Cash's 2018 Art

[CashWiley]

So I've been slacking on both updating here and on my blog. Here it feels odd because I don't really paint minis these days (though I want to!) and the blog kinda died when I switched hosting away from wordpress.com, my views basically dried up. I'm active on FB but I keep my friends list very tight (no offense to anyone intended), I should open up my image folders to the public, but I hesitate to do that on FB. Here's a link to my thread from last year: 

 

 

Anyway, I'll try to catch up a bit for year 3 (what!?!). Here's the YTD WIPs from oil portraiture class. Same model, same painting. Getting into some more advanced stuff with glazes, trying to add physical depth to the painting. At this point it's starting to get pretty luminous in some areas. The physical light on the painting can pass through some of the oil-heavy layers and pick up color from pigments along the way, hit the underlayers and shine or dull for the return journey. Cool stuff, I begin to understand the reason people say you can't appreciate an old master oil painting in a photo, you miss all the complex stuff the physical light does interacting with the layers. Each of these represents a 3 hour session, or about 2 hours of painting time.



I've also narrowed my focus in drawing to portraiture, so I can bring up my skills for heads. Since I want to pursue figurative works, having solid portrait skills is going to be crucial, and it helps me stay focused in my studies and hopefully avoid lulls between studies. I'm taking Stan Prokopenko's portrait lessons as a premium member, but he makes most of these lessons free on his Proko youtube channel. I like to make study sheets while I watch the videos, and draw as many examples as I can. I picked up this amazing habit from Patrick Jones, it's really helpful for learning and later reference. Each sheet is 18x24 charcoal on newsprint.



The final two lessons are charcoal portrait copies, where the reference photo is on one side of the screen and Stan draws on the other side, explaining his process as he draws. Here I've just about wrapped up the lay-in step. Charcoal on newsprint approx 11x14.

[CashWiley]

I took a few step-by-steps for a couple of the features studies:

[Metalchaos]

It's remarkable how much you improved since you started showing us your drawing. Keep up the great work.

[Glitterwolf]

Awesome!

Thx for sharing!

[CashWiley]

Here's the first of two portraits at the end of Stan Prokopenko's portrait course. Highly recommend it, Mori did it too! Charcoal on newsprint, approx. 11x14.

[djizomdjinn]

Nice! A big step forwards here in skill. Keep it up!

[Glitterwolf]

awesome facial expression

[CashWiley]

Thanks! Though he had even more character than that, I just couldn't capture his Eastern European mix of gruffness and humor....YET

[CashWiley]

Continuing the oil portrait, refining the low values in the shadowlands. In particular reshaping the eye socket and revamping the eye, so it no longer glows (compare it to the eye on the last WIP pic above).

 

 

The dark area is where I prepared the canvas to work on by oiling in with some linseed oil cut slightly with solvent (I use gamsol odorless mineral spirits or OMS) and wiped back. This helps me see the values correctly, as the dark stuff lightens considerably, especially the quick drying earth pigments. That's why the hair looks so light here. The final painting will be varnished, which brings back those luminous darks (if that's not too much of an oxymoron!). It also allows me to work into a slipperier surface than the dried pigments.

[CashWiley]

The model had to work his normal job last night, so after some chit-chat, we decided to have a selfie night. And actually it's an idea for a new class at the school! Old school selfies!

Anyway, I was pretty happy this happened, as I've wanted to start doing self-portraits for practice (cheap model!), and this was a nice jumpstart for that! Only had about an hour and a half to paint it, so it was really difficult to produce anything close to a finished product, though the goal was just a simple study, not a finished painting.

I was very happy that my practice with heads over the last few months has really put me in the zone. I jumped right into it, the rest of the class kind of eased in with fits and starts. But I know how I like to light things and have been abstracting a lot of heads, so I was able to make full use of the time, though only a couple finishing touches after spending way too long messing around with the right eye (I was going to paint in my glasses but ran out of time and had to rework the lighting to remove the shadows I had put in. Normally I'm reworking dried areas, so working alla prima I ended up killing the chroma, but that's why we do studies!

 

[CashWiley]

Portrait model couldn't make it again this week, so we had a sub. Really great model. I got kinda carried away with the layin, decided to just keep working it in monochrome. One brush for paint, one for turps. 2 hours.

Oil on canvas board, 8 x 10.

 

[Pingo]

On 3/29/2018 at 8:52 AM, CashWiley said:

The model had to work his normal job last night, so after some chit-chat, we decided to have a selfie night. And actually it's an idea for a new class at the school! Old school selfies!

Anyway, I was pretty happy this happened, as I've wanted to start doing self-portraits for practice (cheap model!), and this was a nice jumpstart for that! Only had about an hour and a half to paint it, so it was really difficult to produce anything close to a finished product, though the goal was just a simple study, not a finished painting.

I was very happy that my practice with heads over the last few months has really put me in the zone. I jumped right into it, the rest of the class kind of eased in with fits and starts. But I know how I like to light things and have been abstracting a lot of heads, so I was able to make full use of the time, though only a couple finishing touches after spending way too long messing around with the right eye (I was going to paint in my glasses but ran out of time and had to rework the lighting to remove the shadows I had put in. Normally I'm reworking dried areas, so working alla prima I ended up killing the chroma, but that's why we do studies!

 

 

Say, have you checked out the work of Robert Henri?

[CashWiley]

I thumb through the Art Spirit now and again, but I do need to study his work more.

[CashWiley]

Return of the regular model. Head is basically done, one more session (which is usually food and wine more than painting). Really happy with how the hair came out, since loose and gestural has been a struggle for me.

 

[CashWiley]

On 4/4/2018 at 11:01 PM, Pingo said:

 

Say, have you checked out the work of Robert Henri?

Scratch that, I have studied one of his paintings quite a bit, from before I was even a painter. I just didn't realize until tonight that it was an Henri! :O We were at a Bach/Chopin performance at the museum connected to my school and I always go look at this painting there in intermissions: