Single Session Painting February 27th, 2020

•February 27, 2020 • 2 Comments

Last Thursday I didn’t go to the Group without a name at the Hungerford.
Instead I went to tour the production facility of Golden Paints. That should be a separate blog post for that but I was so totally overwhelmed by everything that I neglected to take photos and/or properly document what I saw. If you have ANY interest at all in any of the Golden products I highly recommend going and checking it out for yourself.

I did buy myself some new goodies from Golden while I was there. One of the things that I picked up were a few different textured gessoes. (Is that the plural of gesso?)

So today having only one session to paint the model I opted to try out one of the new gessoed boards. Overall I was very pleased with the texture and found that it greatly improved my experience with the board. I will need to do a second coat next time as the areas where I didn’t fully cover the board were still slippery. There was one section in her cheek that I kept wiping off the paint every time I tried to layer on it. That was a bit frustrating – but it’s all a learning process and overall I was pleased with today’s efforts.

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People often ask me how long these take. Normally I can only guess. We are there from 1pm – 5pm but the models take breaks and it sometimes takes us a while to settle in.
today I can say for sure that each of the above paintings represents 15 minutes of painting. The model today was sitting for 15 minute stretches.

The painting below is the same progress as the last one above just photographed in the hallway instead of on the easel (better light).

This one is 8″x10″ again because I only had the one day to work on it I went smaller than the 11″x14″ that I normally use.

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When I am home and I can figure out what the name of the gesso product is I will add it here as well.

My brain is continuing to get better and other than the occasional bout of self pity I seem to be doing fairly well.

Saturday is our first open house at the new space in Piano Works. I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to attend but as it turns out I was able to move my appointments around and now I can participate.
Looking forward to meeting everyone and setting up my space more.

Posted in Art, Figure Drawing, ny, Oil painting, painting, rochester, rochester, ny, TeeJay
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Figure Drawing February 17th, 2020

•February 18, 2020 • 1 Comment

Well, we all made it through Valentine’s Day. Hope that you are relatively un-scathed as well. My friends and neighbors made it pretty awesome for me. I got flowers and chocolate dipped strawberries and my neighbor brushed off my car for me in the morning. Hung out with a lovely human and watched a great movie.

It was a best case scenario in so many ways. I am truly fortunate.

So back to figure drawing at Steve’s on Monday. Great model, nice crowd and I am relatively happy with the drawings. I actually really like the long pose one and am about ready to start asking people to sit for these outside of the Steve’s studio. I have a private place at the house and at my new studio – just need to get my lighting set up a little more portable and I will be ready to go.

More on that another day. For now here are Monday’s drawings.

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Time lapse video:

Thank you again for your ongoing support and visiting my corner of the internet. Very much appreciated.

Posted in Art, Digital Drawing, drawing, Figure Drawing, ny, rochester, rochester, ny, Sketchbook, TeeJay
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Painting February 6th & 13th at the Hungerford Art Group Without a Name

•February 13, 2020 • 2 Comments

Jessamyn is a great model. Super professional and strikes a pose without any (visible) effort on her part. I admire the models so much. I don’t think I could do it. Even with a brace for my head I think I would still wind up in a completely different position.

Once again in life we have to remember that all of us have different strengths and weaknesses.

My life is settling into some sort of version of normalcy I think or as close to it gets. I feel much more peace than I would have expected and am looking forward to some new adventures.

Painting seemed a little easier this week as well.

First week’s progress:

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Some times I don’t feel like I do a whole lot on the second session until after I look at the finished photos. Really I think I mostly just polished this one.

Drew let me try some new brushes that he is using and they were really nice. Of course it also counterpointed how wretched the brushes that I am carting around are currently. I have nice brushes. I just hoard them like a reclusive forest witch trying to protect her magic. Maybe the magic is in the brushes and I can only get it out if I actually use them? Maybe I need to start actually using the nice things that I buy for myself?

Anyhow, here was the progress on the second session.

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Crazy how much the light source changes the color.

Overall I am pretty pleased with this one as a painting. I would have liked to capture her likeness a little bit better. I’ve enjoyed being able to paint so much lately.

Off to poke through my brush stash and see what I have to play with.

 

Posted in Art, Figure Drawing, ny, Oil painting, painting, rochester, rochester, ny, TeeJay
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Figure Drawing February 10th, 2020

•February 12, 2020 • 2 Comments

I was (as usual) at Steve’s on Monday night.

I really do love it there. It’s filled with my kind of people. I was talking with my therapist earlier in the day. I have an over-protective “Protector Part” I tend to know at all times who is around me, where the exits are, have full awareness of anything my brain my interpret as a threat. Restaurants and bars can be mentally exhausting. It occurred to me that I don’t do that AT ALL when I am at Steve’s. Sunday I got there kind of late for the group event and I sat at the first empty drawing horse that I found. It was right near the door (with my back to it). I hadn’t even thought about it until Monday discussing my “security” thoughts.

That was a really nice realization and made me appreciate him and the studio even more.

Yes, I know I have issues. That’s why I have a therapist 🙂

anyhow…. here are the drawings that I made yesterday.

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And the time lapse:

 

No. Mia did not spontaneously transform into a rabbit for one of the poses. Sometimes I catch myself getting frustrated with my drawings. There are a variety of things that I do to get past that. This time it was drawing Mia as a rabbit. It may be the kind of thing I would do again. You never know.

Posted in Art, Digital Drawing, drawing, Figure Drawing, ny, rochester, rochester, ny, TeeJay
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Mid Winter Drawing and Painting Slam 2020

•February 11, 2020 • Leave a Comment

As a function of the New York Figure Study Guild I am not sure if there will be any more of these going forward. The Guild has had a complete collapse of the Board and no one has stepped up to replace them. I don’t know how they would have any options other than to shut down but maybe something will happen. Meantime they did host this one at Steve’s on Sunday. They used to have them on Saturdays and I could very rarely go so I am super happy that they are now on Sundays.

There are usually two costumed models that sit all day (from 10am-4pm with breaks including a longer one for lunch), a whole lot of artist type humans and food and stuff.

I get to see friends, play with paint and get lost in a crowd that I feel at home in.

It’s great.

Mark posed for us. He rented the costume just for this event. The colors synced up perfectly with what Jessamyn was wearing for our Thursday group so the two paintings almost look like a set (although the placement on the canvases are a bit different). *

Here are my stage photos:

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All in all I was relatively pleased with this one for a single session portrait.

I will keep practicing and moving forward in art and life. Looking forward to seeing what happens next.

*I will post the photos of Jessamyn after the second session which happens on Thursday.

Posted in Art, Figure Drawing, ny, Oil painting, painting, rochester, rochester, ny, TeeJay
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Figure Drawing February 3rd, 2020

•February 4, 2020 • 1 Comment

I wound up having to take attendance at Steve’s again last night. I’m getting a bit better at it and there were less people there so I think it was a bit easier.

We did have an incident. The steps that they use on stage for a prop must not have been put together properly so when the model stepped on them they collapsed. She was banged up but was willing to continue for the night after she put a band-aid on the worst of it. I felt awful for her and was super happy that she decided to stay.

Henceforth remembered as the night we tried to throw the model on the floor. Who knew modeling had a dangerous side?

Of course after it happened I heard two other stories of models actually passing out during sessions. That has to be so much worse. One of them fell all the way off the stage and they called an ambulance for her. I can’t imagine. Glad it wasn’t anything that serious this time.

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Band aid included for emphasis…

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and the time-lapse video of me working on the drawings…

Until next time… thank you for stopping by and I hope your life is going the way that you would like for it to be.

Posted in Art, Digital Drawing, drawing, Figure Drawing, ny, rochester, rochester, ny, TeeJay
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Painting with the Group without a Name January 23rd & 30th – Lightning

•January 30, 2020 • 1 Comment

Thursdays at the Hungerford

I have painted Lightning a few times. He is a really nice guy and always in a good humor when he has posed for us. I think his right name is Harold, but he has asked to called Lightning and jokes about how Super Fast he is.

I was intending on making him smaller overall on the canvas. I think I made him a bit smaller than I have been making these faces but I think in the process of that I slid him down the canvas a touch more than I would have liked.

Oh well. These are all just for practice anyhow.

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Second week:

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I stopped early this week as I was fairly happy with where I was at.

Always worth the time and the practice.

 

Posted in Art, Figure Drawing, ny, Oil painting, painting, rochester, rochester, ny, TeeJay
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