Paintings and other stuff...

[Praemium]

I'm still pretty new to the painting dept. but I've been drawing for quite some time and took up painting in may of last year... I'm 16 and still a junior in high school and still eagerly learning. Please leave a critique. :)

Excuse the small files, I'm a bit paranoid because I'm sending these off to summer programs/competitions soon... keeping my fingers crossed to be selected!
I will continue to post as I finish paintings...

[JeffX99]

Your stuff looks really good for your level of experience! Great to see those landscapes in there too. Not really much critique to offer - just need to keep at it. Also make time to study your drawing fundamentals - simple still lifes like you have there are perfect for that - watch your perspective. Also be aware of tangents and avoid them - they are places where two edges meet in an unusual or confusing way.

Here's a book that you may get a lot out of: "Drawing Essentials" by Deborah Rockman. It is more for a college level drawing class but you're there anyway.

Keep working hard - you have a better start than most of us had!

[JeffX99]

OK - actually one bit of a tip more than a critique...You're doing a good job with rendering (describing texture, light/dark, etc.) but in specific areas separate from each other. Try to work the whole drawing together from a light, construction phase through to finish - checking to make sure everything is relating correctly - mainly in perspective and placement.

The easiest place to see this is in the rendering of the toy van and vase - you've done a good job with each wheel but they don't relate correctly to each other or the van as a whole unit. The way around this problem is to start with the big, simple shapes of the forms first - making sure they are correct - then adding smaller forms, again making sure they are correct as well - until you reach the level of detail you wish to illustrate. That should be done before you begin to add any shading or heavier line work. Hope that helps!

[aaron.adley]

For painters that's called "blank canvas terror'.
Here are some ideas:
Paint a forrest, putting things upside down and nothing in it's natural color
A bag full of cotton balls, painted from very close up
three liquids of different colors, spilled and beginning to run together
a woman melting down a glacier (she is melting)
fabric patterns over a great piece of architecture
people hanging from an archway
leaves floating in nothing
a close up of very curly hair
put them all together in one painting..

[Praemium]

Thanks for the tips!! I will keep it all in mind, esp. when drawing.

I've been kind of in an art slump lately... really bummed out because I didn't make it into the art program I was trying for... it's really had me down on building this portfolio, because this must not be what they were looking for. So... I've been pretty depressed about that, and haven't been creating much art lately.

So... I will ask the question if theres anyone out there reading this.... is this a good enough entry art portfolio??? I've got about 7 months until applications... and not getting into this art program has me really down that my work isn't up to par. What else should I add??? I will try to get some of my figure work posted later... but here's some new paintings.

Edit: I forgot to mention, all my work is done alla prima from 2-4 hours.

[Praemium]

Wow, I haven't managed to update in forever. I'm off to college already!!

Because I need some critique, here are a few recent figure drawings in the last two months or so at age 17.

I'll be a computer animation student at Ringling this fall, so I'm super excited, but need a LOT of practice this summer. Please critique my figure drawings. I don't have a teacher for the class so I feel really alone in my knowledge. :(

All of these are usually 5-20 minutes, with the longest being 40 minutes on the clothed figure. Unfortunately, I can't afford more paint right now, so until I get a job it'll be charcoal for a while.

[Marine_Blue]

You're doing very well. Remember to always simplify as much as possible what you are looking at, blocking in the shapes and tone masses into the simplest forms you can at first (try squinting to see your subject this way)

Don't worry about colour too much at this stage, and focus on values.

Try placing a small dab of the darkest value and lightest value in their respective places and, starting with a value in the middle, work out to the darkest and lightest.

Judge your tone relationships from your darkest note so you don't hit the darkest value too early (looking at your lights will make your darks look much darker than they are, judging from darks is much more accurate) and if you work carefully at this, you will have the luxury of adding the lightest and darkest notes at the end to finish it off.

Concentrate on flat tones, leaving out details and generally dividing into lights, half tones and shadows (the half tones are a part of the lights, the main division being between light and shadow).

So first paint the general middle tone, then the darks, then the lights. Keep the tones flat but take most care on the edges, especially in the shadows, paint the general tone flatly, but work the edges of the shadows with all their variety and as far as you can take them, ideally before you start on the main subject.

You'll find your own way but hopefully this will help get you going a bit more. Don't give up.

[FreakyBunny]

lots of life, but i dislike not seeing the main life line ;)

[Random_Hobo]

Really nice work,try mixing more of the colors like 3 different reds and so on as for the sketches some of them have a nice defined line and we can see that you start to understand what you are doing but work on the joints and just don't stop drawing.

[NecroPhone]

Try to slow down a bit while drawing and take in the models body (or study your drawings afterwards if you don't have time). It might should odd but you need to really "feel" the body. I'd recommend you spend some time sketching pelvises, since they're one of the most important components alongside the head and ribcage, and you seem to be a bit confuddled with them (whereas you have a better comprehension of the ribcage)

I don't know what your models looked like, but some of the drawings seem a bit out of proportion, in particular with the shape of the head compared with a much thicker body. This may have been accurate though, nature is odd.

Continue posting! Good luck!