The Portrait is Completed!

We finished our portraits in class last night.

Screen Printing at UNLV - Lots of Fun!

Yesterday afternoon, there was a screen printing workshop at the Majorie Barrick Art Museum at UNLV.  Jim and I went just to observe and Jim decided to participate.  Everyone there was really nice - the people who worked there and the students.  We had a blast.  Jim's print turned out great!  This was the first time he'd ever tried this.

Last Night's Project in Drawing Class

Last night we used grids in our drawing class.  Jim drew me and I drew him.  This is vine charcoal on 16x20 Rives BFK.  We had so much fun!  I'm posting my reference photo with the drawing.

Happy Easter! I'm in the Midst of an Experiment!

First of all, I'd like to wish everyone a Happy Easter!  Then, I'd like to tell you about my experiment.  I'm playing with ideas from Nita Engle's book.  I took a piece of Arches 140 lb cold press that was already stretched on a board, lightly sprayed it with water from my spray bottle (leaving a lot of dry areas), and squirted (from a squirt bottle with a needle tip) ultramarine mixed with water to about the consistency of whole milk in lines like waves across the paper.  Then I sprayed with more plain water.  Nita explains this better in her book, but the effect is white caps on water.  (I didn't get the exact effect, but I was still excited.)  I made a great big mess and had so much fun!  I showed Jim, but I don't think he thought it was quite as exciting as I did:)  He's a good sport, though!  Anyhow, I'm going to continue playing with this.  I think it will take a while for me to get the feel of it, but it's a cool, loose way to start a painting.  No photos yet - I want to play a little more before taking photos.

Still Not Quite Right...

I think this is a little better, but it's still not quite right.  However, it's done.

Why am I having so much trouble with the eyes?  

Pencil Drawing - Homework for Tonight

Here's my homework for tonight.  We were supposed to draw a self-portrait, looking in a mirror, using pencil.  The focus was supposed to be on proportions, not shading (but I had to shade a little).  When I thought I was done, I looked at it and I had made my eyes too big like those big eye paintings from years ago.  I went back in and made the eyes smaller.  They look a bit off, but I'm going with this because I'm afraid that if I fiddle around with it this close to class, I'll make things worse and won't be able to fix it.

Also, this has nothing to do with my class, I have a movie recommendation.  Jim and I rented Carrie Pilby this afternoon.  It is absolutely delightful!

Yikes!  I think I'll try to fix the eyes.  There is still time...  I'll post the revised drawing.

Vine Charcoal Candy

This is an exercise we did in drawing class Wednesday night.  We had mirrors on the walls and our drawing benches facing the walls.  Then we each drew one of our eyes, our nose and our mouth.  Jim joked that the younger students had an easier time of it because they didn't have as many wrinkles.  We had the option of trying to place the features to make our faces or keeping them separate to work on each feature.  Everyone in the class wanted to place the features to make his or her face.  We worked with vine charcoal.  Our homework assignment is to do a pencil self-portrait.  Here is what I did in class.