Stacy Weitz Minch

I've been thinking about painting this scene for a couple years now. The colors are pretty wild, which is partly why I want to paint it and also partly why I haven't . Maybe I'll get up the guts to do it sometime. Maybe not. Either way, this sweet little face brings back some nice memories.

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 ;) 

This drawing is pretty personal. It's my older brother holding me when I was just days old, and he was five (also the first self portrait I've done in a while ;). This doesn't feel like the place to go into details, but this drawing is something I started in response to a difficult event in our family. I started it, left it alone for a few weeks, and decided to give it a little more time last night. Although the subject is personal, I'm always trying to improve my drawing skills. The reference was a photograph, of course. I always have a tough time working from photographs--just because they are so static, and there's so much information to sift through. I tried to simplify, and say a lot more with the quality of line than the gradation of value masses, which is something I'm trying to figure out with regard to my drawings from life as well. I kind of liked the feel of it at this point, so I decided to quit here (though I'll probably still touch it ...

12 5/8 x 8 1/4", pencil on paper, 12/20/15 Another infamous Madame X sketch. I'm not usually much of a perfectionist, but doing these Sargent copies definitely brings it out in me. I could probably make corrections forever! I guess I don't know how hard I should try to be absolutely exact with my copying, but I do know that doing these copies has really helped me learn how to approach a drawing and become more effective and accurate from the start. I got dark with my pencil lines a little prematurely here, and if I try to erase it will look a mess. So I'm going to call this one done, even though I can see (especially looking at this side-by-side on the computer screen) that there are plenty of errors I'm just itching to fix. I'm tempted to try again tomorrow (maybe make a copy the same size as my intended finished drawing--I think that would help a lot).

12x9", pencil on paper, 11/17/15 This was a two-hour pose, but I didn't get very far on it :) For one, I was standing up, which always throws me off a bit. I've been trying to figure out why that is, since standing definitely does make it easier to quickly compare your drawing to the subject. I think it's because I don't have something to rest my arm on, and it makes my fine motor skills a little less... fine. Also, one of the students there at the CAS was trying to help me approach the drawing the way they do there at the school. Which is a slightly different way of looking at things than I usually do (though really pretty similar, if a little more structured than my usual way of working), so it threw off my groove just a little bit (not a bad thing). I redrew those legs about a zillion times. It didn't help that I had been up half the night before (my baby has decided about 1-4am is a great time to be awake, ha).

Since I didn't make it out to drawing last night, I asked my husband to pose for me while he was watching TV. Well, he definitely does not have a future career as an art model--he moves just as much as the kids, ha! Anyway, it's hard to draw something that moves a lot. But I got better with each attempt (I think). With my first one, I WAY over exaggerated the size of the features (why do I do that!?). The second one got super messy because of all the constant motion ;) and the third one I might have had a solid 5 minutes on before any major movement, so it was a little better. And then my daughter fell asleep on the couch, so I had a little bit better luck with this 10-15 minute sketch (though she still didn't hold still, ;).

12x9, graphite on paper, 11/3/15 My figure drawing from last night's session. I was trying to focus more attention on mass than I usually do. My drawings tend to be a bit cartoon-y sometimes. Looking at this, I can see that her left hand is a little too big and far from her body. Should've stepped back a little more to compare, but I was tired and didn't feel like standing last night... so I sat to draw.  Funny--it's almost the exact same pose as last week's model. Weight on a different foot, though (and a different model :)

12x9", pencil on paper, 10/27/15 I was a little more caught up on sleep than I was at figure drawing last week, thank goodness. Same model as last week, and a two hour pose.

9 5/8 x 10 1/16, pencil on paper, 10/26/15 I loved this drawing the first time I saw it. It has such a spontaneous quality, and you can really see how Sargent broke up complex subjects (like shiny black fabric and hands) so simply and effectively. Doing these copies is helping me realize a lot of things. One, I always make heads and facial features too big. Including in this drawing. If you compare it to the real one, it's very obvious (also the tilt of the head is a bit off. see below). It's strange because I think I measure everything out and get it in the right place, and then it's not. Two, capturing a likeness takes ultimate precision. It is not easily done. Three, the details make a huge difference--type of paper (mine was too rough in this instance), sharpness and hardness/softness of the pencil, etc.  I almost want to try this one again to see if I can get the head/face more in proportion... but I probably won't, at least not right this second. Dr...

Yesterday was a long day. For some reason, the day after getting back from a trip is always a hard one. There's the let-down of getting back into swing of real life, coupled with the unpredictable behavior of the two little ones (who are also adjusting to the normal routine again after all the excitement of travel).  By the time I got out the door to go drawing I was completely exhausted already, and I was really feeling it as I drew last night. I decided to try out the "sight-size" approach again, standing at the easel and drawing the model the exact same size as she was in my field of vision. It was really frustrating, actually, and I started over a few times. I think my exhaustion played a role. The last 20 minutes, I decided to give it a rest, and moved on to a non-sight-size, no pressure portrait to loosen up a bit. Obviously I didn't have time to finish, or worry too much about getting everything exact--probably a good thing :)

Just got back from a family vacation to San Diego last night. I didn't have time to do much drawing while we were chasing these two little ones around the beach, zoo, airport, etc... But I did catch a couple quiet moments to sketch them quick (very quick) while they were napping--better than nothing :)

Sometimes I pull out a sketchbook and try to draw my kids. Seriously, they never hold still for more than about 10 seconds at a time. Good speed exercise :)

12x9", graphite on paper, 10/6/15 My drawing from last night's figure drawing session. I didn't pick a great spot--almost nothing in shadow from the angle I was viewing the model from, which was making it tricky to turn the form. And I don't know, something about the pose just seemed a little uncomfortable. That, and I just wasn't really feeling it last night. I don't know why. Some days I look around and see all the artists out there creating great stuff, and wonder, "why do I bother?" As a busy mom of very young children, I have (maybe) an hour a day to put into this.  I remember one of my art teachers at the college once, when he heard I was going into speech therapy, tell me: "there are some artists who go into different careers and occasionally come out with something nice. But from what I've seen, you never really get anywhere with art (career-wise) unless you do it full time."  I think he's probably right....

Approx 24x18", 10/1-3/2015 , charcoal on paper I think this one is finished now... Gosh, I love Sargent. I really love staring at his artwork, studying the strokes, colors, etc. But trying to reproduce it in some form brings the study of his style to a whole new level. I can see why aspiring art students copy master works--such a wealth of information.  I don't know much about charcoal, so this is all very experimental. I definitely didn't capture the particular quality of all the lines (especially in the background--I was using vine charcoal on its side, whereas he appears to have used the end of a larger piece of charcoal).  However, I was a lot more careful about accuracy with this one (as opposed to my first couple charcoal copies). I started out with a very light under drawing in pencil to map out the proportions (it erases so much better than charcoal!), which really helped when I started laying on the charcoal, even though I still needed to make som...

I decided to copy this beautiful drawing of Sargent's. The top image is from a book of drawings by Sargent I have (Dover Art). The second image (colorful one) I found online from a New York City gallery. It was exposed a little more, so I thought it would give me a little more info in the dark areas.  Is it just me, or do they look like different drawings? I started the copy last night from the bottom image, and then when I picked it up again today, I had the top image in my hand and had to move the facial features around. I don't know if it's just some weird trick of the camera (lens distortion?) or the difference in exposure level or what... but I prefer the top image, so I'm going to go with that...

A couple of sketches from a figure drawing session last night. The model was getting dizzy standing up after the first hour, so she opted for a reclining pose the last hour.

12x9", pencil on paper, 9/28/15 "Greenough" after John Singer Sargent Another portrait copy (I have a book of 42 reproductions, so this could go for a while!). This time I was much more careful to measure all the dimensions over and over (measure twice, cut (or draw) once!). I think it came out more accurate for all the effort, and it was nice to be working a familiar medium :) I love Sargent's combination of detail and looseness and variety of line.

12x9, pencil on paper, 9/22/15

Okay, so I've been figure drawing at this cool classical atelier nearby, and I see the students doing Bargue copies--copies of drawings by Charles Bargue (a 19th century artist who drafted a drawing course that was commonly used in the late 1800s). I decided to give a Bargue drawing a try, and what I ended up with does not look nearly as polished or professional as the ones I've seen at the atelier--but I WILL say that doing this exercise is rapidly improving my eye. I am realizing that I tend to make things bigger than they should be--all.the.time. So even though this looks really pretty not good (ha) compared to some others I've seen, it is helping me to see more accurately, and that's the point right? The question is, how do those atelier students get their dark graphite areas dark without making it look like they every made a stroke on the paper? I don't know. Mine looks a mess, but oh well. Mysteries to be solved in the future, I suppose :)

12x9", pencil on paper, 9/8/15 Two hour pose from last night's figure drawing session. I have a tendency to want to make the head, hands and feet too big. Gotta work on that, but overall I'm pretty happy with this one. It's so much easier to draw someone when they are holding still (I do try to sketch my kids fairly often, but they hold still for all of about two seconds at a time ;)