Last Winter Still Life and Figure Class

Oil on canvas panel 16" x 12"

This was the last winter 2012 still life and figure class. I learnt a lot and was really challenged with both subjects. This painting was painted over 2 classes. The first night I wiped off my painting 5 times, it was a tough night. Sometimes it flows and sometimes the challenges are huge stuggles within. I am happy with the final result and really enjoyed my last class. I am sorry to see them end. I will not be taking her spring classes but look forward to Fall classes with Ingrid.

oil on canvas board 12" x 9"

This was our warmup 20 minute excercise (speed painting is what I call it!). The goal was to capture the model's position and fill up the whole canvas without filling any details. It was both stressful and exhilarating! We lined up everyone's work and Ingrid critiqued them. The easels were in a horse shoe shape around the model so it was fun to see all the different views of the same pose.

Figure Painting Warm Up

This was a 20 minute warm up with a live model in Ingrid's class. The theme was a model with flowers (in her hair). The purpose of this warm up was to get the basic shapes, placements and local colours blocked in. We worked on an unprimed canvas which made the paint hard to spread. I enjoyed this process and found the speed painting both invigorating and stressful. I wiped this warm up off before Ingrid suggested we keep them for a reference!

This is the second painting of the night (on top of the wiped out canvas). The model was reclining instead of sitting like the warm up. Again, it is not a finished painting, but I certainly learned a lot about painting a figure. I am happy that I captured her position, tones and basic body shape. This painting was also wiped off at the end of the night as I would not have a chance to finish it without a model to view.



Fun Still Life in Ingrid Christensen's class!!

This was a wonderful excercise done in Ingrid's class!This is a picture of my view of the still life and my easel.  We under painted our canvas randomly with the colours we were going to use. Some people used very muted colours evenly spread, and as you can see I chose bright fun colours! We were not to try to place any flower shapes and if we had, we were to move our canvas to the upside down position. I really enjoyed the randomness of this start and it was almost a relief to have the canvas covered with so many colours, it was no longer precious. I have started to add the red flowers.

Red Flower Still Life

Oil on canvas panel 12" x 9"

This is the end result. I really enjoyed this evening and it went by really fast. It was difficult for some of my classmates to start a painting like this and I think this is a love it or leave it way to start a painting. Again, the beautiful colours do not show well in this picture.

Self portrait #2

After having one class on a self portrait with Ingrid. I decided to start fresh on my own at home, where I wasn't distracted with the beautiful art coming alive all around me in the class. I also thought I would take a few more pictures of how the painting developed for my own reference later. What I found interesting is how focused and concentrating my facial features were. This apparently was serious business in both self portraits!

This is the underpainting where I am trying to place all the features as well as get the size and placement correct. I toned the canvas first with a warm golden yellow.

The painting is now at mid completion. I have also worked on the background and am quite happy with how it is at this point. Will post the final product at a later date when I get time to work on it again. The good news, the subject is always close at hand!

First self portrait #1

This is my first self portrait done in Ingrid Christensen's figure and still life class. This is the second set of classes I am taking with Ingrid. The thought of ever doing a self portrait never occured to me mainly because I would of had no idea how to tackle it. It was very interesting and intimidating looking at the work done in the class, the styles were all so different! I had a hard time focusing on my painting as I could of happily walked around the class just watching the paintings evolve.

We were to do a thumb nail sketch and decide on the placement on the canvas and the angle of the view. I thought more of a sideways angle would be interesting, but I kept forgetting to put my head at that angle and was painting more face on. This lead to my face shape changing, as well as my eyes and nose in the wrong spot! Ingrid helped me align my painting with a more straight on view as this is what I was really seeing. You can tell even without the features defined how hard I was concentrating!

The picture above is how far I got in class #1. Thank goodness this was over 2 class times. One artist completely finished her painting in that class. I found out afterwards she was a professional portrait artist in water colour. Now you can understand why I would of rather watched than painted!

Third figure class

This was my third figure class with Ingrid and last class for this session. I was away the previous week so I missed the demo and class. Our class worked on the same painting during this class. It was amazing and intimidating to see the wonderful and varied works in progress. I think everyone was happy to have a chance to finish a piece of work. We are in a semi circle around the model so everyone has a slightly different view, therefore, no work is the same. The shine of the oil really shows when taking a picture straight on.

You can see the models legs at the left, my painting (work in progress) straight ahead and the beautiful painting on the right being worked on for the second week. My view was very straight on. And yes, her hair was a very funky style, very short on one side and long on the other.

Oil on canvas board 12 x 16

This is as far as I got in the class. I would of really enjoyed having a second class to work on it. I am happy with how it evolved. The model was amazing and worked hard to sit exactly in the same position after taking stretching breaks.

I have signed up for the next session of classes with Ingrid, again on figure and still life with the addition of florals. I wasn't going to sign up as I find that December and January are just to busy work wise and I don't have much energy after work, but this group is so fun to paint with and I enjoy Ingrid's style of teaching.....so stay tuned, more oil work to come!

Second figure class

We had our second figure class with Ingrid Christensen painting in oil. The model was lovely with a combination of bare legs and a flowing dress. We did thumbnails first to decide on what we wanted to include and the placement of subject and empty space and how we were going to link our darks. From where my easel was, the view was mainly of her thighs and everything was foreshortened. Here is my view from my easel and the painting so far.

Ingrid showed me how to make the folds in her dress on my painting. I scraped the paint off at her suggestion and then did it again myself. The other difficulty I was having was the size of her hand and the fore shortened forearm. Again with Ingrid's help, I was much happier with my result. This was a one evening class so once again, a full painting was not completed, but I am happy with the result below.

First figure in oil

This was the first of 4 figure classes that will end the Fall oil lessons with Ingrid Christensen. As oil is a new medium for me, I have learned a lot! Ingrid did a demo for the first hour and then we painted for the next 1.5 hours. If she did not do a demo first I would of had no clue how to even start! It was hard to shape the body to get the feeling of volume and not flattened out. Flattening out the body seemed to be my specialty!

Here is a picture of my easel with our model behind. I did not ask for his permission to put his picture of my blog, so I have only a partial view of him.

Below is how the picture looked when our time to clean up had arrived. It was really hard to get the roundness of his belly. As this class was just for one evening, I wiped the picture off to use my canvas for next week. Ingrid generously lets us take pictures of her demos so I have those as a reference. This class is for learning, not necessarily to get a finished painting. This is one I knew I did not want to finish.

Still life lesson on pattern

This was an (one) evening set up of a teapot and dried sunflower heads. The lesson was on how to paint a pattern to get the essence of the pattern without painting every little detail. It was extremely daunting to look at the set up and again begin with a blank canvas. Below is the my view of the still life and my work in progress.

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Ingrid's demo was starting the painting with the still life set up on the other side of the room (round bowl with delicate flower pattern) to show us how to tackle a pattern and still get the roundness of the bowl. Again, this painting is not finished as I plan to finish all the paintings from her class when the class ends or I have more time. I still want to work on the sunflower and the area under the teapot.

12" x 16" Oil on canvas

click on picture for a larger view

Still Life class #5 - Brass and Fur

This class was focusing on brush strokes - to make the smooth look of brass and feathery look of fur. I was not enamoured with this set up and had no idea where to start. Ingrid once again did a demo in the beginning of class and then continued around the class offering her expertise and suggestions. She also leaves her demo open for anyone to try what they need on it or to explain something. It is so much easier to learn with a "hands on" approach when you are a visual learner like myself. She wipes it all off at the end of the class.

This is a picture of the still life from my easel and my work in progress. It was a really good challenge and learning experience.

This is the final picture 12"x16"

oil on board

click on the picture for a larger view

Ingrid Christensen's still life class #4 - layering

Ingrid did a demo again to show her layering technique. A thumbnail sketch was done first then we did a rough painting to repeat the demo. Some of us in the class are new so this was very helpful. I learn something different at every class, the only problem is to get what my eyes see down onto canvas, there seems to be a disconnect!

Here is the rough learning sketch:

I found this very diffictult from the angle I was at. The teapot spout was almost the same angle as the handle attachment. Ingrid helped show me how to add the darks and lights so it looks round not flat. I certainly learn better from showing than just hearing.

We worked on the same still life (this time on canvas) during a second class as well. I still don't consider it finished so hopefully I can post the finished one later. Looking at this photograph, I am not happy with how the cup is coming out so light. Another reason to photograph art, it is a new view.

Teapot still life 11" x 14" on canvas, Click on picture for a closer view.

Ingrid's still life class #3 - Value

This week's lesson was on value (light to dark). Ingrid set this still life for half the class to paint and a similar one for the other half. This is the view I had of the still life and my work in progress in front. It gives you a sense of the view I had. Ingrid had us do thumb nail sketches first of the scene with basically just the values, white, mid tone and black to find the size and placement we want. I was the only one that chose to turn my canvas this way. I liked it better in my thumbnail sketch which is a very good reason to do thumb nails instead of trying to correct on the canvas. She also made us aware of the darks and how they need to connect.

Once again, I am happy with the progress I made and really had to paint fast to get this far. It is interesting I took this view from this angle as my painting view was from the other side of the easel so everything looks slightly off in placement.

Nectarines and canned cherries still life

16" x 20" oil on canvas

This picture was taken outside in the sunny afternoon. Quite a difference in the colouring, the true color is somewhere in between the two. I am still trying to figure out how to take better pictures to try and get a truer sense of the colour.

Ingrid's class #2

This class lesson was based on colour. Ingrid set up 2 still life's with apples picked from her yard and paint brushes. The goal was to really try and capture the colours, high lights, back ground colours etc. She makes it look so easy as she demos how to start and get to the half way point then we start painting! I wish I could take pictures of the other artists pictures as they are all so different! This one is not signed as I still want to go back in and add some final details when this class is over. "When you know better, you do better"!

Apples and paint brush still life

11" x 14" oil on birch board