Stacy Weitz Minch

15 hours down, 5 to go--I'm working as quickly as I can. Spent the first hour or so yesterday working the portrait, then started keying down the values. In the next few hours I'll try to tie the values together, refine my charcoal marks and bring more dimension to the drawing. But I don't have a lot of time, so...

I think I'm getting pretty close to saying "done" on this copy. I might make one more pass after this layer dries to soften some transitions and make a few temperature corrections and such. But that's a maybe. I don't know. I'm kind of ready to move on to something else, I think. This has been a really good learning experience. But again, I feel like painting is about 97% drawing. Especially when copying something like this. The drawing has to be pretty close, and that's what I've spent most my time on. But I've been working through some issues with the color on this one too. I was at a drawing session a few weeks back. This was taped up on my board and one of the artists mentioned how much more yellow my print was than the original (he had seen it in person), and that the skin tones in the original seemed to be very simple pinks (I've looked up a few images online, and the one I'm copying from seems much darker than some others too, b...

  brown col-erase pencil on strathmore 400 3 hour portrait start. It definitely doesn't match the image I had in my head starting out ;) The light changed pretty significantly throughout the sitting (partial natural light to start before the sun set). Also, this was done at an event where people were milling about looking at art and occasionally watching us draw--which honestly doesn't bother me at all, except that I just couldn't back up as much as I  usually would because there were often people standing quite close behind me. And I think the drawing suffered a bit for that. Some of the features feel a little askew, so I wish I'd had a little more time to finesse the placement of the features (I put those eyes in during the last 15 minutes, and they need some work). Maybe I'll try to make some corrections from memory later. This is actually quite a bit larger than I've been drawing portraits lately. Drawing larger is actually more natural for me. And w...

  I'm about 12 hours into this one now, with 8 to go next week (that is, if life goes according to plan...). Since there's not much time left, I think I'll really try to hone in on the portrait during one session (which I was just starting to do) and go from there.  The feet are looking too big to me. And it's just hard to keep these long poses from feeling stuffy and awkward. I get frustrated with myself sometimes because I feel like I lose the unity of the drawing along the way. It looks like I worked a little here and there, etc--some of the value structure is feeling pretty spotty. I just want it all to fit comfortably together, and it's hard to maintain that unity. I really haven't had much time on this one, so it's fine. But I'm hoping I can manage a little more time in the model room with the next pose.

  Here's a 3-hour drawing from another week of structure class. I started over this week so I could work a little bigger--this basically fills an 18x24" sheet of paper. Setting the proportions without the structure of sight size is scary. But learning things like how to divide up the figure into quadrants to find proportion is really a good thing. Even though each figure will be a little different from the standard, it gives a jumping off point for finding the proportions when you're drawing more freestyle.  I like how in this class we start the drawing with a "chief line" or sweeping gesture line. It helps keep the overall thrust of the rhythm in mind while building up the shapes of the figure. I feel like rhythm is something I often struggle to hold onto working sight size. One of the instructors posted a video outlining the steps of the drawing, and he mentioned which landmarks you follow when drawing the chief line, and that was super helpful. For some reason...

Figure from the evening session last night. I'm trying to figure out how to handle the values when the figure is in full lighting. There was only a small sliver of core shadow on the left side of that arm and leg. So the usual method of breaking up the masses with the terminating line didn't apply. Maybe the thing to do is treat the halftones like the terminating line, but they are just so much softer and blend more seamlessly from one to the other, so it's more difficult to make a judgment call on where they begin and end.

Sorry if these posts are boring--I find it helpful to organize my thoughts, in writing, about the drawing as it progresses. I've had very little time to work on this drawing (7 of the 27 hours so far, ha!), and yet I feel like it's a completely different drawing every time I work on it. I'm almost pretty sure it's only getting worse. I'm in the process of inching the legs left, so please ignore them. The shapes are really weird at this point, and I need to thin them out (I always tend toward too wide at first). The pit of the neck and the heel weren't matching up quite right, and now the placement is better, but I feel like moving that leg changed the rhythm of the hip area pretty significantly, and I want to bring a little more movement back into that area because now it's feeling awkwardly stiff. Hoping it's one of those "it'll get worse before it gets better" things? :P On the positive side, I actually got a full 3 hour session in ye...

This is a commission I received from someone who ran across my paintings online, and I think it's just about finished. It was a fun one--especially the color. I haven't painted in a while. But one thing I'm starting to realize is that practically all of the problems of painting (except color and paint handling) can be learned/solved through drawing. So I'm okay with not painting a whole lot right now, though it sure is fun to pull out those paints once in a while  ;)

This is a new commission I'm just starting. Accepting a commission makes me really nervous. The fact that someone is willing to entrust me with an image that is personally meaningful to them is a little intimidating. I want to do a good job, and I will certainly do my best. Now I've just got to get up the guts to go for it (also, I need figure out how to mount my loose linen to a panel when I'm finished, but that will come later). Wish me luck! This is 12x16".

I was in Arizona all last week. It's a great place to visit when it's snowing buckets at home.  But I've missed being at the atelier during the day (enough passenger seat torso sketching already! ha). So when we pulled into the garage yesterday, I turned right around and was immediately out the door, ready to catch the last half of the model session before the weekend. When I got there, the umbrella light had been placed so that it was directly blocking the entire head from my view. Once we got that sorted out, I realized the portrait had been turned to the right, and there had been some subtle shifts in the way the model had settled into the pose (and maybe even some slight movement of the stand?). Which left me thinking, "Hm, this drawing doesn't look much like the model in front of me." But I suppose that's to be expected when you miss a whole week--you miss making those subtle changes as they occur and it all adds up to a pretty different pict...

  I think I've copied seven plates now? I've gotten a little sketchier as I go (and quite a few of these were drawn while driving around town--everywhere here seems to take at least 30 minutes). But I have to say... these shapes are solidifying in my brain a bit as I go along. I think next I may try to do a few from my head and see how that goes. Maybe copy that last one too.           I'm a little befuddled still by the angle of the forms in a lot of these drawings. They look like they would be very arched-back postures to me. But maybe I'm just not comprehending how tilted these things actually are in the body.

Ha, in the first two weeks of this pose I've spent a total of 2.5 hours on this poor drawing! I'm going to have to play some serious catch-up in the next two weeks.

  I've been working on some homework for my structure class. Not sure if we're expected to copy all eight (8!) plates provided or just pick a handful, but... ain't no way I'm going to have eight plates copied by Thursday ;) it's probably going a little more slowly than it otherwise might because I don't have access to a printer at the moment, so I'm copying these comparatively from my little iPhone 5 screen, ha. And my supplies aren't currently ideal either (yellow wooden pencil and cheap sketchbook--it's fine, really). So if my proportions are off, I'll blame it on the translation of teeny tiny iPhone screen to 8x10 sketchbook paper (excuses, excuses ;).   Anyway, we're focusing this week on the shape of the rib cage and pelvis--the "peanut" as they call it. This is good stuff to study. I've really never consciously thought much about the underlying shape of the torso (the rib cage looks like an egg, what?). That's probably...

I'm taking a structure drawing class, and the approach is pretty different from what I've gotten used to. I think it's going to be good for me, though. The approach is very fluid and gestural. It's a little trickier to set proportions this way (and I'm seeing some issues with the drawing here--especially the length of the weight bearing leg and probably the length of the neck. It's interesting to be working from the inside out again, though, since that's how I began drawing. Now, if I can figure out how to incorporate both approaches at the same time... :) 

Nothing too special here... just trying to keep sketching amid mass family fun ;) I have a goal to not go a day without doing some form of art. So when things are really busy, minute sketches it is!

Oh happy day! I finished this beast of a Bargue plate this week. And just look at all those crisp, beautiful shapes ;) This is some tedious stuff, but I really do think it's improving my ability to see and correct shape, value, and edge--well worth the misery and frustration. Next will be a charcoal, which I'm sure that will bring its own set of frustrations.

3-hour portrait from life of a new classmate. Profiles are tricky, and for some reason, drawing on toned paper is tricky too. There's something about all those speckles on the paper that makes it more difficult to see what's going on. Maybe it's something to get used to (I do like the overall look and feel of the toned paper), or maybe it's just something to forget about for a while (after I use up all 8 pieces I've got, of course--that was a $10 sheet of paper! ;). Or maybe I could try a little lighter wash. I dunno. I was watching a documentary about DaVinci the other day and they were talking about how he was always experimenting with new materials--and sometimes those experiments didn't turn out too well (how about that Last Supper? ;) And I could totally relate to that. I'm always wanting to try something new. Maybe when I find something I really love, that wanderlust will end, but I kind of doubt it, ha. Speaking of DaVinci, I recently read a ...

Ack, I think I might have forgotten everything I know about how to draw over the long Christmas break ;) Drawing is just so hard. This is a crazy messy portrait sketch of my son--a little 20-minute thing I did in the car while waiting for my daughter at her dance class. I think the head shape and placement of the features are alright, but I definitely could have spent a lot more time refining shapes. And let's not talk about all that crazy chicken scratch of value, haha. 20 minutes, you know? It's funny--while drawing him I realize how much his features resemble mine. This boy looks like his mama :)

I only had about 30 minutes on this long pose start after setting up, so it's not much. I had the very last pick of spots since babysitting hasn't been an option with the kids being sick--I wasn't able to be there for the start of the session. So after spending 40 minutes in rush hour traffic (it usually takes me less than 15), I got there about 45 minutes before the end, and was lucky there was any space left at all! :P I'm really fine with this view though. It feels like I'm always on the other side of the room, so I don't mind this angle in the full lighting from the front. It's different. Also, from this weekend at the studio. The icicles in the back room are pretty impressive (though I hear they were knocked down yesterday).

We have another wave of stomach flu going through our house--yikes! It's always lovely to wake up at 2AM to someone vomiting next to your face, ha! but such is life with little kids, and they're worth all the trouble :) However, I'm not very much looking forward to the (almost) inevitable illness--still crossing my fingers! I'm going to be taking a figure drawing class at a new place and they want us to draw with erasable colored pencils. They aren't something I've used before, so I decided to do a little copy with them so I could at least become vaguely familiar with how they work. They erase nicely, but the feel is pretty different from graphite. They're more waxy/smooth than pencil, so that may take some getting used to. It seems like they get dull faster than pencil too. So this is just a little experiment done while watching the same cartoon for the 17th time today ;) At least having sick babies gives me a good excuse to sit around with a d...

Painting like Sargent is a little harder than he makes it look :) I think it's infinitely more difficult to make something look effortless than effortful. And he was certainly a master of appearing effortless. I don't know if this is getting any better--it may be getting worse. But this is where my little copy is at right now. I guess I'll keep chipping away at it little by little. Sometimes I think I bite off a little more than I can feasibly chew. I probably should have started this a little bigger because getting the details around those eyes is pretty well near impossible--it may just need to be a slightly sketchier copy. Someone asked me the other day if this is more fun than doing a Bargue, and I would say that it's really not much different at all. Still that monotonous striving for perfection. But I guess what makes this a little bit better is that it's an image I was drawn to in the first place, so that makes a difference. And color and paint add a c...

By the time I drove through 45 minutes of  snow and slush to get to this drawing session, my fingers were a little stiff, and I was feeling a bit rusty... But it was a 3 hour session, so I had time to warm up. And it was really nice to draw someone from life who held (relatively) still. Such a nice break from all the copy work I've been doing lately. This was drawn with graphite and white chalk, on 300lb hot press watercolor paper toned with a wash of burnt umber watercolor paint (that's a mouthful). I didn't quite get the portrait, but three hours for the figure is a lot longer than two :)

Speed sketching seems to be all I have time for lately (apart from all that Bargue drawing at the studio). Winter is pretty brutal with little kids. They don't want to go outside, they're bored inside, and I don't like going to places where kids show up in mass, because we already have a constant cold as it is. I'm doing all I can to keep these guys occupied. Which means speed sketching for me it is. Each of these is somewhere in the vicinity of 5-10 seconds. It's pretty crazy trying to chase the gestures of little kids. They don't stay still, even for 5 seconds. Most of these end up being almost instant memory drawings. But I think it's a good exercise anyway. I was looking at some Rembrandt drawings recently, and I was surprised by how gestural and cartoony they are, considering his paintings can be so refined. It was probably quite vital to draw gestures before photography came about. That was the only way of capturing a particular moment or pose--...

Well, it was a wild and crazy night here ringing in the new year with my brushes and paints, ha. I don't know about this copy. It's sort of atrocious in my eyes, but I'm going ahead and calling it quits here. I guess I'm glad I did it. It probably wasn't a waste of time. But I would like to have done it better. I expended so much effort trying to correct the drawing (which still isn't great) after that first go, that other aspects of the painting became sort of an afterthought. I'm sure I learned a few things in the process--always start with a good drawing! I should have spent more time really getting the drawing right in a simple way. But all that paint is just so distracting ;) Also, something very small here, but the whites of the eyes are much closer to flesh tone than white. And just spending some time mixing flesh tones and putting them up on canvas is helpful, even if I did a pretty crude job of it. I haven't painted much flesh up to this ...