Julie just caught the flight back to Portland… I’m sure she’ll be posting about her experiences in the big city within the next few days. In the meantime, these are a few pictures of things that I had been working on before the visit. (Not much got done in the way of school work this past week, not that I’m complaining. It was so nice to be able to spend time with Julie.) Anyway, here are a few images…
This is one from Martha Erlebacher’s History of Painting Techniques class… sorry, it’s not the best picture, I was having trouble shooting this one. Basically it is a ink drawing on gessoed panel. Then a thin glaze of oil paint is applied directly over the ink drawing. We’re going to go back in and darken the darks, but that’s basically the technique. Very interesting—I’m thinking about trying it again for some other projects, seems very Northern European.
This is the continuing ecorche. I know it doesn’t look like I’ve done much since the last posting, but I’ve had to totally rework the ribcage. This is such a good excercise: it really forces you to give up the faulty conceptions that you didn’t even know were plaguing your work. It really is a seminal class at the Academy. These should all start to look really good in a few weeks once a few of the major muscle groups are attached.
This is another painting for the History of Painting Techniques. You may recognize it from the earlier drawing that I did in preparation for this painting. I’ve worked in a background (full marks is you were able to correctly identify it as Les Demoiselles d’Avignon). I was curious to see how a volumetric figure in the foreground would work against a semi-abstract background. Also, I think of these women as the gorgons of the modernists, so it fits well with the Don Quixote theme. I’ve got to find some time this week to get on to the figure now.
This is an ala prima painting that I’ve been working on in Steven Assael’s class. It’s so very different from everything else we do at the Academy.
Back to the grindstone… only six weeks left in the semester. So much left to do, and so little time to do it.