Red Chalk

Took a workshop with one of the instructor in the school in early Summer and made some copy of old masters...

  And made one by myself at home. I believed that this drawing by Da Vinci, tho the original one is done by one of Da Vinci's student.... Haha!

un ragazzo abbraccia un agnello

This was inspired by Catholic theme. Done it after the Red chalk workshop. It was fun, tho need more practice. I wanted to add some gold leaves, tho back ground was paper, and not so compatible with the glue of it. I'll try maybe wooded board next time.

  

Completion of the 3rd level

This is my latest work that I finished in May. Well, strictly speaking, I can still work on my paining to make it better. But I got permission to go on, so I decided to think about next project, my 1st still life painting.

And here is the process of this for people who are curious about it.

Few interesting things happened during I was working on this. Tho, one episode form them. My extra neighbour left the school saying the school's method is too much control and no freedom.  And when she left, she pat my shoulder specifically and good-bye me. We were not close at al since I didn't like her strog perfume, but anyway, it was too bad she decided to leave school since I can see her style of work needs realism and if she has better skill to do so, her work will be different level. I didn't realized until she left about she was suffering beside me who was working patiently on tight controlled theme.  She didn't like the medium (she was using charcoal) and didn't have patience to get used to it. I realized as the work turn to tighter an tighter, it is easier and easier to fix the mistakes. For me, it was like the work guided and showed me the part I need to work on.   So In the end, It was interesting experience like the process was a conversation between me and the paining. 

End of the semester

Here are 2 figure works done in this semester. One is red chalk style. 

And the other one is body part study. I have done infant with mandolin drawing which gave me a good sense of how to render fingers. I got a good feedback from my teachers and classmates. Another thing to note for this irk is, hand and arm is still first painting stage, but thigh and knee were 2nd painting stage. I liked that I can jump into 2nd stage earlier and correction and branding at the same time.

Portrait painting, Alla Prima and direct method

I wash disappointed by my painting, so I took a couple of workshops of the school. 1st one is portrait painting from live model. Yes, this workshop is exactly what I needed. here is the final product (unfinished). Using photo and using live model have big difference, and using live model make painting easier to obtain realism for me, sure there are some disadvantages too, tho. 

And after this workshop, I took Alla prima. I absolutely love it. Of course until I get it there were a lot of frustrations. But once I got general idea what Alla Prima is, it was a lot of fun with cool brush strokes. Asian male is limited palette, and man with blue shirts is full palette.

Since the model of the evening class had to leave a moth early, we had an opportunity to try direct painting, it is like Alla prima, but 8 day length. It was great fun and I see my improvement in fresh tone. I could only attend 4 days, wish I could finish this work....

Portrait from the photo

I finally finished (may do some minor correction tho) the portrait of my Italian teacher. I like my  painting more than photo. But I think I mis the point. Now I confused what is classical realism and what is photo realism.... I wonder how can I differentiate??? I guess this all I can do by myself without instruction. Feel like I'm stuck!!!!

Black and white and blue

My nephew when he was 18months old. Held my mandolin and observed it carefully as if he was looking for where the sound coming from...