Fostering and Developing a Creative Practice Archives

Persistence

Art, Drawing and Painting, Fostering and Developing a Creative Practice

Persistence. Painting skin tones is a difficult skill I could spend years perfecting. Getting a face to look right is hard because we spend so much time looking at faces. Most people instantly can look at a face and feel if it is “off”, even if they can’t tell why it is off.

Learning As I Go

Over the last couple weeks I have worked on the skin tones in this painting, repeatedly. Her body went from too flat with even flesh coloring to zombie-like with too much blue and gray to what I have now. Her face I have repeatedly painted over because the skin color was off and the alignment of her features was not correct. At this moment, I am between painting sessions. I use acrylic paint. Acrylic paints begin to get “gummy” as they dry and over-working the paint makes the texture rough. A rough texture is not what I want for her skin.

The Many Colors of Skin

Trying to get this eight armed goddess’ skin correct has been an exercise in learning about skin tones. I am glad that I have persisted. I am learning scads about skin tones and tonal regions of the face. For instance, around the eyes and chin is typically cooler– more blue or greenish in tint. Under the eyes and across the forehead is more yellowish.

I found this graphic on tumblr on art-res:

The other thing I discovered while taking on this challenge is skin is composed of many different colors. I have used cerulean blue, cadmium orange, cadmium red deep, raw and burnt umber, raw sienna, titanium white, and phthalo green. While the face is still being worked on, and I haven’t done much more than rough the arms in, the body is looking better. And if you look close there are blues, greens, warm browns, yellows, pinks– so many colors!

An Idea!

While I am working on this painting, I have also continued working on the exercises in the Draw A Box tutorials. My hand is getting very steady. I still make mistakes. I have filled about half of a sketchbook with lines, ellipses, planes, and boxes in perspective. My hand is getting steadier and my line quality is more confident.

In addition to working on my drafting skills, I have been working on my ability to see basic shapes in forms. I went looking for video tutorials on YouTube. I found a series of tutorials on figure drawing by Richard Smitheman. His approach of looking for where the figure’s center of gravity and their balance lies makes infinite sense. He provides solid information about anatomy as well. Another series of free videos on YouTube I found is The Drawing Database. The Drawing Database is a series of videos created by Associate Professor Marc Leone from Northern Kentucky University. His videos cover art history, basic drawing, and how to prepare to draw.

In my search for information about skin tones, I also purchased a few books. One I am still waiting to arrive in the mail. The other is titled “Why do my Skin Tones Look Lifeless?” by Rachel Shirley. The book covers skin tones and a variety of issues around doing portraiture. My library of art books, books about specific aspects of art, and art processes and techniques is growing!

All of this is causing me to consider creating a DIY Bachelors of Fine Arts program for myself.

Stay tuned for more about this next week!

Making Mistakes

Drawing and Painting, Fostering and Developing a Creative Practice

A first draft of a painting with mistakes — A first draft of one of my paintings– with mistakes

When learning any new skill, making mistakes is inevitable. A couple years ago I started this painting. I saw a really cool image of a statue of a goddess with eight arms. I am not sure if it was Durga or Kali, but I loved the image. After spending time doing pencil studies of the photograph I downloaded from the internet, I pulled my courage around me and I blocked what I wanted to paint onto the canvas.

And then I started to paint. My sons teased me about her , uh, anatomy. I drew and painted and repainted her face, but I couldn’t get it right. Finally, I was feeling embarrassed about the painting and I put it away. A year after I put it away I pulled it out and asked my daughter to help me block in the face. She helped me. And I put it away again for another year.

Yesterday I pulled the painting out and worked on the face. I screwed it up again, her eyes were in the wrong place, her nose looked wrong, the skin tone didn’t match what I had done previously. This was all very frustrating and I was tempted to stash this painting for another year or so. I have an owl painting I want to work on.

This morning I pleaded with my daughter to help with the face again. She looked at it, but didn’t want to help me. She told me to do it myself. Argh. More frustration. So I painted over a portion of what I did yesterday.

I painted over a portion of the work on the face I had done.

Reminding myself I learn with every attempt at painting, I started over on the face. I also went over the rest of the body to even out the skin tones. Am I in love with what I did today? No. I have much more to do. I need to not be so perfectionist. Jumping in, painting over, and starting again is the only way to move forward. And if this painting is horrible? It’s ok, I am still learning.

This is what I ended for today with. Tomorrow I can play with the paint again!

After working on the painting today, this is where I stopped. Still more to do!

Overcoming a White Page or Canvas

Art, Drawing and Painting, Fostering and Developing a Creative Practice

Drawing practice creating ellipses — Drawing practice, drawing ellipses

Sometimes overcoming a white page or a white canvas can feel overwhelming. Procrastination is not always about putting off something enjoyable. I love to draw. Painting is one of the activities where I lose myself and enter a “flow” state. Writing can be like awake dreaming. Playing the guitar is another form of meditation. And yet, I will put off doing all of these things I enjoy.

Further, I have come to view procrastination not as a frustrating habit, but rather as a clue. I am not to the point of being grateful when procrastination pops up because it means there are “feels” to sort out or realistic time management issues to deal with or any of a bunch of other issues. But knowing I am procrastinating means there are things to work on.

In addition, “working on things” means making a conscious choice. Do I have time today to pull out the canvas and set up my painting area to get a pass at a painting done? Am I continuing to do studies in pencil because I am avoiding putting paint to canvas? Am I ready to get over myself and risk? Every time I put paint to canvas it is a minor risk.

Risk

But here is the thing, it is a minor risk. No one is going to lose a limb or die today if I mix acrylic paint, put it on a canvas, and decide later that I don’t like it. If I write a scene in a short story and it comes across as “telegraphic”, I can edit it later. No tragedy will occur if I paint a figure or a face and it doesn’t look like I think it should. When I practice the guitar in my room, alone, I am the only one who hears the mistakes. And I need to make the mistakes because no one is good right from the beginning. The only way to get better is to read, write, draw, paint, create, experiment, and play.

Let’s consider an example: Picasso. Picasso created 147, 800 pieces of art in his lifetime. He created his first painting at the age of nine. It’s good for a nine year old who had a father who was an artist and taught painting. And Picasso totally had to make this painting and hundreds of others and not all of them were what he envisioned. I know he had works of art he looked at later and wanted to change. I went to an exhibit in 2018 at the Chicago Institute of Art that featured works Picasso had “altered”. The painting Mother and Child originally included a father dangling a fish over the infant’s head. His most famous painting from his Blue Period, The Old Guitarist, has an image of a woman underneath it. Picasso was very prolific and we don’t see everything he created. He painted over some of it!

Continuing with the idea of “just do it”, I was talking with my daughter and she estimates 90% or more of what she creates she thinks is not very good. However, the other 10% she likes and she reports she could not have done that 10% without the other 90%.

Just Do It

Practice lays the foundation for creating better works. And shooting for more, experimenting pushes one’s skill level. I have been doing the beginning exercises for the Draw A Box online tutorial. The creator of the Draw A Box tutorials instructs people to only do the exercises for 50% of the time they are drawing because otherwise people get stuck doing the tutorials, don’t draw what they want to draw, and burn out.

For me, doing the Draw A Box tutorials are double-edged. I can understand the value of practicing making marks to gain control and confidence. This type of practice also feels like I am “drawing” and working towards my goal of becoming more adept at drawing. Also, I get why it is recommended to stretch beyond drawing lines, ellipses, and boxes. Ghosted lines, ellipses, and boxes can be used to create other shapes, but there is more to drawing and illustrating.

My Goal For This Week

Draw a Box practice drawing of boxes — Draw A Box practice

This last week was the first week back to my job after being off for two weeks. I didn’t write or paint. Only during my lesson did I play guitar. I drew several practice pages to keep working on the Draw A Box exercises. The photos are scans of a couple of my pages. The week was exhausting and there is no use in berating myself for not doing more. Being good to myself and creating space to do things I enjoy is a better mindset.

In the vein of doing things I enjoy and creating time and space do them, the only goal I am going to give myself for the week is to have fun– paint something ugly, draw something/anything other then a box or a line or an ellipse, and write something fanciful. I will check back with you next week.

Fostering and Developing a Creative Practice