Stacy Weitz Minch

Last night's 2-hour figure. I'm getting a little more used to figuring out the proportions with seated poses. Setting the widths can be a little tricky. Once I get a couple things set on the plumb line, I use those points to check the angles on the wider parts of the pose (like that foot off to the right), which seems to work better than trying to measure directly from the plumb line. But this probably makes no sense to anyone but me so I'll just stop here, ha ;)

I don't know what to say about this... except that it's done! And a new one's up on the board. And I left this one sitting precariously on a chair in the studio (oops ;).

Here's where I think I'm going to leave this little portrait of Noah (affectionately referred to as "Nosey" by those who know and love him ;). I've tried to work my paintings in layers before, and it's always been something of a big mess. It seems like this one went a little better, and I think what was different was that I was really careful about the drawing on the first layer and left the paint pretty thin and middle/average mass value, for the most part. So the second layer was more about getting specific about the smaller value and color shifts and building up a little more paint. Working general to specific--it's amazing how these concepts apply to everything ;) Anyway, I'm going to leave it a little painterly for fear of overdoing the "from photo" painting effect, and because my sis likes that painterly look. It helps tremendously to start with a decent photo, which I did--this pup's owner is a good photographer.

Have you ever watched an infant trying to coordinate his hands? Maybe he's trying to reach for a toy, or reacting to a bit of excitement. But those hands (and feet!) go flailing all over the place. And sometimes he doesn't mind his flailing, and he seems to be having fun. But sometimes he gets this look of frustration on his face, like in some abstract way, he's thinking, "I know I should be able to do this. I should be able to control these hands!!!" The great thing about babies is that they just never give up. They keep flailing until little by little they gain a bit of control (what choice do they have?). And before you know it, they're climbing the pantry shelves to raid the candy bowl ;) The other day I was looking at the front page of my blog and clicked on the flipcard view, which shows all the posts in little tiny squares. In a matter of about two seconds, I scrolled through the entire contents of my blog for the past two or so years--practically

2-hour figure from last night. I don't think I quite got the proportions right on the upper torso/head area. But there's always next time. Male proportions are still a little tricky for me.

My sister asked me to paint a portrait of her puppy a couple years ago, and I'm just getting around to it. I might have done it sooner, but I lack confidence in my ability to pull something off. And rightfully so. I haven't been at this whole painting thing very long, so trying to do something to fill somebody else's expectations feels like a tall order. But for her, I figured I would give it a try, since I can always trash it and start again later (I've done it before, and I'll do it again!). I painted a pet portrait for her a couple years back, after our little family chihuahua passed away. I made a lot of mistakes (like painting under incandescent light and not realizing there were warm vs. cool reds... oops), but still, the fact that I did it at all sort of felt like a fluke, and it came from a place I didn't really have conscious control over. Totally in the "zone" for that guy, which is kind of cool, and also kind of scary. What is that magi

Sorry to bore you with progress shots. I know very well that the changes at this point are not very exciting. Working on this Bargue has been rather trying on my patience, and there's this part of me that feels like I will never ever finish it. I'm sure it's not true, but that's how it feels. I feel like I could continue making small adjustments on this thing forever and never get there. It's never going to be exactly alike. At what point to you say, "Good enough?" I know the point of call is much later than what I traditionally have done--just not sure where or how far away that is :P And here's my long figure pose. I might get one more day on this next week if I'm lucky (things are a little crazy next week). I've worked on this one for 30 hours so far. This extended drawing is a test of patience as well, and I'm trying so, so hard. That's all I can do, I guess. At any rate, I guess it's good that the weekend has come arou

Last night's figure. Thankfully, the flu bug lasted less than 24 hours, and I'm feeling pretty good now. I showed up to work on my extended figure drawing yesterday, only to find that the model had come 3 hours early that day and had just left :P. Anyway, since I had driven all the way there, I hung around and worked on my Bargue for a few hours before the evening model showed. It's at the point where the changes I make are feeling pretty subtle on that Bargue, and I guess that's a good thing. But this drawing. When I get far enough to do it, I've been trying to focus more on line quality and describing the effect of the light with as little information as possible. I have an idea of where I want to be, but getting there can feel pretty haphazard sometimes. It's amazing how many times you (or, at least, I) have to fumble through something before it starts to make sense. Drawing something to look real requires so much mental abstraction.

Hm, I was having a hard time with this pose last night. And when I got home, I found that one of my kids had been throwing up all evening. Then I woke up at 5AM with the same bug, and my other child came down with it this morning too. On top of that, my husband has some other sickness . So, maybe my equilibrium was just a little off last night. Anyway, the model liked the drawing, so I sent it home with her. Better luck next time. And I'm hoping this is only a 24 hour thing, yuck :P

These are low-light studio shots, but a lot of my creative time has been spent here lately. I have a few things going right now--a portrait, an extended figure pose, and my Bargue drawing (which I forgot to take a picture of). I actually think I'm getting pretty close to finishing that Bargue (knock on wood). On the first night of this portrait (right), the head got tilted after I blocked it in, so I started over the next time the model came in. I decided to switch over to pencil after the first attempt, since it's just more familiar and I knew I would only have two sessions on it. This is my current extended figure drawing (along with some GCA inspiration on the right of my board--Colleen Barry drawing up top, and Kevin Muller Cisneros on the bottom, and some drawing guidelines from Colleen in the middle there :). This is extended figure #2 for me, and there is so much yet to learn, yikes. I've had a bout 27 hours on this one so far. I mostly worked the he

10x8", oil on panel I felt like doing a landscape yesterday, so I pulled out a photo from a trip to Bryce Canyon a couple years ago. We were there on Valentine's Day, and it was beautiful weather (at least in the afternoon--pretty unusual for February!). I was into shooting film at the time, and I took lots of photos (always with the idea in the back of my mind that I could paint them sometime--film had a better dynamic value range than digital, at least a couple years ago, and my digital camera is about 8 years old now). This particular reference photo was from a hike on the bristlecone pine loop. Bristlecone pines are some of the longest living organisms on earth. They can be up to 5,000 years old. And they grow in the rockiest of terrain. I always feel a little floored when I think about something that's been around that long (though this tree definitely looked among the smaller/younger ones on the loop). Here stands this little tree on the very edge of a cliff

5x7", oil on linen panel I woke up at 5AM this morning, laid around a little while trying to get back to sleep, then decided to get up and paint for a bit before everyone else woke up. Pomegranates always get me. They're just the prettiest. I think I might fiddle with that cast shadow more a little later. I haven't painted much lately and I kind of forgot about that panic state of every painting, where it feels like it will never ever come together (I think that's about where I ended with my awful painting yesterday). But it's still a surprise every time, ha. And why was I up at 5AM? I don't know. I wish I could figure out a way to predict and prevent my discouragement and anxiousness regarding all this stuff, but it comes in waves (and for no apparent reason).

Playing a little bit of catch-up today. This was a little figure I copied earlier this week. The artist I was copying is someone I've been following on Instagram - Tony Sketcha (if that's his real name, that's pretty cool ;). I really like his stuff. The way he interpreted this figure is so so pretty, like she's coming out of the mist or something. And it's not too mysterious when you really look at it--all the shadows just fade into a flat-ish value, which is really cool (though I'm guessing he took a little artistic license with the lower half of her face. And I say flat-ish because there definitely is some variation). But having the foresight to be able to do that from the get-go? That's something mysterious ;). My daughter looked at one of my figure drawings today and said, "It looks really easy when you look at it. But not when you try to draw it." Pretty good insight for a 5-year-old. I taped up my paper right next to the printed off

Last night's figure. We haven't had a male figure model for a while, and it was a little tricky to get his proportions down (one of the other students laughed out loud when I mentioned that, but I'm serious, ha). After a while, you start to get a mental representation of the proportions in a figure, and not having drawn a male figure for a while, I think my mental rubric was just a little rusty. I spent a while chasing this pose too. This guy was trying to relax into one hip, but it ended up being more of a whole body lean, which shifted quite a bit. I've been reading a few Steven Pressfield books lately-- The War of Art , Do the Work , and now  Turning Pro . He talks about any artistic pursuit (or pursuit of a dream) as being a war, in that there are always multiple levels of resistance you're working against. And isn't that true? Resistance from society and circumstance, from the people around you, and most importantly, from within yourself. Artistic

I think I mentioned I was trying out some new paper with this one. I don't know a lot about charcoal, but I do like the way this paper takes the medium. The only trouble is that it's really difficult to lift the charcoal once it's laid on the paper. Seems like the eraser just pushes the charcoal further into the paper fibers, leaving a smudgey looking gray. So that's not the best if you need to erase much. But that could be the soft willow charcoal I was using too... I don't know. Funny enough, working on this portrait was reminding me of working with watercolor--starting with the lights and leaving them on the paper, then slowly building up the darks. I did my best to get an accurate copy, but like I said, erasing was a little tricky with this stuff. So it feels a little off. But mostly I'm working on figuring out this charcoal stuff, so I'm fine with it. It's interesting how something can be really spot on as far as measurements go, but look l

8x8", willow charcoal on hahnemule ingres paper I've been trading babysitting with a neighbor so I can run over for figure drawing sessions a couple afternoons a week. This little guy is a sweet baby. He doesn't usually nap while he's over here, but when he fell asleep in the last 15 minutes that he was here yesterday, I quickly grabbed whatever drawing utensils I could find at the moment and did a 15-minute sketch from life. I snapped a photo with my phone before he moved, so I fiddled with it for another couple hours between last night and today, trying to improve the likeness. I really don't like drawing from photos most the time, but it's better if I can get a start from life. I'm finding that the overall shape of the head is just as important to achieving a likeness of a person as the placement of the features (and that's where most of the fiddling was done on this one--the head shape, I mean). Also, I'm still trying to figure out ch

I started this one pretty small so I'd be able to develop it a little more than I usually do. When working small, you have to be so much more exact about the placement of your lines. The width of a line can make or break the likeness, and I don't think I quite got her. But It was fun to push it a little further than I usually do anyway.

I haven't drawn a draped figure from life for a while. So this was a fun challenge, and just really, really pretty :) I wish I had gotten the portrait locked in a little tighter, but I did as well as I could in a couple hours.

Last night we did our annual viewing of the movie Casper , and all that talk about "unfinished business" just kept reminding me of what this poor drawing is bound to become (and where my current Bargue copy still lies!) :/ Oy. I'm attending this class part-time, which means I have half the time everyone else does, and this is the last week. I've totally destroyed that hand. I don't even know what to do about it except start over and get rid of the sausage-link effect, but I just don't have the time. I feel like there's some foundationally weird something going on with the legs/feet (not that you can really see it here). And overall, the whole drawing just feels  disjointed. Which might be okay if I had two more weeks of work. But since I have a mere 3 hours left, I don't know. I guess I'll just do what I can. And maybe get that portrait a little closer to reality (which is much nicer than what I have here, though I think I'm getting a litt