| 1 minute, charcoal & fingers, 1st session, July, 2009
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2 min. w/ shammy eraser
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5 minutes
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10 minutes
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| 60 minutes
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60 minutes, I need more time or get faster.
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| 60 minutes, pastel is faster than pencil.
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15 minutes, new soft synthetic charcoal pencil over chalk
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| 9-2-9, 45 minutes, I'll never let the body be covered again while I'm practicing. It takes extra time.
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9-9-9, 45 minutes, butcher paper,
very fugitive.
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12-2-9, one hour
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12-8-9, The model was late, 20 min. on the bananas.
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I bought a new hemp paper drawing pad and it holds the texture much stronger than the colored paper so it took longer to fill it. I didn't get the picture finished but it does show an intermittent stage close to finished.
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I've been working other projects and have neglected life drawing for thirteen months and I can tell. Even though I was using my fastest technique, holding all the colors I was using in one hand I still was slow. This was 45 minutes or one hour, I didn't write it down. I didn't even have time for a background while everyone in our group was finished. We don't have many 2 hour poses which I like very much. A 3 hour pose would be like heaven. I can only imagine a full background and a finished pose where I can get to my finishing pastel pencils. In an age of plastic surgery, the female body is often regarded in the light of what we see on magazine covers. Though beautiful in their own right, the altered female form (via plastic surgery) will also improve the final look on canvas. Linked here are images of the female form without and with augmentation, alteration. The result is perfectly beautiful as nature intended. |
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3-25-11, Wailuku, Maui ![]()
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4-28-11, We had the model from NY again, she was great, held a pose great, good muscle tone. I did two one hour poses. It's such a good feeling to know she's really holding the pose, you can jump anywhere around the image. I start with two extreme dots eg. head and foot following an "action/flow/weight line. 4 1/4 heads down to the top space between the legs is the 3rd dot. Four heads up from the feet is the wide "bend" line triangle connecting to the 3rd dot. The next triangle is the hip bone outside dots down to the 3rd dot. 1/4 head below the head is the shoulder line leaving the neck blank. Draw the shoulder width and 1/4 head end circles. Connect the nipples across the action line, draw the 3D grid shaped contour center line of the torso. The knee is two head lengths up, draw two 1/4 head circles for the knees. Draw the head circle and the face centerline in the circle, now is a good time to add the horizontal eye circling around the middle of the head and the eye centers, add the nose, lips and chin lines. Now I am ready to draw in the 3D blocked-in shapes if I want to. Oil and fresco yes because while it's wet you paint over your lines, w/c and pastels not so much. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Draw the bodies curve line from the top of the head to the weighted foot. Divide it in half, that's the bend line. The bend line is a triangle to the space between the legs. Make this triangle two head widths wide and one quarter of a head deep. The belly button and nipples are good placement points. The frontal view of the shoulder line is two head lengths wide for a guy. Knees are two heads up from the bottom of the heel. Elbows reach the hip bone. The hip bone trunk triangle starts a half head above the bend line and connectes to the space between the legs. ![]() ![]() 7-1-11, Last night I switched to oil paints. I oiled down the canvas and drew with the brush. It was fine but there was too much oil down and I couldn't erase correctly with the brush. You can't use turpentine to erase with it has to be oil.
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Don pastel tips, jump out of page order: 4 Pastel Paintings on Location, #956 1-17-10, #957 1-26-10 - #958 2-3-10 - #959 2-18-10