Therrific Thursday - a Visit to Krab Jab

Spent a lovely few hours in industrial Georgetown today - lunch and a meeting -

- with the lovely Julie Baroh, grand poohbah of Krab Jab Studio.

Krab Jab has just moved into a larger (very cool) space, so I got to check it and the new, current show out.

A few examples -

There were a number of dimensional pieces -
 this one by Yvette Endrijautzki.

Stefanie Vega.

 Yvette Endrijautzki.

 Ouija board by Julie Baroh.

And plenty of two-dimensional ones - Robert Tritthardt.

 Allen Williams.

Tenaya Sims brought some of his Georgetown Atelier students downstairs to check out the rendering wonder that is Allen Williams piece.

 David Thierree.

Stephanie Pui-Mun Law.

Georgetown, and Krab Jab - a pretty wonderful, magical place.

(Check out Krab Jab's site for a complete catalog of this show, as well as views of things past and forthcoming).

WIP Wednesday - Georgetown Atelier

 Life drawing morning - 

 The draw over - small, but beautiful tweaks.

 Second pass of oil painting demo -

Toned paper demo..

Only one more week....

WIP - Georgetown Atelier

 New foreshortened view of same model. Kicked my butt. Couldn't ever get to a 'happy' place with this one.

 My drawover...

 After lunch, we had an oil painting demo. Here's the toned block-in.

 Color/value strings to be able to lay tone down directly -

 Watching the master-copy painting....

So gorgeous so quickly!

Only a couple of weeks left...

WIP Wednesday - Georgetown Atelier

 Life drawing - same pose, but another angle this week.

 (Third year student here - color painting now, rather than charcoal).

 After lunch - we had a demo on toning paper to work on -

 Discussions of gouache, shellac, gelatin, and pastel dust ensued....

 But look at some of these awesome  examples of working on it!

 That back study on the left? Yum! (watercolor pencil on gelatined/gouached paper).

Made a tiny bit more progress on the never-ending someday fairy painting.... (wish I liked the figure better. The pose we were 'supposed' to work from is far from inspired...)

WIP Wednesday - Georgetown Atelier

Another shot at this foreshortened pose (this time much closer up on the figure). Makes my brain *crazy*, but I suspect it's good exercise...

WIP Wednesday - Georgetown Atelier

I had the same view this week at the Atelier (extreme foreshortening!) -

This week, I brought a 'cheat' - a quartered plastic sheet clipped onto a frame that you can 'trace' the image in front of you with a dry erase marker (a la Betty Edwards - Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain).

I'd kind of forgotten about this tool - haven't used one for years (but I also try hard to not ever draw anything that foreshortened from life if I can help it!)

Hugely useful though. I didn't have to spend so much time referee-ing the knock-down, drag-out arguments that my right and left brain have when I attempt this kind of thing. It's generally paralyzing (see the incredible lack of progress with this same pose last week).

After lunch, we continued to discuss composition. This week, Root Rectangles -

(with example armatures on classic paintings)

As well as a discussion on Golden Sections - all aspects of formal composition I've never really studied before. So, yay.

*And*, I'd asked about our instructor's approach to line work (SO beautiful!!!) -

So, we ended the day with a discussion on his thought process behind his line and brush making. Looking forward to seeing if I can apply this stuff!

WIP Wednesday - Georgetown Atelier

This week my easel was WAY over on the far side. Talk about adventures-in-extreme-foreshortening!

(Hurts my head, rather like perspective does...)  Made an attempt. Got a draw over (although, the teacher is enough taller than me that the view differed quite a bit) -

Nudged my easel and tried again. Several times. Boy! one's left brain really fights you drawing what you see in situations like this! I didn't get very far - but was a good brain-stretching exercise...?

WIP Wednesday - Georgetown Atelier

 Life drawing morning.... I can pretty much tell how much sleep I've had the night before by how easy or difficult it is for me to get things put down proportionally... (Today was NOT a good proportional day...)

 My teacher's draw over. Way prettier....

 Afternoon lecture/demo on using Photoshop to check adjustments to your work in progress before doing it on the actual piece.

My comp and final value study for this piece....

WIP Wednesday - Georgetown Atelier

 Life drawing session...

 A bit of instructor draw-over adjustments...

 (The model had changed her head position at this point, so brand new face. But such a *beautiful* face!)

Working on compositions with this particular pose. Very good feedback (lots of reading of Andrew Loomis' "Creative Illustration"). Some new things to try! Yay for that!