Quick Study Homework Assignments

These are four of the six quick study homeworks I did for this weeks class. My instructor really liked the first one and so do I. I included some of the in progress photos for that one. I also did one of the same photo of my friend Linda. As you can see it is not as good as the one I did to give to her, but I also did it in less time. My instructor liked it though (as do I.)




Linda/Hotel in New York on New Year's Eve/Cops in either Italy or Spain

Plein Air Quick Studies in Marin

This is one of the quick studies I did when our class went to Marin for the day to paint. It was a beautiful day and a great place to paint. I would like to go back and paint there again sometime.

Recent Quick Study In Class Work

This was my favorite study from the day when we did unique point of view/composition

Painting with anything we learned so far in Surrealsim class.

Here are the two paintings I did today in Surrealism class. Kevin was doing individual critiques of our homework (which I like) while we painted our final live model. He told us to use any of the things we learned in class so far. I decided to do my version of Cubism.

That is, if cubism is about time, we can only truly focus on one thing and one part of a persons body at a time. So even though I am only seeing the front of the model, I can still only truly see certain body parts at a time in this front view. So I decided to show this. Ultimately, I guess it ends up being a collage to create a sense of time (like Kevin shared with us) in paint. But I would like to think it is different from what David Hockney (Kevin introduced me to this artist) has done in a way because there are "separated" squares of the bits and pieces of the model verses one big picture or scene created from parts of a model or situation.

Mine is less cohesive I guess but still a version of how time is not stagnant. To me it shows how time is necessary to truly take in the whole person. I have NO IDEA if this is making any sense, but it makes sense in my head.

BUT now that I think about it, this might lean into the realm of little vignettes which he told us is not the same. I will have to ask him. Oops.


This last one I did in terms of some of the first things we did in the class where we just pushed the figure more towards non objective abstraction. Mine is obviously still a figure, but I pushed it and I LIKE IT! Anyone else ;)

Rave Reviews for my painting of Mike!!!!

Today in Surrealism class we had our homework critiques. Can I first begin by saying that the work that the other students created was AWESOME! I love seeing from week to week what people do in this class. So original and very talented.

I am so freakin excited! I can't even tell you how excited I am. I have been walking around with knots in my stomach for the last few days because I have been so happy with my painting of Mike and yet I have received some interesting feedback from some of my peers and friends. I kept getting what seemed to be the same response when people would look at the piece while I was working on it and when it was finished. Not the response I wanted....

Here is the typical scene:

--I say "Here it is," with a huge smile on my face.
--They look and then stare IN SILENCE and then say "ohhhhh, wow he has a green face" or "that's interesting."
--(See my smile fade.)

But now that I think about it my smile shouldn't fade because I want them to be somewhat wow'd (but I want it in a positive way) because Mike makes me go WOW (in a positive way :) Cheesy but true.

No worries though....I am here to learn, experiment, improve and become the artist that I need and want to be and create art that I LOVE and hope that someone out there (IS IT YOU!!!! :) loves it too....not to mention this was an assignment and not exactly how I want to paint.

I told myself that I was just going to see what my instructor had to say. I worked my butt off and put so much thought and care into doing the assignment correctly. I was happy with it (very happy) so now I just needed to see if in his eyes I accomplished the goal. I DID! Kevin said he really liked it and that I did a great job using the paint application, brushwork, color and design to show the story behind Mike. He said that it all made sense and that I handled it well, especially with showing the layers of Mike through the physical peeking through of his black and white layer.

He only had one criticism (of which I was aware....one of my instructors said we should be able to give ourselves the same critique as our teacher.) The issue was that my background was TOO saturated and competing with Mike who was supposed to be the thing popping out. And he also mentioned that there were some minor issues that I could have fixed like making the shape of the eye better, but that this was minor especially in light of the assignment. But I think I will go back and make these changes, especially since I agree with the suggestions.

Check out Kevin's book. You can get it at Blurb.com It is called ARTITUDE (Kevin Moore.) It will give you a taste of all of his great insights and what I am learning in his class. I highly recommend it.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/167290

Oh and yes, I would have recommended his book despite being very happy about the critique I received.....come on, who do you think I am ;)

UPDATE:

Here is the most recent version of this painting.......

VERSUS

Still Experimenting in Surrealism Class

Kevin told us to once again push our paintings today towards abstraction. He said he didn't even want it to look like our model in the end. I did 3 paintings of the model.













Sold

I am pretty happy with all of them. I don't usually paint this way, but I have to say I really like it. Oh and the two criteria Kevin gave us was PORTRAITS only and we HAD TO USE A PALATE KNIFE in some shape or form. I never use a palate knife to paint with so I dove right in and decided to challenge myself to use it for most of the painting. I love it!

Blown away even "Moore" by Cubism

In class my Surrealism instructor Kevin Moore (awesome artist, teacher and person...check him out at hespe.com) broke down cubism in a way that just blew my mind. I have ALWAYS loved Picasso and I loved his work even more after I saw the gamut of his ability and mediums at El Museu Picasso de Barcelona. And yet, after our lecture this week I learned so much more about how he created his cubist work.

Kevin told us that "cubism is a collage to create a broader sense of time." It is about being four deminsional. Why paint from one angle? It is not how we see things. "Cubism is NOT a style, it is a way of thinking."

He gave us guidelines and we did some exercises to help wrap our minds around this way of thinking. So we created a painting as cubists. This painting makes me happy! :)

Old Works (2007)

2nd Day Quick Study Paintings...

This is a quick study that I kind of liked today. I like the composition. The class is challenging for me because it really forces you to edit what you see and hone in on creating good color. I am fine with this though because the instructor is great and he is showing us exactly how to be successful.

"In The Spirit of Thiebaud"...

Today we were asked to do a painting "in the spirit of Thiebaud. That is he wanted us to exaggerate color, brushwork, composition, design, shadows, and color accents.
I wanted to do an extreme crop, but it is not that extreme. Looking at it now it could be SO much better. It is lacking life for me right now. Very dull but I am happy with what I was able to do with it. I might go back after it dries and glaze in some more vibrant colors. Or heck I just might redo it. It is all about learning, right?

1st day Quick Study Paintings

These are a couple of 25 minute quick studies that we did on the first day.

Yes, I have a long way to go, but I love the course already and I know that I am going to learn a lot.

My Blog Begins:Expressionism--Pushing Subject Matter towards Non Objective Abstraction

This is a painting I did on the first day of my Surrealism Class. I love it. The information is great and the instructor is very informative and passionate. He told us to paint the model but to push it towards non objective abstraction. I was fairly conservative with my push because I had to take a month off of painting due to a surgery and I wanted to get comfortable with the figure also. I did 4 other paintings that day too but this is my favorite even though I pushed it to total destruction. But it was about the process.

































































The last one is still in progress, but the instructor liked the composition. He said it made it less about the figure and potentially more about the paint and brush stokes (which was the point of the day.)

More to come later from this class.