A thread with artwork and words

[Adam Nowak]

This went from my collection of school to becoming my second sketchbook here. I'm going to keep posting both and as often as I can to improve as fast as I can. Just by trying to draw daily I can already see an improvement. I like comments but I like critiques even more. If you have ever anything you want to point out, feel free!


__________________________________________________ _________
From 2009: I've been at the first Life Drawing class for about a month at school now. We've done many gestures and contour drawings. The class will be moving onto shading the figure next week. Gestures done in conte, contours done in charcoal pencil. Critique is appreciated as always.

[Oruhito]

I really like the drawings of the drawing horse! Great perspective. Also the clean and illustrative line of the last few drawings is really pleasing.

Except for the last drawing, nearly all of your figures have proportional issues especially the head in relation to the rest of the figure. The gesture is pretty good and has a nice sense of energy, but your since of line seems confused and lost. I would recommend learning the proportions of the head to the ribcage to the torso: these are the three most important masses of the figure. Focus less on forms and more on structure and your lines will flow more easily along the forms. Great dedication and repetition of the exercises. Can't wait to see more!

[Adam Nowak]

Yeah, I've noticed that a few have heads too big and others have feet too small. I gotta keep working on that. It seems fine before I go into it with the contour lines and then it hits me like a brick in the face. I gotta take it a bit slower. And I'll definitely keep posting these whenever I can get a hold of my friends camera.

[Adam Nowak]

1- Benches
2- 30 second gestures
3- 45 second gestures
4- 1 minute gestures
5- 5 minute gestures
6- 5 minute gestures
7- 15 contour
8 - 1 hour 30 minute contour
9 - 1 hour 30 minute contour
10 - Some more gestures before I started moving onto shading the figure. The last two were done using my right hand. I couldn't stand how rigid and stiff most of them were turning out.

[Noah Bradley]

You're getting some sweet rhythm in your lines. While you're working to solidify the proportions/structure, don't lose sight of that. Keep that life in your figures.

Keep it up.

[Adam Nowak]

Thanks man! I've noticed slight constant improvement but I hate it when one of them is going good and WHAM huge foot/long arm. I gotta get the proportions together, like you said.

[TheYellowDart]

These are pretty cool man. Especially the contours.

On the gestures, there's two things to remember:

1) Just because the time allowed changes, doesn't mean the speed at which you draw changes. Draw at the same speed regardless of time frame.

2) The only other thing is, find a few more straights/construction lines in the gestures. This will help with proportions and solidify the figures.

[elenaM]

The life in your sketches is present but proportions is an issue to consider addressing. Look at the femur length in all your sketches and notice how short they are for the bodies they belong to.I guess once you revise your proportions you can move with confidence towards the next step.

[Adam Nowak]

TheYellowDart - I definitely tried to finish too fast when I started out. You can see the same thing happened with my recent head studies. I gotta keep that in mind, thanks. As for the second part, well, if I can ever get something like kevinwueste's figures: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=162263 I'll be a happy man. He can definitely block in the figure while still maintaining that sense of "energy".

ElenaM - Yeah, stupid femur, why can't it be shorter. :P I try to keep my stubby legs in mind every time I draw now.

I got everything uploaded all the way up until yesterday morning so I'm all caught up. Keep in mind the gestures were done about the time I created this thread so... they suck. I still see a 10% okay 90% garbage ratio. I have no camera so every one will have to stare at 2MP, non auto focused, phone pictures.

1 - Paper bag, about 5 hours with charcoal
2- Gestures, 5 minutes
3 - Shaded figure, 8 minutes each
4- More Shaded figure with gestures on one page

Yesterdays work

5 - Yeah...warm up head gestures. :D No measuring, just eying the proportions and loosely describing the forms and planes of the head. 5 minutes
6- Shaded head, 8 minutes
7- 1 hour head study. I totally screwed this up by going in too dark from the beginning and trying to fix it by erasing it. I had the outline pretty down too. :( Always next time.

[Adam Nowak]

Got some of last weeks studies. I'm having trouble trying to get tight rendering. I'm not sure if that will come with time but I guess I just have to get more practice in. Again, to bring up kevinwueste's work, I mean something like this:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=727280&stc=1&d=1247935147

compared to my very last portrait.

[Adam Nowak]

We went onto focusing on the hands and did a fully rendered drawing for the end of the week. Had some time in between classes and started to draw a skull the model used as a prop.

Ever since September I've been attending an oil painting club in another room of the school. It's an after school type of setup where a model is hired to pose for two weeks, 3 hours a day, 4 days a week. So essentially you could get some nice studies in and it's been getting very busy in there as more people find out about it. I used to only be able to come in once a week but now it's on for two. Starting from top to bottom it's my first proper oil painting and the bottom is the most recent one finished yesterday.

The first two are 9x12 the rest are now 11x14 all on canvas board. I use turpenoid and the medium is 1 part linseed oil and three parts turpenoid. I use 3 flat brushes, a 1, 3 or 4, and I think a 5 or 7. I got cheap oils that don't even have a name. They were left over tubes from high school. Again, super terrible camera phone quality totally screws up each painting. But at least it's here.

The instructor (Don Yang) had me start in a ivory black (I think, I don't remember) + burnt sienna underpainting for each one to get the form and proportions right and the second time I come in I come in I add titanium white to the palette and get a midtone, light midtone, and dark midtone. Though on the last one he told me to push it a bit further with some shadows and highlights. It's been tough but I love it so much and I actually feel like I learn something every time I start a new painting. Next week a new model is coming in and I will start to incorporate color. I can't wait to completely screw it up.

[Adam Nowak]

One more portrait. Will continue working on it later next week.

[Adam Nowak]

So I'm kind of nervous as I'm finally transitioning into using color in my oil paints. The last one I posted now has black, white, and burnt sienna all acting as colors instead of just mixing black and burnt sienna and adding three gradations of white. I think I pretty much failed and I'll get to work on it tomorrow some more but I feel like it's a failure in the right direction. I did however get a copy of Richard Schmidts All Prima which I heard so much praise about around here and am so amazed by reading the first 50 pages. I can't wait to finish it.

Here's a drapery study I just finished a few hours ago. Took about 12 hours. Used vine charcoal and a charcoal pencil.

[Adam Nowak]

Here it is.

[Adam Nowak]

1. Most recent oil study. Starting to feel more comfortable with it.
2. Accidentally took a small resolution photo. 10 hour pose with charcoal and brush.
3, 4, + 5. 2 minute gestures.
6. Most recent 12 hour pose.
7. I've been spreading the idea around my class to get together after school and putting the life drawing room and light set up to use and practice portraits of all those who attend. We've done it twice so far and it's been going great. Some gestures and two longer poses.

[cdejong]

You're making nice improvements! The long studies of the drapery and paper bag among others were very impressive. I'll have to try that sometime, looks like I could learn a lot from a long value study.

You're really on the right track, just keep doing what you're doing and I look forward to seeing further improvement, there was some really nice stuff in the last post!

[Adam Nowak]

cdejong - Thanks, I really appreciate it. Long studies get me really focused and I can sometimes get lost easily. I did quite a few this semester, I'm going to try some quicker studies.

The semester has ended and I decided to merge this thread with a new sketchbook.

- Self Portrait
- Larger version of a study previously posted
- Final for Life Drawing 101. Took about 12 hours with mostly vine charcoal with a charcoal pencil for the darks. Once again, a terrible photo but I bought my family a point and shoot for Christmas so I hope that will improve the quality from now on.
- Some more studies after school with a few friends. (That huge eye is really buggin me in one of the gestures, just ignore it! :P) There's one girl who's great at posing, she seems like a natural model. The next day she brought a friend who's a ballet dancer. :D Looking forward to getting together with everyone again in January.
- And I might as well post my sp from Nov. 1st. I'm having big problems with the digital medium so Photoshop is going to wait for a little while.

I'm on break for two weeks. I was going to start doing some quick oils everyday but I forgot to buy some supplies. Will try to get that asap.

[Adam Nowak]

OLDER WORK FROM LATE 08 TO LATE 09

I decided I should put up the stuff I did right before I started school. Most of it is godawful, but I'm not here to just post pretty pictures. That will come later.

[Adam Nowak]

These are some sketches since September to this week in order. I've been trying to nail one or two things down at a time. I have a goal to concentrate on specific things at a time. Since Life Drawing was my main focus this past semester, I decided to study anatomy and work on certain things like the hands and now heads. I feel like it's getting somewhere but I still need to nail the planes of the face.

Working with ball point has helped, I don't need to worry about overworking something by too much shading and it makes me try for less mistakes.

[jordyskateboardy]

Woah! The amount of work on this page actually scared me haha. therefore wasn't able to get a good luck at everyhting.
I really like your anatomy studies. They're really forcefully. Superb done.
For crits I'd say watch your porportions in the face. THey tend to be kinda off at times. Just look up the proportion dimension and you should be fine.
Awesome sb keepitup.

[Adam Nowak]

jordyskateboardy - Thanks Jordy, don't be scared! I agree, proportions are my enemy, will keep doing more studies.

One more painting from a session before school got out. I was basically the last person to leave the school since it was last Friday night and everyone either skipped or left early to kick start their break. It almost feels odd how a lot of people impatiently wait for the clock to hit 5 so they can run home. Then I ask them if they have to go to their job or if it's something important and they say, nah, I just wanted to get out of school. :O Anyways, a digital piece I worked on one night from a sketch I posted earlier for a school submission. Pretty lame but whatever. Was just trying out different brushes.

[Adam Nowak]

- One more study from school
- Started a new sketchbook as the previous one is almost full. Tried some extreme foreshortening using myself.
- Got a oil study in from last night. Took an hour and a half, 9 x 12 canvas board using only Winsor & Newton Winsor titanium white and ivory black. Trying to get the form down.

[Adam Nowak]

Photo reffed my friend.

[sketchibo]

Damn, that is a hell of a lot of drawings. I really have nothing useful to say, just keep going. This is awesome.

[Euthyphro]

Very nice. You've been improving. The last couple batches of life drawings have a very nice movement to them.

One thing I notice especially in the earlier posts were that your hands seems to lose their form. The more recent studies with the single shades rectify the issues for the most part, but it is something you may want to watch for.

The two pen portraits of your friend are very nice, very lively. The nose of the one on the right looks a little odd on the left side (his right).

Overall there is a lot of nice work in here and your definitely on the right track. Keep it up :)

[Adam Nowak]

sketchibo - I'll keep on keeping on.

Euthyphro - Thanks for catching that, I kind of squished his nose a little. it was interesting that you mention form as the day before school started again I went to attend a figure drawing workshop in Chicago for 3 hours. It was a pay at the door no instruction session. It was awesome I was the youngest person there at 20 years. There were ladies there who were turning 70 years old and the old men were complaining about their medicine. :D

After the three hours were up I was waiting for my ride and the instructor came over and asked if I would like a critique on my work I did (gestures and poses from 20 seconds to 25 minutes). I said I'd love it and we ended up talking for over an hour. He basically said it came done to form and that I have none. His take on it was one should learn the skeletal structure and not by just reading books and studying anatomy but by sculpting the bones. Individual bones of the skull, the pelvis, etc... until you have such a grasp on it that you are able to instantly visualize the inside of the figure so that you can draw the outside. I'll definitely keep it in mind...

Got some sketchbook and figure drawing warm ups. Finished one sketchbook so I want to finish the moleskin next. I've been inspired by Chromosome recently if anyone notices in some of the work. The model further down kept moving a lot so she became really hulked up for some reason. :/ Overall I feel kind of rusty even though my break was only 2 weeks long, like I've stepped back to September of last year but with fresh ideas. Another side project I want to keep focus on is the idea of a "daily" self portrait. I've been lurking in the sub forum for over a year now and have wanted to start one up but I never felt like I could commit to it so here it goes, but in a different way. Instead of doing one everyday, I just want to have 365 done by the end of the year even if I skip a few days.

So I've got a lot on my plate and will try to make the most of it. Besides school, the self portraits, after school drawing, and open painting sessions, I signed up for the portrait club run by one of my teachers, a weekly 3 hour session to do one oil portrait of the model which is either a student or instructor, I'm planning on really getting into digital seriously this year, and I've been reading over some books besides Bridgeman like Vanderpoel, Micheal Hampton, and Henry Yan (that book is just pure eye candy).

[JasonHickey]

Hey man. Great life drawing. I must say your line work is lovely. You build up the structure very well. Have you thought about etching? It would suit your style perfectly.

[leanunlibro]

Thanks for the comment in my sketchbook. Your improvement is awesome. It seems that you too want too overload CA servers hehe. Your life drawings are splendid. Keep posting more

[Adam Nowak]

JasonHickey - Thanks, I went not too long ago to the Art Institute of Chicago and was amazed by Rembrandts etchings. I'd like to try it out some day.

leanunlibro - Thanks will do. Need to update a little more frequently a few projects come up from time to time that eat up my entire day. Going on 2 hour nights of sleep recently.

I've joined the after school portrait painting club. I've been using Utrecht artists canvas either 9 x 12 or 11 x 14. I'm currently using

Titanium White (W&NW)
Ivory Black (W&NW)
Ultramarine Blue (Utrecht)
Alizarin Crimson (Utrecht)
Cadmium Yellow Light (Utrecht)
Terra Rosa (W&N)
Burnt Sienna (W&NW)

1: Still Life from near the beginning of the year when I first picked up charcoal
2-6: More oil studies
7: Recent white charcoal on black paper figure drawing
8: Getting to use toned paper with black and white charcoal now
9-11: Oil Portraits. I really despise the first one. I was ill prepared and I ran out of Ultramarine blue about half way through.
12-14: Sitting in on other peoples classes and some sketches for a painting that I completely screwed up. Yay.

[Bella DC]

Hey! Thanks for commenting on my sketchbook! You have some amazing life drawings here and I especially admire your oil paintings! Keep it up!

[G_U_T_S]

Really , really like your stuff here. Everything is very cool, loving the pencils. Hope to see more from you.

[Adam Nowak]

Bella DC + G_U_T_S- Thank you both.

[purplegoat]

Thanks for the comments on my sketchbook.

Man you seem to draw A LOT! Which is a good thing for improvement from what I understand. No crit right now, just wanted to let you know I stopped by for a look and left with some inspiration.

Keep the updates a comin'!

[keevy39]

Hey Thanks for dropping by my sketchbook! I was simply blown away by your stuff, especially your hand studies.

[Liffey]

really nice work, these have a lot of character to them. keep posting. :)

[Knarf]

Like your title promises, oodles of doodles indeed! I like your style, in LARGE quantities. Quality is also up there. Keep chipping that art block, and thanks for the congrats!

-Frank

[Adam Nowak]

purplegoat - To inspire someone... that means a lot to me. Thanks.

keevy39 - Cool man, you just reminded me of some hands I drew not too long ago that I forgot about.

Liffey - Thanks. :)

Knarf - I appreciate it, that block is a mile high but everyday I feel like I pick an inch off. ;)

1- Some recent 5 minute gestures in ballpoint, charcoal, and ink
2- Had some spare time so I dabbled in some ink
3- A long pose that I royally screwed up. I had it all drawn out and the model hunched his back quite a bit. I reworked the upper body but didn't shorten his upper legs enough so there ya go: AVATAR fan art.
4- Last nights 3 hour oil study. These are so fun but so infuriating. Every time I do one I can see some kind of improvement in them but whenever I take a step forward I take one backward. i feel like my skin tones are getting slightly better but I rushed the initial drawing. I also started to put more paint on the canvas because before I felt like I was tearing away at the canvas with every brushstroke. But I can't wait until next week.
5- Ballpoint hands
6- Sleepy people on the train, threw in some monsters in there from imagination so I can reinforce my studies.

[mike butkus]

Good work. i see a a lot of potential!

[Adam Nowak]

mike - Wow, thanks man. I was just checking out your update, your studio. Amazing.

[danlucas]

good formal shading.
Lines are very clean and confident.
I especially like the white conte chalk
drawing of the man on the blue paper
Are the hands all from life?

The paper bag study is excellent.
Check out my SB if you have a chance.

[Adam Nowak]

danlucas - Yeah, the hands are my own observed in a mirror. Everything I posted so far has been either from life or imagination.

Got some more stuff done today.

[keevy39]

that is a great life drawing of the girl in your moleskine. Every time I try to draw some one, they always move on me. hahaha Comes with Practice I guess. Anyway keep up the great work!

[Linguini]

Wow, you are so inspiring with your studies! Your progress is amazing, especially with your sketches from life. :) I'm going to go draw right now! Thanks!

[JasonHickey]

I love the dripping ink. I don't know if I asked this before but are you into Schiele at all? You're draftsmanship is showing something of his influence. Your line work is beautiful. I love to watch your drawing/painting. Thanks. :)

[purplegoat]

"the hands are my own observed in a mirror" - I never thought of using a mirror to model hands... that is a good idea.

you're an art machine pumping out the art, Ok, you're not a machine, you're a unique human being with a solid art study ethic, either way, don't stop!

[Adam Nowak]

People are thanking me? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? :O

keevy39 - Great thing about the train and being the last stop both ways.

Linguini - Whenever I browse sketchbooks I always have a decision to make: browse more or start drawing.

JasonHickey - I tend to be all over the map regarding influences but yes. I'm definitely familiar with Schiele.

purplegoat - Once it really hits you, it's hard to stop. I guess like the hardest drug but this one will pay you for doing it.

1- 2 hour back study done after class so I decided to turn it into a statue. Gotta love that smooth newsprint.
2- Done a few weeks back, focused too much on rendering and not enough proportions.
3- Sketch for a paper, Rembrandt style.
4 + 5- Some more oil studies. Didn't have too much time recently to push them further.
6 - 8- Sketches.
9- My first oil self portrait that I did in two hours before work with Burnt Umber and Titanium White. It was nice to get away from color for a second. I'm really struggling with that right now and I plan to do some more studies and read up on it some more. Maybe I can get the oil instructor to give me a short portrait demo.

[Adam Nowak]

Some recent work from the past two weeks.

[keevy39]

great stuff! I especially like the last two! Keep it up.

[Mac Con]

Your first page is good lots of loose quick sketches that shows your curativeness and a couple of good quality paintings to finish it off and as I looked through the second page your tonal work shows progression I always Like bumping into another fine artist all the best in your progressions in the future

[Adam Nowak]

keevy39 - :)

Mac Con - Thanks for the kind words.

1 + 2- Figure paintings
3- Had to construct the environment around one of the models in perspective.
4- Still life, I actually like this one sideways more.
5- My teacher asked me to paint her one of her fiancee's cups.
6- My friend came down from Canada for a week and posed for for my friends and I after school. He didn't sit too long so I didn't finish it. Seems like the contour on his right side is a little too angular.
7- My other friend came back with his girlfriend which was awesome. Never tried to draw two people at once in two hours before.
8- After school portrait club.
9 + 10- Sketches. Almost didn't make it to the train home last night.

[Adam Nowak]

Stuff from the past week.

1 - 4- Figure painting. I feel like I'm almost starting to get it.
5- Tuesday's portrait of my Fundamentals teacher.
6 - 9- Sketches.

[6 Sided]

I can see your improvement within two pages. Very nice. Maybe we can meet up for a sketch party sometime. You said you take the train. Which one? I take the South Shore to Indy.

[towy]

really great lines, too big update maybe : ) not easy for critics one by one so
5*

[Taneli]

Woah, really promising still lifes! Great composition and colours in them.

[Jasper_]

Wow very impressive drawings dude, that figure on the blue toned paper is awesome. You have such a wide range of styles present too, keep posting man, 5 stars.

[Dr poPcoRN]

great renders :)

[Adam Nowak]

5 stars? Definitely not deserving of that, that means a lot guys.

6 Sided - Heh, the direct opposite direction. I take the BNSF Metra to Aurora, directly west. Though I'd love to just chill make some art. I try to bring some people together after school sometimes to draw someones portrait. When it gets warmer I'd like to actually go outside someday. :P

towy - I'll take any critique. Once school winds down I'll start on more varied subjects.

Taneli - Thanks! I submitted those still life's and a few life drawings to the schools freshman fundamentals show and got 1st (for http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=900433&stc=1&d=1265608870) and 2nd place for the still life with the ball and vase.

Jasper_ - Dude, thanks a lot, I love your sketchbook. I check back every now and then.

Dr poPcoRN - And your sketchbook is devastating Dr poPcoRN!

Small update from today.

1- Finished up this weeks painting. I could have taken another day last Wednesday but chose to go see a rep from Winsor Newton. Not the best idea. Oh well.
2- 1st pastel I've ever done. Nupastels on White Mi-Tientes.
3- Sketchers. SP turned out a little odd, I was seeing too many abstract shapes and got distracted.

[crimsoneye]

Nice stuff, I really loving those portraits that your doing. I glad see that I'm not only person on this board who is around here.

[Adam Nowak]

crimsoneye - Thanks, it is good to see more people from around here.

Small update for now.

1 - My little sister, pastels. I'm upset that I couldn't capture the true colors but it's better than nothing.
2 - My friend Doug came in and posed. Didn't flinch for a second.

[Oatestwder]

I looked in just for the name of your sketch book and boy im happy i did. Loving the variety of media you use, those sketchs are great! you've inspired me to try some dyes

[Adam Nowak]

Oatestwder - Go for it man. It happens to me all the time. I get inspiration by looking at other sketchbooks and then I just browsing more until I realize I just spent an hour page after page...

1 - I'm really excited about not screwing this one up. Largest painting I've done yet as it's a two week pose that I have three more 3 hour sessions. 16x20.

2 + 3 - Gestures from last week. Interesting as the year is almost up and we got the same model from my very first gestures I posted which means some similar poses.

4 - 2nd try at pastel. I approached it with more of a crosshatch technique.

5 + 6 - Some 1 or so sketches from a few weeks back.

7 - Last Tuesday's watercolor instructor posing for us. Decided to kind of go with a more painterly style. Really fun.

8 + 9 - Sketches of people, also tried to go for a more loose style but should have kept a better eye on proportions and form.

[soros]

Nice sketches, especially the hand figures on the yellow paper. I also like the first pencil / coloured added ones.

[Adam Nowak]

soros - Thanks soros.

I forgot one more thing I did a few days ago. It was a portrait of my sister for my grandparents but I don't think I got the likeness down completely. She looks a few years older than she is now.

[JasonHickey]

Hey! I love the way your work is going. What kind of course are you on? Is it pure fine art? I'd love to go back to college and get a degree but I'm torn between the want to improve and the cost..

[Adam Nowak]

JasonHickey - Hey man, I'm going for illustration. The first year every class is very fine art based and after that it becomes pretty focused on whatever course you decide on. So everything now has to do with fundamentals, life drawing, etc... But I love the fine art side. As soon as school ends in two weeks I'll focus more on areas I haven't really played with. I'm not sure of your situation, but I'm sure you could find a way to improve without the need of school, right? What do you want to go back for?

I've been sick for the past week so not much got done. That painting that I mentioned above won't be finished as I never came back for all three sessions.

1 - Trying out watercolors on Arches rough.
2 - Still life with black and white charcoal.
3 - 3rd pastel. My goal was to try a different technique with each of these pastels since I've never used them before. I quite like this broad suggestive way of working. Only took about 3 or 4 hours.

[Adam Nowak]

1 - Final for Life Drawing 102, 13 hours. I don't know, I measured the head, chest, everything multiple times and it all seemed to match up. But in the end it still seems like the chest is a little too wide though he's leaning back...

2 - Friend came over to pose, about 3 hours. Trying to play with edges.

3 - It's the little things that give me a lot of trouble. I had to erase the prongs 10 times over before I just went ahead and painted them before I ripped the paper.

4 + 5 - Last open session, will complete it this time...

6 - Sketcherz. Is it just me or are Vanderpoel's eyes crosseyed?

[JasonHickey]

Hey!

I just want to go back to have time to learn the things I was never taught the first time. I did a two year practical diploma in computer animation with very little focus on colour and light and the use of traditional materials. I also want to go back to work in 2d full time instead of 3d all day long. Booooring!

I love the study of your friend, it has a lot of warmth in it compared to some of your other studies.

[B-zilla]

Wow, it's awesome that you've made such dramatic improvements in such a short period of time! You're a real inspiration. Your oils paintings and life drawings are fantastic, but I particularly like your moleskine sketches. They're so lively and loose!

Which school are you studying at?

Can't wait to see more!

[Adam Nowak]

JasonHickey - Yeah, everyone here is required to all take the same fundamentals and life drawing classes no matter what major, illustration, photography, 3D animation, advertising, etc... Thing is a lot of the animation majors don't think the life drawing is beneficial to them since they're going to be drawing "cartoons" anyways.

I wonder if the warmth comes from the toned paper, I find all the pastels in my set to be very cold.

Belindi - Thank you so much man. It's nice to know what I do actually has an effect to someone across this vast digital space. ;) I'm currently attending the American Academy of Art in Chicago. Also known as "you mean the Art Institute, right? Because that's the only art school here in Chicago." :P

1-3- Oh God, I really need to work on my gestures...I feel bad just uploading them.
4- Almost done with this study. 9x12 on cheap Utrecht canvas board. Will do a few touchups tomorrow, mostly on the face.
5- Trying out some of that bulk of Reeves BFK paper I have laying around. It's different, but it's really tough, quite nice.
6- Self portrait + finishing it at 4:30 in the morning = goofy expression. I tried to get an oily look to the pastels, been looking at a lot of Sargent type portraits.
7- Drew my friend on the way home same night we had the session. He said he looks like Trevor Goodchild. :)

[whatpants]

Beautiful work, I'm bookmarking your sketchbook so I can come back and look at it for inspiration. You have such a fluent style in your work. It's breathtaking.

[Adam Nowak]

whatpants - Thank you very much. :)

1+2 - Henry Yan inspired gestures.
3+4 - Head studies. I did one and started over but I wasn't able to finish because the instructor saw I was the only one left in class and told the model to stop. What?
5 - So once she stopped I asked my friend to pose for a bout half an hour. There were quite a few people coming in and out, couldn't concentrate very well. I wish it came out better, features are really off.
6- Just trying different techniques with watercolors. I want to get better with them.
7- My friends girlfriend posed a second time last night. Very fun.
8- Finished touching up the study. Love doing these.
9+10- First one I tried just some expressions out of my head. Second one was from a fun train ride. Had a bunch of girls hiding from the conductor and a couple (one was a white sox and one was a cubs fan) arguing.

[Chr. Steam]

Great painting and drawing!

[Adam Nowak]

Chr. Steam - Thanks

School's out for the summer, time to get to drawing. I'll try to attend the weekly drawing sessions downtown at the Tojo Gallery and the Drawing Workshop whenever I can.

Goes as follows:

TDW - 40s, 1m, 1m, 2m, 5m, 5m, 10m, 15m, 15m, and 25m
TG - 1m, 5m, and 1 h and 30m

Henry Yan again. I just find this method really quick in laying down a figure.

[Adam Nowak]

It's good to be back at the Wacom. Second try at a still life. Had trouble with the jar, especially the top.

[Lakka]

Great works here. It's nice to see you tackle so many mediums and succeed with them. As a sketchbook for viewing, this one is a joy to go through.

Keep it up!

[JasonHickey]

More beautiful stuff. I really can't imagine how good you're going to be when you get your degree. I'm starting to write my own teach yourself course today. I tried to get in to TAD but I can't afford it. I'm gutted but hey that's life.

I'll come back and bother you for advice when I start my program. :)

[Adam Nowak]

Lakka - Working on it.

JasonHickey - Glad to hear it.

Recent sessions. Some okay, some bad.

[Adam Nowak]

Trying to get more subtle results with the life drawing. I feel like this method of working is great as it really shows a lot in a short amount of time.

[JasonHickey]

Great life drawings as usual. I really like your charcoal studies and how much light you leave hitting the figure. You are not afraid to let the empty parts of the page speak for you. Keep it up!

[Brun]

Great updates, these Model sketches are lovely!

-Brun

[Adam Nowak]

Thanks guys.

I just finished watching the free TAD workshop. Are you going to try for TAD again or go a different route Jason? What kind of course are setting up?

---

Back into the swing of things for now. First one is of my mom for Mothers Day. I wanted to get enough time to take it a bit slow so I can try to do my best but she was rushing me the entire time. So after two hours, there you go.

The latest portrait from the after school sessions. I think I'm going in some right directions but I feel like I'm doing some fundamental mistakes and I don't want to get too ahead of myself. I have a hard time trying to keep all the values like they should be. If they're too light it looks flat and if they're too dark it stands out way too much. The more I study portraits the more I see the values are actually quite similar with just enough of a difference to separate the planes of the face. I don't know but I have to do something.

Starting some different work with my friend so we can keep ourselves busy over the summer. Pretty excited about it.

[surus]

Incredible progress! Nice Yan-Style! Did you already try to combine it with your graphite/pencils? (pencils for the main lines and e.g. face details, charcoal for the "yan-shading" / rendering)

The bubble is another great piece. Wish, you had drawn it as a longer time piece.

[Dope Fiend]

I love your willingness to explore the boundaries of your abilities, I notice you attempt to tackle many different techniques, and you do a great job with it everytime.

[walnut]

Can't go wrong with those figure studies, in particular the charcoal stuff. Like the economy of the markmaking there.

[weashell]

very nice man just found from deviantart with luck :D especially charcoals :O

[Adam Nowak]

surus - You read my mind. I was just thinking about what to do next a few days ago. I really like Yan' technique for it's quick coverage and I hope to continue to use it sometimes. I just don't want to directly copy it and leave it at that. I know in his book he has a few examples of using charcoal pencils for details and I think I'm going to try for graphite pencils to get subtle shading. Unless I can find charcoal pencils that are less than 2B.

Dope Fiend - Thanks, I find it pretty important to try as many things as possible. I wouldn't agree with actually tackling each medium and technique, more like they tackle me.

walnut - Thanks man, I try to take it slowly now instead of trying to rush it. It's hard but to me it seems like you progress faster when you sit back and make sure each mark counts for something.

weashell - Thanks, I checked deviantart first, then I saw you here. :)

Self portrait study from last night. 4 hours, 8 x 10 oil on wood. Major structure issues I think but I didn't know the best way to go about them. :S

[Norris]

WOW!

What Can i say ... Im sat here at work, meant to be doing ... well, work, but i just got sucked into your work and couldnt stop looking!

As so many have said before, you are an art machine! The amount you get done is amazing, and I am simply inspired by how much youve come on and how amazing your work is now!

I especially love the blue male in post 37, and your recent stuff that looks like the fourth one down in post 61. The line work is awesome ... i love the lines throughout your drawings, and you have inspired me to finally get back to my sketchbook and get some more done, after personal difficulties recently.

Thank you is all i can say, and keep up the amazing work!
Take Care
Norris

[Adam Nowak]

Norris - Hey, thanks I appreciate it a lot! I've been so busy during the past two weeks commuting back and forth to school and the Palette and Chisel that I haven't had time to upload anything. I've come near my computer a few times but I just went back to drawing. Also every single page from my current sketchbook had been done with a single .5 HB mechanical pencil. I was getting frustrated getting the same line and same value every time so now I I use it along with a regular HB and 6B pencil. Reason I ditched regular pencils a while back was because I was using them the wrong way and I decided to change up my linework.

Well now I feel a whole lot better about it. Not sure if it's a good change, what do you guys think? Anyways here's some decent, bad, and horrible art.

1 + 2- Studies of friends after school.
3- Portrait club of one of the reps. I realized after studying some masterworks and portraits that in most cases, less is more when it comes to value and that some of my previous attempts have been too harsh between light and shadow. Now I think there isn't enough... there's always next time.
4 - 11- Palette and Chisel studies. A lot of fail...
12 - 14- Recent oil studies which is what I really want to focus on. But at the same time besides my total failure at trying to figure out color, my drawing underneath the paint is also terrible and I always come out with some kind of issue because I want to rush into painting. Either an eye is off, the head is too long, the features are too small. Then when I actually get to the painting, I try not to get my colors muddy or too varied. That's why # 12 is a limited palette consisting of Titanium White, Transparent Oxide Red, Viridian Green, and I had some extra Yellow Ochre which I used two or three times.
15 - 23- Sketchbookness.

[cdejong]

Great work man, your progress is inspiring.

[dU5K]

very nice work. i envy the traditionals.. keep up the work!

[ryan a.]

dude you've shown incredible progress in a very short time. keep up the daily practice! you inspired me to up my game. your posting a huge amount of life drawings and studies, but are you doing much work from your imagination? i see a few, but show us more! i think both are equally important for developing your ability

[Ostroponis]

awesome pencil work, very impressed :)

[heix33]

Great work, especially portraits.
What kind of paper do you use for watercolors?

[Adam Nowak]

Thank guys :)

ryan a. - I am, here and there. I've been thinking about it recently and I'm definitely going to start doing more stuff from my mind.

heix33 - The only watercolor paper I've tried is the Arches cold pressed 300lbs. block. I used some Bristol board sometimes when I didn't have any other paper.

[Metal Fingers]

your oils are sexy, dig your portraits. all of this is good shit.

[goodoldayz]

love your work man, i need to stop slacking and get my fundamentals some more practice, keep it up .

[Flaskpost]

yeah man, great studies! not much in terms of critique. i´d suggest focusing more on construction and drawing then colors at the moment though.
keep kickin´ ass.

[JasonHickey]

As always you are so productive. I am trying to do two hours a day after work but I can not produce even half as much as you! I guess I 'll be doing TAD part time if I get on any of the courses now. I really hope this will suffice for the mean time. Not sure if it will be enough to get into work as a concept artist.. we'll see.

When do you finish up in college?

[Adam Nowak]

Metal Fingers - Thanks, I'm glad! They're definitely my favorite thing to do right now, though I feel this is the only thing I'm actually getting good at...

goodoldayz - Same here. :)

Flaskpost - Definitely, I can't miss the opportunity to do these portraits and color studies, but you're completely right. I'm been retracing my steps a bit because I don't want to get ahead of myself.

JasonHickey - I finish it up in two years, I just completed my first year. It's going too fast, it'll be over before I know it. I feel like I haven't done enough. It's just a steady 24/7 kind of thing for me right now, it's all I really think about. Even the twenty minute walk to school I basically get off the train and step in the classroom and I don't even know how I got there, I was too busy thinking about something art related.

Some more portrait studies in oils. These are pretty small, on wood. I think something like 7 x 9 I think? No idea why the first one had such a glare. Threw away a painting that I really wanted to get down this week. There is quite a bit I don't post sometimes. I didn't even take a photo of it, complete failure. So I drew the model to at least have that, she had a very interesting look about her. (Second page on the left) Saw the ball of facial features on someone elses sketchbook. Almost all of this stuff is from imagination, I gotta keep myself busy on the train when I don't fall asleep. Also, don't try to do a master study while in a moving vehicle, lol.

[xinranliu]

yes! oils!
keep 'em coming

[MattGamer]

yesssssss sweet arts! oils are making me drool. :]

[Nianto]

wow, that much work - it's stunning
you have a great feeling for the human body, i especially love your moleskin works - maybe because i'm not that fan of big and bulky oversized art haha, no - just joking

[CastorFiber]

the oils are beautiful... just sayin... :)

[Metal Fingers]

lovely update dude, i think the second portrait could benefit from some more hard edges here and there, sweet pencil pages tooo. IDK why but whenever I see your SB title, this song runs on repeat in my head.
n-2-qVgGQak

[Adam Nowak]

xinranliu, MattGamer, Nianto, CastorFiber, Metal Fingers! Thank you everyone!

Metal Fingers, you're the first one to mention it, you got it. :) Thanks for the tip, I probably subconsciously made them softer because of her last portrait I did (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=976621&stc=1&d=1273813332) and this time didn't think about edges as I should have.

I'm done with the little Moleskine, finally. I have a few more sketchbooks lying around that I need to fill up. Been doing a lot more oils than I used to, I love it so much and I really want to keep going with them. I went to school with my sight on going into illustration but all the while wanting to make sure I had a sound traditional ground to stand on. But now I'm enjoying it more and more than I thought I would... I guess another reason I sided with a more illustrative path was because I was scared of not being able to live as a pure fine artist. But I've been talking to more and more people, and researching living painters these days. I've got to make some decisions soon, preferably before school starts up in the fall again so I can be sure of what I want to do.

[Metal Fingers]

Digging those sketches dude, the lines are nice! As far as the oils go, they are looking gooood man, nice to see a still life in there. Have you thought of painting some imaginative portraits? Weird alien humanoids and the like, would look pretty dope.

[goodoldayz]

i love the colors you use on your oils, im taking a painting class next semester and intend on dropping in here for some tips or ideas. just kidding. just want the inspiration. :)

[Adam Nowak]

Metal Fingers - Yeah man, I actually have some ideas for something more imaginative, but I want to execute it in oils, I think that would be a cool challenge.

goodoldayz - Thanks, it means quite a bit to me.

Been two weeks but I got a few paintings done. Been experimenting with different surfaces and sizes when painting.

1st painting was done on board primed with Gamblin oil ground. Ugh, I don't know if it was because I didn't wait long enough (two weeks) but it absorbed the oil paint even more than the acrylic gesso, though it didn't darken like the gesso slightly did. Unless I figure out what went wrong, I definitely don't want to go that route again.

4th study was done on vellum, which is just like wood and probably not as archival. I'm assuming over time the oil will eat away at the paper. But it's cheap and it's got a nice slick surface with enough resistance so it doesn't feel like I'm painting on water.

The 7th and the 10th are two paintings which were done on wood, 2.25" x 3.5". First is a self portrait, both took about 3 hours each.

Then I've done a few studies for a larger painting I'm going to start next week. I hope to recreate something similar to what I did in the value study. Otherwise I just finished my first color chart a few hours ago which I'm excited to keep going with. I probably won't post those here, just wanted to show I'm finally doing them, they've been overwhelmingly recommended to me since I started painting so now that I have some free time over the summer I want to get as many done as possible. My camera fails at capturing delicate darks so the top row of the Ivory Black side looks very different than what's in front of me. And I got a new sketchbook. Couldn't help start a little one.

[sony]

Enjoying your journey!
good stuff!
you need to work on your proportions as a whole figure or face

[Metal Fingers]

what up homie. man, keep up all this work, looking forward to some more.

[Adam Nowak]

sony, Metal Fingers, thanks...

[jeremygordon89]

Wow, there's a ton of good stuff in here; I love the oils, and your pencil work is nice too. It looks like you've made a lot of improvement just over the past two months alone, so it looks like you definitely will go far with oils if you keep this up. Thanks for the inspiration, and keep up the awesome work!

[Adam Nowak]

jeremygordon89 - Thanks so much!

Got some more head studies down, some in oils, some in charcoal. Finally went to get some drawing done too, haven't done that in months. Did an absolutely horrible Sargent (sorry John) as a digital study. Just tells me I really need to work more that way. It took about 5 hours and I struggled all the way up until the end. I did some quick 1 hour studies in the sketchbook after Sargent and William Orpen which felt much better.

[Jason Scanlon]

Wow, awesome sketchbook. Love the oils and the sketchbook work. Thanks for sharing.

[Adam Nowak]

Thanks Jason!

Here's some end of the summer work. Going back to school in the next few days.

1 - Self Portrait. Got a hold of some really old Sargent and Hi-Tech paint so I decided to use it up since most of the tubes were completely busted and the oil was spilling out everywhere.

2+3 - I only posted the full figure because I wanted to show the entire painting. The photo does a terrible job at showing the colors from that far away, I had to photograph this in my bedroom from a small window. Her leg is not that white. :P I don't like much about it except for the face and even then it's pretty screwy. I repainted the arm and hand half a dozen times, the leg is dislocated from the rest of the body, background arm is too elongated. Cropping is weird. It kind of fell apart as I kept working on it. Definitely one I can learn from.

4-6 - More portraits. First one I think is pretty successful as of right now, it's headed in the right direction. Second one is completely repainted with a palette knife after I screwed it up to the point of no return. Third was done on another one of those absorbent acrylic gesso panels so I tried a different way of applying the paint in more of a dry brush.

[B-zilla]

I love how your posts never lose momentum. Keep it up!!

[Adam Nowak]

Belindi - Here's more!

Did a little bit of drawing today, had a marathon at the Palette and Chisel.

[richart]

*subscribes* I love your expressive lines and brush work - gorgeous!

[ryan mcshane]

wow man! i really love all this life painting! and all these drawings too are great, soo much work and i love it all!! keep it up :D

oh and your pencils/charcoal also remind of henry yan, really nice

[Sebastian Gromann]

what teh faack :O


life drawings and oils are getting super hyper duper tight man \o_o/
ma fav is the oil-grandpa, nice edge use and also great colors :D keep kicking iitt broo :D

[Marlisa]

Wow... really awesome! 5 stars!
And I think I could really learn something from your oils, so also thread subscription :^^:

[Jason Scanlon]

Nice sketches! I love drawing drawing people, they make good models. Also really feeling the sketch posted earlier with the reaching hand. More.

[Adam Nowak]

richart - Thank you!

ryanoir - I bought Henry Yan's book a while back and since then I've done a lot of research into Chinese and Russian realist artwork that has been coming out in the past few decades. Yan is definitely an influence on how I approach some drawings.

SnobbyOo - Thank you very much man for noticing some change. :)

Marlisa - Aww thanks.

Jason Scanlon - People just make good models period. {Like train passengers.] Except for those who find out you're drawing them and they go out of their way in order to not get drawn.

MOAR!

[Alfy]

Beautiful stuff dude! I especially like the one from your sketchbook avatar, just the perfect blend of detail and mess!

[Vloth]

wow, how dedicated you are! It's really nice to see the rapid development you've gone through since page one. I especially enjoy your work with light/shadow in all your studies. Also, sweet to see some more traditional stuff here on CA. :)

[purplegoat]

Enjoying your sketcbook! No crit from me. Just stopping by.

[Adam Nowak]

Thanks guys.

1 + 2- Another painting from the same pose, from the above post I made. I'm happy with this one. Took around 15 hours though the latter half was basically fixing all the mistakes I made the first few hours. Second photo is a closeup I wanted to post to see what kind of texture of the board I had to deal with. Used a few coats of acrylic "gesso" and then went over that with acrylic gel. I forgot to sand it like I usually do. At first I hated it but by the end I found out how to play nice with it.

3 + 4- Some 30 min. Not winners, but not everything always is. Drawings that I specifically focused on with black and white charcoal. Want to try this on a longer pose.

5- Came in late for the session so this was about 3 hours., limited palette. Terra Rosa, Yellow Ochre Pale, Ultramarine Blue, some Raw Umber in places for the hair and a few others for a a few vibrant marks in his dreads. I always try to use a different method if I haven't done it before and thought this would be a perfect time. So I just started with a mark on her forehead and layed down every brushstroke down as accurate as possible. If not, I tried to correct it right away. Since I was basically having to think about proportions as I was thinking about value, form, color, etc... I ran into trouble and had to do some reconstruction.

6- 3 hour pose. I see there isn't much dealing with shadows. I tried to not get any "muddy" color in and rather used a way of trying to turn the form with color instead of just value.

7 + 8- Oh boy. First image was a work in progress. 3 hour pose. What I learned then - do not use Refined Linseed Oil on some shellaced wood. Bad idea. Second photo is yesterdays touch up I did.

9- Just finished up my last page in my sketchbook. Time for a new one.

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

Nice work, you've got a good handle on traditional media. Keep it up!

[ryan mcshane]

ahh your moleskine kicks ass!! really lovely work here bro! keep kicking it haaardcore! love it all : D : D :D ahhh

[Adam Nowak]

Gotta keep going guys!

This is my first sculpture I've been working on fir a few weeks now. I got about 6 days left to finish this so before I get fancy with details I really need to fix up all those little inaccuracies. Some misshapen and lopsided features. But I do love doing it, it's a lot of fun.

Another painting started today, 6 days left for it as well. We'll see how it goes...

[Adam Nowak]

Today was a great day! Woooooooooooo-

[ryan mcshane]

good looking shtuff mate! what school are you at?
looking nice man!

[Thebest12]

I see you

[Adam Nowak]

ryanoir - I'm currently attending the American Academy of Art in Chicago.

Made some progress on the sculpture and I have 4 days left to work on it. Really sat down last time and reworked all the features to make sure they were precisely the exact shape they needed to be. I'm sure this is obvious to anyone who has sculpted before but I have to constantly check everything I'm working on from all angles as it shrinks and grows as I manipulate it. I realized that when I started going after details the bust resembled the model, but everything was off so now that I got everything in it's right place I'll start to refine it.

There was a new model at the Palette and Chisel last night and on Thursday nights the guys who run the session like to use a warm light since the pose goes from 6:30 - 9:30 pm. We kept the natural lights on during the pose and I just so happened to set up right where I could get both major highlights. This was done on board with acrylic gel layered with a palette knife so the surface was untextured but tacky. It made it possible to lay down a color (like the pink in the ear) and then take a clean brush or rag and wipe away the color to show the white board again creating translucent effects.

[SekuDanba]

See what a little bit of Life Drawing can do for you?! :)
And its good to see you do little sketches on your moleskine, cause practicing every day is beneficial in the long run, as evidence here.

So I guess if you were gonna take a life drawing course, they could use you as a success case, that Life Drawing is Essential for drawing realistically and abstraction.

Now for critiques:
Clay is coming along nicely(Klean Klay isn't it? Working on one myself just now.)
In terms of the contours of the face, I'd start roughing those in. Because you've mapped the whole face perfectly, proportion, scale, height/width yadayada.
Maybe the ears need a little work..

Last painting has a good use of color. Contrast between light colors and darker ones. But it seems kind of flat, maybe its the angle. And some features are squished.

Anyways, overall you are very talented and I'm looking forward to see your skill grow.
Toodles.

[zeo-x]

there's some really amazing oil paintings going on here!

[Adam Nowak]

zeo-x - Thank you very much!

SekuDanba - Thanks for the crit. and comment. The clay is Roma Plastilina, the softest grade. It's oil based which is very nice for working on it for extended periods of time. I tested to day to see if I wanted to go full out with a smooth, realistic texture but decided that I'll try that out on the next sculpture most likely. This one will stay kind of rough. I'll probably start casting tomorrow. As for the painting, I can kind of see how it might look squished. He did have an awkward arm position that raised his shoulder significantly but I think the thing that makes it look flat might be the warm light. I tried to keep it balanced. The lightest thing I have to White is Cadmuim Yellow Medium. So I didn't want the warms to look too cool which was hard to keep in balance. Good temperature practice though.

Was sick all weekend so only got some school work done.

[Adam Nowak]

Finished the sculpture. I'm casting it in plaster now. One more day for the painting and did another portrait study tonight.

[ryan mcshane]

wowowow man! looking wonderful! that sculpture turned out lovellyyyy
great work!!

[Adam Nowak]

Thanks ryanoir! I'm glad to be finished with this painting. After being sick all week but still going to school everyday I thought it would never end. Did a lot of minor touchups. Learned quite a bit about color and brush control. It's something like 17" x 23". Won't be submitting as much for a little while as I'm still sick and haven't been attending extra classes as a result.

[knut-]

Nice line/ brushwork. Really gives a 3d feeling on the paintings. Also, it's funny how you can show things and people with only a small number of lines, really makes you think how to draw in real life situations where people are moving without loosing that movement and pose. Keep up.

[SekuDanba]

That sculpture looks way better. I kinda prejudged, because I didn't know if you were finished or it was in-progress. But yeah, it turned out good.
Paintings as always are really good. its good you want to start with rough oil paintings. I've seen alot of people rush into detailed oil paintings and end up with a crappy looking painting. Keep it up!

[Adam Nowak]

knut- - They're always moving. Unless they fall asleep on the train. :P

SekuDanba - Yeah. Another reason why I leave them rough is because I tend to work on a smaller scale. I'm planning on moving to something larger soon.

So the plaster cast I'm making right now is almost finished. I made the mold and ran into some problems. You can see in the photo that parts of the blue layer has chipped off. Or more like completely disintegrated. It's blue because I mixed in some pigment to help differentiate how close I am to the sculpture when I'm chiseling away. I think it happened because I put way too much pigment in. Everyone elses turned out fine with no cracks like mine. Also the fact mine was quite a bit bigger since I had a part of the torso. I think when pulling the two part mold apart I was too aggressive with it. Large pieces fell right off which I fixed. Will be pouring the plaster in the week. I did manage to save the face and will make another little plaster cast from that.

Painting! The first one was done at the Palette and Chisel and there was some beautiful cool light filtering through on a somewhat overcast day. The horizontal portrait was done in 20 minutes because I was waiting for another canvas with some washes on it to dry and I had some extra time. last one's from the weekly after school portrait sessions. I've been pushing the chroma in my paintings lately, especially the after school portraits to play around with color and better understand some of its qualities.

I was able to check out the schools collection of past artwork from students and instructors. I got to see work from William Mosby, Alex Ross's school work done in oils, Scott Burdick, and got to handle a few Richard Schmids from demos he did at school and the best part, a few of his figure oil paintings from class! I'll definitely remember that. In fact I'd like to go back now and look at them again! :D

[LAL]

hey my friend, Amazing works!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I love your oil painting and the sculptures very much ,you color is beautiful!

[surus]

Thanks for sharing all these pencil and charcoal sketches!

[ryan mcshane]

sorry to hear about all your unfortunate things with the sculpture ;_;

could you talk about your process with oil painting portraits please? it'd be quite interesting, not sure how to do alla prima D:

[Benjy]

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1072831&stc=1&d=1285815612

This one is beautiful! I love the hair and the yellow highlights on the skin. Gorgeous stuff.

[Adam Nowak]

Thanks everyone!

ryanoir, I'd be glad to, though I don't claim to know all that, I'm still learning too. :D No matter which way I approach it, as I have been trying out different ways recently with different surfaces which will affect the way you paint even if it's in a small way, there are some things to keep in mind when you're painting in one session.

- Paint only as fast as you're able to. Don't rush because there is a time limit. Better to produce a simple but well structured head that can make a statement rather than one with frilly details which cannot hold up. You will get faster over time. Once you do it enough times and learn which mistakes not to make, you'll realize when to paint fast and when to paint slow.

- Step back and squint. I don't know how many times I hear this but I still don't do it enough. You can judge how hard your edges are, find your hardest edge, and simplify the values.

- The more you look at one area, the more and more color and smaller value shifts you'll begin to see. Which can be a good thing, or a bad thing. You don't want to get stuck on one area for too long.

Make sure to get a solid line drawing in either before you paint or if you decide to start out by blocking in the shapes of the face with color always step back and judge how your painting looks compared to the model.

Another alla prima today, 12 x 16, 5 hours.

[skMOP]

Your colors in oils are awesome! Love tha alla prima portraits especially.
I think that there are some slight proportional errors or really tiny facial faults in some of the portraits. Like the newest one for example the (stage) left eye/cheek seems a bit higher than the otherside.. just a really small nitpick thing though.

Nice variety with the moleskine pages and the sculpture too.

[B-zilla]

Looking good, man! Keep up the lovely work. :)

[Adam Nowak]

Belindi - :)

skMOP - I see what you're saying. They're just ever so off. I do pay attention to that when I'm in the beginning stages but I let that slide once in a while and it gets really hard to fix later on.

So this was the plaster bust being chiseled. It's done now and I'm just finishing picking out some of the blue plaster. I might leave it as is or paint it.

This last Tuesday a few buddies and I went to a club that was hosting an all night drawing session. There were models who were wearing costumes that were sort of avant-garde, dark I guess? It went on from 10pm - 4am and I won't be posting the drawings from 3am and on. :P They were all short poses ranging from 10 minutes to 30 minutes. I didn't know what to expect since the flyer was vague, but next time I might bring some more supplies. Quite a few people showed up, stayed all night, and painted. It was a cool hangout.

[Adam Nowak]

CA's being goofy and won't let me upload everything in one post.

[ryan mcshane]

urhghhgh i want your moleskine!
sooo good man!!
your pencils are delicious man, and so are you paints
keeep going, take that last one further, even oil paint it maybe?
<3 <3

[SekuDanba]

Awesome moleskin sketches. I'm filling mine up in quite a bit short of time....wish I could share, but I lack any sort of camera/scanner right now.

[Dana_T]

Ooo I love that portrait in #155 on the yellowish paper. It's beautiful.

[viki oh]

you have a real knack for color and shape, I really enjoy your energetic brushstrokes. Keep up the great work!

[Adam Nowak]

Thank you everyone, I appreciate the support. I wish today could repeat itself forever. Started painting and drawing today at 8 in the morning. It's almost 2 a.m. and I need to put my sketchbook down now. so I can get whatever sleep I have leftover. I started my largest painting yet. I put together a 26 x 30 canvas a few nights ago for this session. Crosses fingers for it to turn out decently.

Peace.

[ryan mcshane]

oh man your sketchbook is crazy!! i cant wait to see that big painting finished your making me go crazy wanting to do some life oil portrait painting @__@

[Adam Nowak]

It's been a busy week! Got some more art done.

Ryanoir - I hope I can save it! I'm pretty excited, only two days left to fix all the mistakes!

Got a self portrait done for yesterday's event. It was my fathers birthday so after coming home at 8 and setting up lighting and everything else in another room I finished this in a little under two hours. updates on the larger painting. Got a portrait study done over the weekend and tried to reinforce what I posted a little while back. Squint, squint.... Quick update on the plaster cast. Almost done cleaning it and am still planning on painting it. I got some more quick sculpture studies done which will be here a little later on.

If you check out the sketchbook from about two weeks ago you'll notice I was making some sketches for this design. My friend asked me to create a tattoo for him based around this idea of a flying flock of birds. Since they had to be silhouettes, I focused on making each bird unique in its contour and shape. As they grow larger the birds start to come towards the viewer and reaching the top they start to fly back.

[ryan mcshane]

you jsut designed the tats or did you actually tattoo the skin?

oils looks stunning @_@
and your sketchbook still makes me want to kill myself lol

[Adam Nowak]

No way Ryanoir! I didn't want to kill my friend, I only designed it. I never picked up a tattoo gun, but you never know. ;)

1 - This portrait sketch was a little difficult. I didn't watch my proportions as I was working with a limited palette and focused too much on mixing colors. I used titanium white, ivory black, cadmium red medium, and yellow ochre pale.

2 + 3 - Finally finished the 26 x 30. I'm happy about a few things and learned a lot. The one thing I'm upset about is the proportions of the canvas. I wish I had stretched it a little larger both ways to include down to the knees to show a break in the form of the dress.

4 - A quick sculpture a little less than 1/4 scale. Wish I had done it a little larger as it was really difficult doing the face with a toothpick. Sooo...

5 - I started a 1/2 scale of the head of the same model. I decided to work with water based clay instead (bad idea). I've never worked with it, I just knew it was a lot easier to manipulate. I didn't know it was that easy though. I had trouble keeping the form of the planes on the face so I got frustrated and grabbed the skeleton in class for the last 1/2 hour.

6- More practice at the Palette and Chisel. I forgot all my charcoal and only had a stubby 6B pencil, an eraser, and newsprint on me so sorry about it looking so washed out. I suck suck suck suck at gestures.

7 - People on the train and in class. One lady in the hood would not stop moving while she was reading her book. Stopping in on another instructors class after school to get some more drawing in.

[ryan mcshane]

the first painting looks reallly really good for the pallette you used!
and the second turned out absolutley stunning, i do like the proportions of the canvas myself,
sculptures are awesome aswell! that skull face is real scary hah
i like your lines too, real organic
and your moleskine stuff is so fucking beautiful ! ;O;

i was experimenting with limited pallette yesterday too, i used alizarian, pibara, and cadmium reds with ivory black and zinc white, it was so challenging until i added the cadmium which was almost orange so it really made the study warm so i used it on another painting too, soo cool how some paints do that!
good job with anything, i want to see more! :D

[Jason Scanlon]

nice stuff! did they have models at evil olive?

[tehmeh]

Damn, such inspiring work and consistency! I love the oils sculpts and sketches equally, keep it up.

[Metal Fingers]

THIS!!!!!!!!!!! (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1094086&stc=1&d=1288755394) Oh man, that portrait is so formy, I love it. Very nice stroke economy and shape design in your paintings man, they are dope. Would love to see you paint some really weird stuff, but thats just me because I'm fucking weird. hahaha. Cheers!

[Aberzheim]

The alla prima head studies are absolutely mental- your forms are so solid and your paint-handling and colour observation is incredible

amazed to see so much progress in a year's worth, keep up the works :)

[Jamie Romoser]

inspiring sketchbook man keep up the hard work
have a good one
-Jamie

[Adam Nowak]

ryanoir - Pibara? What's that? And you know what, having a full palette and knowing what to do with it is like having just enough dessert to fill you up but not enough to get you sick. It's great to be able to get such a wide range of tones, but limited palette's really help even more and I find them challenging. So when there's another figure study to do and it's nothing major I try to limit my palette to usually one of each primary + white or add one extra primary.

Jason Scanlon - Yes they did!

tehmeh - Thanks dude, I gotta say the same thing to you. Been following your work for a while now.

Metal Fingers - lol, that just happened to be a really good day. :) I probably will fall to a bit of different stuff eventually, I just love what I'm doing right now.

Aberzheim - Thank you very much man, I appreciate it.

OmertA - Thanks, you too!

---------------------------------

Tonight's portrait study, Kirsten. 12 x 16.

[ryan mcshane]

oh thats a good way to work
oopps Pilbara http://www.artspectrum.com.au/swatches-oils/oil-specred.jpeg

its just red ha
really realy dig this last port too, how big?

[zou]

your sb is a real art learning journal, i'll keep visiting :)
i hope you keep talking about your exercices so we can benefit from them too

good luck with your nexts

[Adam Nowak]

ryanoir - 12 x 16. Ahh, now I remember hearing that, that's right., thanks.

zou - I just so happened to photograph tonight's painting for someone else so I decided to post it here as well.

Got two more done today. First is Ruby, I did one portrait of her a few months back. 12 x 16, My main goal was stroke economy, to lay down every stroke and to leave it there and making sure it's the right value, shape, temperature, etc... I don't know why, but it shouldn't be completely black underneath her neck. I tried messing with it in Photoshop but I couldn't manipulate that one area without taking too much time.

he second is Blessing. He sat for 3 hours at the P+C but I had to catch my train early today so I only worked on it for 2.5 hours. He wore this crazy plaid shirt that everyone started to torture him for but I took it upon myself to actually paint that shirt no matter how much it could take over the rest of the face. I think I struck a good balance between the two. It's 6 x 8. I posted a step by step so you can see my horrendously noobie process. I didn't focus on getting a completely 100% accurate drawing down since I knew I had to leave early. I don't always work this way, I tend to switch it up every time. Just whatever comes to me I guess.

[ryan mcshane]

the first ones a girl? D:
they both look beutiful man! and the plaid shirt must have been a pain haha turned out great though!
i love how your not afraid to stroke in some blue on the face, really fucking awesome stuff bro :D

[Malakuko]

god damn I love this sketchbook! Or rather im really interested in this alla prima oils thing! Seems like the proper way to make a study

[Jasper_]

Very nice sketchbook man, lots of variety in media. For that figure sculpture, did you just start with a block of clay and carve away at it?? I'm interested in trying this out myself. Dig that painting of the asian woman in the top post, I'll keep my eye on this sketchybook!!

[Adam Nowak]

ryanoir - Thanks!

Malakuko - Right on, it's definitely a fun approach!

Jasper_ - No, it's just built from the ground up. I tend to leave the planes a little apparent though there were a few students in the class who started with a big block of clay and only were to carve away at it, not add anything. Thanks dude!

________________________________________

So, I've been pretty busy, again. A head study in oils and clay. I'm putting in some extra time after school in a life drawing class because I really miss it. I haven't been focusing on value, more so on constructing form through line. Same goes with the gestures, which I really need to figure out how to do properly one day. That clay face I posted a while back from the bust has been salvaged and reworked into a soon to be plaster plaque to hang on my wall. Some more portrait studies and gestures. I was at the Palette on Sunday and a great model which I've seen a few times before posed for us. At first she had a great reclining/standing pose but at the last minute switched it up. So I treated it like a form, shadow, edge study. I begun work on the last 5 week sculpture. It'll be a half life sized (roughly 80 cm tall) piece when done. I'm super excited about it so I'm putting in the extra hours to make it work. One last portrait, Sunday night. A beautiful Russian girl who paints with us posed this week. I had such a migraine that I went a little wilder and didn't really look back. I just needed to stick it out till the end.

Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving for those that will celebrate it! Eat little, paint lots. But It'll end up being the opposite for me. :)

[ryan mcshane]

mm great figures + sculptures dude
i dont ahve much else to say ahha
keep it up my friend! your getting HOOOOOT

[Lionsword]

You've been so busy, mate! I love it. I don't have too many critiques for you, as you're teaching me a lot more than I could teach you, but on thing I think you could improve on is the unity of your lines. You've got wonderfully loose and flowing strokes, but they're all so hash-dash in your life drawings that I think it takes something away from it. Your hands and moleskin pages are great though, wonderful lines. Always pay attention to the basic forms though, the first couple moleskin pages, the life drawings of your class painting I'm guessing? are a little wonky so far as forms go.

That's all the crits I have for you now. But I have questions! What do you normally paint on? and how do you normally go about painting? And blending, especially blending. Do you ever blend the paint on the canvas or do you mix up colours on the palette and blend by painting the colours close together?
Also, what's your adding-on process for your clay sculptures? I've only ever heard of taking away :\

That's all I've got. Keep trucking mate, you're doing wonderful!

[Justas]

Sir, you are my hero, the colors you use in your painting, ooooh its just so tasty!

[Adam Nowak]

Thank you!

Lionsword - Thanks, I'm having trouble getting things down pretty fast. Those last few are some Palette and Chisel members painting. They were done about 10 minutes before the session for the day was done. I did them because I finished up a little early and felt like drawing but I should have focused on one subject and spent 10 minutes instead of running around the entire place. By hash-dash could you specify something exact?

I've painted on a few different surfaces. Cotton and linen canvas, that goes for stretched, mounted, and taped onto a board, shellac'd wood, hardboard primed with acrylic gesso and oil primer.

I don't think I can ever remember specifically mixing colors on the canvas itself. It has always been on the palette, right value, right temperature, and right color then I lay it down where it should go. Sometimes I break those rules but I never intentionally painted the other way. I have tried it before just to try it out but all I got was a warm grey tone in the end. I guess it's just not my thing right now.

What I mean is I'm working with Roma Plastilina clay, it's oil based clay that I build upon the armature by packing it on and if there is too much I cut it off with a blade. maybe because I'm working with really soft clay so it's incredibly easy to cut and put back together again.

[kidult]

Wow another awesome fine art sketchbook in the wrong place. you people never heard about, you know, the fine art section? Post some concept art please it's what this section is for, I'm sure with your skills it shouldnt be too hard?

[ryan mcshane]

aww bro, you did not just do that.. did you? OH FUCK YOU DID O_O
the portraits are sooo beautiful bro! that sculptures looking superb bro. superb.

p.s. @kidult: sketchbooks are for unfinished work, gamerhomie posts his sketchbooks and his overal process of everything in here, who are you to tell him to post what you want to see? look at other guys sketchbooks for concept art, what gamerhomie's doing is awesome and it is a sketchbook. he's also a full time art student so he obviously doesnt have time to do concept art/doesnt want to do concept art, and it's not only about skills it's also about time bro.

[Adam Nowak]

ryanoir beat me to it.

[magicpudding]

Why do I feel the need to rethink my life? Crazy sketchbook, utterly mindblowing.

Magiks sketches (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=188585)

[ryan mcshane]

aww sorry to take the fun away bro, you coulda done it too :D
that paintings supper nice!
the blue lights realllly nice! :D :D :D
keep at it, more like this yeah?

[Loathsome]

Super impressive stuff!

[kidult]

Could have sworn this website was called conceptart.org? my bad.....really dig the last piece don't get me wrong you have skills but somehow I get a bit bored with just seeing work from observation. Check the guys from the next gen atelier, now that is some sick observation skill aaaand some serious concept work.

[Marian Rowling]

Wow Adam how glad am I that you commented in my SB! Yours has been like reading a best seller that I just couldn't put down. Truly brilliant and so inspiring. Have to say that you make me want to draw, paint and sculpt. Your passion and hard work really shows in all your work and I can see just how much you have grown and improved since your first post. I genuinely feel very excited for you and where your art will take you. Like all good best sellers you have left me wanting more. :)

[Jason Scanlon]

Nice work as usual. You ever do open studio sessions at the P&C?

[Lionsword]

Kidult, this is the sketchbooks section. Anything goes here.

Sweet stuff in this update, your paintings are getting much stronger! I"m really liking the fourth painting, it's good a lot of great colours and it also has personality - the man feels like he's got a story, know what I mean? Don't get lazy defining edges and forms though like in the second painting of the woman. You've got lots of soft and lost edges, but there's not many hard edges to balance them out.

As for hash-dash lines, well, I was really thinking of the figure drawings in your November 23 update, but I went back and looked at them again, and I realized you were probably just trying to sketch nice and loose. All the more finished stuff like those two girls in the last post have nice and smooth lines. So, not a huge thing, but something to keep in mind I guess.
I'm liking the cast, it's turning out nicely. How did you go about giving it that weathered look?
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, your answers were very helpful.
Don't stop!

[Adam Nowak]

magicpudding - Thank you, I appreciate it.

ryanoir - I only hope there to be more. Always more.

Loathsome - Thanks. :)

kidult - Hey man, I didn't get a chance last time to reply since I was so tired. I totally agree with you about only showing observational work. I remember when I first turned on my computer about 6 or 7 years ago and I typed in "art" into Google to see what I could find. That night I eventually found a place called conceptart.org and curiously clicked on it. I had read about "conceptual art" before and thought it was going to be a website full of installation art and the deep meanings behind our everyday thoughts and all that. Well to be frank, I was SOOOO BLOWNN AWAY with what I saw. I clicked on my first thread and saw a digital painting (I didn't even know what a digital painting was, I haven't even seen a real painting) of either an orc or samurai, or a combo of both. I made up my mind that night that no matter what, art is what I needed to do for the rest of my life. No matter what happened, or what kind of jobs I would have to work to get there, one day. So for so long I was caught up in the site but I knew after research that in order to be as good as the greats here I needed to understand the fundamentals of art. That led to traditional art, which led to representational art and since then I've grown a huge love for it. I'd still live to do more digital, more illustrative pieces. I love that stuff as well. In fact when I started this thread I had it in the Fine Arts section for months before requesting it to be brought here. That stuff that's coming from the NGA and all those new places popping up, well, it's an exciting time to be an artist. It's really astonishing the amount of great work there is out there. Truly mindblowing. Right now I'm hooked on this stuff. So who knows where I will end up. That's why it's a journey for me. ;)

Marian Rowling - Thank you so much. Anyone can do it, they just have to destroy their social life. :)

Jason Scanlon - Oh yeah man, definitely. I try to come as often as I can. right now with school I (really try, but sometimes I wake up late) go every Sunday and sometimes during the week if I have some time.

Lionsword - For the fourth painting I chose not to take down an exact likeness but sit down and observe him for a bit and help "push" his emotions and his little tics. He was a fellow painter who was there all day that day and it was his turn to pose for us. He really hates doing it and was constantly trying to keep himself entertained. As for the second painting, that's a failure. She came up to me afterwards and I told her I had such a hard time painting her. She asked me how many times have I painted Asians before and I told her she's one of the only ones. And she said there you go. :P I'm really not liking my sketchbook too much, I gotta keep experimenting with that. I just stopped by a hobby store and picked up some patina paints. It's an acrylic binder with metal shavings inside of bronze and an acid to help "age" the initial layer. I painted the recent plaque I got done with and I haven't gone over with a second pass to bring down the intense colors the patina gives off. It's kind of wild how the acid interacts with it. I only wish I could one day cast a bronze and do a real patina.

__________________________________________________ ________

So I don't have much right now. I just did a quick figure study, 8 x 10 with a limited palette of titanium white, yellow ochre pale, terra rosa, and ultramarine blue deep.

A cast I previously posted, working with a patina on it.

And I had a friend from the Palette send me some photos of his wifes pochade box and I went to work on my own. My dads friend helped me with some of the construction like thinking up the idea of the slanted clips on the top and left hand side to hold a canvas in place. I threw in a piece of glass in there, it hasn't shattered yet (crosses fingers) and it looks like it'll hold up on the tripod. Super excited about it. And as I look out my window I see we got another few inches of snow last night. I have such great timing.

[ryan mcshane]

pochade boxes look so good O_O but they're like $300 for the proper ones, soo good work on making it! :D it looks great!
also that sculpture is soo hot @___@
& ofc figure, yeahhh your figure paintings dope

[kidult]

Hey that's cool and very good reasoning. Guess it was" be an ass" week on CA for me....keep up the good work

[purplegoat]

The painting of the mandolin(?) player is intriguing to me. Looks very "dreamy". Enjoying your sketchbook. Please keep posting!.

[Adam Nowak]

ryanoir - Thanks, thanks. :)

kidult - It's all good. :D

purplegoat - Thanks, I thought the same thing!

I know I keep posting this (last time), but I decided to get the bust against a backdrop, I thought it would look cool. But I know my P+S cameras sensor is too weak to read anything in dark colors so everything in the shadow is just pure black.

I got to collaborate with my friend who just started to digitally paint only about two weeks ago. Just passed it on and off every hour or so.

Got some more portraits done. I took some photos of one of them doing it stroke by stroke and not touching it again unless I overlap strokes. I also forgot to take a photo or two before the end so there's a big jump. :)

Finished that figure I mentioned a few weeks back. Half scale full figure in clay. I'd like to cast it just for fun but it'd be so much trouble since all I have ready right now is plaster so I'll probably dice it up next week.

I also did a portrait for my friends mom. Did it in one session, around 7-8 hours. First time I painted from a photograph so it was interesting on how to take it on. The most trouble was the water so I went to look up Mr. Sorolla for some inspiration.

Hope everyone's having a good time/relaxing/making art/celebrating or if you're working during the holidays. I feel you.

[Parsakoira]

crazy paintings! effin miraculous work!

[ryan mcshane]

is that ochre wash? in the background
i really like your colors, especially in your digital one, you have a great confidence that will get you far!
you make me want to get out my paints, just dun have a model to paint ;_;

[Metal Fingers]

Nice lighting on those bust photos mang, Those cast shadows on the neck are a beauty. lovely stuff as usual! :D

[Marian Rowling]

Hey Adam, nice update I really enjoy seeing your work. I like the dramatic lighting on the bust photos and I especially like the painting of the lady in the grey hat. I think it's the combination of brush marks, colours and composition. Hope you enjoy your holiday and I wish you well for the New Year.

[Adam Nowak]

Parsakoira - Dude, thanks.

ryanoir - That's actually just a raw umber wash. And you can always look in the mirror. ;)

Metal Fingers - Thanks!

Marian Rowling - Thank you very much, same to you.

So today I started off with the first painting over a 4.5 hour pose and after an hour a few people told me to stop where I was at and not to lay down another brushstroke so I obeyed. :P I know the risks of ruining a decent start and I had backup panels so I took out another one and went further along with it, probably 3 hours. The second one's colors don't read very well when I took a photo, there's more green in her mirrored shadow. Oh well. It was a very interesting setup nonetheless.

[jNeumann]

Latest updates are mindblowing man, great great work. I love the sculpture as well. keep up the good work!

[Adam Nowak]

jNeumann - Thank you, I really appreciate it.

Today was interesting. We had another go at the mirror setup with a different model. I've been looking at Impressionist paintings recently so that helped with this painting. First off, the first one is an hour into the pose with my glasses lowered. When I looked up at the model, I couldn't see anything except shapes of color (I have terrible vision, I can't see anything crisp after about a foot away from my eyes) but when I looked down at my palette my glasses helped to mix the color a little faster. The second image is the finished painting, I mainly worked on the model, more-so the reflection which was my focus. This was a different approach and I'm quite pleased with it.

I did a self portrait today in-between sessions. Titanium white, transparent oxide red, and viridian. About 1 1/2 hours.

Last portrait was of a new model. I would have made it more 1/2 figure and included the hands but I won't have to time to continue it next week and I didn't want to paint another small face, I've had enough of those. She wore all black and she had such incredible pale skin, whiter than white, something that was hard to capture in paint. Hopefully encasing her in dark colors helped. 2.5 hours.

[ryan mcshane]

this is dope (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1132137&stc=1&d=1293709632)
i love you

[insanelight]

Absolutely brilliant sketchbook.
I'm always amazed by people who are able to manage so many different techniques... well, probably because I use only pencils... :)
Love everything here, 5* and subscribed.

[purplegoat]

The skin in the model's portrait looks a little too white too me. The abrupt color change on her forehead above her right (our right) eye is a little distracting. The contrast there is high which draws my focus to it. If you were to provide more definition and contrast between the hair and the background I think that it would really help both paintings so the head is not swallowed into the background.

You look evil in your self portrait with the red/orange eyes and glowing skin. I really like the broad brush strokes in there.

I think it's great that you are pushing yourself to learn new things (i.e. the Impressionistic paintings, digital etc.). I appreciate that you are showing some pieces in process and the final piece as this really helps people like me learn. I'm really enjoying your sketchbook as it is one of the few that consists of primarily traditional painting and drawing which is what I'm mostly interested in. Looking forward to more!

[Adam Nowak]

ryanoir - :)

insanelight - Thanks.

purplegoat - I agree looking at it I should have softened the edge a little more on the forehead. My intention was to lose the hair in the background but I probably could have added a few notes of color here and there to bring it out somewhat. Thanks. :)

New Years resolution: More drawing, more painting, more keeping my resolutions.

I don't like the way I go about doing a lot of my drawings so hopefully I can get to something I'm okay with this year. I'm still going along with painting, going to keep trying new things as well. I don't have something that just starts the year off with a bang, more just a quiet update. Same model from the last post, I came in very late and had about 2 1/2 hours on this. I made a few dozen panels last year that I'm just about out of. I really disliked them in the beginning and a lot of these paintings have been made on them to just get rid of them but by the end I've grown to work with them and know how to manipulate them. I need to get back to making more of them for the year.

I did a self portrait with a mirror below looking up while I held my glasses juxtaposed off the right side of my face looking through the lenses so that they distorted my view. Sometimes I would see double features in places, one eye is larger than the other, etc... fun stuff.

[tehmeh]

those painting are incredibly inspiring to me.. especially this one (http://attachments.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1132136&stc=1&d=1293709614) has really made me want to go learn to paint.. that is not saying the rest aren't brilliant! Keep it uppp

[ryan mcshane]

self portraits fucking cool D: i love that haha

[Adam Nowak]

Thanks to both of ya, keep on doing the art thing!

I started up some more classes again so I might not be posting as often. I also have a class that goes late into the evening and that interferes with the portrait studies I've been doing once a week but it does leave one hour before it's up so I'm making a new set of panels to paint on in less than an hour. Some more figure painting. I stopped again on the first one, didn't think it needed anything else. Second is a burnt umber + titanium white portrait study of the first figure. Third is my sister, who posed for the Palette. Fun to paint a younger person, but I didn't like the outcome, I felt pressured to make a "good painting" and I feel it suffered because of that. Fourth is last nights nude male study. Thursday nights at the Palette there's a very interesting cool/warm light combo that happens. I've done at least one in the past before, it's very surprising what kind of tones pop out as a result of the two lights melting together.

[stone.]

great!

[Parsakoira]

great job with the last paintings, no critiques yet, just stopping by and letting you know that you do awesome work! keep up

[Eclair]

Hey. You have some great color pieces.
Just keep up

[Marian Rowling]

Blimey Adam you are busy! I really like the top one and I think you did right to leave it as it was. The proportions feel off to me in the last one of the male model. Feels too wide and short. Probably just me though, as I do struggle with proportion myself. :)

[Adam Nowak]

Thank you everyone.

Marian - I kept seeing that after every break, and re-measured it a dozen times but it came out proportionally accurate. He was a short guy, but it still doesn't look right.

4.5 hour study and my friend posing for the Palette yesterday.

[Marian Rowling]

I thought it might be something like that Adam. I have come across a similar problem with drawing and in the end I decided to just go with what looked right despite the measuring. I found it difficult though because I've been training myself to measure but I guess sometimes you have to just trust your eyes. Really like the top one on this last post. :)

[Adam Nowak]

Thanks Marian.

This semester I'm getting busier and won't have enough time to drop in on the full Wednesday portrait session like I have in the past, I'll only have an hour so I plan to make use of that time to get some quick raw studies down. Here's my first one. It's around 8 x 10. Future ones I may go a little smaller as I'm not used to covering so much surface and getting enough information down that fast. The second in a study from the P+C. I decided to extend his neck a little more to push his gesture.

[ryan mcshane]

wow bro, really great strokes! your a huge inspiration o_o

[Adam Nowak]

Ryanoir - Thanks man!

Started my first drawing class since last year, haven't picked up charcoal for probably half a year, it's such a good feeling getting back into it, I've been rusty. 1st charcoal I focused on playing with the edges. I should have toned my paper so I didn't have to take so long just to tediously fill the background, so I made sure to do it on the next one. Third charcoal was black and white. I haven't done one of those for sooo long, I really made sure to learn from past mistakes and try to keep the two separate, I didn't want to make a grey my middle tone, that was my paper. I also realized that values can be deceivingly close together in a lot of places. Incredibly small shifts going lighter or darker can help you with obtaining the form you're after.

[JaneMag]

What is this I see? Could it be some serious talent? I do think so.
Thanks for posting inspirational stuff, man!

[Velocity Kendall]

gorgeous oils and pastels. you really get me wanting to paint portraits...the lady with the orange shirt is one of the nicest things ive seen in a while...ace work!

[Suncut]

I'm really loving the portraits, especially the guy with lots of pink and green on his face, such a delicious color combination.

[kaspar]

i absolutely love you (no homo). your dedication is a tremendous inspiration for me! amazing sketchbook, by the way

[tehmeh]

Beautiful recent updates, you are going places! really solid charcoal portrait and great colours in the oils as ever

[Elophant]

AMAZING work in here!
I really dig these oilpaintings, they look so classy and confident.
Great coulors, great shapes, .... AWSOME!

[fedde]

Great stuff you've got here. I enjoyed watching every piece of your sketchbook.

[theartisticwonder]

That is some lovely portraits! The fifth one reminds me of my old man which has a body of an old man. Hehe.

[Teundeboer]

beautiful potraits

[Gabrieldnc]

Amazing images! Love your traditional tecnique!

[Woji]

Hey man, thanks so much for the kind words and sound advice. You were so right about what I have to work on. It really meant a lot to have someone with your skill lend a hand instead of just thinking ew and going on to the next sketchbook. Love your stuff, you latest oils make my mouth water (literally). Your colors are so sexy man. I was also gonna ask about that portrait session you attend. Is that open to the general public or no? Feel free to stop by again, thanks again.

[strangedawn]

awesome sketchbook man i want more!=)

[Adam Nowak]

strangedawn - I got some more!

Woji - No problem man, it's why (most of us) we're here! I go to two different sessions. One is on Wednesdays but that's at school and only open to students. The other is on Sundays at the Palette but it's a members only session. So technically more open than the other. I also try to get people together to pose/paint each other once in a while. Like next week my friend might be able to pose for me for a few hours. I can't recommend the Palette and Chisel enough, it's been such a great place to just draw/paint. If you ever want to get together, send me a message, I might have some time once in a while. Once it starts getting a little nicer I want to start painting outside.

Gabrieldnc - Thanks!

Teundeboer - Thank you!

theartisticwonder - Hah, the way I keep myself in shape, I'll be far worse one day. :)

fedde - Thanks!

Elophant - Thank you for the digging!

tehmeh - Hey man, right back at you, your stuff continuously makes it in my inspirations folder.

kaspar - Thank you man!

Suncut - Pink and green is one of my favorite combos. :)

Velocity Kendall - Thanks!

JaneMag - Thank you so much!

HELLO EVERYONE! It's been a while, I've been incredibly busy with school to the point where I've had to resort to multiple all nighters, nosebleeds, falling asleep in class from fatigue, and numerous Dunkin Donuts coffee runs. I also haven't been able to make it to the Palette as often as I could before but I was able to squeeze in few hours over the weekend.

So even though I don't really want to, I'm going to post some complete failures. (I usually don't, just no reason to point out all the obvious mistakes) Just some paintings I'm really disappointed in, but I cry on the inside for a few minutes and move on. Gotta keep going. The real killer - over-hyping myself for an upcoming painting/drawing. I see the model, or a pose, and I think to myself (WHOA, this is the one, this painting is going to be beyond perfection, so much so that Rembrandt himself will rise and want to shake my hand).

:P

Alright, a big exaggeration, but I do over-excite myself sometimes and as soon as I make a mistake I freak out, needlessly do everything I can to fix it and more mistakes compound until the decent start is completely marred with amateur thinking when all I had to do was step back and take 10, 30 seconds to evaluate the situation. The reason why I'm writing this is because of the recent 1 hour portrait studies I've been doing every week. They've been bombing pretty hard so I've learned I need to simplify.

There should be 21 separate images in this update. If there isn't blame the servers, it just took me half an hour to upload each piece about 3 or 4 times, it's acting up really bad.

1- Slightly awkward composition, quick 4 hour almost block in like appearance due to me using a really large canvas. (Probably around 16 x 24 or so)
2- Another 4 hour painting. Repainted the face a dozen times before I just took a photo and wiped the entire canvas. Bought super cheap linen (bad idea, I should either save up for decent linen or might as well save even more and get good quality cotton) and the initial wash literally was dry to the touch instantly.
3-Hour long portrait. Wasted half the time by doing a drawing first (and not an accurate one at that) then randomly throwing on paint. Failure.
4-Next hour pose. This time I thought, why not do a monochrome study with an accurate drawing? So I tried, and I really liked the qualities of Prussian Blue, a color I only used once before. I mixed up a pile and realized it's WAY TOO INTENSE. This should be filed under Avatar conceptart.
5-Alright, next one I did away with the drawing and used a straight color block in saving me a good twenty minutes or so. I really like to paint this way, relying on accurate shapes more than my initial contour drawing. A little more successful than previous efforts.
6-Figure on a small panel. Was reminded that I spend too long on small studies sometimes and add features that end up looking weird on such a small scale.
7- P+C portrait study.
8- A bust drawing I'm working on. Using 5 value pastels on this one. Charcoal would have been much easier on this one, Pastels are a little trickier on this one. Will keep working on it until I finish it completely. I'm going very slowly, making sure to observe every stroke I put down is accurate. So far probably about 12 hours into it.
9- 5 value pastel drawing.
10- 5 value pastel portrait study. No drawing underneath like the rest, just straight blocking in.
11- Limited palette painting. I like how this turned out. I need to keep this in mind from now on.
12- Did an environment from imagination in Photoshop. It's been forever since I've touched it. (I say that everytime about Photoshop)
13 - 17- Gesture drawings. Very difficult for me. Went for more of a line study with these.
18- Current drawing I'm working on. This is after the first 3 hours. First time using sanguine. Very much like charcoal, but a little rougher.
19- Study for another current painting I'm doing.
20- Progress for above study. I've had next to no time to paint this one, tomorrow's my last day on this pose, which I really dig.
21- P+C portrait study. Fairly new model, very beautiful. She had a cool dress on with these aquatic colors. This is the same canvas from the previous figure in the green shirt I scraped off. At this point with some leftover paint, it had dried and given this nice subtle texture to work on.

[Adam Nowak]

I got a huge headache. I feel like anything I do has been going downhill for the past month. The second painting of the girl in the blue I felt like I was running up a steep hill during a mudslide.

Digital piece is a master copy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra from Solomon Joseph Solomon.

Also finished another sketchbook.

[Marian Rowling]

Hey Adam sorry to read that you feel you are struggling. I think you just keep getting better with each update. I had a little laugh at your second to last post where you said they were mainly failed paintings. I thought they looked great and I'm sure it's because you are striving for a master piece each time that you feel you are not doing well. I really like was you are doing with your brush marks and the brightness of the colour you achieve. Great also to see some of your drawings and I really like the self protraits. I hope my words might help you to push through this growth stage as I'm sure with your passion and work ethic you are just going to keep getting better and better. :)

[Woji]

Hey man, chin up. Things are looking really beautiful. The yellow in the 4th picture of your last post put a huge grin on my face, so bad ass. Sketchbook is looking really nice, Love the self portrait (I assume).
Pallet and Chisel looks killer, I'm going to make time to go. Hopefully Ill bump into you sooner rather than later.

Crits? Ignore that devil on your shoulders

[kuumehike]

love your drawings, and those cartoony faces...priceless:)

[Adam Nowak]

Thank you everyone, I've been pretty physically beaten after all nighter after all nighter. I have about a month left of the semester and after that I'm taking away one class. I wish it could work for me, but with the time spent commuting everyday just to get to school, I can't handle that much.

I've been painting for a while now in flat lighting which has it's advantages and disadvantages so I've been dealing with more direct light sources.

First is a model, 5 hours, second is a friend, 3 hours, third is a self portrait, 8 hours. (Alizarin crimson + Prussian Blue)

[Adam Nowak]

1- Wanted to see if I could paint something copper, about an hour.

2- 18 x 24 figure study, 7 days.

3- The most recent portrait session. Done in an hour using a neutral gray I mixed up that I wanted to lean more towards green.

4- Pastel figure, I haven't done this full palette since... almost an entire year! It was nice to go back to it and apply a more painting approach to it, it felt a lot better than drawing it out.

[Marian Rowling]

Hey Adam lovely updates. I hope you are feeling better about your art and perhaps more relaxed. I really like your self portrait you have captured such an intense stare, it is quite penetrating. :)

[Adam Nowak]

Marian Rowling - Yeah, not as cranky. :) But still a few weeks of the semester to go.

So this is my first plein air painting. There's a group in Chicago called (wait for it) the Plein Air Painters of Chicago. They go out every Saturday and paint in one location for a few hours. It was a lot of fun, got a lot of quick glimpses at what I was doing and met a few artists. It took longer than it probably should have. I started at noon and finished a little past 4 and the light wasn't even close to what it was when I started. I'm down for any critiques, it would be appreciated, I don't want to catch myself making the same mistakes over and over. Will keep going back for sure.

10 x 8.25 on gesso board. My box I made a little while back finally got a workout.

[Dope Fiend]

How have so few people commented on your work@?! This is insanity, you may feel like you're not improving, or meeting your expectations, but damnit you're def improving, and I think there are many gems in these most recent posts.

I wish I could critique the paintings, but you're quite beyond my level, and it would only be an insult :D so i can only offer my support

Oh, if i may ask, how do you approach color choice? I love your use of tones, what has helped you most in picking the appropriate color? I know it's a vague question, but I'm having difficulty with this and looking for a few places to start. thanks.

subbed and stars, cheers!

[ryan mcshane]

gamerhomie, this last one rocks! wish there was a group like that for where i live, it'd be called 'the plein air painters of queensland' or something
anyways, great colors in this and stuff, but i'd try and avoid painting a figure, theyre not gonna stop for you long enough! haha
other than that it looks totally rad dude
thanks for posting your pallete/box up to, cool to know how you work a bit :)

[Woji]

Jesus dude, I can't tell you enough how much I like your colors. I didn't know the Plein Air Painters were out already, although for all I know they keep going through the winter. I told myself I would try to catch them when its nice out, seems like so much fun. Guess there's no more time for excuses now.
I wouldn't mind going just to see YOU paint.

[tehmeh]

Great updates man, I love that plein air and setup, and everything in #236 is gorgeous, though the pure blue/red tones background in the second doesn't work for me - just jars too much when i wanna look at the figure.

[mrd33ds]

great sketchbook :) thanks

[TheJackal]

Really like the thick strokes, so much texture!

[Marian Rowling]

Wow Adam that looks great, I really get a sense of the place and the activity. It's great also to see your box in action. I'm really glad you are feeling a little less cranky. :)

[Adam Nowak]

Dope Fiend - Thanks lot dude. it's as simple and as complicated as just painting what I see. There's only been a few times I've exaggerated the skin tones otherwise I try to really only paint what I see. And the fastest and most rewarding way of trying to really see is to paint. Paint and paint and paint. But the real world, not from photos in a magazine and online. So much is lost in a photo sadly, the tiny little flickers which dance around the body when painting a nude or a portrait. This is something I just talked with my friends about and it took us hours just explaining chroma, temperature, local color, value, etc... I might write something a little later on when I have time.

ryanoir - All it takes is for someone to start it. This one was created 7 or 8 years ago and has been going since. As for the figure, it was a last minute add on since it felt really empty but I think it doesn't mesh completely into the area. Yeah, but I'm usually a lot more organized than that on my Palette, that was the shot right when I finished and mixed a lot more subtle colors.

Woji - They go all year round, I just finally found time to fit more work into Saturdays. You should come and join, but not for me, I don't know what I'm really doing yet.

tehmeh - Yeah, but that one was set up by my instructor at school so you'll have to blame him.

mrd33ds - Thank you.

TheJackal - :)

Marian Rowling - Thanks Marian.

__________________________________________________ _______________

Another (decent) weekend at the Palette.

1 - 4.5 hours. Very hard to see anything last weekend. Overcast, fuzzy day. And a hard model to paint.

2 - 4.5 hours. This Sunday it was an absolutely beautiful day and everything was as sharp and clean as glass. Very easy to paint, just went with it.

3 - 3 hours. Fellow P+C artist posed for us today and most of that beautiful day was still with us. I simplifyed my palette today as well somewhat which made it easier to manage colors and values.

[Adam Nowak]

- A shot of the setup for the past weeks drawing
- The wip. I ran out of time and didn't finish the entire piece but I'll post that later on. It's a very difficult piece not only to draw correctly because of the underlighting but also to photograph to get all the subtle color shifts.
- A portrait from this week. Another hour but this time I spent 20 minutes of that hour drawing it out and not liking it so I erased it and had roughly 40 minutes left to do this on a really small area.
- Another small study I'm doing. The pose has difficult for the model to hold so she changed a little after I had drawn it out. I like the way it's going so far, taking it slow since I have up to three more days to work on it and trying to capture everything I see correctly.

[Malakuko]

amazing paintings! Tell me, do you find you paint exactly what you see or are you playing with what you get and altering colors and light for a more interesting result?

[Jasper_]

Such an awesome sketchbook man. Love the oils, and is that one done in nu pastels on...toned newsprint? Great use of the medium, I'm inspired to start working with it again.

[Woji]

Dear lord... I hope you are feeling better about your work. You must... you really must.

Things are looking great. It appears you're having fun my friend.

Keep. It. Up.