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My figure drawing work continues. This week’s work spans two segments of the book, so I apologize for the big swing. In these first couple, we’re rounding up the gesture section. Gesture drawings are about curve, animation, capturing the spirit of a movement. These drawings should be fast, and should never look stiff. Mine still…
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Learning from Michael Hampton’s Figure Drawing: Design and Invention continues with a further 6 pages with of sketches. The book isn’t giving work assignments (at least so far), so I’m just following along with his drawings, trying to get a feel for the rhythms and lines. I’m trying to get into the headspace. I feel…
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I have started a new book for learning figure drawing. It is Figure Drawing: Design and Invention by Michael Hampton. (The link is to an earlier printing, but I’m sure it’s close enough to follow along, if you were so inclined.) I remember learning about Hampton from a Proko YouTube video and being impressed with…
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This is a portrait of Aftyn Rose, based on a reference that is important to me in a way that made it hard to do justice. This is attempt number four. I have tried to come at this over a span of many months. Each time I try, my style is different, my intentions are…
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I had the chance to visit a place called Spy Pond (near Boston) on a cloudy New Year’s day and took a picture out over the water. I was charmed by that place, which I hope comes through in the painted rendition above. I like all the moody, desaturated colors and organic shapes. With landscapes,…
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A tasty little drawing of a very cheeky lady having fun with a ruler. Color blends in pastel continue to be hard, but I like the results. Fabric folds I’m less happy about, but are at least serviceable. Let’s talk about artistic vision. Many artists are adept at seeing the work well before it is…
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Here’s a whole mess of little portraits to augment my painting exercise! This is the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, apparently taken quite recently. Perhaps a piece of promotional material for that Picard show? A friend shared the reference image, with its wonderful high-contrast photography and marvelous facial expressions, and I knew I…
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It’s been a long time since I drew someone from Reddit. This is Affectionate_Ad494, in a pose he titled Light and shadows. (What’s up with Reddit users with Something_Ad### name patterns?) I bumped into it one morning and was captivated by the play of contrasts and the way they highlighted his anatomy. I had a…
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The last month has been full of bad news for pets, both mine and that of my friends. The ongoing series of tragedies has been hard to receive. I decided to make this painting to celebrate the spirit of one of the dogs hard hit in this time. I present to you Tycho, AKA Tychopath,…
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I was watching Armondo Iannucci’s In The Loop, and one of the background players really jumped out at me. Anna Chlumsky held her own in a production all about blistering insults. She must have stood out to Iannucci as well because she got a pivotal role in his follow-up show Veep. She played Amy Bruckheimer,…
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Another quick, sketch-free painting, this time of South Korean actor Choi Min-sik in his unforgettable role as Oh Dae-su in Oldboy. It’s a hard-edged movie that calls for a searing portrayal. I cannot think of another actor better suited to that degree of commitment than him. I first took note of him as the bad…
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This is a quick shapes-only portrait of singer Eugene Hütz, Ukrainian frontman of “gypsy punk” band Gogol Bordello. The reference photo was taken from the same concert (and by the same photographer!) as the Regina Spektor shot I painted a few weeks ago. I’ve been following that band for ages — I just adore them!…
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A portrait of Aftyn Rose, looking comfortable and beautiful on her deck. This time, the painting succeeded. As I noted on the previous attempt, I painted this version without the use of a sketch. No guidelines, no Loomis head or whatever, just shapes. The dark mass of hair goes about here. Wait, too much. Carve…
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I decided I should add some Aftyn portraits to my current painting series. Like the last one, this painting was a failure. What you’re seeing above is the sketch I made before going to color. It’s a nice sketch, but the painting was never able to achieve a similar level of quality or likeness. It’s…
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Portrait of Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, the leads from the wonderful In Bruges. As soon as I saw the movie, I fell in love with Martin McDonagh’s (the writer) sense of humor. It is dark, but with a weird love for the foibles of human behavior. This was intended to be the groundwork for…
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I made an original painting! I was recently introduced to the world of plus-sized pinup Hilda, creation of artist Duane Bryers, and I was inspired to try my hand at a version of her. I was heavily inspired by the pose of her making a phone from a bike, but most of the elements of…
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Another painting in my recent celebrity portrait series, I present South Korean actor Bae Doo Na. Because my subjects are almost always people I admire, I would have expected to get around to her much earlier than this. I love Bae Doo Na’s work, and have been following her for many years. The first place…
Dismal.ink
A place to put my stuff
