End of Part One

I want to thank everyone who I have worked with successfully and also those who gave me a hard time... without which I never would have learned to cope with the ins and outs of the commercial art world.
I am closing off all of the outside work and just deal with a few new inside projects.  Looking forward to new posts that focus on specific tools and advice that I hope will advance your drawing and painting skills. Emphasis on short to the point tutorials (often opinionated) that aim to get you there with the least amount of wasted energy.... See you all in the next post.

Whitney Houston Portrait

Offering for the untimely death of Whitney Houston... This small portrait sketch was created for a promotional several years ago that never reached the light of day...

DIY lighting stage for photo and painting setups

Here is a simple way to put up a very flexible portable stage you can use with inexpensive clamp lights.
Ordinary PVC plumbing pipe, shower rings, clothes pins, rubber crutch tips, clamp lights and white Foam Core are the basic components of this setup.   The only tools needed are a hacksaw and a miter box (optional).

I have opted out of using PVC cement as I can easily disassemble it for storage... You can however glue some of the sub-sections permanently that will store flat along with the background boards of Foam Core.
Foam Core is available in craft stores in  medium gray and black as well  so you can quickly set up the sides and back for different backgrounds.  Various colored papers in rolls or sheets can add to the mix.  By rigging up simple colored filters using colored CD cases or clear cases with stage gels set over homemade stage lights you have a variety of effects at your command.  Add an inexpensive white translucent shower curtain cut to fit the sides, top and front and you have a very practical light box for photographing small items with soft, even light.

Simple clothes-pin and shower curtain ring makes a quick release for the backgrounds.

This simple set up is inexpensive and quick to assemble - use your creative juices to add to the mix..
See you in the next blog. GL

Drawing makes you smart? If you can do this you can draw!

There has been a lot of buzz regarding the evaporating ability to write longhand (cursive)...big mistake!
The eye-hand coordination that it  develops is the entryway to many many skill sets.  Its practice focuses the mind - no distractions - your brain will form new connections that will be permanent.   All of the movements within the execution of longhand are the same as you need in learning to draw...
Another way to see it is the reverse... If you can do this you can draw - you just need to put together a new and refined way to understand what you are looking at and translate to line..(the drawing).

Above is a sample of a simple cursive alphabet but you will find dozens more with a search.  First and foremost it is fast.... Your ideas will come fast - your hand should be able to keep up.
Your body has amazing skill that is already built in and ready to go ---- you just don't know it yet and have not assembled all the soldiers and aligned them to focus on the one job.. to draw.

Every semester with a novice class I demonstrate a simple example of  how sensitive your perceptions can be.
I had them close their eyes and tell me which of two paper samples I placed one at a time between their thumb and forefinger was thicker or thinner.  They never made a mistake...all could discriminate between .003 of an inch ( three one hundred thousandth of an inch..) Pretty remarkable - the thickness of one sheet of printing paper...Are there two pages of a book...or one page? We have all been there just didn't know how good those little fleshy puffy things on the end of our wrist were..Wait, there's more...

You also know more than you think you do...

      Story..You are waiting on a corner for a friend who now is about a half hour late... you are getting anxious.  They are supposed to be walking from the west section of the city... You still are looking at the crowd from both west and east just in case.. Yikes....you finally see them - two blocks away.. You recognize their walk and shape....Now, what does this tell you?  It tells you that all you need is the shape and gesture to recognize something as believable...no details of face or clothing ... just shape and gesture...this will lead us into painting - a brush stroke or two with the right shape will suggest it all. 
See you all in the nest post..GL

Inexpensive DIY light box - Laptop style for storyboards and animation

Here is a simple homemade light box made form a 11 x 14 clear plastic picture frame.
Cut a pair of sides to fit from 3/4 plywood and paint them white. You will need a bottom cut to fit from hardboard also painted white.  A small  lamp available in home stores is useful to move around under your drawing or expanded to two lamps  fixed to the sides for a more permanent job.

Sundblom and Santa - Haddon Sundblom's great Christmas gifts.

Nothing pulls at nostalgia during the Christmas holiday more than Haddon Sundblom's incredible Santa renderings for the Coca Cola Co.  For those painters and illustrators out there please really take a slow and careful look at the economy of style and brush-work that he employs on an iconic subject... This guy loved paint... lush and creamy with sure color..warm and cool... fire and ice.

Here are some more of Santa  that you may have missed by Sundblom...just click on the image to enlarge..

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.....

music in the studio - setting the mood

Setting the tone and mood for a work session can really enhance your effort... See if your most favorite sounds work for or against your focus.  Fatigue and or distraction can be the result of poor choices in pairing music and hand (drawing - painting ).  Experiment with the same project and find the right match for you with different genres of music.  What does Beethoven do to your hand as opposed to Louie Prima , Stan Getz, Billy Holiday?.

Get to know Tim Hardin...probably the best single sensitive source for lyrics and sound you will find to set your mind. He took his life at forty in 1980 but left an incredible, generous source of great vocals...you will not regret searching for more of his work.

Louis Prima  video from the 50's and rare Jungle Book video
Stan Getz video - more  Getz - Desafinado
Corcovado  video - one more with Dizzy

Drawings at the Morgan Library

When ever I started a new drawing class the first thing I require the students to do is surround themselves with great drawings...now with the internet there is no excuse for lack of source.. The Morgan Library in NYC is one great drawing experience, not only for their collections but for the excellent environment it provides for the viewer. Today (October 2, 2009, through January 3, 2010) they are opening with a series of drawings - Rococo and Revolution: Eighteenth-Century French Drawings features more than eighty exceptional drawings almost exclusively from the Morgan's renowned holdings. The exhibition includes Antoine Watteau, Jacques-Louis David, François Boucher, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard, among others. Go to the Morgan's exhibit links and play with the zoom on each drawing...look for how the lines describe the form in the placement of the shading.

 Antoine Watteau (1684–1721)
Seated Young Woman, ca. 1716
Black, red, and white chalk
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1911; I, 278a

Painting in Yellowstone Park - Transendent Experience

Ken Burns' inspiring series now on Public Television brought back with amazing clarity my first experience with the national park system.  I drove across the country from New Jersey to California in a '50 Buick 4 door and slept in the back seat at truck stops serenaded by cattle carriers and revving Mack's and Peterbuilt's.  Burns speaks of having a transcendent experience upon a first viewing..indeed.  I spent the night outside the gate to the Grand Canyon south rim and entered at the early morning opening in time time to see the sunrise across the canyon.  The cool air chilled the body and etched the image forever.  I promised to return not knowing when.  I was still in college and had not yet decided to go on to study painting and illustration at the Art Center School as it was known at the time... now The Art Center College of Design.
The next experience was similarly sleepless in a parking lot near Artists' Point in the Yellowstone accompanied by my wife and an acrobatic Great Pyrenees with paws the size of catcher's mitts. Every animal sound within ear shot was translated into a trampling leap from front to side to back of the Econoline van which served as house and home for the trip. Finally at sunrise we wandered down the path to the lookout and watched the most incredible display of light crawl down the canyon walls warming both body and soul with sulfur yellows, crimsons and deep purples.  Again, I vowed to return to paint this time as I had graduated from the ACS some years before. 

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone - 30 x 40 oil

Shoshone River Canyon- oil

Canyon Pools - plein air gouache - 3" x 5"

Homemade Slide Scanner That Works

Here is a very simple digital slide scanner that you can put together in a few hours that will get those old slides onto your PC or Mac... more than adequate for the web or use as reference to paint from.  While not truly a scanner technically, it digitizes the slide with one click of your camera.  You must have macro capability on your camera and experiment a little with the settings to maximize the output. Everything used was stuff from the shop or junk box..the key component was the plastic parts tray drawer from one of these multiple tray cabinets that has the magic dimensions just right for the slide and diffuser.  

Click pictures to enlarge

 

Add some rubber feet to the base.

 

Cut the hood slightly oversize to make it easier to lift. Use tape for the hinge and your imagination for some adaptation to suit your personal camera and taste.. any available light source is usable as you can balance later in Photoshop if needed.. experiment... !

 

This is the original pencil brain storm think-through.

 

Invite me in? Frank Gehry - Steven Holl - architecture that pulls and pushes.

When we first see a building for the first time at ground level (the only way most of us are able to) does it ask you inside to discover how the interior space is organized out of curiosity or seduction?
If you see a rendering or photo of architecture from a POV that you never can personally physically encounter does it interest you as sculpture?  An emotional pathway? In an age of Starchitects such as Frank Gehry,  Jean Nouvel, Zaha Hadid, Thom Mayne, Michael Graves, Steven Holl, Rem Koolhaas, and Norman Foster visualizing the proposals or finished projects, models etc. with areal views or computer animated fly-arounds is a wholly different experience. We see a dazzling photo beautifully composed with rich color and sensuous light that becomes an art piece in itself.
Are we having a separate experience?  Engaging the buildings real world - real time 'taint the same. 
It is all in the details of human flow.. A building in use with people interacting.. this is what the client pays for.. or do they?  Maybe the building is the building is the building..the trophy skin.

 Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain - Frank Gehry 
Artsy link to Gehry
 

                                                                                                photo by Roland Halbe

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art - Steven Holl 

Kansas City, MO, United States, 1999-June 9, 2007

Explore the museum interior through the architects' web representation

here

THE NELSON-ATKINS MUSEUM OF ART

How does the project enclose usable space and for what purpose?  How do you feel when you enter? When you leave? Do the details of the interior excite your senses and  move you past the expected?

• Do the buildings waste structural resources by creating functionless forms.
• Are the buildings designed accounting for the local climate?
• Are the buildings a spectacle that overwhelm their intended use?
• In the case of museums and arenas, do they relate to what they are intended for?
  
• Do the buildings belong in their surroundings "organically"?
• Are the buildings friendly towards disabled people. Are ramps eliminated to preserve the intended aesthetic of the architect?

 Tell me a story...!

Improve your drawing - Part 1

Here is a method to improve your drawing that covers two subjects...type construction and warm up scales.

The Warm Up..Who ever bothers to do this? Wrong..

No athlete ever goes into competition with out warming up – drawing is no different.

You are using muscle groups, finger dexterity and eye-hand coordination. Everyone who has ever studied music or played an instrument knows how 'sticky' your coordination is at the beginning of each session. After a few scales and arpeggios things begin to come together. I have adopted the same reasoning towards the quick improvement of your drawing ability. The exercises shown here are adaptations of those used in learning how to write, indicate type and drawing. There must be a gazillion books on drawing but not too many ever discuss practice strokes or the warm up. The practice strokes are analogous to the scales in music. Think about it...it will work if you are not in a hurry.

Here is a vintage cut from the Palmer Method lesson on repetitive practice for good handwriting.  It sounds nuts but if you work on learning to indicate a type face it will help your drawing considerably.

You get a two for one deal on this one as making notations in your journals will really have a neat look.

Learning how to indicate type (as it was called in the “good ol' days”) not only will give you an appreciation for the beauty and thought behind typeface design, it will help you in your note taking or expression in your journals or sketches.

Here is Adobe Caslon. I've shown examples of others as well and I suggest that you carefully compare the subtle differences between the faces – look at the lower case g's.

Mark out on a sheet of paper several groups of horizontal lines about 1 inch apart.  Set down a series of squares within the line in which you will copy each capital (upper case) letter. First draw the outer edge of the letter and then the inner edge. Just the outlines – do the entire alphabet – letters, numbers, and punctuation. This practice exercise will hone your ability to discern very subtle differences. Good for your drawing..!

 Now..sharpen a pencil to a chisel point and single stroke the serif forms so that you get a nice neat letter.

Use this reprint from an old Speedball pen handbook for the stroke sequences.(click to enlarge)

This is the start of learning a new and improved eye-hand skill with the added cool ability to charm your friends with an actual vintage effort in calligraphy.  My instructor in illustration at the Art Center School, Joe Henninger, wrote all of his letters with this nice neat hand.

This scratchboard illustration of Joseph Morgan Henninger was done by John McCormack for a beer ad in the '50's. (partial view)

Haddon Sundblom - Home in America

 

Here is one of Sundblom's  Home in America beer ads about 1955.

His broad brush scrubs the light onto the fabric of the clothes and with a warm and cool light source.  Painters like Sargent, Zorn, Sorolla all expressed the form with rich strokes in the right place and careful delineation when needed like in the hands pictured below.

Lush and creamy -

Another of the Home in America series.

 

I have reduced the illustration into gray scale and rotated it 180 degrees to see the spotting of lights and darks for composition.  You can use this device with your own work to design the composition by first doing several small sketches (thumbnails) in black and white and then playing with them in Photoshop. Then go to a quarter size full color comp.