Cast Drawing Boot Camp At Grand Central Atelier

This summer I tried my hand at cast drawing again, this time in the Grand Central Atelier boot camp.  I thought boot camp would be much harder than the regular course, but it was actually a lot easier.  Knowing there was a limited amount of time forced me to just do the work and not obsess on every little thing.

I decided to try doing lips this time.  I started out by blocking in the shape of the cast.

Then the real work starts, shading in the drawing.

As you can see, we moved very slowly, covering a tiny bit of the paper at a time.

This is where I ended up after working right up to the last minute of class.  Obviously, I could have spent another month on this drawing, but I'm pretty pleased with how far I got on it as I spent months working on my ear and was not able to finish it.

Cast drawing is hard, but you learn so much and you don't have to worry about the model moving!

Thanks to GCA and our instructor Justin Wood.  It was a great way to spend a summer week.

Rose Painting Demo With Katie Whipple

Over the winter I got to spend a dreary, rainy day in the best way possible:  watching Katie Whipple demonstrate painting a rose.  If you are not familiar with Katie's work, she is the best floral painter out there.  I was lucky enough to take a floral class with her a few years ago ( see here and here ) and I learned so much.

The demo took place at Grand Central Atelier, and was an all day event.  In addition to the demo, Katie brought some of her floral paintings to show us, as well as her supplies and the products she uses to keep her flowers going for the duration of painting time.

The demo was a single rose.  It's hard to see in the picture, but it was a white rose with pink and yellow undertones.

This is where she left off at the end of the day.  To me, the rose looks done, but Katie said that under normal circumstances, she would have worked on this much longer.

Aren't these paintings amazing?  Katie was so generous to bring these in for us to see.

I have a workshop with Katie coming up this summer and I can't wait.  Thanks to Katie and Grand Central for a great day!

Cast Drawing At Grand Central Atelier

Hello All!

If you follow me on Instagram, you know I have been out of commission with a broken shoulder.  It will be a bit before I am back to painting, but I am going to attempt to put up some blog posts.  I am typing with one hand so there won't be a lot of text, but I have lots of pictures to show you.

First up, I did a cast drawing course at Grand Central Atelier.  Around this time last year, I was feeling burned out and bored with what I was doing.  I actually thought it might have been time to move on from painting and start doing something else.  After thinking about this for a few months, I decided to try something completely different than I had ever done before.  I had never done cast drawing before, so I decided to give that a try.

Cast drawing is completely different from my usual way of working.  It is very precise and you can spend weeks working on one little area.  It turned out to be just what I needed to jumpstart my artistic life.

Here are some photos of my progression of an ear cast.  I have reached my typing limit, but if you have any questions, leave me a comment and I'll answer there.

The above photo is where I ended the last night of class.  This was such a good exercise for me.  I'm hoping to do it again this summer.

Designing Nature With Katie Whipple

The past few weeks I have been taking a class called "Designing Nature" with Katie Whipple at the Grand Central Atelier here in New York City.  As all of you know, I love painting my fruit and flowers, but drawing is another story.  I really do not like drawing.  I'm not very good at it, so I avoid it if possible.

At the beginning of the year, I decided that it was time to get back to drawing.  I've been wanting to take a class on drawing flowers.  Not because I'm going to stop painting.  It was really more of a desire to learn about the structure of flowers.  With oil paint, it is very easy to just get something on a canvas.  Plus I always feel stressed to go as quickly as possible before the flowers start wilting and die.

All I was finding were botanical classes, which is not something I am interested in.  I like to look at botanical art, but it is not something I want to do myself.  Over the summer, I looked at Katie's Instagram page, and she mentioned her new class.  I checked out the description and it sounded like the perfect class for me.

Each week we bring in a bloom or a piece of fruit and just work on that one thing for the entirety of the class.  We have the option of drawing or painting, but I am sticking with drawing as that is what I need to work on.

Here is a sunflower I did the second week of class.

I am working on grey toned paper using pencil and white charcoal.  Of course, I started out trying to draw every little petal, something I would never do while painting.  Luckily, Katie spotted me and came over to remind me to start out with the basic shapes and work from there.  

After getting the shape of the flower right, I started putting in the petals, paying careful attention to their shape and making sure they went in the proper direction.

At this point, I started adding in the darks and some lights.  This was my first experience using white charcoal and I really like working with it.  

As you can see, I went a little heavy on the darks.  I'm still trying to master getting the right dark with a pencil.  In a painting it is very easy.  You just mix up the appropriate color and put it on.  If it is too dark or not dark enough, it is very easily fixed.  Not so with pencil.  I'm practicing using a lighter touch and I think that is helping.

Leading up to the big finale...

This is where I finished for the day.  It's not great, but not horrible considering it was my first time out drawing flowers.  

The week after I did the sunflower, I decided to tackle a pear.  Pears are hard to paint (for me) and I discovered, even harder to draw.

This is the end result of the pear drawing.  I can't believe I'm going to put this on the internet for all to see, but I like to be honest about my art trials and tribulations.  This little pear drawing took me about three and a half hours!  Yes, you read that right.  Just getting the shape and proportions right took a long time.  

Katie doing a demo of a rose for the class.

All drawings and paintings by Katie Whipple

Katie brought in some of her own drawings and paintings for the class to see.  Aren't they amazing?  If you would like to see more of Katie's work, check out her Instagram feed.  Tons of beautiful roses and peonies that she has been painting.  

Even though drawing is hard for me, I'm really enjoying this class.  It's always good to challenge yourself and drawing is certainly doing that for me!