orange + pink figures (and awful portraiture)

The figure drawing co-op finally started this year. I went on Sunday for like....three hours. But we only had the model for two—he was an hour late. And his poses were very strange so I left early.

There was an older white man sitting next to me and his work was so fucking good. I think that I will know I have "made it" in terms of art when I look at something I've created and think to myself, "Yup, that sure looks like a painter grandfather made that." But a girl can only dream.

Since he was late I took some time to draw some strangers. I think the woman above noticed I was drawing her, and she sort of furtively smiled at me throughout the rest of the class. I was a little uncomfortable.

30 seconds

This was the only gesture drawing I did that I liked. His hand is all fucked up, but I like how I simplified the rest of the form. Also, yes, those are testicles.

1 min.

This was the first figure I did that day that I actually liked. I quite like how I rendered his butt.

5 min.

10 min.

It's strange—when figure drawing, I am usually most excited by drawing cloth, or other objects that give context to the model. I don't know. And they always end up nice, even when the figure looks completely wrong. Anyway, I'm pretty proud of how this one turned out, though I regret adding in those black lines :-(

10 min.

10 or 15 min?

I'll go again next week. Markers are so fun, but I'm not too sure how to draw the figure nicely without creating a mess of scribbles underneath. It's hard to slow down, and my initial series of gestures often look like potato after potato after sprouting, moldy potato. I think next time I'll just go straight to the markers and forget about the lines—I seem to be more of a painter than a drawer, anyway.




Speaking of, I started a portraiture class this semester. Our class is 100% women, including the teacher, which is strange, because so far we've been creating studies of paintings by old, dead, white men. Very strange.

So portraiture is impossible. I had a post this summer that showed the process for a portrait I did of my boyfriend, my very first portrait. I took care to photograph the process of his face, which looked like utter shit until literally the very last iteration. Thankfully, acrylic can be very forgiving—it's easy to let the paint dry and, with watery imprecision, feel out the proportions and allow the face to come through eventually.

Not so with oil paint. With one fell swoop an artist can destroy hours of work. This portraiture class is my first time with oils, and my second with paint in general, and I've really been struggling with this issue in particular, because I tend to be gestural and messy.

But, who cares! Instead of talking, let me show you pictures!

charcoal, 9x12"

I did this in the first class. Drawing faces is so easy! It's practically formulaic—a mathematical process that guarantees both likeliness and beauty. This portrait isn't perfect (this and the next are studies), but I did this in only an hour. Also, I didn't have erasers.

oil, 9x12"

This was a portrait I did in the next class. My first time with oil paints. And I keep emphasizing "first time" because, yes, I am ashamed of what I've done. I think I did a great job with color accuracy, but I didn't have any really tiny brushes, so the features look all wrong. And the actual face part looks fuzzy, because I used a brush that was much too small. The mouth and jaw/neck in particular are very strange-looking. But, again, the hair and clothing I did very confidently, very easily. Why is this? Why are objects so easy for me to do, but not faces and bodies?

This I did last night. It's awful. It's so awful that I'm putting it here next to my other portraits, because it's hilarious. But I swear to god, about ten minutes before this stage, the portrait looked believable. It wasn't accurate, and it wasn't finished, but I was proud of it. And then I painted over the nose, and decided I was unhappy with the cheeks, and I destroyed it. It took two, maybe three strokes.

I was talking with my boyfriend about this process. In art, I'm usually pretty good initially, but then I get very, very bad, and I struggle for a long time—much longer than others seem to struggle. Then, finally, after patience and diligence and a lot of stress eating, I have a breakthrough and suddenly become good. And the emergence is exponential—I only become good after struggling for a very, very long time. And the cycle continues.

And after I talked to him about this, he told me that it sounded very much like the stages of language acquisition. People will get to a point where their ability to learn drastically slows, and they become stagnant for a period, but eventually, after banging their head on a wall for some time, they'll get really good, really fast.

I found that interesting, though I don't know if it's true. But it made me feel a less alone. And I'll believe in anything that makes me feel less alone.