Laocoon WIP

This is a very challenging exercise, and I'm trying here at all cost not to use the word "difficult", I don't want to work on this piece with my mind set that way.
That been said, I'm going to point out what I am really trying to focus on here, first big shapes, at the first stage of the drawing I looked for the general shapes of the head, then I started to separate light and shadow planes looking for more specific shapes, but always keeping the drawing simple and geometric and not getting distracted by details. That's the stage you are looking at these images below.
The next step of the process will be painting big masses of values. I will post those later on.

Torso

For the longest time now, I've been trying to focus more on portraits from natural (definitely not an easy task) abandoning for a moment the study of the body, but a few months ago, the model on my drawing session was lying down in a very dynamic pose and, I thought it will be a waste not to draw her full body or at lease a detail of it. So, here it is what came out of that session, a study of the torso. I particularly like the rhythm of her upper body in this pose.

Powerful light

This is a quick charcoal sketch from a live model I did a few weeks ago. 

Very powerful light.  It is amazing how the orientation of light can change so drastically the look and mood of the objects. In this particular case, the expression of the face, the description of the features, and the atmosphere of the scene. That's what I think was so interesting about this exercise.

My intention was not to finish the entire head but instead focused a bit more on the features of the face, trying to model the light and shadow planes.

Hands on 2012

2011 was a good year, a lot of work and practice, and I'm positive that 2012 will be a better one for sure.
My main goal for this year is to keep drawing and painting.

The more time I dedicate to this craft, the more I realize that there is no short cut to achieve great results, the only way to get better is by constantly doing it, and doing it right.

So, here are some sketches of hands I've being drawing the last couple of weeks. Hands are very difficult and interesting to draw, and is that challenge what makes them be such a fascinating subject.

St. Jerome Final

I Finally finished this painting. I'm pleased with the final result.

I will move on to face the "Laocoon" my new challenge.

I'll keep you guys posted on the progress.

Blocking

This was a quick blocking from a live model. Interesting how the shadow describe the form and features on the model's face. No details, just big planes of light and shadow.

Studio from a Live Pose in Oil

 

I thought that one seminar with Jesus Villarreal Jr. was cool, but two is way cooler.  Again, this month I had the privilege to participate in another Jesus' workshop, this time an academic figure painting. It was a workshop full of painting and observation from a live pose, I feel that I learned a lot from this guy. Here's my studio from this exercise.

St. Jerome WIP - Oil on canvas

This is a sight-size exercise I'm working on right now. It's a work in progress, at this stage I'm starting to layout the values finding the brightest light and the darkest dark to use as a reference for the rest of the mid tones. Also, I'm  correcting the drawing as I go. I don't think I have posted the stages of a painting on the past, but I will try to document this one as I go. It's going to take a while since right now I'm busy with other stuff and I can't work on it as much as I would like. I really like this cast and I'm looking forward to seeing how it comes out. It's always exiting to see how a painting evolves.

Bill Murray

I 've super busy with a lot of different things going on right now. But in the mean time while working in other projects I'm posting this watercolor of Bill Murray that I did some time ago for the caricaturama challenge. 

Yoko

No much to say, just watercolors.

Charcoal from life model

I had the pleasure to participate in a workshop by Jesus Emmanuel Villareal, an awesome talented young artist, who just graduated from the Florence academy. The knowledge and the technique of this guy is insane. Here is a link to his website, check it out it is incredible. I'm really glad I had the opportunity to attend. So here is my drawing from the class.

Adam West

I had the pleasure to participate in the Wizard Comic Con Miami this past weekend and it was an awesome experience.
Since the main attraction at the conference was Adam West, the original Batman from the 1960's TV series, I decided to give it a try and go for a caricature portrait of him while I was at the booth. So here is the final piece, I wanted to capture him as I remember him from his younger years. 

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.