Thanks to Regina Burchett I'm doing more pastels these days and am having such a good time with them. This is first in a series of passion flowers. They come in several different shapes, sizes and colors -- who knew!

Hello:
This is the last painting I did in Jennifer's Figurative Painting class. The model, Erin, held four 30 minute poses (same position) for us. I feel like I really learned a lot about painting from a live model. Really enjoyed the class.

Hello

Well the exhibit at the Austin Museum of Art went really well. Lots of people showed up and there was a lot of very good feedback on everyone's entries. As well, five pieces were sold but, not mine this time.

Today's posting are the figurative oil sketches I did in Jennifer Balkan's figurative workshop that went for five Mondays. The first two Mondays, we did 5, 10 and 15 minute gestures with a live model in a light, dark and mid-tone value.
Two of the 5 minute poses using a light and dark--using capturing shapes and values here.
Two of the 10 minute gesture poses, this time adding a third mid-tone value to suggest the curve of the body.
Color! Adding yellow and purples to the skin tones here to get the shadows (previously just used red/green/yellow) to these 15 minute gesture poses
Again, using the same palette as above but longer poses--30 minutes this time.

The last night of the workshop, we did one painting from a model. This will be the next post. All in all, I really learned a lot about painting skin. Doing these quick gesture oil sketches from a model were fun and energizing. Now comes the really fun part of taking all this information and translating it into my work.