Stacy Weitz Minch

I'm trying out some new paper (Arches Ingres) with this little Sargent copy. It's getting to the point where the changes feel really nit-picky and subtle. So I'm really going to have to dig in and get serious :P I'm trying to imagine I'm drawing this guy from life and go about it with a similar process (Mr. Sargent has done all the hard stuff for me, so I can just focus on my process). I've been thinking about drawing from life sort of like learning a new language. For a while (from what I've heard) you have to think quite mechanically about how each word translates. But eventually you have command of the language, and you don't even have to think about it (at this point, you start dreaming in the new language, I'm told). So I think eventually I might be able to be fluent in the language of drawing, but at the moment it's still a pretty mechanical process. And sometimes things do get lost in translation. Speaking of lost in transla

This was a quick hour-long copy sketch I did yesterday afternoon in prep for portrait class last night. I forgot to take a picture of my portrait start after class. And I'll probably start over next week anyway. I had gotten the portrait basically blocked in in the first 25 minutes, and then everyone decided to tilt the head in the second session. So I should have started over, but I didn't and it's no good to draw a tilted face on a straight head. Anyway, this copy is done after a contemporary artist, and she's really good. I like how all the shapes on the face connect. It's a little mysterious to me. I'm trying to adopt this kind of thinking, and maybe I need to only look at the model with half-closed eyes for the first little while because I see too much detail/variation in the value structure (I seem to be having that trouble with my roses too!). But something I'm noticing with good painting of any genre is that the darks connect, and the lights con

I feel like I'm having a harder time getting the proportions/shapes right lately (it must be that I'm missing that Bargue!). Though I say it in jest, it's probably true. And I haven't been doing much of that kind of practice at home either. There are some proportion issues, and as usual, I've drawn her several times, but I always have a really hard time capturing this particular model's likeness. She's very pretty. But I tend to exaggerate features, and somehow the way her features are situated just isn't so amenable to being exaggerated (and again, she's quite lovely! I promise. It's just me). Also, I didn't have any lighter paper ripped as I was running out the door, so I grabbed the darker stuff, and I was having a harder time seeing my drawing on it (draw darker, Stacy! darker), which probably contributed to the proportion issues. But in the last 5 minutes I threw some white on there because, well, I had the chalk, and what did I hav

I'm just going to post the portrait today because that's mostly what I've been working on. It's still feeling pretty messy to me, and a little overdone. I'm trying to be more distinct with my shape making (key word "trying" ;). The nose/mouth/chin area is feeling funky right now. I think I need to simplify the value shape there, and refine the lips. Also her right eye socket feels like it's too round, and perhaps too dark overall.  It's probably a little late to do anything about this, but I also feel like the head is just slightly too far left, making it feel like the model is pulling her head back unnaturally, and it's just not quite right. I think that happened when I reduced the size of the head, and I wish I had caught it sooner, but for now, I'm just going to keep focusing on trying to refine the shapes and not worry too much about it. I'm a little short on time (3 more sessions on this drawing for me).

5x7", oil on linen panel Another sketch of some little pumpkins we picked up at the pumpkin patch the other day. I left the white one out this time. I don't know why it's so much easier for me to see value and temperature on brightly colored objects, but it is. I guess the variation of color/value on white is probably just a lot more subtle, so your perception needs to be much more fine-tuned. In any case, I'll keep working on that white stuff. With the pumpkins, I'm finding I have to make sure all the darks are connected, and all the lights are connected, or it looks really wonky. I don't know if that makes sense, but it does in my head. And here's a quick sketch of a cat, done from a photograph. I'm feeling the fall vibes, if you can't tell ;) 

7.5x9.5", oil on linen I'm sure I could fiddle around with this for quite a while longer, but for the sake of not overworking it, I think I'll end here. This has been a really fun copy to work on, and I hope I'll be able to transfer some of the things I learned here to my paintings from life. So much of painting is drawing, and it seems like that's where I often falter.  Here's a side-by-side, in case you're itching to see all the errors that I do ;) After watching this artist's instructional videos this weekend, I'm almost antsy to try another. But then again, maybe not. Maybe I'll try something from life (and prepare myself for an epic fail, as seems to be the case lately, ha).

I don't know why I torture myself--painting is so stupid hard :P This was a quick 30ish minute sketch, which was repeatedly interrupted by quite the collection of 5-year-old fiascos. So, fail. Maybe a ghost pumpkin wasn't the best choice for my white practice today. This is just an enormous mess on every front. So I'll just hope the next one is a little better, ha (this one is getting wiped off the panel asap--but, of course, not before I share it with the world ;)!

I've been working on this little painting copy the past few days when I get a chance. If you know much about current artists, I'm sure you recognize this one immediately ;) My copy isn't perfect--the drawing's a little off here and there, and goodness, I'm having a hard time matching the greenish hues in his grays--I want to make everything more warm. But I'm learning so much copying this. There's something very different about gazing at a painting with the intent of recreating the effect and then actually trying to do it, versus just gazing at a painting. He is very careful about the temperature of each brushstroke--it's a constant play between warm and cool, muted and more saturated (though really, almost everything is so beautifully muted to a degree). Also, there are very few flat color shapes. It's as though each brush of paint is half-mixed, creating so much variety within what would appear to be very small, simple shapes. I also love

Quick 1.5 hour portrait of one of the artists who showed up to draw. The model never showed, so this lady volunteered to sit for a portrait. I think I made the nose a little long, and it's messy. Portraits are tricky.

What is this mess of brown, you ask? Well, all that study of white reminded me that I never really resolved my problem with yellow. I had intended to copy a nice yellow floral painting, but never got around to it (I had even printed one out to copy). It always seems like a big job and one I don't really have time for, but I decided to just do it anyway, and maybe try to learn a few things, even though it's not going to be perfect. Here's the quick start (30-40 minutes this morning before the kids woke up). I hope to get a little more time on it this afternoon, but already, I'm just loving this artist's mastery of color and value and paint application. It's all so intentional and masterful--every stroke has a definite purpose, temperature, value, and place, and there's so much variety in the subtlety (no pushing around paint here ;).  And ohhh boy, here's the beginning of this month's figure drawing, 9 hours in. I have a feeling I'm not g

Don't you hate it when you discover something you're really terrible at? I do :P But I also don't--it gives me some direction and purpose in where I focus my energy. I've recently discovered that I'm pretty bad at seeing the correct values and colors in white objects. So I'm going to paint them like crazy until I don't feel so deficient. But in the meantime, check out these bad paintings! They'll get better, I promise. The first one I started in full color, which I quickly decided was a bad idea ;) So I'm down to black and white, and just trying to see all those subtle grays. It's not easy, which I guess is why I'm doing it. The drawing is pretty bad on these bowls. I've been focusing a lot more on the value, but I'm finding that when the drawing is off, it throws me off all over the place. So I just have to find a way to juggle all those different things. Practice, practice, practice :P

It's been a tough week for me. Coming out of a month of doing this full time has been a shock to my system, and I'm really trying to make the best of it, but it's rough. If it were only about me, I would do this full time. I would dive in. I would do whatever was necessary and go all the way until I was where I wanted to be. But the reality is it's not just about me. And I have to work within my present circumstances, considering everyone and everything involved. Again, kicking myself for not starting a long time ago. But no amount of kicking is going to change anything. I'm going to keep studying on a part-time basis for the time being, which will be a very good thing. It will. My progress won't be as fast or steady as it would be if I were going full time. I know that, and it's a heart-wrenching thought for me. But as I keep reminding myself the past couple years--a little bit of time here and there is infinitely more than nothing at all. And hey,

Figure drawing from last night. The face was completely in shadow, but occasionally the nose would be illuminated. I was having a hard time getting that to make sense. But here it is. Also, the pose seemed sort of similar to a Herbert Draper drawing I copied not too long ago :)

Another quick little painting. I find these two-toned fruits pretty tricky as far as color and value matching goes, especially the transition where the two tones meet. But I sure do like having that little box full of paint ready to go all the time--it seems like half the battle of painting is getting set up (and of course cleaning those brushes after-the-fact. But I don't really use too many most the time :)

4x6" Another quick oil sketch. This kind of thing is just for fun, and isn't that nice? I think I will practice more white dishes next--those subtle shades of gray. I think I need to give the grays a little more color next time, and really study those values carefully (though I may need to spend more than 20 minutes at it)...  My palette was looking pretty crazy, so thought I'd share (and I'm still pretty excited about this silly little cigar box, ha).

It seems like the camera upped the contrast on this photo, so... sorry about that. This was a 48-hour labor of love and hate and everything in-between. The first 46 hours were spent on the figure and the last two on the background and drapery, ha! In the end, I do feel a pretty significant sense of accomplishment--I've never pushed a drawing to this this level, and I learned a lot about value, subtlety, transitions, line, etc (oh, and also using charcoal :P). But there is still so much to learn and enormous room for improvement. That's an exciting and terrifying place to be. Yesterday was the last day of my scholarship at the atelier, and ohh I want to keep studying so bad. Sometimes I just feel like kicking myself for not starting this kind of thing when I was 18 or something. But hindsight's 20/20, and when I think about it, 1) I had little awareness that something like this existed or was within my reach.  And 2) I don't think I was ready for it anyway. I th

Last night's two-hour figure. I really tried to get the portrait in there, and hey what!? I nailed it. That's her. I think it helped that it was a familiar face. I've also been trying to get back into the daily painting thing. I'm a big believer in painting small and often. I read this book called "Art and Fear" a year or two ago, and the author tells a story about a pottery class where the teacher broke the class into two groups. To one group he said, "You will be graded on one pot. So try all semester to make a perfect pot." And to the other group he said, "You will be graded on how many pots you produce. So make as many pots as you can." At the end of this experiment, those who were in the "quantity" group also had produced the best pots.  There's just something about actually doing something and doing it often that is really important to improving. And something I've come to realize (over and over again) i

About 11x7.5", pencil on stonehenge paper Here's the conclusion of my four-week Wednesday night portrait of Nicole. Overall, I'm not too displeased with it. It lost some of its freshness along the way as I backtracked and corrected (this was about 11 hours with the model), but I think that will get better as I practice more. Experience should help me know where I currently stand in the drawing process and where I need to go next, which are things I sometimes struggle with. I also have a tendency to oversize features, and I think her eyes are just a little bit large in the sockets, which decreases the likeness. Maybe next time I attempt a portrait from life I will try charcoal so I can get more realistic darks in there.  Also here's my figure from Tuesday. This was a bit of a chase-y pose. The angle of the shoulders and position of the head were pretty shifty, but I did the best I could ;) 

16x20", oil on stretched canvas This little canvas was something I started in April (sorry for the weird angle/distortion--I was trying to get a shot without a lot of glare). In my opinion, the composition was way too ambitious for the depth of my experience (I mean, how many more faces, limbs, and hands could I have crammed in there? :P). And in the end, I felt there was only so far I could push it given the existing start. But I had resolved several months ago to bring it to a somewhat sensical point of existence, and this is where I believe it will stay (though I do reserve the right to change my mind ;).  It took a while to work up the motivation to finish this, but working on this painting really has been a good learning experience. I used four colors (ivory black, titanium white, yellow ochre, and cadmium red), and that was something in itself. Simplifying the color scheme helped unify the colors (though there was no way I was going to get the color of that blue

Still just trudging along with this little Bargue here. Once I have the carved hair down pretty solid, I think I'll feel a bit better about it. It's getting closer, but the progress is oh-so-slow. Especially because it's been hard to get the time in on this thing this week. Babysitters are getting harder to come by, and I have a hard time working on this for more than 2-3 hours at a time. I did put some time in on it this morning, which was nice. I always like driving around on a Saturday or Sunday morning--it's so quiet, and the roads are so empty it almost feels like home ;) Here's the progress on my long pose portrait. I was feeling sort of paralyzed on this thing for quite a bit of the week. But yesterday I finally just shut my brain up and drew for a bit. I want to do things correctly and do them in the right order, but I'm going to have to find a way to strike a balance between following my intuition and following correct principles. If I get thin