Belle

“I said: "He cannot be so bad if he loves roses so much."

"But he is a Beast," said Father helplessly.

I saw that he was weakening, and wishing only to comfort him I said, "Cannot a Beast be tamed?” 

--From Beauty by Robin McKinley

I loved painting this piece. Based on one of my favorite fairy tales, and modeled by one of my beautiful friends, I have always wanted to put this character down on canvas. 

Painting Finals

The last semester included a head painting class, about which I have posted before. Instead of it being a class about how to paint the human head like I thought it was going to be, it was more of a class about color and composition, and mostly about light and how it acts within a space around physical objects. It just happens to use the human head as the physical object. I thoroughly enjoyed and was completely frustrated by this class. But something I have learned:  I love light. I love painting light. more than anything else, different colored light in a situation creates the narrative, mood and attitude of a piece. I want to learn more about how to manipulate and use light in my work.
Here are some of the final paintings I did for that class.
I have tried in vain to get good pictures of the paintings, but alas, I have some work to do in that department. Any tips on photographing oil paintings would be appreciated!

Head Painting Extraordinaire

HI! I decided to post about some of the things I have been doing in my classes recently. Painting and drawing heads and faces! So fun. But really, I have improved so much, I can see the changes that have occurred. It's all towards the 10,000 hours right? Just increasing the mileage.
I've actually been thinking about that recently, they say that practice makes perfect, but I have come to realize that its only the good practice that makes perfect. You have to come to a piece in the right mindset, the mindset that you are going to create the most amazing piece of artwork you have ever created. Then, at least for me, this makes me excited to put brush to canvas. If I am not excited about it, I will not put all the effort in me into the work. Then I really won't get anything out of the experience. If my goal in art is to constantly improve, then I need to do this every single time.
It gets kind of exhausting.
And sometimes I can't quite get it.
But it is then when I still need to put pen to paper, whether I want to or not, because it is only with experience that I learn.
Anyways, in chronological order, here are my head paintings, and a few drawings.
Can you see the repeated models? There's only a couple.