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Ria Sharon

pondering creativity, process, and making art

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Background studies

October 13, 2020 by riasharon

Watched the Art Prof Livestream on backgrounds for portraits. We talked about where to find inspiration for backgrounds and how to be intentional about them.

I also may have just watched Call Me By Your Name five times last weekend…

film still

Alex turned me on to Malcolm Liepke…

Malcolm Liepke paintings

All of which inspired to revisit my earlier portrait study, Quaranteam and do some background studies. What works for me about this portrait is the composition. I love all the angles and just how weird and wacky they are. The dog is practically upside down! I definitely want to preserve that. But I’m not sure I need the specificity of the window or the couch, really.

background study

I like the idea of blocks of color. I even like the sketchy-ness of seeing the pencil marks. I’m excited about the possibilities.

p.s. This video on Wes Anderson style is also helpful/interesting re: color theory. His hand is so over the top but it’s still “in the world” — that’s interesting to me.

Filed Under: color theory, DIY art school, portrait

Watercolor portrait study: Juliana

October 11, 2020 by riasharon

I started a new painting this weekend, building on what I learned from the last one. This time, I won’t have a step-by-step guide. I had to make every choice myself and I can see what Carol Carter was talking about in terms of painting being tiring. Definitely requires mental focus. I’m trying to keep in mind Carol’s advice on not making it precious. That’s why I picked Juliana — the composition is similar enough to the old man that I could borrow some of the techniques from the tutorial but more importantly, I don’t have an emotional connection to her so I won’t feel any pressure to make it match any personal memories I have.

I’m going to post my progress in reverse chronological order here, as evidence  — for me to see all the awkward, terrible in progress phases where I want to throw it out. Regardless of how it goes, I’m committing to finishing it.

Some other things I’m exploring with this one:

  • I don’t want to scrub anything
  • I’m doing it like Louise de Masi does the giraffe — applying washes really far from the water’s edge. I like the smoothness I’m getting with this.
  • Dedicated brushes for 1) water application, 2) pigment application, 3) edge softening
  • Background color
  • Using the reference photo — not to copy but as a starting off point. I’m changing her gaze and expression. I might change the eye color too.

What I’ve learned so far:

  • I’m really wobbly on color
  • But I’m stronger on value
watercolor portrait study with some details

Too pink wth, still seems really washed out

 

watercolor portrait in progress

structure is emerging

watercolor portrait in progress

watercolor portrait in progress with more definition

watercolor portrait in progress - first wash

Filed Under: DIY art school, portrait, watercolor

Old Man and reflections from Carol Carter

October 4, 2020 by riasharon

 

old man with background

Experimented with metallic background and fixed shoulder

I followed along with Art Painting Workshop’s YouTube tutorial.

What a learned:

  • water control
  • Start with a strong drawing.
  • Keep my ink or pencil sketch handy as a reference if I get wobbly about the guide lines in the painting.
  • Keep track of my color mixes, label them on the palette.
  • Don’t try to “fix” too much. Just let it be and if I really hate it, adjust in the next painting otherwise it will look really overworked and scrubby.
  • Wet the areas I want to paint but don’t let the pigment get anywhere close to the waterline to avoid the hard edges completely.
  • Don’t apply a bunch of dark paint at once, layer it up to the final value.
  • Use the soft blending technique to control the spread of pigment within the wet areas.
  • Don’t use a hair dryer, just wait.
  • It takes the pressure off to think of every one as a study or a practice piece.
  • Don’t use the cello tape and be super careful with the masking tape at the end! This guy has some tips on how to prevent tearing.

What I liked:

  • intensity of color
  • range of values
  • modeling/dimensionality
  • structure held up during the process
  • the nose!

What I want to change:

  • mottling
  • overworked look that came from rewetting super pigmented areas and scrubbing out hard lines
  • I liked the plain white background better than the metallic and yellow ochre

 

watercolor of old man complete

Day 5: finished!

Day 4

old man stage 3

Day 3

What’ I’ve learned so far:

  • Glazing is everything! In the video, they work over the same area 10x. It really adds depth. Without the step-by-step demo, I wouldn’t have know how many layers there are in this. As it is, I probably went too dark too fast.
  • Lighting in portraiture is everything!
  • How the heck do you get the paper from drying immediately?!?!
  • It seems weird not to work up all the aspects of the composition concurrently. I’m not sure I would choose to do it that way on my own.

 

old man stage 2

Day 2: Really bummed I forgot to take a picture of the first wash

ink drawing of old man

Carol Carter’s thoughts on watercolor

Lots of great reflections in this interview with Carol Carter:

  • She does several paintings of the same subject before she gets one that is good enough to show.
  • Don’t do exercises. Always do finished paintings. Don’t go back and “fix” awkward parts. Do the painting again, from beginning to end. Learn from your mistakes. Do a progressive painting based on the former one. It’s not about making one painting perfect but a sequence of paintings. It’s not really about the product as much as the process.
  • You’ll develop your visual language over time, like 12 years! 🙂 It’s not magic. It’s just painting.

Filed Under: DIY art school, portrait, watercolor

Drawing from life: selfie #2 and portrait composition

October 3, 2020 by riasharon

pencil selfie

Goldfarb 6b

Art Professor Shows How to Compose a Portrait

  • Shift away from dead center
  • Emphasize lighting
  • Diagonals are super helpful because they have direction; versus vertical and horizontal lines which are stable
  • Negative space: example Barry Moser, Kara Walker
  • 3/4 view or cast shadows that create their own mass (to offset something that would be dead center)
  • Look at a portrait through an abstract lens (fights the emotional baggage)
  • Start by blocking large areas of space, paint everything in relationship to other things, address the whole thing; don’t linger on one area. Keep moving.
  • Don’t use measurement systems. Measure with our eyes!
  • The angle/tilt of the head/posture, orientation ala Modigliani or Jenny Seville 
  • surface and texture (Leon Golub)

So many ways to open up narrative possibilities, even in just head, neck, and shoulders. Much much more than eyes, nose, and mouth.

Assignments:

  • Watch self-portrait tutorial
  • Do self-portraits in sketchbook every day, even if it’s just 5 min.
  • Draw from life while in MN

Filed Under: DIY art school, portrait

Oct 3 Draw Along: Male Heads

October 3, 2020 by riasharon

Ria Sharon gesture drawings

5-min gesture drawings with Dr. Lieu in Art Prof’s Draw Along. Bottom center is 10-min.

Filed Under: DIY art school, drawings, portrait

Drawing from life: selfie

October 2, 2020 by riasharon

Selfie sketch

Arteza color pencils

Not used to considering color in sketches. Good exercise but what the heck with the eyes?!

Filed Under: DIY art school, portrait

Portrait Study: Seven and the top five portrait drawing mistakes from Clara Lieu

September 29, 2020 by riasharon

Inked drawing of Seven

Seven

Inked!

Art Prof

Serendipity! I stumbled on artprof.org and this lesson on portraiture just as I’m starting this series. Some reflections as I inked… I approached this drawing very much as a relationship between two figures. I did NOT start with the eyes, nose, and mouth (I had to think about that when Prof. Lieu asked in the video). I did it just like I did the succulent or the cow (posts to come). I go from big forms to small. So maybe I did learn something in Drawing 101.

Also, I’m excited to translate from picture to sketch to ink to watercolor. It’s like Sr. Sheila teaching us how to write a term paper — making notes, making notecards, and writing from there. I like the distance from the original, the opportunities to inject some sort of unconscious translation or stylization. It reminds me of how I had to plan out my printmaking projects.

Some portrait artists to note:

Jordan Casteel. Great interview with the artist where she talks about her twin brother and representing Black men. Really big paintings. Yale and Harlem School

Faith Ringgold. She fights for women artists in the art world — we want 50% at the Whitney Biennial. Art is a visual image of who you are. That’s the power of being an artist.

Alice Neel. Love her quirky portraits — the proportions are all wrong, the perspective, the expressions!

Mark Tansey. A Gagosian artist. Monochromatic — like ONE c0lor! Huge paintings. Example: The Key — a retelling of the story of Adam and Eve getting kicked out of Eden.

Top 5 Portraiture Mistakes

  1. Stressing about likeness and accuracy. There’s emotional baggage associated with portraits (versus still lifes). It affects you emotionally.
  2. Starting with the eyes, nose, mouth. Building the hair, neck, shoulders around the facial features. Those are details and take up very little of the portrait. You should start with the things that take up the most mass. Think about it like a sculptor. You would not start with the eyeball! Start with the structural stuff. The three most important structural elements of a face: the zygomatic arches, the mandible, and the ear — they all connect. It’s like a little intersection. Anatomy is connect the dots. Once you know the basic structure. Even at sketching stage, look at the big things — the slouch, the shoulders, etc. Don’t add those later.
  3. Drawing the details too soon. Simplify the form and establishing the structure. Details are like sprinkles on a cupcake. Bake the cupcake first otherwise you don’t have anything. Details without structure will fall apart. They should be the last 5%. 95% should be building up form, thinking about shadow, lighting, anatomy, structure. Drawings don’t even have to have detail to be successful. Not the pupils, the eye socket!
  4. Drawing exclusively from photos. Train yourself to draw from life and that makes it easier when you draw from photos. Build a foundation of drawing from life. Do quick casual sketches (like of your family). 5 minute sketches. Keep it fresh. Make it surprising to yourself — not what you expect.
  5. Drawing the hair last. You lose the mass of the hair. It’s part of the structure. It’s part of someone’s personality. If you work with it without that mass for so many hours and hope that the personality is going to come across. You end up like they have wigs on. Artificial, like you can just peel the hair off the head. Get the hair in there early on. A portrait isn’t eyes, nose and mouth. You have to work on all of it as a cohesive thing. The chin matters just as much. The way the person holds their shoulders or neck.

Seven: initial sketch and reference photo

No shortcuts! I’m becoming aware of my tendency to punt something down the field…
I’ll deal with that later. I’m going to stop doing that because it just aggravates the problem later. I’m going to deal with it now, assessing whether I am happy with the execution of this piece right here in the sketching stage before I move on — are the expressions the way I want them? The hands? Etc. I will not assume I can fix it in the painting stage.

This is where the translation from a photograph to artwork happens so am I happy with it? I’m not projecting and tracing. I’m actually drawing — intentionally. I don’t want it to look like I traced it. I want something to happen in between those two states. Do I like the translation?

Also at this point, do I have enough data so that I can paint it well? Do I need to add more cues that will help me later?

Ria Sharon sketch of girl and baby

Initial sketch

There’s something wacky going on with the right hand. Re-drawing that before I ink.

Ria Sharon reference photo of girl and baby

Reference photo

 

Filed Under: DIY art school, portrait, watercolor

Portrait study: Quaranteam

August 29, 2020 by riasharon

watercolor study, second attempt

Oct. 5: I’m going to set this aside and perhaps come back to it later

I liked it better at the glowy stage. Not sure what happened between then and now.

Ria Unson watercolor

Happy with the sleeves and dark areas but struggled with the middle. Not sure if it’s salvageable.

  • Fixed the eye and neck
  • Need to fix the slices of couch behind the figure
  • And the paws
  • Still lots of work to do on the shirt
  • Still need to do the eyebrows

Reflections:

I really like the idea of stylizing the work overall. It’s not photorealism like Rance Jones. There are aspects of my style that have been consistent for 30 years (see Siesta drawing from 1993).

But there’s a more graphic quality to it now. I can see the design influence for sure. The more formal qualities, the shapes on the face are the same as on the fabric. I like that. It’s almost like… yes, it’s all paint. And the rendering is so much more controlled after taking Louise de Masi’s one class. I’m going to do more because there’s no pressure there. I can keep focusing on technique.

I’m very pleased with this composition. That is also a style thing. All my paintings have really strong angles. I like using the angles to create focal points. I like the limited color palette. And the values that lighten as you go up but then the contrast in and around the face.

When I’m happy with the painting part, I want to scan it in and see what I can do with the background — what if I put it on a solid yellow background or what if I render the background in illustrator as flat shapes?

 

Ria Unson watercolor study

Darkening the face, the glasses, the hair

 

Ria Unson watercolor study

figure: 227; shadows 408, 366+662, 567; hair: 708; pants 533; outside window: 675 plus spots of 227; shadow of window frame: 408; couch: glaze of 756 with spots of 227

I kind of love the colors in this stage – so glowy!

  • the spot above the right eye and shape of the lips
  • fill in the couch color in between dog’s legs
Ria Unson watercolor study

study #2:  shirt wash: 708; background wash: 227, 234

 

Ria Unson Watercolor Study

dog: 408, 411, 708, 568, 339

 

Ria Unson Watercolor Study

first study

Assessment: Good start. Love the color choices — the limited palette, the hues in the shirt and the greens in the background. The composition rocks — the strong angles, the weirdness of having the dog upside down with her eye right on the edge, the strong lines on the shirt, thelines in the windows. Love the splashes in the background

Water control sucks. Used the wrong brushes, especially in the shirt. The dog’s face is all messed up — couldn’t figure out the actual drawing.

Consider “melting” the curtain more into the background

Ria Unson Drawing

inked line drawing

 

Ria Unson Sketch

initial sketch

 

Ria Unson Inspiration Image

Reference photo

Filed Under: Documentation, portrait, watercolor

Custom Dog Portraits

June 1, 2015 by riasharon

Dog Portraits

Happy first day of June! You know what that means, right? That’s 21 days until… Father’s Day!

I don’t make ties so if that was what you were planning on getting dad, I can’t help you. I DO, however, make these adorable custom dog portraits that would make really great gifts for Dog Daddies.

If you’re interested in having one delivered in time for Father’s Day, please place your order this week to ensure delivery.
Shipping is included. 🙂

p.s. If you’re wondering if I’ll be making printable Father’s Day cards, the answer is… probably. Get on the mailing list and you’ll be the first to know!

Filed Under: portrait Tagged With: custom pet portraits, dog art, dog drawings, dog painting, dog paintings, dog portraits, dog prints, pet paintings, pet pictures, pet portrait, pet portraits from photos, portraits of dogs

Crazy Dog Lady

May 5, 2015 by riasharon

dog-portraitsYes, it’s true. I’m one of those. I’m so crazy about dogs that I make dog portraits. You know that sense of peace that people report when they are in their bliss… that happens, when I’m drawing and painting puppy faces! And now that I reflect on this, it always has for as long as I can remember. The first portrait I ever did was an oil painting of my great aunt’s Llasa Apso. I was 9.

I’m so dog crazy that my kids know that if there’s a stray dog on the loose, I’m going to stop and try to coax it into the car and secretly hope that I get to keep it. There was that one time I almost “rescued” a scraggly and filthy three-legged shitzu… from it’s own front yard! (sheepish grin) but that’s a story for another post.

So if you’re crazy about your pups (dress them in crazy outfits on halloween, take them to puppy spas, throw them birthday parties), I won’t judge. I’m totally with you! And guess what, you’re not alone! I’ve made over a dozen of these dog portraits in the last week and have three more commissions to go!

Want one? Click here for details.

Filed Under: portrait Tagged With: art dog, custom pet portraits, dog art, dog artists, dog drawings, dog painting, dog paintings, dog picture, dog pictures, dog portraits, dog prints, painting dogs, pet paintings, pet pictures, pet portrait, pet portraits from photos, pictures of dogs

Sunrise, Sunset

December 9, 2014 by riasharon

… and swiftly flow the years…

The days are long but the years are fast. And this girl just had her bat mitzvah this weekend. Whut?! There are no words that can capture the fullness of my heart so I’m just going to stop here.

© Ria Sharon

Filed Under: illustration, kid art, portrait

The Little Mermaid

February 8, 2011 by riasharon

I’m playing with illustrations for a new online class we’re hosting on Hopeful World called The Story of You, debuting in April. Here’s my little mermaid.

© Ria Sharon

Filed Under: illustration, kid art, portrait

And Everything is New

January 10, 2009 by riasharon

Change is good, right? This. In honor of my brand new life.

© Ria Sharon

Filed Under: illustration, kid art, portrait

Studies for Children’s Book

December 9, 2005 by riasharon

Working on some illustrations for a children’s book, using the gouache technique I’ve been experimenting with on my kid portraits.
© Ria Sharon

Filed Under: illustration, kid art, portrait

Sick-O

November 15, 2005 by riasharon

Poor guy has been sick. As much as I hate seeing him in such a sad state, he’s so adorable and especially snuggly when he’s not feeling well. I can barely stand it. I know he won’t always fit so snugly in this bean bag, nor will his feet be so small. I want to remember him like this.

And oh, isn’t gouache so much fun?
© Ria Sharon

Filed Under: illustration, kid art, portrait

Selfie

August 18, 2005 by riasharon

Changed my headshot to the first self-portrait I’ve done in a dozen years.

© Ria Sharon

Filed Under: illustration, portrait

A little about me

I have an undergraduate degree in art. By day, I work in higher ed and in my free time I'm currently putting myself through DIY grad school.

I teach classes on creativity and inspiration on Skillshare. I occasionally share my original paintings on Etsy and fine art prints on Minted. I've also been known to make puppy portraits.

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