Life as an art student | Day 10 of 20

Today was our second day working with the model. We did a short discussion to kick things off and discussed both the work of Degas as well as the art form that is portraiture and I am finally feeling like I am getting the hang of the skill that is "reading" a painting. I'm sure I am going to have plenty more opportunity to practice and sharpen this (with all of the class discussions that are still yet to be had) but I am already pretty excited to share this with my students when school is back in session.

Rather than returning to the mess that was my canvas from yesterday, I brought in a fresh one for today. I have a huge inventory of Blick brand academic-grade 16x20s from my painting party biz so I just grabbed one of those before heading to class this morning.

Other things I did to help shape up today to be better included the following: had a good solid helping of a caffeinated beverage before I started painting, snacked heavy on proteins throughout my painting time, and took some tylenol because I've been dealing with feeling icky and I feel like that has hugely affected my performance (or lack thereof) this week. I didn't want to waste another day in the studio so I really made a point to do something different today in order to yield something different and I am happy to say that (for the most part) it worked out...

Underpainting

Midway break after the second 20-minute chunk of time with the model

Everything was going pretty well (as much as could be) and then I started running out of liquin. While I'm sure it's possible to paint without liquin, I am just beginning with this whole business of painting with oils (as in, I have less than two days in the studio with it) so improvising at this stage is just not so easily done. As it happened though, I still had at least an hour and a half left of studio time and so I ran to the bookstore to see if they had any. (They didn't.) So... I just made do, worked as much as I could as the paint stiffened against my brush and ended up ending on a completely "impressionistic" note.

Eh... I am OK with it. I mean, I don't hate it. I also don't love it or like it so much either. Why? Because it's pretty much the same thing that I have always done with acrylics. Perhaps this is just my style? (That being impressionistic) I don't know. I just know that I want to do something different and new and I want to refine the skillset (I have already) that I honestly feel like needs some serious polish. That's what I'm taking this class for in the first place! I'm trying to be better - DO better!!

Well, tomorrow IS another day and because I (again) am not trying to lose any more time in the studio with the model (we only have the last two days of this week with her) - I hauled myself to Utrecht downtown because I knew they were the only ones (locally) that would sell the largest bottle of Liquin my budget can afford currently. We'll see what tomorrow brings.