Planes of the Head

This is my latest sight-size painting, it is oil on canvas. It was a very fun exercise and it helped me a lot to understand how the head is divided into planes and how the light works on them as well.

Tommy Lee Jones

I love working with watercolors. Interesting subject and fun to draw.

Where is the undo command in watercolors? there's none

Not always everything works out as planned. This is a clear example of that. When I first sketched this, I had a decent likeness, but when I started painting I thought that some adjustments needed to be made. Unfortunately, the only way to find out if something is going to work is by doing it, and unlike digital painting, when you work with traditional media, there is no undo or save as commands. So, as I made the corrections I thought my painting needed to improve, but I end it up messing it up (as you can see in the picture above), the good thing is that it is just a painting, no more than paper and some pigment (besides hours of work and no sleep). So, after a week or so of thinking about what went wrong, I decided to give it another try, so I started from scratch and did a whole new illustration and here is the final result, better likeness at least I can now live with it.

With time I have learned that if something looks wrong with your artwork it's because it's wrong, no doubt about it.

Charcoal Sketch from live model

This is a quick sketch from a live model session. Interesting model from Rusia, very strong features.

Another Caricature

Quick Sketch

Here is a quick sketch in pencil.

Just for fun

For quite some time I've been interested in caricatures, I think they are an incredible way to capture the subject's personality (when done right, of course). So I found this awesome group on Facebook "Caricaturama Showdonw 3000" where a bunch of artists get together to make a caricature of a weekly subject, just for fun. Here my entry for this past week, I will post more of them here as I go.

Live model

This is a recent charcoal from a live model session . It was a great practice, I can't wait to do another of these, it was so much fun and the model was great. Now that is done, I realize that I should of been more aggressive with the shadows and dark areas, and definitely soften more some of the edges. So, it will be for the next one.

Screaming

I finished this drawing a few days ago. It is from a photo I saw on one of these stock photo websites, the photographer's name is Cameron Whitman, and his work is excellent Check it out. The expression of the model really got my attention and I decided to give it a try so here it is the result.

Tartan

This is my latest sight-size exercise, it is a cast called Tartan ( I looked it up on the internet to learn more about the character, but I couldn't find anything). This was done in oils with a limited palette of ivory black, titanium white, ochre and english red. Excellent practice to learn values and temperature. For my next cast I'm going to pay more attention to the transitions, since they are a bit hard on this piece. Again, the painting loses a lot of the middle tones and texture when photographed, hope to get this issue resolved soon.

This is it for now, soon I will post my next cast.

some color excersices

These are some studies of face features. I did them at the beginning of this year but I've been so busy that I keep postponing the post. They are in oils trying to achieve a painterly style. hope you enjoy them.

Three quarter from a upside angle view sketch of a face

This is a very interesting view of the head I found online, if any of you know the photographer please let me know so I can show him/her my interpretation of this photo.

The challenge in this pose was to capture the perspective of the face as well as to keep the softness of the model and of curse, at the same time make look fresh and loose. I play a lot with the design and composition of the subject on the paper, trying to focus on the main features 0f the character and fading out towards the upper and lower parts the pose. anyways as always your comments are welcome.

trois crayons

This is an excersice using charcoal, sanguine and white chalk. This technique is called trois crayons, I had a lot of fun trying it. I was focusing on keeping the crosshatching clean and organized and at the same time make the drawing look fresh and loose. I had a very hard time with the paper it is very delicated paper and gets damage very easily. After all it was a good exercise.

Fresh out my sketchbook

Sorry for the dark shadow on the left of the image, but I could not get the sketchbook flat on the scanner. At least the image didn't get distorted.

Another one from my sketch book

New drawing

I've been super busy and have a lot of new stuff to upload, but no enough hours in the day.

For now this is a recent sketch I did from a photo found online ( if somebody recognized it and knows the name of the photographer please let me know). I really liked the atmosphere of this image and that's what I try to capture on the sketch.

First attempt of a Portrait in 2010

This new year I'm going to focus in working more on charcoal portraits, let's see how it goes.
For now here is my first studio of a portrait from a live model. I'm not to happy with the final result, but I'm looking forward for the next ones to come.

Figure study

This is a figure drawing I did a couple of months ago. it is charcoal on tone paper, only one session. I really like the way it was coming out, but unfortunately the model couldn't continue with the pose. I will post another study of the same model later. It is tough to find good models.

Sight Size Exercises

WOW! it's been a while since last time I posted something here.
So I have to make it up. Here is my most recent sight size exercise (Voltaire) first at top, and some other paintings using the same approach.
I tried my best to get the most accurate photo possible, but I guess is inevitable to loose some of the middle tones in the painting. I have to agreed with Jason Seiler in one of his recent post, when a painting is digitized it looses the feeling of painting, the oily look, the texture, etc.. but anyway I hope these images still gives a good sense of what I tried to accomplished in each exercise.

Dancer

Hey! two in a day, you know, in this tough economy everybody is somehow affected that is way I have this special, one post get the second one free! anyway this was a challenge pose very dynamic and excellent source of anatomy, I really enjoy this one. Also I finish the sight-size painting I posted sometime last year when I started. As soon as I get a good picture of it I will share it.