Saturday, February 27, 2010

Figure paintings from winter session


Scroll down to just skip my blah-ing and see more images :)


I used to be really afraid of painting beyond watercolor. In order to overcome my fear of painting, I tried gouache in Elizabeth Ockwell's watercolor class a year ago. Something clicked. I continued with gouache in Richard Deutsch's summer Landscape Painting class, and gave acrylics a second chance last semester in Karl Wirsum's Water based Painting Studio.

And then, it was time to tackle my biggest enemy. Oil paint.

It was like alien from Mars to me. Not the friendly kind with big marbly eyes that waves at you and asks if they could join you for breakfast french toast and coffee in an exotic but also robotic intonation. Oil paint to me was more like the alien with 100 poisonous tentacles doing a demonic hula dance hissing "I'm gonna eat 'chuu" in a not so cute sounding alien language. It was the stage boss. And I had to fight you to go on to the next level. (I had a video game night with my friends last night, if you can tell)

Since I got so much out of Marion Kryczka's Figure Drawing class, I decided to take his Figure Painting class over winter session. 3 weeks non stop oil painting.

And who knew? Next moment I'm hula dancing with this actually friendly alien, even drinking my breakfast coffee together. Oil painting lets me give off my artistic energy in a different way from my detail obsessed drawing. I actually like the slow drying time. The process may be physically exhausting, but it's the fun kind of exhaust. The kind you're proud and satisfied of.

Now my next challenge is figuring out a way to combine my painting style with my line drawings without them clashing. :P



Please excuse my poor lighting, I'm still learning about documentation.
There's funny glare on all of them distorting the actual colors. :(
Goes from Newest to oldest.






Mid-term self portrait