Time Flies

Two weeks, two Thursdays and a Monday.  Here is what has come of it besides the commissions I'm working on. 

Bunmi was back posing for our Monday group.  She was actually the first model I painted with this group.  She wore a purple head dress that day. (Former post)  I love painting with these people.  Truly a great bunch of individuals and artist.  This was a three hour pose.   

 

Bunmi is a wonderful model and I need to get her for our Thursday group.  She got back into the pose perfectly after every break.  I love all the reflected light in this.  Her head dress was so fun to paint.  I hope you can zoom in and see some of the brushwork.

 

Jessica modeled for our Thursday group and these are two of the 20 minute sketches.  I hope to come back at some point and do a finished painting of the second one.

 

 

I was so intrigued by the light on her hair.  Jessica has this beautiful black hair.  Part of the challenge for me during this session was capturing the color of her hair in the light. We are often influenced by what we know instead of what we see.  At the Monday group with Bunmi several people just used yellow ochre for the head dress and darkened it in the shadows.  They knew her head dress was a yellow/gold and that was that.  I find that when I look for the subtle changes in value and temperature and am successful in applying those subtle nuances to the surface it makes the resulting passage more life like.  It makes the yellow of her head dress in this instance appear more yellow!  You can see this again in the 20 minute sketch below. 

 

This was another 20 minute pose.  I really enjoy painting Jessica.  That hair!!!!!!

I omitted the big purple bow she wore in this one.  I find the section of this painting on the shadow side of her neck and shoulder with the suggestion of the background so interesting.  A few strokes in the right value with the right temperature can really sing.  Now if I could accomplish that everywhere in the painting I'd have something.

 

Little blurry on the close up but you can see the color. 

Usually we do a double 20 the last hour of our Thursday session and this painting came out of that.  You may recognize the chair from the painting I did of Coulter.  I finished this at home in my studio.  I was considering calling this "What? You don't like my bow?"  But I decided to go with "The Purple Bow".  I know!  I need to work on naming these. 

 

Close up, obviously....

 

Here is a quick 20 minute sketch of Dave dressed as a Renaissance Man.  He is a fellow artist who makes incredible costumes and is a wonderful model.  He also posed as a Pirate and a Colonialist. 

Jo was the model for the Monday group and she came in this lovely Sari.  She is a tiny lady.  This is the result of that three hour session.  I'm happy with how bright the Sari looks.  The chair she is sitting on was draped with a grey cloth.  Pulling the purple made the orange and red pop.  After racing the clock every Thursday three hours seems like such a luxery.