Stacy Weitz Minch

3 hour portrait start. Somehow I have her looking younger than she should. I moved the eyes down based on my teacher's critique. There was a space issue, but I'm thinking maybe I should have moved the eyebrows/forehead up instead? I think whatever I did gives her a very youthful look (she's not 13 ;).

I intended to go a little bigger with this portrait than I've been doing lately (mostly I've been painting 3-hour portraits on 8x10's), so I gave myself plenty of space and ended up going a lot bigger, ha (can't quite seem to not fill the available space--I have this taped to a 16x20" board ;). This model had such fair, subtle skin tones, they were really difficult to translate. It seemed like every color I mixed was overstated in one direction--if I saturated the paint enough, the value was too dark, but if I made the value correct, the tone was too cool/chalky. I don't know what the answer is (probably should have at least pulled out the lead white), but I like getting a little painting practice from life in here and there. I was using a limited palette of titanium white, cadmium red, ivory black, yellow ochre, and raw umber. And I'm thinking I should pull the raw umber out (or use a warmer or less green/purple leaning brown). Also probably wasn...

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 :)

This model has the most interestingly shaped lips! Also, it's recently been brought to my attention by multiple people that I'm lacking in my ability to turn 2d shapes into 3d form. I'm working on it. But for now, I guess I'd better share this shapely portrait before I go and destroy it by attempting to model. Didn't quite get through working the shadow under the chin, but otherwise I was pretty happy with this start. 

Graphite portrait of Jerry. The likeness is actually quite good on this one, and trust me, I'm usually the last to say such things. But I'm saying it. This looks just like him :)

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.

Here's a three-hour portrait start from last night at structure class. This model has so much interesting character to his face. I'm trying out some new measuring methods (mentally imposing a grid on the subject), and I think it was really helpful when drawing from this tricky perspective (I was sitting on a drawing horse below the model). Of course I still use all the same angle checking and comparative measurements as well, but when I'm in doubt about the placement of something, dividing it into quarters really helps clear those issues up quickly. 

10x8" I'm going to a portrait painting workshop soon, and I didn't really want it to be my very first experience with painting a portrait, so I've been trying to squeeze some painted portrait sketches in. This is the second one I've done, ha. I really like painting. But it adds so much more complexity to the job of drawing. I think I was getting on to her likeness in this sketch, but the color isn't what I would like it to be. Her tone seems warmer than I mixed here--I was mostly concerned with the drawing and was just mixing up some pretty bland browns. If I had a couple more days to work on it I might be able to correct some of the color issues, but again, I was standing in someone else's spot when they were absent, so it was more of a one-time thing ;)

Sketch of a local model, Birgitte. I was trying to be more cognizant about the design of this drawing, and I'm happy with where it went.

Copy drawing after a portrait study by Michelangelo. I like how he downplayed the shadows and focused on the form of the features. I was trying to be a little more careful about the direction of my lines, attempting to follow the form like he does (though he was using a softer black chalk, so there's definitely a different feel). Such a beautiful drawing.

I was pretty happy with how the likeness developed on this one (is it just me or are bearded men always easier to draw?). I'm also loving the focus on form in this class. We talked quite a bit about form light and highlight and how those things are related (or not so much related). Form is an area that I need some definite guidance, so I'm really glad I'm taking this class.

I had a pretty good block-in for this drawing, and it feels like it just got worse the more I worked on it. Maybe I need to use charcoal for portraits--it seems like I want to go darker than what pencil can handle. Or maybe I need to get better at handling the values without going dark with the graphite. I don't know. I'm just not very happy with this one (though, like I said, the placement of the features and the proportions were pretty decent from the first 20 minutes).

First night of structure portrait class tonight and it was something of a disaster. I haven't really drawn a portrait from this angle before, and it was throwing me off--my proportions were all over the place. I've been introduced to a new method of measuring where you mentally impose a grid on your subject's face, and then measure within that grid (which I'm trying to wrap my mind around). Harold Speed talks about physically making a grid with cardboard and string to help you find proportions. Maybe that's what I need to do? At any rate, this is only a two-week pose, so I think I may draw a little grid around the photo of this model and see if I can't do a little fixing before class next week. What a mess :P

Night one one this portrait from life. I feel like I blocked in a fairly good likeness pretty quickly with this one (which was nice since I ended up tossing the portrait I was working on earlier in the day). Next week I need to clean it up and tie all the values together. I think I can, I think I can... :)

Drawing kids from life is a challenge. They don't hold still for 15 seconds, much less 15 minutes ;) But it's an interesting exercise in mental averaging and being quick and decisive in what I put down. When I know I have 3 hours, I'm probably much less direct, and sometimes I think my portraits could use more of that frank quality. This is probably really good practice (and sometimes seems to be all I can find time for).

Haha, a month or two ago I was perusing the local thrift store with the kids, and came across this beauty school mannequin in the toy department. It has real human hair :o and isn't really very lifelike, in my opinion. But I thought she might hold still and let me paint her ;) And she does. But painting portraits is sort of really, really hard. I think it was in a John F. Carlson book that I read something along the lines that a good picture is nothing but a series of good corrections. And I was correcting and correcting and correcting here (mostly the drawing, of course--the color I may worry about later). Which sometimes feels a little discouraging, but that's just what it is. Correcting. Over and over and over. At least the setup is very repeatable. And I guess $4.99 was a pretty reasonable unlimited model fee ;) Also, I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing, but that doesn't mean I won't eventually, right? Except for one 20 minute attempt at painting my k...

We had our last session with this beautiful model last night. I had a lot of fun working the hair in the last session and fine tuning the facial features. I actually like this one (which doesn't happen all too often, ha ;). It's about 15x22" I think.

This is 12 hours into this portrait, and I think we will have one more session with this model. Sometimes I feel like the longer I work on something, the less fond of it I become. And I don't know if that's because I get tired of looking at it, or if my preference isn't for images with a higher level of "finish", or if maybe my "finish" isn't quite as intelligent as I would like it to be. I'm not sure. Overall I've been pretty happy with the progression of his portrait, so I'm not trying to degrade it or anything. Just wondering why mentally, I get less  and less enthused as time goes on, because it does seem like I've made progress on it each week.  I guess maybe it could be that I just don't want it to look like I've labored over the thing (and this one might be starting to show the hours). Not that it's a bad thing to work for a good long time on something. It's just that I want the strokes I make to reall...

  Start of a portrait. I almost like where this one is right now, so I figured I'd better take a photo... we still have a couple more weeks on this and things could go up or down from here :P