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 ;).

This has felt like a bit of a rough starts, and seems to be moving really slowly. But I haven't been getting in to work on it much. Things are crazy in the summer--it's hard to keep a set schedule. At this point, I'm still trying to work out the accuracy of the drawing before I really get in there and solidify things.

I got a little overly ambitious this afternoon, and started a rather complicated 12x 16" floral composition. The blooms are in the refrigerator as I speak, and I will do my best to tie this together tomorrow afternoon. My teacher has commented a couple times on how he likes how boldly I approach things. Perhaps a little too boldly sometimes ;) Though, I guess I don't know how I'll ever overcome the hurdles I have to climb if I cower in fear at the possibility of failure. Go bold or go home.

Here's a painting I started as a quick sketch last week, and ended up working on for a few days in a row. Oddly enough, the part of the painting I feel like I'm struggling with most is the background. I'm letting it dry now, and I'm going to give it another go to see if I can't salvage it. 

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...

  I made it in for about an hour and a half of this session yesterday. Still working on trying to get this thing to look a little less messy, and to get the rounding of the forms in place. Also spent 20 minutes or so trying to lay the portrait in again. At least she has a face now. At this point, I don't really care all that much about getting the likeness. I'm going to try to attack the finishing aspects of the figure as the first priority in the little time I have left.

I've been doing a little painting on this 8x10" landscape I started from a photograph several months ago. Painting from photos is tough and painting over old sketches... I dunno :/

  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

  Another quick study of this rose I have hanging around my kitchen, this time in watercolor and watercolor pencil.   And the second session on this long pose. It's feeling super scary right now. And maybe the head, or at least the face, is too big. I started bringing down the values but didn't get all that far...

  I'm taking pictures of this to convince myself that I really am making progress. After a three hour session I'll look at it and think, "is this any different from when I started?" And the picture tells me it is, but it just feels like a whole lot of tedium. I'll get there eventually...

What can I say? I really like Sargent :) I spent a couple more hours working this portrait last night, so I've probably invested 6-8 hours in this painting so far. I think once I get the portrait to a place I'm happy with, the rest of this will go really quickly. I blocked in the entire painting the first night I worked on it, and the original is pretty sketchy so I don't think it will take too much "finishing" work (though the painting did fall off my easel wet a couple weeks ago, so there are a couple areas that need a little tlc ;).

  I'm sure this isn't interesting to anyone but me, but... another 3 hours on this long pose ;) I think that brings me up to about 16-17ish hours on this one so far. It seems like most of the time I'm getting about 1.5 hours per session this month, which makes it kind of tough to see much progress between sessions. Sometimes it takes a few minutes just to get into the swing of drawing after all my other daily shenanigans too, so a full three hour block was nice. I tried to solidify the shadow shapes a bit today, paying closer attention to the little shifts and hard/soft transitions along the core shadow line. It will still need a lot more refining. Then I started moving into the light areas of the torso, blocking in the light shadows, which will also need so much more time to get the subtlety (kind of funny too how you have to watch carefully for the point in the breath cycle you're drawing--those shadows change a lot on inhale/exhale). I'm thinking there may be som...

  I really like this model, pose and all, but I'm almost regretting starting this drawing. It's just so hard to get time in this month because the schedule is so variable, and it seems like I get there right when long break is starting almost every time. So it feels like I'm pushing like crazy, but moving at snail's pace. Sounds like we will have a couple more weeks on it, so maybe I'll be able to come a little bit closer to a finish (if I'm lucky. I've lost my regular babysitter, so I really don't know at this point...).  But anyway, I'm just starting to try to push some of the darker areas down and get more specific about shapes and contours. Worked some on the portrait, too. The likeness really isn't too bad at this point, so that's nice. I actually really do care about making my drawing look like the model. Just making it look like a real person isn't my goal--I want it to be that face.

  Here's a current photo of my Bargue project. I sketched the whole thing in without measuring more than a few points, then went around trying to reign in the shapes with a little measuring/refining, and now I'm starting with the upper torso and really trying to perfect things. Slowly working down. It feels pretty slow going, but I'll probably finish it sometime in the next year ;)

16x12" I spent a couple of hours working on this portrait last night (I know I said I wasn't going to try for the likeness, but eek, I can't help it). I think the placement of the features is a little better now, but the colors are pretty rough. The variation of value in the portrait is really subtle, and the form seems to be defined more by subtle color and temperature shifts than anything else. That's a difficult thing to replicate, especially while working from a little 8x12 photo print (next time, start the copy larger :P). How ever does he make it look so effortless? Ha.

  I forgot to take a picture of this three-hour portrait start on Wednesday. It's going alright so far, I guess. I was being pretty careful about trying to get things in the right place, and I'm sure I'll need to tweak it a bit when I see it with fresh eyes.. Drawing from life is so difficult. Sometimes I wonder why these open sessions aren't filled to overflowing with local artists. Why isn't everybody doing this? But that's me projecting my artistic goals on others, which really isn't fair. And when I think about how often I fall flat on my face during a life session, it makes a lot more sense, ha! I'm kind of kidding, but there's something nice about making your mistakes where nobody sees. When you're working from photographs, or just working in your own studio at home, you can just keep correcting and correcting until you're happy with it before anyone else sees. That's definitely more comfortable. And people are busy--I get that. But...

Rough block-in of my final Bargue copy. I love/hate taking comparison shots of these things, because it makes the errors so obvious. This is going to be... fun! :P ;)

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'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.

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".