progress, and that's alright.  It's just that I'm a textbook introvert, and doing this kind of thing tends to feel like I'm coming out of myself, which is something that can make me a little uncomfortable. When you're an introvert, a lot of things are uncomfortable. It doesn't mean they aren't worth doing. But it does mean sometimes I feel like retreating. Stephen Hawking says, "Quiet people have the loudest minds." I couldn't tell you how many times someone has told me, "You're so quiet."...

Here I'm beginning a copy of "Study for a Bather" after Herbert Draper (maybe an hour or so in?). The start is always kind of fun, and then it gets all nitty gritty, when you have to adjust all these teeny tiny subtle differences (oh boy, I can see a bunch already ;) Anyway, I've had this taped up on here for a few days at least, and it's a little slow going. A mother's time is always short, but August is   a whirlwind.  Doing copies isn't necessarily the funnest thing in the world (it can be pretty boring, actually). But, as long as I feel like I'm learning a lot from doing them, I'll keep it going. And let's hope I can sneak a few more minutes in on this one before the week is over.

6x4", water mixable oil on linen panel I just wanted to do a quick little sketch tonight while we were watching the Olympics. I had my lamp in the opposite corner of my teeny tiny dormer window studio, and I really liked how it was actually making shadow shapes in the petals of the rose. So I decided to leave it there, even though the thought ran through my head "But I should be painting in the same light that is falling on the subject." Listen to that little voice, Stacy! ha. Clearly, I didn't listen. Subject, lighted. Canvas, in shadow. Not good. Here's a rather sad little progression of how things went down. But the good news is that, from what I hear, experience is the best teacher--perhaps I won't make that mistake again? I wouldn't necessarily count on it, but I'll try to remember ;) (also, don't paint with transparent colors in the dark)     And while we're on the subject of flowers, late last night I read t...

Unlucky #13! Alright, this may not be the greatest copy I've ever done, but I was feeling pretty lucky just to be standing behind the easel for an hour to get a little drawing in and re-center. But my eyelid is doing that weird and annoying twitching thing today, which means I could probably use a nap. I'm thinking this guy is holding one of those old-fashioned oil lamps they used to use (either that or a seashell)? Either way, my mind is on the sea. I finished reading Moby Dick about a week ago, so I know all about the special whale oil they put in those lamps:  “For God's sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was spilled for it.”    Whew. Honestly, I haven't had so much trouble finishing a book since I  read The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 10th grade and ended up quitting a mere 20 pages from the end--I just couldn't take it anymore (and I needed to start writing a book report, so I...

Argh. Another off-night here. I was trying really hard to tie it all together, but never felt like I got it quite synced up. It's been super busy at my house, so I haven't had time to work on anything outside of these drawing sessions. I think that makes a big difference. Better luck next week! And maybe another Bargue figure or two this weekend to get me back in the swing.

Maybe I ingested a little too much sugar and campfire smoke this weekend... Or maybe I hadn't touched a pencil in 5 days. Whatever the reason, this drawing was a bit of a struggle. My inner critic wants to be a monster about it, but let's just not go there. I was recently introduced to the work of Brene Brown, and I'm loving her stuff right now--she focuses on the effects of shame, and how being authentic and vulnerable is the way to overcome those feelings. I've been forging my own journey of authenticity and soul searching the past couple years, and let me tell you, this lady is a kindred spirit. Look up her TED talks--good stuff. I think authenticity is absolutely crucial to good living, and to good art. She quoted Theodore Roosevelt at the beginning of one of her talks, and I really loved the quote: So hush, inner critic. It's tough to chase after something that is actually deeply meaningful to you--putting yourself out there is always a risk. But wh...

6x6", oil on canvas panel (sorry for the glare. again) I was hoping to try to capture this beautiful turquoise lake (and even try a sunset!) in paint during our camping trip this weekend, but we got a pretty good rainfall in the evening ;) So the little bit of lake peeking out from behind this stump will have to do, ha.  I quickly sketched this in about an hour while my baby was sleeping--and my sister and her husband set up their camp chairs behind me and made a rather attentive audience while I was painting this, which was sort of interesting (for me, not them, ha ;).  But seriously, I had never seen such turquoise blue water in a lake . It looks like the Caribbean (but don't be fooled--the water is COLD). My sister discovered this hidden gem during an underwater modeling shoot and fell in love with it. Anyway, we had a great weekend hiking with the kids, paddle boarding, getting dirtier than I like to recall, toasting marshmallows while chatting over a sparks-fly...

I got the basic block-in down a little quicker here, so I had more time to develop this one. I'm trying to pay attention to line quality. What I'm told is that harder areas of shadow or overlap require darker, sharper lines, whereas softer turns of form and softer transitions, softer, lighter lines. Makes sense in theory, but applying those suggestions is a little more difficult than talking about them. I just want to look at the value of what I'm seeing and copy what I think I'm seeing. But approaching it this way requires a little more thought and theory than copying what I see, sort of. I think? Since it's more of a simplification/abstraction of what's there. Or maybe it is what's there, and I'm inferring more than is actually visible. Anyway, it's all rather ambiguous in my brain right now. So I'll just keep plugging along ;)

I'm trying to economize more and say a lot with a little. It's hard to do. And speaking of economizing, I'm a little low on words right now. So since a picture's worth a thousand, I'll just let this one speak for itself.

11x7.5", pencil on paper I started this copy about a week ago and it's been going pretty slowly (just because it's so hard to find the time lately--when does school start again!?). I ended up staying up a little too late last night finishing it up because I was getting pretty sick of it hanging around. I definitely chose the wrong texture of paper for copying the original, and I have a feeling the original may have been a bit smaller than I made it here, just based on the lines and such. I was trying to do a little less measuring this time around. Which resulted in my oversizing everything like I do. Point being, this didn't end up being the most accurate copy. It's after Frank Dicksee's study for his painting "Chivalry." I always love seeing peoples' progress shots, so just in case this interests anyone, here are mine. And Dicksee's painting from this study down below :)   Photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:...