Improved mushrooms #2

I posted the second mushroom piece at wetcanvas.com and got some good feed back. So I pulled out the piece and worked on it some more. I am much happier with the piece now. I extended the middle mushroom stalk and worked on the background. I also added some drop shadows.

Mushrooms #2

Here is the second of my experimental mushroom series. This one is done in ink and pastels. 13" x 9" on strathmoore charcoal paper.

I'm not as happy with this one. I don't think the background color is working with the mushrooms. But this one has given my ideas for the next.

Class number 4

After the ten minute pose our teacher told us we could bring up our pieces. I was the only one to do so. My piece did not go well. My proportions were off and my highlights were all over the place.

The next pose was for 20 minutes. While working I could hear the teacher say a couple of times for people to bring up their work. No one went up. When the 20 minute pose ended I brought up my piece to a yawning teacher. I said something about him falling asleep. He said no one was coming up.

My 20 minute piece was a big improvement. Proportions were good and my highlights were right on. He gave me some fine tuning hints. I'm not sure why people are taking this class and not taking advantage of the teacher. There were 20 of us and I think only 2 other students went up.

The image below is my 20 minute drawing. I used conte crayons.

On a side note...I had to have my car towed today. I guess I'll find out what is wrong tomorrow. Saturday I will be car shopping, time to get a new one.

Cosmic Mushrooms

First one done. I am pretty happy with it. This one is ink and charcoal.

Project Mushroom

I started a new project last night. My idea was to make a whole bunch of loose ink mushrooms. Then later complete each piece as I thought best, like in pen & ink, charcoal, pastel, water color, or what a combo of any of them.

When I started the results were not what I had envisioned and I got bummed, but kept with it. But then I shook one of the pieces and bingo... the look I wanted. So I shook and bounced the pieces and had a good old time. I can't wait for the next steps.

The first picture is my set up. The second is a close up of some of the cooler results.

Spider Plant

I was dragging my feet on this one, but I finally got it done.

Figure Drawing

Here is my latest work from my class. My teacher liked the conte drawing enough to call up the whole class to look at it. He talked about it's strong points and weal points. The highlights were too even and made it look flat. So I toned down some of them to make the figure appear to recede.

The modeled posed for another 20 minutes in the same pose so I made a quick brush and ink drawing and a graphite drawing too.

Fooling myself

I guess I have been fooling myself thinking I could easily work in pastel. The more I use them the tougher it gets. Maybe I'll feel different about this piece tomorrow, but I don't see much hope with it.

I'm finding it difficult to get colors I like and tones I'm happy with. I may scrap this and move on to my next project.

Start of a pastel

My blogging will get a little sporadic. I play guitar and I'm in the starts of a band now. So the band will start taking over some of my art time. I did start a new pastel thought.

I have been reading about people starting a pastel with a charcoal drawing. That idea appealed to me so I am trying it. I'm concerned about the charcoal mixing with the pastel and making the colors muddy. I'll have to find out about that.

I did the charcoal drawing. I like to let the initial drawing sit for a day so I can look at it fresh and see if I want to make any changes. Sometimes I get so caught up in the piece that I miss some mistakes out of the gate. It has been my experience to make the changes from the beginning. You'll never be able to work the mistakes out of the piece.

Here is the plant I am drawing and the charcoal sketch.

Class Begins

I had my first class at the Art Students League last night. It was okay. We did some figure drawing and the teacher gave an anatomy lecture and did a demonstration. The anatomy stuff I pretty much knew already. It was fun to take a class though. We were able to bring the figure piece we were working on to the teacher for a critique. He only had minor adjustments for mine. I worked in charcoal. Next week I'll try conte crayons.

I stayed over night in the city. Attached are two sketches I made. The smoke stack was outside the coffee shop I had breakfast. Then I wondered down to the East River and drew the sunrise.