Life drawings

From last night's Meetup session in Costa Mesa. The first one took 1 hour, but I made her hips/torso too large (sorry, Stephanie!).

The second one was 25 minutes, looser, and better. Both with a #2B charcoal pencil and a white charcoal pencil on gray paper.

Even more progress!

I was very busy this past week and didn't have as much time to paint as I would have liked. Still, I was able to make some more progress on the large painting. I worked on the blanket, Annie's shirt, and the background people. Everything still needs work, but I now pronounce it about 1/4 to 1/3 done!

A little more progress

Worked on the painting for about 3 hours this morning, before it got too hot. A little bit here, a little bit there. Trying not to get too fixated on any one thing - yet.

Progress

Worked on the big painting lots this weekend. This is where it was at the end of the day yesterday:

And here is where I ended it today:

Happy.

The big green monster

No, it's not at Fenway. I started adding color to the large painting that I drew on the canvas last week.

And then - I ran out of yellow medium hue light! I've ordered some more paints and other supplies from my online art supply retailer of choice, aswexpress.com (check 'em out, best prices I've found online). I'm using a different yellow for now. I plan to get up early tomorrow before the studio gets too hot and get in a few hours of painting. It was 102° outside today, and hotter than that in the studio.

Life drawings

Last night I went to the figure drawing workshop in Costa Mesa, and did these. The first one is charcoal pencil and chalk (60 min), the second one is b&w acrylic paint (90 min). Kristin was the model, she is actually an artist herself who is usually drawing in the class. She was great, she's very tall (6'1"?) and does very good poses.

New books

It's been too hot to paint the past few days. With the outside temperature hitting around 100° everyday, it's probably been at least 10-20° hotter than that in my studio. I actually went and tried to paint for a little while several days ago and had to give up fairly quickly.

Instead, I've been reading two excellent new books that I got for my birthday:

"The Artist's Guide" by Jackie Battenfield is an inspiring "how-to" book for all those who are dreaming of making a living from their art. More info here: Amazon link

"Inside the Painter's Studio" by Joe Fig is a series of interviews with painters who detail the day-to-day process of how they make art - what time they get up, what kind of paint they use, etc. Really great book for those of us who are curious about how work actually gets made. More info here: Amazon link

(By the way, I don't get any kind of commission on these or anything, I just like the books. Get them elsewhere if you can find them for less!)