Stacy Weitz Minch

Quick sketch of our family pet. If ever a model moves, this one does, ha! My  mom pointed out that he's too thin, and she's right, but I feel like I might have a good excuse ;)

Six-hour portrait from life. I'm trying to be more cognizant of the turning of form while I draw. I think I feel a little bit timid about pushing down the value of the halftones, and maybe that's partly why I have a hard time getting that 3D feel to my drawings. I'll keep working on it. I like this portrait, though. 

10x8", oil on linen mounted to hardboard I've been trying to start doing more painting from life. I've painted a lot of fruit from life, but a portrait is a little bit different. Accuracy in drawing is the main difference. Nobody will know if that strawberry is a millimeter too large, but in capturing a likeness, a millimeter can be crucial.  This particular model (Micah Christensen) is an art historian, and he spent the majority of the three hour session relating interesting stories and info for a very attentive crowd of artists (also, it was a much larger group at this session than usual, which I would guess can be attributed to the popularity of the model, though I was completely oblivious before showing up, ha ;). Anyway, I wasn't completely satisfied with the drawing, but this was a fun session :)

   Graphite on white stonehenge It's been a busy few weeks at my house. Three out of the four birthdays in our family happen within the same four-week period, and yesterday we had the second of the kids' birthday parties in the morning.  Once the party was over and cleaned up, I showed up at the studio to spend a few hours working on my Bargue project (which has been a little neglected lately). If I had better willpower I might have given it those few hours, but a portrait  model showed up an hour after I arrived... and that's just too hard to pass up ;)   I don't usually take comparison shots of my portraits, but here's one. The tilt's a little different... This one is on white paper, which seems like is a little bit more difficult to work on. Every stroke is so visible. But it's probably a good thing for developing better control. Or maybe not. I don't know.

  I didn't capture the model's likeness on this one--I was fighting the drawing all the way through. But I didn't look at it for a couple days, and it's not quite as terrible as I was remembering, ha. I'm such a harsh critic of my own efforts, I know. Maybe it's a bad thing, but on the other hand, maybe it's what propels me forward. Mostly, I've been tired this week, and I never do as well when I'm tired. It feels like I've been burning my life candle at both ends, and it's probably just time for a little breather (and maybe a nap?). Yay for the weekend :)

We had another session with Ian last night, and I attempted to correct the proportions in the face. The proportions may be better, but there's something uncomfortable about the drawing to me now--feels slightly overworked. I'm not saying it's super terrible or anything, but it's difficult to change proportions after putting as much value down as I had. I think I really have to nail those proportions in the initial block-in to get the quality I'm looking for in my drawing. I had some issues with all the features feeling a little too short, and probably what was going on was that I made everything too wide (which is my most common error), and it made everything feel too stubby. Yesterday was another one of those discouraging days--not for any particular reason. My drawings are going fine, things are fine. I think I'm just a little too aware of how much work there is between me and where I want to be (and how difficult it is to fit it all in). It can se

  2-hour drawing from a 3-hour session yesterday. I had to start over after an hour or so of drawing--my shapes were bad, and I couldn't seem to resolve them without moving everything --sometimes it's better just to have a fresh start. I don't think I've ever regretted bagging a bad start. This is the same model we drew on Wednesday, and it was nice to be somewhat familiar with her face already. I still need to work on my value organization--it's so hard to keep those values under wraps. Pencil is difficult value-wise, because you really can't copy one for one--one for one value matching is much more doable with charcoal or paint. But with pencil, you have to make it about relationships. It's a difficult thing for me to do... which is why I should probably do it a lot more ;) Something I should not do a lot more is cruise Instagram for new people to follow (don't you love those little suggestion boxes? ha). There are way too many incredible

  6-hour drawing with prismacolor colerase pencil on strathmore 400 paper. This is from the evening structure class I'm taking. I think it's slightly wide overall, but oh well. This was our last night with this model, and I'm hoping I can get a little further with the next pose. Pushing beyond this point and getting into the specifics and subtleties of form is somewhere I need to get comfortable existing. They passed around a book of Russian academic drawings last night, and the way those guys bring out all the little intricacies of form is incredibly beautiful. In this structure class the emphasis is on identifying the major anatomical points (constellation) and sweeping gesture (chief line) of the figure before laying in the contour, whereas the school I attend during the day focuses first on arriving at the gesture by chiseling into the contour from the outside envelope. I like both ways of approaching the drawing, and I think combining them is totally possible. I'm

I wish I had taken a couple progress shots of this one, because I'm happier with how it started out than with how it ended. The drawing was going fairly well until I started trying to lay in more value (surprise! I'm starting to notice a pattern here ;). It's just in that stage where you have to push and pull between shape and value impression for a while. This was just a one-night pose, so I won't have a chance to bring it to a more resolved place, but that's alright. This lady's bone structure was killer.

  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

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

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.

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 ;) 

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 :)

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

8x8" It seemed like a good day for a carefree sketch of something. I haven't painted in a couple weeks, and maybe I'm missing it. Or maybe I'm just itching for a change from what I've been doing lately. This is me playing with paint and not thinking too hard--just letting the brush go.  I need that sometimes. These little studies may not be much, but I do think they are more helpful than I give them credit for. The mistakes made here are small, the pressure is low, and the lessons learned can be applied right away to the next little painting. So maybe I'll try to do it more. Or maybe I won't--just taking it day by day right now. I think this was 30-45 minutes or somewhere around there.

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

5x7", water mixable oil on linen board Strawberries have such great individual character. Whenever I arrange them to paint, it feels like they're huddled in some kind of social gathering. This particular situation is something quite relate-able to human experience--at least my human experience. And I'd be willing to bet I'm not the only one :) This was a pretty quick little sketch--maybe 30ish minutes. Here are a couple behind the scene photos.

It's not every day you meet someone named Beccafer (must be a combo of Rebecca and Jennifer)! She's very good at holding a pose. It's usually a figure pose on Thursdays, but the model was thinking she had been asked to sit for a portrait, so that's what we did. I don't feel like I quite captured her likeness--I think there was probably just slightly more fullness/width on the right side of her face. And again, I was struggling a bit with how to approach blocking in those masses. I think I zone in on each little area too much when I'm trying to see the value, and lose sight of the whole--like trying to include the graded value on the eyelid, when just blocking in a solid mass gives a truer impression of the thing--at least at first. I don't know why simplification is so difficult a thing, but it is. Anyway, I clearly didn't finish, but this is as far as it's gonna get . And that pink glow on the bottom of the image is just the reflection