AztcFireflower's Figures 'n' Stuff

**AztcFireFlower** · November 1st, 2006

Hello CA folks,

This is my first thread here on CA. Welcome to these pages and thanks for taking the time to stop in. Comments and constructive crits are always welcome, so please, feel free to post.

Have needed a motivation to keep up my studies. The first few posts will be of older figure work as I will try and create a history of my work and progress. Because concept art is my destination, particularly creature/character design, I will begin to add my explorations as I improve my handling of oil as well as digital painting. Last thing I wish to do is bore the heck outta anyone that comes to visit my SB. I will try and remain considerate of your sensibilities, and post only my better work.

Thanks again for visiting.

These figures are each about 20 to 45 min.

This 1st one's so I can change the thumbnail occasionally.

SketchBook: Figures, gestures and stuff
References materials? Skulls, anatomy figures? Other stuff
Figures...and stuff. [UPDATED 12/1810]
Art: Figures n stuff
Art: charcoal figures and oil stuff

**AztcFireFlower** · November 1st, 2006

The first bunch is 5 min. The last 5 about 10 min. so was able to work a little on values.

**Lietje** · November 1st, 2006

wow....
your work is amazing!!!

keep posting!!

____________

Li

(my sketchbook: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...=1#post1043997 )

**AztcFireFlower** · November 1st, 2006

Thank you Lietji! for looking in and for your nice comment, as well. Come on by and visit often

**Lietje** · November 1st, 2006

Sure! =) I will, because you seem to be a very nice person =) ánd I really like your work!

____________

Li

(my sketchbook: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...=1#post1043997 )

**Olle Werme** · November 1st, 2006

Very impressive figure drawings, gave me tons of inspiration and motivation, thanks.

Keep it up. ^_^

**Wakkawa** · November 1st, 2006

Yeah, those are some great figures. Really good at giving them some depth and form.

**AztcFireFlower** · November 2nd, 2006

Thanks Olle Werme, Wakkawa for your very nice comments.
Truy appreciate you taking a look at my sketches.

The first is a longer study, about 10 hours.
The rest are 2-5 hour studies.

**jzeltman** · November 2nd, 2006

this stuff is very good. are you just using graphite, or is there something that im not perceiving? otherwise i must say i like it.

kudos

**AztcFireFlower** · November 2nd, 2006

Hi Jzeltman

Thank's for stopping by,

Actually I use charcoal pencils. I use many types and kinds, Ritmo's Art Alternatives, Primos, Generals, but I'm used to charcoal pencils with a relatively sharp point. Don't use graphite much for value studies because I can't get the depth of tone possible with charcoal.

**madhatter106** · November 2nd, 2006

Great stuff - both the quick 5 minute ones and the long poses are great...makes me long for the days when I had figure drawing class...

Keep up the good work!

**Chance.** · November 2nd, 2006

Welcome to the forum, if you want people to visit, post art as often as possible.

**AztcFireFlower** · November 2nd, 2006

maddhatter106 Thank you. This is one reason for the thread. This point in life I need motivation to be consistent with my studies. Being part of a larger community is also a nice thing.
Q-Caddlewick Thank you for the welcome. I definately plan on keeping this thread alive.

**silvestri99** · November 2nd, 2006

These are incredible. Your shading is exquisite and a love the flow of your figures. Makes me feel the need to do some more figure drawing myself, It's been awhile. Keep up the great work, I'll be checkign back again!

**AztcFireFlower** · November 2nd, 2006

Here's a couple more head studies.
The first was done in Mark Westermoes Associates in Arts school.
The second at LAAFA in one of my favorite teacher's drawing class; Sean Cheetham.

**Dizon** · November 2nd, 2006

great stuff. wonderful figure drawings. I love how you captured the gesture on the sitting woman.

**AztcFireFlower** · November 5th, 2006

One of the values I think of a master copy is understanding the brushwork and trying to match it with the least amount of strokes. Sargeant was a genius with his profficient and economical brushwork. This was an assignment for a class at LAAFA. We were required to copy at the same size as the original.

I really enjoyed this exercise.
I learned alot about mixing dark flesh tones and the variations with a limited palette.

**Lee W** · November 5th, 2006

some very nice work here

the charcoal studies are works of beauty, keep the stuff coming.

**Dizon** · November 5th, 2006

wow! you gotta teach me how to paint sometime! I really wanna learn how to paint like Sargent or how to paint like you do! I've only had books on drawing. It's pretty hard for me to purchase a good book on painting like Schmid's book.

Do you have YM or any knd of Instant Messaging?

**AztcFireFlower** · November 7th, 2006

Thanks for checking out my SB, OldNoobie Will definately continue to keep it going.
Hey patdzon,
Thank you for the vote of confidence in my work. I learned the best by 1st submersing into a painting class for 2 years. I do have the Schmid book (a paperback is available that is not as expensive) but I haven't read it! I needed constant feedback in the beginning. It helped immensely to be corrected out of bad technique before it became a habit. I've been studying the last 3 years, and I'm still wobbly. Lately I've been using the Zorn limited pallette of cadium red, yellow ochre, black and white. Learning to control these colors for all your fleshtones has been a tremendous learning experience. No instant messaging set up at the moment. There's always PM's. My next exercise should be Zorn copies with Zorn palette!

**Dizon** · November 7th, 2006

I've heard of that pallette. So you can actually get a wide range of colors from that? Is it difficult to use? How do you know what colors to mix with just 4 colors? I hope you don't mind.

thanks.

**gigglepixie** · November 7th, 2006

Your life sketches are great

I'd be interested in seeing some of your limited palette paintings.

**AztcFireFlower** · November 8th, 2006

Hi patdzon Don't mind a bit. I'm still learning to control this palette, so I am far far from profficient, but I will be glad to disperse what I know.
Welcome gigglepixie Thanks for visiting and your comment. I plan to upload some 3 hour paint studies soon.

The discipline behind the Zorn palette is that you must learn to approximate with only those colors. It's about adjusting and balancing warm with cool tones, learning how far to neutralize or gray down a color (desaturating it) using bits of black as the blue, as well as white in the palette. Keep in mind that yellow ochre is also a grayer yellow. I use cadmium red as the warmest color. Now, the beauty of this palette is that you only have those 4 colors to work with. Meaning that you don't spend extra time mucking around too many colors to match what you see. You'd be surprised how rich and close to true fleshtones an experienced painter can create. Many many subtle variations can be produced by adding a dot more of red/white for rosy tone, more red/yllw ocher for a more tan sun burnt quality. This experimenting and mixing is exactly what will teach you to see color on the figure as well as on your palette.

Here are a few more portrait studies. About 3-4 hours each. The last 2 are earlier studies of plane design and trying to maintain a sculptural quality to the head.

**Dizon** · November 8th, 2006

Hey Aztc, thanks again for the help! I figured if I started painting, I should start with the Zorn Palette. Is that a good start? Will they also teach you to use a wider palette, as well? If so, what kind of palette would that be? And can you further explain about "using black as blue"?

Thanks. Nice portraits, too.

**AztcFireFlower** · November 8th, 2006

About Black as Blue......General color mixing is based on the use of 3 colors: Red, Yellow, Blue. White is used to lighten a tone. In practice mixing flesh tones, the compliment of the initial color is used to grey out the color. Since Red, Orange is in the initial mix for flesh, the compliment of it is usually Green or Blue, respectively. A Blue tinted mix in flesh color mixing is often used to neutralize a color, that is to kill some of the red/orange hue.

In the beginning, I used to paint pumpkin skinned people because I mixed straight yellow and red with some white, not realizing and seeing that flesh is very grey. And the compliment of this mix was needed to bring the color back to the realm of reality.
The limited palette I use is Winsor Newton-Cadmium Red, Yellow ochre, Titanium White, and Gamblin Ivory Black. The black is regarded as a Blue in the limited palette. If you mix with a yellow you do get a kinda olivey green. If your subject is wearing Lime Green, you will approximate this color using Y.Ochre and Black mostly in value, but never get the actual Lime color. For me a limited palette helped me to understand color mixing. It's still a struggle, but worth every effort.

I think a good teacher will help you understand a limited palette as well as a wider one. My instructor actually started his students with black and white studies to teach control of values as a first most important step. Then on to the limited palette.

The site Wet Canvas has a forum that is all about painting and theories. I would check it out. In the meantime, I found an article here that may explain a little about mixing paint in general.
http://www.wetcanvas.com/Articles/DianeJohnson/mud.html

I hope I didn't confuse and this helps.

**mikehan!** · November 8th, 2006

Hi, I really liked your figure drawings and I'm going to study them so I can try something new at figure drawing tomorrow. Could you tell me a little about your process, things to keep in mind, or any books that helped you? I also like the last two portraits (balding guy and guy with hat), but I think maybe their mouths could be moved forward/up.

**YinYangi** · November 8th, 2006

great job on the figure drawings

**Listing** · November 8th, 2006

Really fine work, FireFlower. Since you have such a strong academic foundation I'd really like to see you vary medium and subject.

**Bard** · November 10th, 2006

Awesome stuff!!

I'm glad you posted in my thread and thanks, otherwise I could have missed this.

Inspired!

**Sajjettu** · November 10th, 2006

i really like you pictures!! i'm new to this site but i'm really enjoying these works of art! will try to put some of my works online for you to judge