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 ;).

8x10", oil on linen mounted to hardboard Another plein air water sketch. Water is some tricky stuff, and the way the light was reflecting in the distance  here was really hard to capture. I kinda liked how the foreground came out though. It has some feeling of movement and depth, and contrasts nicely with that big rock in the corner. I haven't painted much water at all, but so far I find it to be really interesting to study. It's fun to look at something that is so complex and in constant motion and try to simplify it down into its most basic shapes and colors. It's a very impressionistic process, which seems to be right up my alley. I love laying down the impression, but getting into the nitty gritty finishing aspects of a drawing or painting is always a challenge for my patience. I can do it, but I'm not always a happy camper while I'm at it ;) I'm sure I'll learn to enjoy those aspects more with time. I always get frustrated when I'm learn...

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...

I was an hour late to portrait session last night. We spent an eventful afternoon getting x-rays, casts, etc., after my son broke his arm at the playground. So I didn't have a lot of time on this one, and I didn't quite get the likeness. I think the closest eye needed to move toward the nose a little bit, and the muzzle area needed some tweaking. But in a situation when you're so pressed for time, you have to make a decision whether you are going to keep fiddling with the likeness, or try to work on other aspects of the drawing. I'm really trying to push my ability to describe subtle form, so I let the likeness go to some extent. This kind of angle is always difficult too, because the slightest turn of the head makes a huge difference in the placement of the features.

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.

This is an 8x10" piece I painted on location in the canyon over two sessions. It's kind of nice to get the basic drawing and values down in the first session, then solidify the color and build up paint in the second session. The first session we got rained out, and we only had about an hour to start, so it probably would have been okay in one session too, if we had had more time. I really want to study the effects of water more. Those purple reflections in the water were pretty elusive to me, and my teacher pointed them out and helped me put them in. And in my opinion, they kind of make the painting :) But wouldn't have done anything if I hadn't had a solid base to build on, I suppose.

I did this painting over two 2-3 hour sessions. It's 12x16", which is larger than I usually paint in my little at-home studies from life. But I wanted to get the whole bouquet in there at approximately life size, so I just went for it. Painting can be a terrifying process. It's hard not to chicken out when things get hairy. But I'm learning to trust the process a little more. It typically doesn't look very good after the first pass. And that's always a scary feeling. But I guess what I'm learning from doing Bargue and cast drawings is that I CAN keep pushing until it's right. And lucky for me, I think I have a pretty good sense for knowing when things look right, so with each attempt, I just have to keep pushing toward that ideal.