classes

Quick Studies in Acrylic — Craig Nelson

| cathmary1030

One of the benefits of membership in ArtistsNetwork is viewing certain videos. The other day I watched a video on quick studies in figure painting using acrylics taught by Craig Nelson. On this ArtistsNetwork video, Nelson does 3 different quick studies of figures: one in 20 minutes, one in 30 minutes, and one in 40 minutes.

Based on his video, I was reminded of what I read in Kevin MacPherson’s book about doing 100 “quick starts”.

I had never heard of the guy, but it turns out he posts to YouTube and teaches at Academy of Art University, and his website is here. On his website, I learned he had published at least 2 books on art, one called 60 Minutes to Better Painting. I found a used copy on Amazon, and it just arrived today. I’m excited to check it out!

A Karen Margulis Follow-Along On Patreon: A Bird’s nest

| cathmary1030

Today I painted a bird’s nest based off of one of Karen Margulis‘ paintings. The step-by-step demo is on her Patreon site and can be accessed here (paywall; subscriber site). All the colors used are based on her work. Karen says in this Patreon post: “I DO give permission for you to share your paintings done from my demos on social media provided that you credit me and link to this Patreon group.“
I did this practice work on a gray-toned sheet of Canson Mi-Teintes.

We had a robin who nested in our persimmon tree this past summer and I took pictures of the babies in the nest, as well as the mother bird sitting on the nest. Now that I have an idea how to paint a bird’s nest in pastel, I’m going to use my own reference photo. We had a robin who nested in our persimmon tree this past summer and I took pictures of the babies in the nest, as well as the mother bird sitting on the nest

The sticks I used
the initial sketch
my copy of Karen’s work

Evaluating the Follow-along Sunset

| cathmary1030

Two of the things I recognized as being at issue with my follow-along painting from Marla Baggetta’s Sunsets in Pastel course are: my heavy touch (which led to “mud”) and my poor job at the underpainting.
The original picture is below on the right. To counteract the muddiness, I experimented with removing excess pastel in the ground area as well as the upper sky by using an inexpensive bristle brush.

The brush-off showed yet another problem — the underpainting which amounted to nothing more than a scribble. I should have done a wet wash, or a dry wash and not leave the scribbles!

That said, another thing was that I used the Blue Spruce NuPastel on Pastel Premier paper (320 grit); I had difficulty moving the hard pastel around.

So I decided to make a second attempt at the scene, being careful to keep a LIGHT touch.

After brushing off excess pastel

Follow-along: Rendering Glass #1

| cathmary1030

I watched Marla Baggetta‘s video of her painting a blue glass bowl and made my own attempt. I imitated Marla in using the “Blue Spruce” NuPastel to sketch the bowl, but that’s not something I would do again — my own preference would be to sketch in a much lighter color pastel.

I think the pastels are quite “muddy”, and I had an Aha moment later when I realized I lay down the color with a heavy hand. I think I filled up the tooth of the paper.

I also had a difficult time imitating Marla’s strokes; although I used the side of the pastel, either the pastel was too “slippery” or the paper not toothy enough. It felt to me the pastel was “skipping”.