Rustam K: Art Students League, Oct 12-23

Can you believe this guy? Who looks like this? In real life, I mean?  I have to do some sit-ups.

in chronological order, as well as order of increasing proficiency (horrible-->terrible):

oil on junk canvas board, 18x24


oil on canvas paper, 16x20

oil on panel, 16x12

oil on loose canvas, 9x12


oil on panel, 16x12
I ruined the nose and had to wipe it off and start over during the last 15 minute pose. WHY?!?

another Russ In Progress

here's the last one from Friday morning. I like the beginnings better than the endings.

ASL--Russ, in progress

Instead of updating this entire blog today, I'm posting a few photos of 3 different half-made pictures from the last 2 days.

These are all made the same quick-and-dirty way:
1) Mix white + black + yellow ochre --> a medium warm gray. Thin with Turpenoid and doodle in the drawing. Wipe it off with Turpenoid, redraw, wipe, measure, redraw, give up. I really enjoy this first drawing phase.

2) I jump straight to this step because I enjoy it so much: mix up a color to match the face in shadow. It's often a combination of yellow ochre + cadmium red + ultramarine blue. I try and get the value right, but usually I veer too dark. Scrub it in with a dry brush. If all goes well, there should be an interesting shadow pattern at this point.

3) Backgrounds! They're simple, and it's usually a simple matter to match these colors exactly right. Once they're laid down, I can finally see if I'm getting the other, more confusing colors right (relative to the background).
The other great thing about mixing up the background color here is that I can use it to fix the drawing--trim in the head and figure because I'll have made them too wide, concentrate on the negative shapes... I have a big brush for this and it goes so fast.

4) Paint in the blacks and darkest shadows with a dry brush, redrawing and remeasuring against the model as I go.

5) Start mixing up the medium-dark and medium-light colors. GO CRAZY.
I don't know why the midtones are so hard for me, but they really drive me nuts. I always want to jump ahead to the lighter colors, which are fun again.


I'll put up photos of the finished versions later when I bring home the dry paintings. You'll be able to see that they end up looking a lot different than they start out--I have to keep fixing the drawing up until the very end. Please enjoy the very, very unfixed versions below.

Meet Russ the Cirque du Soleil acrobat. He does the trampoline board. This is his first art modeling job.
this is on canvas paper, 16x20


this one is on panel, which is a smooth, non-absorbent surface. You can see how the paint goes on a lot more streaky here than on canvas.


This is a little start on 8x10 loose cotton canvas taped into a pad.

This last photo shows where I stopped in the studio today.

Cat, Jordan, Monica: Art Students League Oct 5-9

Cat (Catriona, I think) and Monica are both actresses. Jordan did a nice one-day pose midweek.

Cat--canvas paper, 16x20

Jordan--canvas paper, 16x20

Monica--loose canvas, 9x12

Monica--canvas paper, 16x20

Cat & Monica -- Exercises - ASL Sep 29 - Oct 2

The dreaded one-day exercises! Remember these?
9x12 loose canvas pad, all

Tues--simplified shapes (Cat)


Weds--use palette knives only, no brushes (Cat)


Thurs--model posed behind us (memory drawing/painting) (Monica)

friday--paint and mix colors with left hand only (Cat)

Leticia & Esteban - Art Students League Sep 7 - 25

oil on panel, 12x16
Midtones on the arm--those @*&%$-ing MIDTONES!! How do you make colors that look dark and light at the same time? Not like this.
But this is the version that the models liked the best. Weird.

oil on panel, 16x20
I fiddled with her face and lost the likeness in the last 10 minutes I worked on this, and then I stopped working on it

oil on panel, 12x16
I think this was one of my better compositions. I like how he was standing--with his long arm relaxed and his shoulders torqued--so much. The panel was making me a little nuts that day and I switched to canvas

oil on cotton duck canvas, 16x20

central park--sheep's meadow

oil on panel, 9x12
No class for a few weeks and I thought I would paint outside everyday. I didn't. Tim Dosé let me tag along one day & I started this little painting. We're looking north toward the Dakota. I need to put in the people. The little people.

I think this painting is cute.

Stephanie - Art Students League Aug 10-21

I'd love to paint Stephanie again sometime. Her friend, Tom, posed on the other side of the room. During the last of these 2 weeks, they entered an online contest to design the funniest (most terrifying) golf outfit, and Tom won! The prize was a new PSP. I have a link to Tom's appalling kilt get-up somewhere.

 oil on canvas paper, 16x20


oil on cheap canvas board, 16x16
I wish I had done this one on nicer material.
I often like how the square pictures turn out.oil on canvas paper, 16x20


oil on panel , 9x12


oil on panel, 12x16

oil on panel , 9x12

Mitch -- ASL Aug 3 - 7

oil, 16x20 canvas paper


I got a little bored making so many pictures of Donna, so for the second week of the pose, I've traded for a place facing the other model. I haven't accomplished much so far.

Here's what the studio looks like without artists or models:

Donna -- ASL Figure Painting: July 27 - 31

I like to paint Donna--she smiles a little while she's posing. It makes me wonder what she's thinking about.

16x20 canvas paper
18x24 canvas board

18x24 canvas board

16x12 oil on panel


So far, my 3 favorite pictures have been the 3 I've tried on panel.

ASL Figure Painting: July 21-24

We lost a day when our model got sick and didn't turn up. Luckily, the replacement model was great and took the same pose for the rest of this second week of the pose.


I traded places with a friend and painted the model from the other side:

oil, 16x20 canvas board


And here I am back at the same easel where I did those other purple portraits from last week. Even with a different model, it really helps to have drawn the head a few times before in this same position.

There is a prettier painting underneath this one. Somebody in my class was a little bothered by how much I screwed it up a perfectly nice picture with all the patchiness on top of her skin. Well, people, I'm still learning here. It's going to happen more often than not.

oil, 9x12 canvas board

ASL Figure Painting: July 17

I think this is one of my favorite pictures. For me, this is the best likeness. Also, I like the way the paint surface looks over panel (vs cotton duck canvas). I started it near the end of class so I didn't have a chance to screw it up too much.

I've had trouble taking pictures of these paintings. For example, the painting above should be colored more like the picture below--any advice out there on how to make it happen without flash spots? Photographing purples is terrible. Worse than trying to mix them, even.


8x10, oil on panel

ASL Figure Painting: July 13-17

oil, 12x16 canvas board

oil, 14x18 canvas board
Trying out a lot of things here that didn't work at all!


oil on canvas board, 12x16
This is a terrible painting but I kind of like it. It's humble, or something. Or just bad. And needs friends.

Helena--ASL Figure Painting: July 6 - 10

I think this one is a little better than the last. I need to remove that dark line under her chin.



Can't believe I've been doing this for more than a month already! I like painting in the mornings a lot. It's not time that I'd otherwise use wisely.

12x12, oil on panel

Helena--ASL Figure Painting: June 29 - Jul 3

oil, 11x14 cotton duck canvas

Karina -- ASL Figure Painting: June 22 - 26

Same model as below. This picture took me a week. A lot of that week was spent staring blankly. When I got tired of that, I liked to mix up the wrong paint colors, scrape them off my palette, and start over mixing more of the wrong colors.

I probably should have started a new painting at day 2. I'm going to try to be more disciplined about doing new paintings every day instead of continuing to fiddle with the old.

There aren't many beginners in our class. Mary Beth told me and the few others that the best thing we could do for ourselves would be to work on "starts" rather than finishing paintings. It's hard to make yourself quit and start something new.

oil, 16x20 cotton duck canvas

yuck -- ASL Figure Painting: June 15 - 26 [Karina, Karina, Maria, Maria]

The model poses change every 2 wks, so in this, our 3rd wk of the session, we're into our second set of models/poses.

In the first week, we did a series of 4 one-day studies.
We're supposed to direct special attention to getting the colors right.

1. Abstraction to simpler geometric shapes.
2. Application of paint with palette knife only, no brushes. (Isn't it interesting how much shinier this makes the paint?)
3. Memory painting of model seated directly behind us, or out of line-of-sight.
4. Non-dominant hand--for me, left hand only to mix and apply paint. It drove me crazy.

I really, really didn't want to post these but, by this point, it seems unscientific not to! So, for the sake of science...







oil on 9x12 canvas pad.

Tyrone--ASL Figure Painting: June 1 - 12

I've started attending a figure painting studio session at the Art Students League. My instructor, Mary Beth McKenzie, talks to us individually for a few minutes 2x per week. She is generous and insanely good at both painting and teaching, but the class format leaves me unsupervised longer than I'm used to and I've been screwing up my paintings a lot more now! These screw-ups are all good, necessary steps toward maturity, I think.

That's the pep talk I use to I cheer myself up and steel myself up for more of this!



Mary Beth persuaded me to give up on this one and start anew. Good advice.

So, same model, same pose:



I spent most of these 2 weeks mixing colors I never used. I learned how to make a lot of colors. GRAAAA!!!

This model's skin tone is made with viridian green + cadmium red, which yields a startlingly rich brown or purple, depending. I also learned to push around a rich color that starts with black + cadmium red + cadmium yellow. I think whatever that's called is going to be one of my new favorite colors.

oil on cotton duck canvas, both 16x20