Holy Moly Times passes by too fast these days.
So much has happened in these last few weeks, although it hasn’t been a particularly productive time on the painting side, a lot of these happenings were still directly related to my art.
I made more Munsell charts but with specific paints this time; made some video’s on mixing and tubing paint with Munsell in mind; I made charts for my pastel pencils and Nu-Pastel sticks; re-organised my soft pastel following the Munsell lay-out; made some storage boxes for my Munsell tubes; also managed to read through some of my art books ; followed discussions on the art forums and some very good blogs (this one for instance from Enzie Shahmiri http://world-market-portraits.blogspot.com/is well worth visiting) and found the time to watch/study other painters.
I also sat through some really good instructional videos by some very clever painters, like Morgan Weistling, Richard Schmid, Daniel Greene, Scott Christensen, Liu Huihan, Zhaoming Wu just to name a few.
Just watching those painters at work brings great inspiration and idea’s while at the same time learning more about drawing properly, values, shapes, lighting, and painting techniques as in brush application.
At this stage in my development as a painter I can still use all the help and instructions I can get. It is interesting though that whenever I am ready to step up to next level just the right type of instruction falls into my lap.
The video from M.Weistling for instance had a series of very interesting side-steps. One of them was a demo of a quick portrait sketch in only 5 values. He showed how he created a study with just 4 colours using only 3 values in the light and 2 values in the dark. Brilliant. The whole video is worth getting just for that demo only.
Another brilliant piece of instruction is the self published book from Mr. Apollo Dorian. An A4 size book just under 2 cm thick absolutely jam-packed with instructions on properly rendering light, planes, shapes and the like; instructions on how to properly apply colour for which he uses the Munsell/Reilly systems. How to draw figures, how to see the planes in the head and that is just a very small overview of what is in this book.
It is a real treasure and the cost of this full instructional book makes it well within most people’s reach. It is so worth having.
Mr Dorian does not operate or even own a computer and the only way to get the book is by sending a cheque to his postal address. Don’t forget to add a little note requesting the book and of course where he needs to send it to. Knowing Mr Dorian he will make sure to book is send on the same day he receives the cheque. He is a very punctual man.
On the practical side of art I have been playing around a little with that charcoal drawing I had posted here earlier.
My husband and I have bought a caravan (oh yes!!) and will be taking short trips as soon as we take delivery of it. It is being built as we speak. Once my husband retires we will be going on long trips around the country and I will be able to take a bit more in the way of supplies, even oil paints .
So for the time being while on the short trips it is obviously easier to work in pastels and watercolour. And taking the limited “studio” space in consideration, I have to really cut down on the supplies I take along.
With this drawing I have been testing out the various pastel pencils, sticks and soft pastels to see which ones would suit my needs best. I will do some other pieces to get a nice limited set together.
The picture shown here is not the best; My camera is being repaired and I used my mobile phone for this occasion. It does not really matter that much for it is a testing piece anyway.
The paper I chose to do drawing on is great for charcoal but pretty lousy for pastels. It fills up so fast that you can hardly work into it. The piece is at that stage now. I could do a little more work on the head dress and the back ground but that is not what I was aiming for here so I’ll leave that part. I may be able to do a little more work on the face but it would probably be more productive if I would start another head on decent pastel paper.
So that will be my next project.
