color study
composition study
color studies in gouache
sketchbook
large sketch
finished sketch
Portrait studies and sketches
Artprof draw along: eyes
I spent the evening drawing a dog portrait so since I already had my tablet out, hopped on Artprof’s livestream for this Draw Along.
Teddy
I spent last weekend doing watercolor and gouache portraits but funnily enough, I could tell that what influenced me the most on the eye study was working on Teddy. I used a watercolor brush for the dog and the Michael Adamidis oil brushes for the eye study but I can tell that drawing and painting a little bit every day has really increased my comfort level and my facility with the forms and structures, regardless of medium.
Portrait studies, batch #2
Test color palettes
Warm, “tropical”
To test with portraits
Portrait studies
How loose do I want to do portraits? I did a series of “sketches” yesterday to play around with that but also decided to explore several color palettes and mediums (oil pastels versus pen versus straight up gouache).
I really like this palette but not sure I liked the oil pastel lines. I like the color. Maybe if my sheet is bigger so the lines are not so big relative to the composition.
I love the colors (the balance of yellows and blues) but the linework feels contrived.
I didn’t like my color selection — it’s too real, too hot… but I really like the structure of the face.
I liked the drawing when I did it and i LOVE this palette but I don’t like the inked lines.
I liked the size of this one — I feel like I had enough room to be more relaxed about the strokes. And the color palette is great too. I took what I learned from the previous ones and applied it to this one.
Color palette study
It’s not just Wes Anderson that uses color intentionally. 🙂 I’ve started paying much more attention to color palettes and what the filmmaker is doing. This choosing colors tutorial is helpful—the 60/30/10 rule. Just remembering to limit my palette to just a few colors will be a game changer.
Watercolor study: another portrait
I’m on a roll. This time I’m following this tutorial. I picked it because I want to learn how to incorporated a background into the composition. This one appealed to me in how the artist represented depth of field. Also, I still want to loosen up my rendering style. The last one I did, I felt was too loose.
I don’t like this approach in that we’re starting and finishing areas of the portrait all at once before doing the next area. It’s hard for me not to build up the whole thing to see where I need to make adjustments as I go. Even though it looks okay, the process is very uncomfortable for me.
Oct. 22
Oct. 21
Oct. 20
Watercolor study: wrinkles
I followed this tutorial, although how to paint wrinkles aren’t what I got from it. I was looking for a way to loosen up my portrait rendering. I did this all in one day and forgot to take wip shot so here it is…
What I learned:
I like that it was looser but I don’t like that it’s “sketchier” — I want it to feel more substantial. It was a good exercise in that I’m much more comfortable doing portraits, not because it’s good as much as I know that if I mess up, I can just make another one. Maybe after 10 more of these, they will lose their preciousness.
Watercolor study: giraffe
Oct. 20: done!
Oct 17
oct 10: giraffe head
sept 30: initial wash
sept. 28: ink drawing
Louise de Masi’s reference photo
Starting another Louise de Masi class this week. Stepping it up one notch and used the reference photo to freehand sketch instead of tracing her line art. Not that it matters that much but there’s def some translation that happens there. I inked my sketch and now ready to trace this to my watercolor paper.
paper: Fluid 100% cotton, 140 lb.
My Pandemic Journal
