Recent figure painting work

Unfortunately, I can't share everything I'm doing at TAD.  (Two of the major projects we've worked on, plus my recent internship with Massive Black Shanghai.)  But I do have a great figure painging class with Jon Foster, so here's some of the stuff I've done for it so far.

First project - study of a Jon Foster sculpture.  Had fun chiseling brushmarks with this.

Watercolor.  Decided to add my own environment and scenario to make it more of an illustration than just a weekly homework study.

Another weekly figure assignment, and another time I decided to have fun adding a background.  I discovered how to mimic some of Painter's effects in Photoshop with this one.  And made it sort of an art deco theme - why not?

Based on the photography of Peter Hapak.  Love his series.  (I added the fish though hehe)  This was a combination of mostly acrylic (base), some colored pencil, and some light oil as a finish.  I'm glad I tried it!

This was done almost all in acrylic, with some oil.  We used the Zorn palette (ivory black, alazirin crimson, yellow ocre, titanium white, burnt sienna, and NO blue!)  My own composition but I tried to capture the spirit of Zorn's work. 

Here's my acrylic master copy of Nicolai Fechin.  I didn't stress over exact strokes/proportions as I did in capturing the feel, texture, and brush style.  I think I learned a lot from this!

Process, featuring my monster palette knife - like, favorite tool evar!

Original painting.

30 min limited value watercolor.

60 min limited value watercolor.

Bougereau crop master copy in oil pastel.  This was super-challenging because I only had black, white, and a blender - no gray oil pastels!  Lots of finger smudging!  I may go in and fix some areas digitally, like making it more subtle.

New Figure Speedpaints from Life!

Here's some more.  I think they're all one-sessions (around 2 hrs.) or less.

I like these more narrative ones.

I came in late for this one and kinda rushed it.  Now the proportions are all wonky... :-(

This setup had really nice natural lighting.

An experiment with getting good directional texture in Photoshop.

I wish we'd had more time for this.

Decided to try this entirely in Painter.  It certainly took longer, but I do kind of like the more "impressionistic" look.


Again, yay for narrative poses!

Study with a draped figure + graffiti/rust texture = homeless guy illustration!

Our last thing in Figure Drawing class this semester.  Class was cut short at the end for critiques.
I really didn't do a good job capturing his likeness in this one, but I do like how the actual rendering came out.

My approach in Painter, a little looser than in Photoshop.

Couple more figures and a landscape

First two are some more life figures. I used Painter for much of the first one.

The third is a 4th floor window view of Columbus, in acrylic. We were supposed to go on location but since it was rainy we stayed inside and painted for a period.

Lotsa figure paintings!

More quick digital life paintings, coming right up!

I tried to post them in chronological order.

Most of these were one-session poses, which means about 2-2.5 hours. Some were done in class, and some I did voluntarily in the "open figure" sessions my school offers for free.

I saved an average of five steps for each one I did, but still have to put most of them together. It takes more time than I'd like though, so unless someone asks me to I probably won't...

Anyway, I feel like I'm finally getting a little better at understanding how light plays on human flesh, though I think I have a ways to go still before I can really portray it accurately without any reference at all...

Anyway, I've been trying to get away from layering, and instead working on selecting accurate color the first time.