My Cast Drawing No. 2 at Grand Central Academy

Above is my latest from my 2nd cast work - today was the last official day and I am making fast progress - now the hair forms and shoulder ( where the arm was broken off) are largely modeled and I began to work my way down his torso.. I may do some more work on him next week.. he's getting pretty cool!! ( lots of thinking and looking to get this guy going for sure - so many subtle forms!!!).. One of the most bad-arse things to learn is how to get that "glow" with graphite ( or any black/white medium.. right now the Borghese Warrior's (by the sculptor Agasias) torso is glowing TOO much ( too much of a good thing ?) but will get toned down if I can work on him next week! On 7/7 I began to model into the lights on the head..(see below) not finely tuned yet but a good start. Tomorrow I will fine tune and work on the hair a bit and upper torso depending on time!










.. at about 7 hours of block in ( I know it sounds long to my Academy friends but I have a long way to go to get all the shapes locked in!).. and only one week left of class! Here is a photo of the cast w/a block-in, then a refinement of the block in ( legs and shapes of torso refined.. this one is a pretty complex cast!!!!

It's not horrid but I have a lot to learn about tecnique! I started a second cast thursday of a discus throwing (yet armless dood). only 2.5 weeks on this crazy thing !!! Here is a view of my block in as of today - at about 5 hours and then..




This is a photo of the cast studio at GCA - pretty cool room huh?!! They have tons of beautiful casts including Lacoon (with the umlaut).. In the building is also a figure studio and a figure painting studio as well as sculpture studios on the floor below. I hope to start a face once I finish the mouth.. the techniques you learn here are pretty amazing.. but you gotta be patient! Oh, btw, Nick, Sam, Camie and Jacob are excellent teachers - Ari - our monitor has been great as well - everyone is patient and positive and will listen to your (my) whining.. cool!

Below is the my first cast study of a mouth - this took me 2.5 weeks and I probably went too fast!







Here is a progress shot of the figure.. sorry for photo quality as I am not taking my time and just snapping! today was mostly legs and fine tuning all over.. yesterday the lower arm and hand.. it still needs lots of work but saturday am will be are last day with Maria the model @#$%^



Today I fixed the ear/head relationship ( needed to be receding /in perspective - now MUCH better! fine tune face, re-develop value relationships on breast and torso forms, add right arm upper ( not finalized).. and fine tune some lower forms. (see below for earlier phases of my Maria drawing. She is an amazing and patient model and.. well I wish we had more like here at AAU!!!! The key to this type of work is subtlety and very easy pressure ( e.g., NONE) when modeling in the lights. I am getting there but have lots to practice when I get home - but the techniques I am learning are so cool!




On Friday after a great Jacob Collins lecture on building the basic shape(s) on Thurs (and measuring everything and really doing you best to nail the "where" and the "what" ( in that order), I re-did the whole head and remeasured to get it more correct! also adjusted forms to be more organic ( arm, foot, shoulders, legs) and begin the time consuming task of flattening all major shadow forms to one value ( prior to beginning modeling). I know it doesn't look like much but this is how they do it here at GCA.. I hope the more finished work will show well if I have put the basic structure together well! We shall see !

'round SF workshop stuff..

typically short timeframes (5-20 mins).. so much to learn and understand!

i wonder what our sketchbooks say about us ??

a recent two pages.. i'll let you be the judge! i need to redeem myself after this last 3rd-grade painting!!! (note: astronauts, old guys, naked peebles.. whatnot)

Who is da' baby momma ?

Ok so, I had so much fun doing baby uno i did baby v2.0 today! about 10 hours total throughout the day - went faster than last time even though he/she is up-lit with also not such clear shadow shapes ( part of my goal was to paint less distinct shapes vs hard light/shadow forms.. the baby was on a really dark background so he/she kind of glows..tried to get that effect on oil paints ( reminds me of what Henry Yan says ( to get something light, you've got to have something DARK!!). I may do a little more fine tuning tomorrow but I am pleased w/the painting .. on 11x 14 utrecht canvas board same as the first one ;-) here are a few steps..

first - about 30 minutes in - the next step after basic block-in - using terra rosa; you can still see some lines i used to line up things like inside of eye and where the mouth edge and nostril would be .. i know when I like the block in if I'm going to enjoy going forward.. otherwise i wipe!


Next phase is to start laying in some lights and darks and values ( ultra-m and white, veridian, etc.,) - the face is pretty high key so I kind of went backwards ( lights, mostly first..).. i liked how it looked at this phase - it reminds me that even skin tones often have blue and green and yellow all over!!


now a pretty full block in of major colors and shapes.. feeling it's coming along ( this about 4 or 5 hours in).. lots of fixing and fine tuning to do with shapes and forms and eyeballs but I know what I need to do. I think..


Ok a big jump to the the near final.. I like enough to throw it up here.. wait that doesn't sound good.. but maybe I'll do one more little guy/gal but i think I'll do a few other things before! really enjoy the light on the face.. some fine tuning still to do on the eyes.. the baby's torso is - like a newborn i guess - splotchy and red and green and yellow and blue and.. well i didn't go hyper on the detail but tried to get the general values.. my eyeballs hurt - more to do yeah but I need to go to sleep!! (now it's the next morning) - ok now with an additional hour to fix some hard edges on his/her face and fine tune eyeballs and headshape.. it's nice out - i'm going for a bike Ride!!! ( the baby can't come with sorry to say)..



OK even more fine tuning - softening, fixing shapes and experimenting with edges ( re: Richard Schmidt).. almost done-ish ? U B da' judge!


so I keep being bugged by the baby and have worked to soften some shape transitions and get more cools where they seem to be needed.. is it more correct ? more crap ? you be da' judge! ;-)