A Little Update

I probably won't be posting any new paintings for a while. I'm working on some children's portraits right now, and I'm not going to post those on the internet. So I'll be putting up a better picture of the fourth Tess (eventually) and sketches whenever I have them.

In the meantime, here's a somewhat better picture of that Tess. I'll replace it with a better one as soon as I have to time to go out in the sun and photograph it properly.

Tess IV

This one's done for now; all I have to do is touch it up and flatten it. I'll post a better photo as soon as all that's done.

Just Some Doodles

There really wasn't much to draw in the library Thursday. Just one girl reading a book, and the same guy that had Georgia On His Mind. So I just doodled a bit with my pens...


These are from life, as always.


Georgia wasn't on his mind this time. It's a different guy inside his head there.


I was just having fun playing with hatching and cross-hatching.



All these were with #001 Micron pens.
I tried playing with my pen nibs and ink Thursday too, but that didn't go very well. I learned my lesson about leaving a bottle of ink in a car overnight in the middle of winter... Apparently, Higgins ink doesn't defrost too good. That bottle of ink is now a bottle of black sludge.

In Progress

The newest one, in progress. Started it last Friday.

Megan II

(22" x 20")

And I'm starting a new one of Tess. I'll post pictures of that once I get some work done on it.

Math, Math, Math

Much better subjects today. More of them, too, and all the best ones were within 10 feet of me.


Sounded like he and his buddies were trying to figure out their calculus homework. Poor guy.


Another one doing math homework. I'm so glad I got my math over with.


And here's that girl with all those earrings again. She sat down right across from me, so I had all the time in the world to draw her today. She was doing math homework too. Come to think of it, everybody there was doing math homework. Hmm...

I promise I'll post a picture of a painting soon.

Just One

I had a very pathetic half hour at the library yesterday (much less time between classes on Tuesdays). It was practically empty, and I didn't have a very good view of the few people that were there.


This girl would have been fun to draw if she would have stayed longer than five minutes. She was covered in piercings, not that you can tell from the sketch. I drew her eyebrow ring, but it kind of came out as a lump. Oh well.
That's really the only decent sketch I got.
I'll be taking another two hour trip to the library tomorrow, so we'll see how it goes then.

Something On His Mind

I took a trip to my college's library today to sketch. I'm really surprised that I got as many good drawings as I did; it was really pretty dead in there for a while. At least three or four different people sat down at my table, right in my line of vision, when there were three other tables empty. I was starting to wonder if they *wanted* me to draw them.

So the library is my new drawing location. With as much spare time as I'm going to have this spring, I should end up with a lot of drawings. I should probably buy a new sketchbook tomorrow. The one I'm using now is almost full.
Anyway, here are some of the sketches I did today:


"Georgia On My Mind"...(literally.)
I did these two drawings separately, and they ended up connecting. I didn't realize until later that it looks like the man has a woman growing out of his head.
But I like it this way.


Most of the people in the library were on computers.


This guy was further away than the others, so I couldn't get a very detailed sketch of him. I like this, though; it reminds me of the quicker sketches I did of people back in high school.


Some quick sketches of the staff that were milling around. The woman on the bottom left was answering the phone.

New Stuff

A couple new sketches:





I should be getting more sketches done now that winter break's over. I'm going to have a lot of time to kill between classes this semester, so I'll probably spend it drawing in the campus center or cafe.

I'm working on a new painting right now, too, but I don't have any pictures to post yet. I'm working all weekend, so I might be able to finish it then.

Update

No new pictures to post today, but I took digitals of all my paintings this morning in the sunshine and updated old posts with the better photographs. So Megan, Margaret, and Tess are all better quality pictures now.

There It Is Again...

... finished this time. Took me exactly 7 days.

New Painting

The third one of Tess. Should be done pretty soon; I have plenty of time to work on it. I just need to finish the hair and then touch up the face and neck. It's 14.5"x14".

Merry Christmas!

Christmas weekend and the cafe was packed. Managed to get a good table and some good sketches, too.

Tess

Tess, 26" x 20"
(This is the first one of Tess.)


Portrait of Tess, 23"x23"
And the second Tess, just finished today.

I also have a third one of the same girl that I started today. I'll post pictures of that once I get some more work done on it. Which should be relatively soon, seeing as I'm finally done with school for the semester.

Margaret

22"x21"

Finally finished. Actually, it's been finished, but I've only just now gotten around to photographing it.

Skull

I still don't have any pictures of paintings to post, so here's another drawing I did in class. Cow skull, I think, but I can't really tell all the different skulls in the room apart. This was from back in October or so. Charcoal on paper, 18"x24".

Bust

Drawing I did in class a couple of weeks ago of a bust of Venus. Charcoal and white conte crayon on green paper, 18" x 24".

Classmates

I brought my sketchbook with me to class today and drew for the first ten minutes before the teacher started his lecture. I should've been doing that all year. Unfortunately, I didn't get much time to sketch.



I also went out to the cafe and drew for a few minutes. It was emptying out by the time I got there, so I really didn't get much done. I ended up taking out my pen and a bottle of ink and making a few nice little sketches. The pen and ink wasn't as noticeable as I thought it would be, but that might be because there was practically nobody in the cafe to notice. Anyway, a brush would be really obvious, so I don't think I'll ever do that.


This little girl was sitting in front of the fireplace drinking her soda.

Ink

I haven't been able to paint much lately because of school and work and it's been driving me nuts. So I sat down and did a pen and ink of a drawing from my sketchbook.


It would be nice to find some place to do pen and inks of people from life, but that would be way too attention-grabbing. I think I'd end up with a lot of people either looking over my shoulder or running the other way.

The drawing is brown and black ink on vellum bristol board.

Goat

I took an oil painting class at my community college last semester. I didn't get much out of it, other than a new appreciation for just how hard oils are. Four months of that class was even to convince me that oils aren't my calling. They're alright, I just don't like them as well as watercolor. I think I would have liked them more if I had been experimenting with them on my own. I hated them during class hours and when I was rushing to get the minimum number of paintings done (which was most of the time), but when I came into the room early enough to be the only one there, it was kind of nice. I managed to have a little bit of fun on the final just because I had to come in early and stay late to work on it every day.


All that backstory just to say this is an 8"x10" I did of a grisly sort of goat head that was (and is) floating around the art lab. The goat was missing a nose--the mice chewed through it. I think it's the nicest thing I did during the class, apart from the two nudes that I never finished and the cow skull that got into the student show. I'd post a picture of that cow skull too, but it's missing somewhere... I think I forgot to pick it up after the student show. The oil painting teacher probably has it stashed away in his office somewhere.