Ultraviolet Night at April Connors

I really like the vibe at April Connor's wednesday night workshop in Glendale. Tonight the model was a lovely gal named Rachel who was dressed in a really fantastic costume from the movie Ultraviolet.

Wise words from April - "Always design your shadow shapes."

Some things to keep in mind - Get your construction down  before moving into details. Make sure feet are firmly planted and that you nail the gesture and perspective of the pose FIRST.

this one looks like my seester , dunno why!

On a couple of these poses I "lost my footing" so to speak. The feet are not where they should be or the calf is longer than the thigh. Things to watch out for when drawing women in heels because the heel can be misleading to the eye.

Figure Invention Last Day!

Gesture sketches from the last day of Figure Invention with Stu Livingston. It was such a wonderful class, I learned so much! Thank you Stu!

Los Feliz Life Drawing Workshop

Every monday and thursday night in Los Feliz.

April Connor's Workshop

Went to April Connor's workshop last night in Glendale for the first time. It was great! Go check it out!

Pasadena Central Park

Did you ever notice its the people who have the least that give the most? Drawing these folks from a distance, I couldn't quite tell what this group was up to, and it sort of appeared to me as though they were playing cards. When I finished the drawing and was walking back to school I realized it was a group of homeless folks having a wonderful thanksgiving type of meal, all sharing their food cheerily with one and other. Even the cat and dog were part of the family. It was heartwarming.

Long Pose at CDA with Johnathan

So I ASSUMED the 3 hour long pose at CDA every wednesday night would be nude, and then made an ASS out of U and ME when it was actually the wonderfully hilarious Johnathan in full steam punk regalia.

Oops.

Well here is what I did with compressed charcoal. Kevin came by and we had a conversation about grouping the lights and darks, a concept I'm familiar with in other people's work, but have yet to replicate in my own work. He mentioned doing composition studies in 0 , 30 , 70, 100% values would be helpful to learn grouping of values, so that is what I'm going to do.

Technically, in a 3 hour long pose, you have 6 sets. My good friend Krystal mentioned its a good idea to spend the first set on a test run, or plan drawing. Kevin mentions this as well. He says to create a thumbnail image to plan out the values and make sure they read even from a tiny size. Krystal also mentioned another juicy tidbit, which is to leave the last set for background and finessing. So technically you only have 4 sets to get to the meat of the drawing. Good to know.

Things to work on : thumbnails, grouping values, time management, depicting people with glasses on (ouch!)

Animal Gesture Drawings from the LA Zoo

From a trip to the LA Zoo with my figure invention class. I love animals so much, and the adorable expressions they sometimes seem to make (in reality its probably just our interpretation , or misinterpretation of what they're actually thinking). Every time I looked up from my drawing board, I seriously couldn't stop myself from saying "That's so cute!"

Belly Dancer Costume Workshop

5 minute gesture drawings from Dan's costume workshop  This was hard, tons of drapery everywhere--my mortal enemy in drawing. Luckily, I received some really helpful pointers from Dan- Always establish your perspective, overall gesture and anatomy before adding details like hair and drapery. Wise words, Thanks Dan!

The 8 foot tall bride

Inspired by Amanda Palmer and her story in the TED talks video "The Art of Asking." She mentions how she used to paint herself white, put on a wedding dress and stand on a crate to turn herself into a living statue called the 8 foot tall bride. She mentions how she would often encounter very lonely people, who she would give a flower. This was followed by intense eye contact in which she could read the person's thoughts.

Weekend Workshop with Karl Gnass

These are drawings from a weekend workshop with the legendary Karl Gnass. This workshop was quite a challenge because the longest poses we had were fives. Most of the poses were one or two minutes. Not a lot of time to capture everything.

Ironically the drawings I liked most from the day came from an exercise I like to call the "Ghost Pose." In Ghost Pose, the model poses for 3 seconds, you observe, and then the model rests for 57 seconds, and you have less than a minute to draw from memory what you just saw. So 3 seconds of observation, 57 seconds of drawing. It was a bit nerve racking, but also pretty fun. 

Frazetta Costume Workshop

These are  5 minute sketches from Dan's Frank Frazetta themed costume workshop. Right now I'm reading "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. She makes a lot of good points. She also de-bunks the myth that erasing is bad. She says the eraser is just as much a tool as the pencil, so why not make full use of it?