So you wanna be a pro?

[Susan Ballinger]

Wow Karin! I had no idea that you had only started painting oil portraits in the last 7 years! I highly admire your work and I love the style that you use. I had always assumed that you had been doing this for a lot longer. I just decided last summer that I would like to try my hand at it and have been quite surprised by a talent I didn't think I had. I've always loved to draw, but only have dabbled in painting. I know it will take a lot of work, but I really enjoy it. So far my biggest obstacle is trying to pay for the supplies to build up a decent portfolio. (I'm currently supporting my husband and 9 month old daughter working full-time in retail.) I hope that I can find the time and money soon to try painting the Old Masters' paintings. I really want to succeed as I know that I will enjoy making a living at it and be able to stay at home with my husband (who is working on becoming an author) and my daughter (who is a great model for me- especially when she's asleep ).

I do take your comments to heart, because your paintings truely awe me and I hope to inspire such feelings in others someday. Have I gushed enough yet? LOL

Susan

[Stanka Kordic]

Linda,

I draw upside down too! (when I get too dizzy, I turn sideways..)

But seriously, I use the 'drawing on the right side of the brain' methodology. Betty Edwards has been invaluable to me in seeing shapes, rather than body parts. I find using this technique the most helpful, along with sight drawing. However, if pressed for time, I do a quick projection, and check the drawing with my brush throughout the process of blocking in. It all works.

I still think keeping a sketchbook handy in my bag has been the smartest habit I've started as a painter.

Great post, Steven.

[Steven Sweeney]

I've done some looking and as far as drawing is concerned they pretty much all teach sight-size at first. I've given up on trying to reconstruct the method on my own as there is virtually nothing available on it

Nathan,

The sight-size methodology is indeed in common use in teaching venues such as ateliers, where it provides at least a couple of advantages. If what the student is drawing is exactly the same size as what he or she is looking at (that is, as seen from where the student is standing), it is much easier to see whether the drawing is accurate, because you're able to quickly look back and forth between the subject and the easel and soon your eye becomes trained to see, primarily, the differences between the two, which then can be eliminated (which in turn, of course, leaves you with an accurate drawing). The other main advantage is that when the instructor critiques the drawing, he's got an "absolute" reference in front of him in nature, just as you do, and he's looking at and for the same qualities and measurements you are. (That is, for example, there's no quibbling about whether your "oversize" or "miniature" drawing is correctly proportioned to the subject's measurements.)

About the only book I've seen with some discussion and illustrations concerning sight-size work was written by a Richard Lack student, Kurt Anderson, "Realistic Oil Painting Techniques", which unfortunately is out of print, though a few used copies are available at Amazon and no doubt elsewhere (for reference, the original price was $28). With so many people craving just this kind of instruction, I'm surprised that the publisher, North Light Books, let this 1995 publication go out of print.

One hazard of the method becomes immediately apparent as soon as you're in a situation (such as a workshop) in which you can't place your easel where you need it in order to create the size drawing you want. Suddenly all the plumb lines have to be "in your head" instead of in front of your eyes (which actually is a good thing -- a great thing, and it's what you're working toward -- but if all your training has been otherwise, it can be disconcerting to have to make the quantum leap in a workshop hurry). Also, if you want to do near life-size renderings using sight-size methodology, the easel has to be sitting right next to the portrait subject, which can be rather awkward.

In any event, I'd be glad to write up a description of the sight-size set-up for you if you'd like. It would get rather lengthy, so I won't post it here for now. (A first for me!!)

Steven

[Steven Sweeney]

Karin wrote:

When someone is beginning to seriously undertake the study of drawing and painting, "originality" is not particularly emphasized during the learning of basic techniques.

Indeed, as one atelier director writes in his brochure, speaking of required studies in charcoal drawing and black-and-white painting of plaster cast models, "[t]his cast work is not creative and is not meant to be, except in the sense that the student finds ways to master the problems of shape, value, and form." (italics mine)

[Steven Sweeney]

Having been asked to try to explain

[Steven Sweeney]

Here's another thing I do when I want to copy a picture that I have seen in one of my books...I remove the page with a razor blade. (I don't tell many people THAT because it is a "no no" for a lot of bibliophiles.)

Karin,

As a veteran officer of the Book Arts Police, I'm going to have to arrest you. Bail will be set at the Book Antiquarian's Shop price for the books damaged, with a surcharge to be negotiated under extraordinary duress.

I do in fact very much enjoy the book arts, but I'm usually on the other end of the process, where we put things together. There are methods for restoring the removed pages from the books (one is called "tipping in"), which is easy or hard depending on how the page was removed. Of course, as you noted by reference to the bibliophiles' sentiments, even the repaired copy is compromised in value as a piece of art in itself.

Please do this in extreme moderation, preferably limiting it as I do -- to the oft expressed displeasure of friends and family -- to travel guides and yellow pages.

Steven

[Steven Sweeney]

Alas, now that the Book Arts Police have read me my rights

Oops, forgot that part. You're off on a technicality this time. But don't expect Perry to be able to do this every time.

[Steven Sweeney]

Sight-Size, The Sequel

Some comments by folks (thanks Linda and others) who have had a go at this sight-size work suggest that a couple more observations might be useful.

The matter was raised about "losing" what you wanted to do, between the time you left the artist's viewpoint and arrived at the easel. A related matter would be to remember quite well what you intended, but now that you're in front of a big sheet of paper or a canvas, instead of back behind your calibrating plumb lines, you can't remember quite where to put that mark. This is normal broadcast static. Do not adjust your set.

As you're standing at the taped artist's viewpoint, you take your plumb line measurement and walk forward to the easel, where you often feel that you're left guessing where that mark or line is supposed to be. Don't worry about it. To use a writing metaphor , you want to write the rough draft first, then edit. So just make a mark or line where you think it should have gone. (As you train your

[Steven Sweeney]

Even I can't bear to wade through my previous posts, but I do fear that I've left out a very critical requirement for sight-size work, and that is that your drawing or painting surface MUST be vertical. Use a level. If you're using a tripod-type easel, you need to shore up the top edge of your drawing board or canvas to ensure that the surface is vertical. Otherwise, the toes will be the size of tomatoes and the head an orange, or vice versa. (If your subject does look like that, then you're an animator for "Shrek", but most families won't enjoy a similar depiction of little Hadley.)

No offense meant to vegetarians or ogres.

[Steven Sweeney]

Yes, Nathaniel, sorry I forgot to include that detail earlier -- I had thought of it, but my short-term memory is . . .

yes, that's it . . . fading. (Also, I fear that I'm scooping into the site too many shovelsful of stuff, so sometimes I just omit a scoop.) But the fact that you discovered the event yourself is FAR FAR more important than if I'd remembered to say it first and you'd just followed my lead. So congratulations, you've made a huge leap. Fifty Chess Master points.

As for time of work on a drawing, I've done lots of pencil drawings in four hours -- some of which were execreble and others were, dare I say, a lot more than okay. And our so-called "long poses" at the studio gave us -- whether working in charcoal, pastel or oil -- about 80 or more actual hours' worth of work on a piece. Admittedly you probably can't make a living on that rate of production early on, but it sure trains you for the long run. A writer friend of mine used to call this work "right-brain sit-ups."

Do 'em.

Steven