Bethesda Fountain

I brought my oils to Central Park for the first time since March 1st.

Here is a painting of Bethesda Fountain.  8x10 oil

Conservatory Water at night.

Week 4 Homework

I banged this entire homework out on Thursday night when I was exhausted from the beach.
It is almost three hours of drawing. Focus this week was eyes and nose.

It's not ideal for submitting best work, and the areas that I knew were problems happened when my brain just quit. I'm happier with this week than last week though.

But homework has deadlines and I made it!

Kevin gave me a 27 minute critique which was amazing.
I'm getting so much out of this class.
Here's my drawing before and after critique.

Marvelous Madeline

Here is the 1 hour pose from tonight.
Graphite.

Gouache & Far Rockaway

Jin and I went to the beach.
Daya joined too!

We can swim at the beach now, and since we went to the surfer beach we rented boogie boards.
Daya needs to get out and I was so glad she agreed to come.

Here she is in the water, in the lower right.
The water was so warm!

I knew she would want to leave early on her own, and she did.
After I swam for a while, I painted.

I love the beach.

Beach Day Tonight

We drew Maria tonight.
The costume drawing theme was beach day!

This is good prep because I'm going to the beach tomorrow!

1 mins

7 mins

20 mins

1 hour.
I'm pretty happy with this drawing.

Abigail on Monday

We drew Abigail on Monday.
I always have trouble drawing her for some reason.

The cool thing about tonight is a friend I met when Daya was auditioning for Manhattan Youth Ballet joined, too!

I painted during her audition and a lady came over to talk, and we have remained friends. 
She and her children are very musical and artistic.
Her mom is an artist and she has done some drawing too but not for a while.

******

7 mins

7 mins

20 mins

Gouache & Conservatory Garden

Jin and I met up at Conservatory Garden tonight to paint.
The evening was lovely.
The garden was lovely.

Conservatory Garden is in the northeast part of Central PArk, right by Harlem Meer.

I need to bring my oils here.

The problem with most art teachers...

"The problem with most art teachers is they love art."
-Simon Levenson

Simon is pretty hilarious.  He said this, but what he meant was people always saying how good someone's work is with the absence of (good) critique.

Tasha wore the most amazing outfit tonight.

7 mins

7 mins

20 mins

1 hour

Blick & Artistic Head-space

Daya had a doctor appointment downtown today, right around the corner from Blick so I had to go.
I got one small pad of Stonehenge paper.

They sell Uart 400 now! Yay!! (like I really need more pastel paper...)

I was pretty amazing to be back in a physical store.... it was pretty empty though but I'm so glad they are open.

We did ink tonight in Leah's class.
My head wasn't in this but oh well.  I did use my Liquitex inks so that was ok.
But the reference wasn't my favorite, and even more than that, my head is not in a space of working loose. 

I'm in full Kevin Wueste Graphite Mode.  It's just a very different head-space.

New Graphite!

Drawings from tonight.
Some models are easier to draw than others.
Madeline is very easy to draw.

7 mins

 20 mins

1 hour-ish

I'm pretty sure I'm getting worse.  HAHA

******
One of the best things about taking a class is the supply list!!!
Usually I already have pretty much everything, but Kevin has clutch pencils on his list, and he uses them a lot in the live demos.

So of course I need whatever he has.

I used my new graphite tonight.
Clutch pencils handle differently than either wood pencils or solid graphite pencils.
They are not like typical mechanical pencils with those dreadful skinny leads.

I freaking LOVE them.

The holders I got both came with 2B leads, but I ordered HB and B leads and took out the 2Bs.

I kind of want another for 2B leads.

They have a special sharpener which I had to youtube to figure out.
It is an extremely clever design, once you know how the heck to use it.

I still have to finish my homework!!!

*****
Update: I finished my homework!
It was hard. :(

Best Comment EVER

Although this blog is public, and I know a few (4?) people read it (thank you!) I don't share or give out this link anymore.

Occasionally I do get spam comments which I remove.

Last night overnight, someone left a comment on my Bad Monday Drawings post.

I have to leave this comment there, I can't stop laughing at it.
Tonight in drawing when Simon asked people to share stories from the week I told this one, and got a really long laugh out of Simon.  Probably others too, but most people were on mute.

Bad Drawing Monday

I could not draw tonight, it was awful.
These are not great drawings but they are better than the other chaos I produced tonight.

20 mins

7 mins

I Have Homework

I'm now in Week 2 of the Kevin Wueste portrait class.
Week 3 if you count the pre-work.

Class is every Sunday, today was the second live class.
It is AMAZING.
It runs 12-1:30 but he always goes until 2.

What's even more amazing is Kevin is doing individual video critiques on everyone's homework, these videos are ranging from 17-20 minutes EACH... and there are 30 people in the class!!

Pre-class homework, before/after:

Week 1 Critique, before/after:

******
This week I am expected to work on homework for 3-5 hours.
This is difficult because class is Sunday afternoon and homework is due by Wednesday at midnight!
We can turn it in later and Kevin will still critique it, but it's a preferred Wednesday turnaround.

******
Game of the week: Subnautica.  I have been wanting this one for years (literally) but never got it.  There was a summer sale on Steam so I did.
It is AWESOME.

There are 2 subnautica games, I got them both but am still on the first one.

******
In other news, Pebbles took a nap in the couch.