Christian's Atelier journey and sketches. [nudity]

[christian.m]

Hello Everyone,

I'm a long time lurker. Ive been coming to this site since 2005. Around that time I had graduated with an Art History degree.

I realized soon after that, that I had been drawing and sketching for my whole life and even more so after college. I wanted learn more about art but I really wasn't interested in going for another bachelors degree in art where I may or may not get quality instruction.

I have had no official instruction, and although any daily drawing will make me better, I also wanted to learn from a master.

In early 2006 is when I found the work of Dorian Iten and MindCandyMan in these forums. I realized then that the Atelier school was the direction I wanted to go to dive into deeper artistic training.

Now, two and a half years later, my wife and I have moved to a small town in North Carolina for me to attend Mims Studios (http://www.mimsstudios.com) and study under Jeffrey Mims. Tommorow is the first day of school. After two years of planning and strategizing, it's finally here.

I thought I would post my progress here for someone else to benefit from... or atleast enjoy.

[christian.m]

Here are a couple drawings I submited for my portfolio to the school...

The first is a copy after John Singer Sargeant
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The second is a two-hour long figure drawing. :lifedrawing:
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I am looking forward to spending a couple weeks on my first Bargue drawing. Right now I wouldn't know what to do with three weeks to work on just one thing. Wish me luck. :cheerleader:

[a la bapsi]

very nice start. :]
for the figure, try shading along the form instead of across it. something about the strokes in that figure drawing makes her thigh look wolfman hairy. lol
bargue drawings. *_*
i'd lose patience with myself and get so frustrated after only a few hours. I hear they teach you a truckload, though. ;D /luck wished

[christian.m]

Thanks a la bapsi,
Now that you mention it, those are some freakin' hairy legs. >:| I see what you mean about working across the form. That might clear those legs right up.

I think if I was trying to do a bargue drawing on my own to perfection, I might lose patience because of lack of direction in how to make it a more exact copy. But, I am psyched about doing it in a school setting.

I will be getting started in just a couple hours. I'm going to eat some lunch, sharpen some pencils and get over there.

[christian.m]

Excellent day today. I met with the instructor Jeffrey Mims and we set up my first Bargue drawing.

I have seen other people on CA use plum lines and levels and all that. So I was kinda expecting atleast a plum-line or something to check my angles..... but no. It will all be done by sight. So I dove right in. I worked on it for about three and a half hours before the day was done. Still a looooong way to go.

Here it is then...

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Here is what the final drawing will look like if all goes well.

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[arcane]

Mims Studio is only about an hour drive from me, and I've entertained the idea of trying to attend in the past. I'm interested to see what you get out of their curriculum.

[christian.m]

arcane: Im interested to see that as well. I think it will be very valuable no matter how long I'm here. You should come for a visit. It's really easy to set one up, just email the studio. I came down from Raleigh for a visit over a year ago and I was really impressed. Now I'm finally here. PM if you ever come down.

Today our instructor gave a lecture on Titian. I didn't know that portraits had been so advanced in the early 1500's. Amazing stuff.

I only got about an hour and a half of work done today. But I got a good start on the inner shadows in the torso. Fun stuff.

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[christian.m]

Coming close to a finish on the line drawing half of the bargue piece. Sometime tomorrow I should be able to start on the rendering. There are still several hair-width adjustments to make. The biggest thing being the width of that right shoulder shadow. I made it a little too wide.

The key is not to look at the actual drawings but to look at the negative and positive shapes, there angles, sizes and relationships to each other. The more abstract your thinking about the drawing is, the more precise the final result will be.

Until tomorrow.

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[christian.m]

I switched to the shaded version yesterday. But the just left me a lot more adjusting of the angles to do before I can shade it in. I will probably just adjust more angles today and start shading in tomorrow. We'll see.

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After this first drawing I probably won't post daily unless I want to put up different work. I don't want this sketchbook to get monotonous.

[christian.m]

I filled in and adjusted the shadow shapes some more yesterday and today I worked out to the half tones. I'm still working with angles mostly. Very few curves.

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Day 6
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[Diego]

Hey man, cool progress with that bargue. Hope you keep posting it. I read that you are at mims, that's really sweet. Hope you learn tons.

Cheers

[christian.m]

Diego: I can't get that bargue out of my mind now. I sketched it out several times today. Don't worry, I will keep posting the progress on this one until it's finished. Mims studios for me is like having been a fish in a fish bowl all my life and finally being set from into a river. I love it.

I'm fortunate enough to be able to draw on the job. I spent 30-45 to copy this piece (http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=6769).

I can see now I gave Mr. Bruno a brain tumor... but it was fun crosshatching.

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[christian.m]

Oh no! or Oh yes! Today I worked on the bargue in charcoal for a couple hours and then the moment came that I knew was coming. I had developed it as far as it would go in charcoal. I had all the values correct and everything in the right place and I didn't take a picture.

The instructor, Jeffrey Mims, gave it the approval which meant it was time to attack it with a feather duster to leave a ghost image to draw over again with an HB graphite pencil.

I know it was part of the process, I just wish it could have been done sooner. I have a picture of the ghost image now. Since it looks like I took a giant step back I also did a quick digital sketch of some bananas and a speaker for me to feel like I moved forward today.

The bargue will look better tomorrow.

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[Diego]

Hey man, great to hear you get to draw at your job. The whole head is skewed, try to use what you learnt so far with the bargue in your master copies, mark your height and width, block the whole head with straight lines to give you something to compare with the original, then from there you can modificate as you go along, measure, compare, see the relationships, keep measuring, draw the features, keep measuring, try to get the outline as good as you can, because the lines holds the forms so the better the lines, the better the forms within.

Good luck man, keep on going.

[gmc9987]

Congratulations on attending art school! I'm really looking forward to seeing the progress of this drawing one step at a time.

I've found that faces are incredibly difficult to draw. My brain keeps telling me what a nose looks like, and I draw that instead of what's actually in front of me and the drawing ends up skewed. I think the best way to draw from life is to concentrate on drawing thee forms you see, and not what you think is there, if that makes any sense.

Thanks for the help on my sketchbook and hope to see more updates!

[christian.m]

Diego: Drawing on the job is definitely fun. You are absolutely right, his head is skewed. Thats what I meant by "I gave him a tumor." I really want to just chop off an inch off the top of his head to at least even things out.
What can I say, I was working in ballpoint pen and I was in a hurry to get to those interesting eye shadow shapes.

gmc9987: There are definitely some hurdles to get around with drawing faces and hands and things we are so familiar with. You are right, drawing from life will help. I would go for a boring still life over an exciting photograph any day of the week.

But, there is another way to go at the same time. Study all those great art books.. hogarth, loomis etc... when you study the way other people draw accurate proportions, it helps to reset your mind. So in a way, you can still end up drawing what your mind thinks it sees, but what your mind thinks will be more and more accurate.

I'm still working on that.
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Ok, after the near-fatal feather duster incident yesterday, the bargue is coming back to life.

Also I'm going to post a figure drawing I did a couple months ago, to keep mixing things up.

Tomorrow I will be attending my first open figure drawing session at Mims. There won't be any instruction, but I'm planning on shooting for an accurate block in. The session will be from 6p to 8:30 so wish me luck.

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[christian.m]

Its been a good day. I am coming to a close on the first bargue drawing.

I'm working with an HB pencil so its a toss up on how much to bring up the grays vs. how much darker I can make the black areas.
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Today was my first figure drawing at Mims. I spent most of the time blocking the figure in and then in the last 40 minutes or so I got to work on the head a little bit. I enjoyed it a lot. And, he is a really good model and can get right into position without a second thought.
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While I was saving the file to the comp I saw my first live figure drawing from back in January of 06. I thought I might put it up for a little comparison. Notice the searching lines, looking around for a place to stick.
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Lastly, I wanted to put up a quick sketch I did at work last night. The glasses weren't filled and that cigar wasn't lit, but I used my creative license.
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[Zombunny27]

Great prgress on the bargue...I liked seeing all the steps.

[christian.m]

Hadesdream: Thanks man, I will keep on posting the progress, but probably more in major stages from now on.

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So I'm finished with the first bargue drawing and on to the next one. One major goal is to make the next one a lot cleaner. I will working much lighter until I have everything where I want it.

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And here we go again! :)

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[a la bapsi]

great progress with that torso bargue.
and the life drawing from january. ;D nice progression, you've gotten loads better since then. keep it up. :]
that profile bargue. maybe it's my eye playing tricks on me, since it's a photo i'm looking at, and not the real thing, but the second vertical line looks like it's slanted. D:
pointing it out might have saved hours of OH GOD WHY DOESN'T IT LOOK RIGHT. lol

[christian.m]

a la bapsi: Thanks, for looking out for me! Its not your eyes playing tricks on you but it is the camera. I spent 30 minutes making sure the paper and tape and lines where lined up with a t-square and a right triangle. That's proof of why its not good to work from photographs. :)
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I got a good start on the outline today. It's funny, It really doesn't look like much for four hours of work, but it's worth it to get the angles right. I'm going to go in for a couple more hours tomorrow.
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[a la bapsi]

xD You're welcome.
and nice progress on that drawing in your last post. :]
From what i've learned in all of my pieces til about recently, it's that if you rush on the beginning construction of your piece, not even little details can save you. x_x
it's good that you're getting this now, I wasted a lot of time shrugging the fact off...and came out with poor pieces. lol

[christian.m]

a la bapsi: you are right about that. Taking the time to get the details right can be fun if you let it. Keep up the great work.

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So this weekend I have a couple different types of sketches.

I work in a hotel/ restaurant/bar and Saturday night was insanely busy and I was just sitting at my desk soaking it all in and trying not to get a headache from all the noise. So I decided to sketch people there. I had about 10 to 30 seconds to get a face in my head and that was about it. This is the result of that.

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When I got home, I sat down at the computer and my wife was asleep on the couch. I had a little bit of time to sketch this before she turned around.

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This is a sketch where I was sitting behind some people and had more time to sketch. About 15 to 20 minutes.

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[gmc9987]

Awesome progression. And you make a good point about the studying the books. Before I had read that, I had actually just started reading "drawing the head and hands" by Loomis. I will probably be posting some studies from that (and the rest of his books, after I get to them) soon.

Nice work on that first Bargue drawing, and thee figure as well. I can already see a lot of improvement in thee second bargue drawing, compared to thee same place in the previous one.

[christian.m]

gmc9987: I loved reading through Loomis's books, it's been a while now so I will probably read them again soon. I just read Harold Speed's "The Practice and the Science of Drawing". He is very smart and a great artist as well. It's good stuff.

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So on Friday working on the Bargue Jeffrey told me to focus on the big things and the biggest lines I could make in the drawing to find the right angles and distances. I did that through Saturday and for a couple hours today.

Then I got to a point where I couldn't find anymore big lines to draw and thought it was time to get down to the little lines. I thought since there were so many more of them that it would still take a while to find all the angles, but it was like they magically popped into place in record time.

Tomorrow I am on to the shaded version.

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[christian.m]

Hey guys,

Its been a busy week. Ive been going from school to work to sleep and back again for a couple days so I'm a couple days behind on posting. I didn't take a picture on Tuesday, but here is the progress from Wednesday through today. I will post more tomorrow.

I refined my lines to more closely match the shaded version

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I put a wash of charcoal over the darker areas and started finding basic big shapes in the hair.. from the top we have a hump-back whale, a rabbit, a dog, an ice cream sundae, a peace sign, and an upside down rat. That's the trick to the shadow shapes, find silly animal shapes to let the complex shapes make more sense.

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Today I refined the hair even more and defined the face. Tomorrow I'm going to wip it all back and go at it with a graphite pencil.

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[christian.m]

Just a couple worth posting today.

A face from memory.
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A similar yet different quick portrait from life. A girl from work agreed to stand still for about five minutes.
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.. hands.
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And finally, It was too dark to sketch anything last night, So I took an old figure drawing and worked the shading over in PS. I would appreciate some critiques on the PS technique. Im still not completely used to drawing in Photoshop.

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[Arteater]

fantastic work, your values are simply amazing

[christian.m]

Arteater: Thanks man, I appreciate that.. If you are talking about the Bargues though, I kinda don't have a choice. I have to keep on working those values until they are perfect. I feel it already starting to carry over to my other work though.

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Saturday I finished up the drawing in graphite but then today I worked on darkening the values for about four hours before calling it finished.

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Now I'm on to the last bargue. No safety net (construction lines) this time. I've got to make it up on my own. :)

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[a la bapsi]

great job so far. :D
Can't wait to see what you learn with this one. :]

[christian.m]

A La Bapsi: Thanks a lot! Ive heard this one is a little easier in ways than the last one because there aren't as many little details. But, we will see! :)

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I am loving this drawing. Its fun because my goal is to get the angles correct. I'm not even drawing a face. But yet, a face is starting to appear on the paper. Very creepy. :)

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I get to have a full day at the studio today, so we will see what happens.

[a la bapsi]

whooa. Never seen anything like that on a bargue photocopy. *__*
it's like, LINES A;LKSDJLKF, and the info laid down on your paper--very neat, well thought out and, from how I see it in this photograph, beautifully accurate. :D
Can't wait to see how it turns out after your full studio day. :]

[christian.m]

A La Bapsi: Hey, yeah, thats how they've all been done. The lines are just the same charcoal I'm doing the drawing with. It's how we get the drawing accurate. You make a line across the box on the photocopy and then make the same line in the box on the drawing. It helps to see the angle and distance of the line better.

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So I had a full day on friday and a half day on monday. I took a couple progress pictures for all that.

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And I forgot to post this from last weeks figure drawing. I took my time to construct it so hopefully I can take it a lot further in the next couple weeks. I think the head is a little too small.. I'm going to play around with that this week.

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[christian.m]

I'm going to be here for so many days, there going to blur into each other. I spent the past several days making tiny tiny adjustments on the bargue. On Friday after bringing it to almost finished in charcoal, the instructor told me I should wipe it back and finish it in graphite.

Yay! It will still be a couple more days until I am finished.

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I had fun on the figure drawing on Wednesday. I finished the proportions in charcoal and I'm now filling it out with graphite. It's super light, but you can get the idea of where it's heading.

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[a la bapsi]

gorgeous progress on that latest project. <3

[christian.m]

Thanks A la Bapsi. I will post more of that tonight. I am definitely glad I had to work the whole thing over in graphite. I'm still learning a lot from this one drawing.

Here is the update on the figure drawing.

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There weren't that many people walking around at work this weekend so I turned to Flickr. You can find most of the images through the explore page.

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[christian.m]

I was wrong about the couple more days part. Ive spent weeks in graphite on that Bargue. There are still little things to do here and there, but basically, it is finished.

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Also over the past several weeks I have been working on a series of tonal studies. The idea is to get the big effect of each painting from around thirty feet away. The are great practice to study composition, value and edges. They are also a good break from the very exacting Bargues.

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I think I will be starting another Bargue tommorow.

[a la bapsi]

wow. your bargue drawing is looking great. Smoothly rendered and much better than the first one you've done when you started at the atelier. :D
it's great to know you're learning a lot from the pieces you're working on. Let no stroke of the pencil be in vain!

[christian.m]

Lets see, its been a long while so I have a lot of stuff to post. Since I last posted, I have another bargue, some figure drawings, and some portraits.

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Here is a quick sketch in PS. It is from a painting by Hayez.

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And this last one I would really like your help with. I have't worked too much with Photoshop or with color. So this is a little experiment in both. No refs used. Any critique would be very helpful.

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[*ViRuS*]

you've improved huge amounts since your first post in this sketchbook. great job. keep it up =)

[christian.m]

*ViRuS* - Thanks alot!

I won't be going to Mims for the next quarter or two. So Ive got to study on my own. The past ten days Ive been doing bridgman copies. Also, I just got a Bargue book of my own, so I decided to start from the beginning and have fun with that. I'll post the first one of those in a couple days. But for now, get ready for some bridgman.

[a la bapsi]

studies! awesome looking ones too. :D
waiting for you next big update. you're making good progress!