So this week when Mary Beth Mckenzie worked on my underpainting I decided it could be a good idea to take a photo of her corrections. Then I decided it might be helpful to take a photo of my painting day by day and try to figure out where I made good, clear decisions and where I simply pushed paint around on a canvas.

PHASE 1: I took this photo right after Mary Beth worked on my painting. She came by and quickly corrected a very dubious drawing, and essentially did all of what you see here. She doesn't use any turp or oils- just directly "scrubs" the paint onto the canvas. She works very fast and rarely hesitates. But every stroke she puts down serves a clear function. She told me painting is about "going back and forth between line, negative shape, and volume" and that I can't "trust anything" I put down until I'm really sure of it, and that often won't happen until I have all the corresponding parts down as well.

PHASE 2: This is at at the end of day one. I almost didn't put the lights in but I'm glad I did. In a way, I think I like the painting the most at this stage. It reads in a simple way and I like the midtone patterns on her upper back/lower neck.

PHASE 3: End of day 2 and the weakest stage in the painting, I think. I felt very timid and focused on the midtones (the hardest part of the painting) instead of blocking in the chair or her red robe. As a result I lost a lot of the lights i had established the day before and those I did keep (like her left shoulder) I just made lighter and they didn't read at all. At this point I really felt like I was going backwards not forward. Look at how sharp that shoulder blade is! It looks more like the corner of a cube jutting out of her back.

PHASE 4: Still I worked very slowly, but felt like I finally started to regain control of the painting. I tried to visualize the different shapes on her back and how light would travel across them. Her shoulder blades gave me the most trouble and I never really figured them out. Still, it looks vaguely 3-D I think. Also brought back some of the lights I had lost the day before and toned them down a bit so they weren't that far off from the midtones and darks.

PHASE 5: Last day to finish the painting and I finally realize how important the chair/robe/background is. If, for example, I had blocked in the chair earlier, it would have been a LOT easier to show its reflected blue light on the shadowed part of her back. And if I had done that, then it would have been easier to get a nicer/ higher chroma color in for the midtones on the middle section of her back. Of course, this is all stuff I discover 3o minutes before class is over. eh.

Also- I couldn't get her hair. It's way too mat.

But on the positive side, I really had a lot of fun playing with the palette knife instead of using a brush. It's probably hard to see from these photos, but a lot of lights are put on with the knife.

Oh, I also lost the shadow on her cheek/jaw which I had in the day before. I may go back and try to fix that.

Quick poses with toned paper

The following drawings where done on white paper toned with charcoal powder. I saw a fellow student and amazing draftsman, Isaac Pelepko, doing this one day and decided to give it a shot. I found it immensely helpful. Working with toned paper forces you to erase as much as you draw, which really forces you to see the lights on a figure (i.e. the parts of an object that light hits directly, as opposed to the shadows, which the light doesn't reach).

I thought I was being clever by establishing my lights in some sort of a hatching system. Now i just find it distracting.

I remember drawing this one and hating it at the time. In hindsight, I don't dislike it nearly as much. Its very rough which may be the reason I like (and dislike) it.

These don't read very well but whatever.

This is my best one, I think. Which is funny, because I don't really remember drawing it at the time.

I only worked this way for about a week but learned soo much. Last week I went back to trying it and will post my results soon. Now that I know more about modeling factors, I'll hopefully be more aware of the midtones!

I'm linking to Isaac Pelepko's website here. Just a disclaimer; Isaac's stuff might be a bit racy for some but its also very very funny.

This was done sometime in November or December at the Art Student's league? It was a 20 minute pose and I got very lucky with it I think. Mostly because it reads somewhat as being three dimensional and at the time, I didn't really know how to break the figure down in terms of its modeling factors, or rather, its varying parts that make it look like an object existing in space (e.g. the shadows, half tones, lights, reflected light etc). I'm certain that if it was a 40 minute pose I would have ruined it. Hell, I probably would have ruin it even now if I tried to make it a "finished" drawing!
A 1 or 2 minute pose that was very fun to draw.
I'm proud of this one because, unlike most of my stuff, I had a clear idea from the beginning on how to execute the drawing. I very roughly drew in the basic mass of the figure and afterwards went in and made small adjustments that (hopefully) made it look more specific and "real". For example, I first saw the torso and ribcage as a sphere or some kind, and only afterwards went in with harder lines and realized that there was foreshortening under her right arm ( sort of like a triangle of negative space beginning under her arm pit and extending near the side of her breast).

Looking at this drawing and trying to comment on different parts of her body is making me realize that I really need to study anatomy! Frank Porcu's anatomy lectures here I come!

Work from the last few months

So I have a few photos I've taken of my work over the last few months. Most of these are very quick poses, done usually in 1 to 5 minute periods. I'll take more photos of my paintings and post them soon. All comments and critics welcome.

These are two quick poses I did a while ago, probably back in August or September of last year at Spring Street Studio in Manhattan. They're two of my favorite, not because they are "correct" (Something goofy is going on with the rib cage of the figure on the right, for example). Far from it. But I like them because they are some of the first drawings where I attempted to see the figure completely in terms of abstract, geometrical shapes. It's a great training exercise and can really help at getting the "gesture" of a pose.

Pizza to art

Okay so I've decided to transform this blog from one about pizza to one about making art. I'm going to post the sketches and paintings I've been making at the Art Student's League in the hopes of somehow keeping a visual record of my progress. I'm going to try to post everything I do, whether I like it or not. Hopefully, I'll still do the occasional pizza review or talk about different ideas have for pizzas. If anyone has any pizza suggests or comments, please keep posting them! Also, anything to do with art is good, too.

thanks!

apple, guanciale, and ricotta pie

Today, I made a pizza with apples, guanciale, parm, ricotta, chevre, and a little sausage. I cut the apple horizontally and sliced it thinly using the mandolin. I first put down large chunks of parm on the dough, hoping they would crispy up in a nice hard way. They didn't. I put the apple on top of the parm, followed by the ricotta and goat cheese. I hoped that the apple, between the three cheeses would be well insulated against the open flame of the oven and luckily I was right. It didn't burn and instead baked nicely. Its juices mixed with the cheeses and baked into the dough, giving the entire pie a very subtle, slightly sweet flavor. The guanciale crisped up very nicely and added an important element that the pie desperately needed: salt. I enjoyed the sausage but am not sure it added anything to the pie.

Next time, I want to cut the parm is long thin slices and hope they crisp up like the burnt edges on a grilled cheese.

Everyone seemed to like it, even the guys in the back kitchen. I've still been thinking about a pinto bean, chorizo and feta cheese pizza. let you know what I come up with.

Pizza Creation Tuesdays

Working during the day on tuesdays at Roberta's is a bit slow. There's a lot of prep work and not as much pizza making. But one of my favorite parts of the day is having the time to experiment with different pies. Gabe, a chef from the back kitchen usually comes up front with an idea for a new creation.

Last week he made pizza with chickpeas, paprika, ricotta and thin slices of blood red oranges. It was amazingly zestful and light. It took pizza in a direction I had never even thought of. I absolutely loved it.

This week he made a pie with Coppa (an italian salumi), tomato sauce, mozzarella, swiss chard, and cured green olives. The Coppa developed a nice bacon crispiness in the oven which almost cut the surprisingly strong, somewhat bitter flavor or the swiss chard. The green olives had a spicy punch that lingered on your tongue the entire way. The sauce and mozzarella seemed to bring all the toppings together.

I'm going into work tomorrow morning and showing Angelo, my boss, how to make the neapolitan dough I learned how to make in Naples. Wish me luck!