Thursday, December 6, 2012

Assignment: Re-do

Assignment this week is to take a problematic painting and do it over again.  Start fresh, changing it up by changing the aspect ratio, accentuate or diminish some parts, or cut something out entirely.  I started from the photograph of the model for the session at Kat's last week, and did a very (very, very) sketchy version of a background that's in a Berthe Morisot painting.  Also, I made up a wicker chair--not very convincing, but without photo reference, it's, well... I guess I'd better work on that a bit more.  And where would the other arm of the chair be?  And the little itty-bitty hands will need some work.  Perhaps I'll finish it in class tomorrow.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

For the record

Class yesterday.  Same drill:  one model, two poses... plus one static pose projected on the screen.  I decided I wouldn't try to make them look like they are occurring in the same space/time frame, and ended up with this "big sketchbook page", as Mark called it.  I am to heighten the relationships of angles etc. of my compostion, still... which I will do, along with major revamp of that big bear paw of a hand in the foreground!

Mention was made of Antonio Machado, and a stanza of his poem which goes like this:

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Here ye, here ye!