My Week in Photos

I'm going to try something inspired by the blog of Kate Miss 

I take a lot of crappy iPhone photos each week just for mementos of moments that strike me. I'm going to post those photos every week or so. I may even post photos of Shea's haircut! Hopefully I'll start using my real camera too.

Here's this week in photos:

Lots of art this week. Sage really likes to help me when I draw with charcoal. Also got some cozy new shoes, cut Shea's hair, got flannel sheets with snowflakes in preparation for winter, and at Target I got the softest blanket I have ever touched. Softer than kittens. Even Sage thinks so. You can see it in the last two photos above. I slept very well last night. 

Yesterday I got to see the student version of Les Mis, which Shea and my sister Cassie both performed it. It was AMAZING. And Shea, who can barely hit middle C when he sings in front of me, sang the hell out of his solo. He hit his high note like it was nothing. And although he wasn't mic'd, he was louder than some who were! Gave me chills. 

I spent this morning buying music and will likely spend the afternoon working to it. It's great art doing music, especially the three albums I bought by Fink. 

And now I'm off to read about some art!

Self Portrait Project Pt.2

I've made quite a bit of progress since my last post. I had no idea where to start with the skin tone, so I spent quite a while just mixing paint and painting over it. I started by filling in the neck and face with a base coat that was my estimation of skin tone.

Creepy looking, I know. And WAY to pale. I tried to go in and add some shadows and hightlights but really couldn't visualize the colors right. Here was my first attempt:

Yuck. I was getting very discouraged, so my professor suggested I go in and fill in the hair with only a base coat of the darkest shade. I also added a wash of blue-gray for the background.

I decided that I'd tackle an eye next, because I wasn't ready to try the skin again. I spent about 2 hours on this eye:

The shadow of the lid was too black, so after a million different mixes, I settled on a redder color. I used this as the base of my new skin tone shade, adding a little burnt sienna and titanium white to lighten, and some cadmium red to darken. I finally figured out how to give the skin the color and texture I want. I am using the smallest brush I have to add the paint so it blends smoothly. In this last shot, you'll see all the progress I've made so far. The eye and cheek are coming together nicely, and I'm hoping the rest will go as smoothly. I do think that I may need to take out some red later, but this is a nice start.

Self Portrait Project

I've just started my second project in Intro Painting, which I'm both thrilled and terrified for. I have to paint a self-portrait. I found out through the last project that I am horrible at painting skin. Not sure how to get the right color, and how to apply the paint to get a smoother look than I've gotten in the past. I'm thinking I'm going to post progress shots here, because it's fun for me to see and share my approach to art. Today I finished the fabric of my shirt. I LOVE drawing and painting fabric. Here is its, after the first painting session: