Adjusting Hair

This is a drawing done from memory ( As are about 98 percent of my drawings) of a woman Adjusting her hair. The subject has been a favorite for artists through out art history. So I'm

just following the call. Usually it's a woman at the bath or at a stream or being visited upon by Zeus. In this case it's a girl on an Elliptical Cardio machine.

Actually it is again some one I know and when I saw her fixing her hair I thought "There's a nice image for a drawing".

When you see this subject matter in art you don't often see arms and shoulders like that unless it's Michelangelo. That brother could draw some arms!

So here's the tech story on this . Drawing started in Painter 11 using Conte on my Modbook.

But I still find Painter 11 a little stiff so I opened it in Photoshop to continue drawing. Just like using pastels. Just not as messy.

Also this was done during my flight to Japan so there's the reason for using a computer and drawing from memory!

Fantasy Warrior

This is a sketch based on a photo of someone I know. I can't say that it's a likeness really because it doesn't really looks like her . But you could say that it's inspired by the photo.

This was done only in Photoshop on my 21 inch cintiq. There are a lot of things about it that I don't like but then it's not a finished piece. Just a sketch and the reason to do a sketch is to see if you want to pursue it further. I would do this one over again but the point of this blog was to do things quickly and not over work it . Just to get things out.

I get used to working in grays because of some of the work that I do where color isn't needed.

It gives you less to think about so you can just think about form and mass.

I originally liked the stance in the photo that this was based on but I don't think I got it.

The head is also a bit weird. I didn't use the pose that was in the photo - I just made it up .

I find it hard to use models because they never do what you want them to do . But you do need them sometimes!

-Larry

Detail of Oils Practice

painter oils w/acrylics

Today I had to wait around for a input on a job so I had time to fool around with Painter 11 again. With this one I just started out with the graphite tool and charcoal tool. That went okay if you only want your image to be achromatic . Actually you can work in color with these tools but the results aren't as satisfying. Next I started playing around with the oils brush and the acrylic brush . They are similar but the oil seems to be a little more unpredictable.

This is sort of a classic reclining pose but the image had no real function except for something to practice Painter 11 tools on.

-Larry

Quick sketches

Again, just doodling with no plan in mind. Trying out the oil brushes in Painter11 for sketching. The acrylic brushes seem to work better for this just because I've noticed that the oil brushes "drag" color and leave a white streak on the background. I still have better control

of what I do in Photoshop but I'm trying to give Painter its chance.

I'm going to have to make myself go back to traditional real media again. But you can't resize or rotate or change color as easily.

-Larry

just details

Painter Oils tool

Today I thought I'd move on from the dry tools like charcoal and conte and play around with Painter 11's oils tools . This is also a 25 minute sketch with no model , just painting from memory/imagination. As an exercise I thought I'd take screen grabs in progression.

-Image 1 is the beginning at 10 seconds. Just sketching in a head. I started with a pale colored background and started painting on a separate layer for convenience. You can choose this color when you start a new image or use the paint bucket tool later. I didn't bother with setting a paper texture although I guess canvas would have been nice.

-Image 2 is at 2 minutes. Just feeling out the forms grabbing colors from the color wheel and deciding on the type of oil brush . It's a basic bristle oil , variable size. A default brush. The default brushes seem to do well even though I know you can create endless brushes in Painter 11.

- Image 3 is at 4 minutes - still feeling it out

-Image 4 is at 10 minutes. At this point I flipped the image to check symmetry and fixed any imbalances. After doing that I decided that I liked the flipped version. The advantage of working digitally.

- Image 5 is at 15 minutes. Here I'm playing around with how Painter 11 handles the paint. Like real oils the colors smear into each other and you can mix the color on the canvas to a point .

There's a little impasto there but it doesn't read unless you view at actual size.

-Image 6 is at 25 minutes. At this point I'm just placing more color and dropping in some highlights. Working this way is very satisfying if you want to do an oil painting in less than an hour. I thinks it takes me longer than an hour just to set up an oil palette and brushes.

I'm not saying that Digital is better. It's just depends on what your needs are.

Even though this is just a sketch it keeps me drawing.

-Larry Navarro