Van Dyck value analysis

This is a fun activity that I've had the students in my DSGN 100 class do, where we take the van der Geest portrait by Van Dyck and draw out three value pattern shapes and then make cut paper versions of them. I have the gray cut out now on the right and the white traced off on the left with the draw over analysis on the center. The idea here is to learn to see the simple patterns as real tactile objects that can be handled and ultimately manipulated. It also helps the students see that these simple patterns are what really make things identifiable.

I rubbed graphite on the back of the photocopy to transfer the shapes.

Filters courtesy of Instagram. Look for me as petersakievich there.

 

Posted with Blogsy

SCAD Hong Kong

I just accepted a professorship with Savannah College of Art and Design Hong Kong campus. I will be working with foundations and illustration students and start this September. I am very excited about the opportunities and adventures that await me there.

My time working with the illustration and animation programs at Utah Valley University and Brigham Young University has been very inspirational for me. The students and faculty have been very supportive in my efforts in and outside of the classroom and I've been very grateful to them for this. Both schools have many strong positives and should be serious considerations for any student of the arts. I hope to be able to benefit the new students that I will be working with there.

As a note, with time the content of this blog will be adjusted to reflect the school and my activities with education there. If there is content that you would like to have for yourself, please feel free to download, convert to pdf or otherwise preserve the information you want to have.

UVU Rendering the Human Head Demo

Last nights drawing I did in class at UVU to show a process of drawing the human head. I primarily used charcoal pencils.

Utah Open Figure Drawing Opportunities

I'm attempting to list the local open figure drawing sessions between the Provo and Salt Lake City area for my figure drawing students. If you know of any additional ones, please let me know.  Most do not have sessions during normal vacation seasons.


Right Click to download maps


BYU Open Figure Drawing Session (swimsuit)
Provo, Utah
Fridays 9-12 - room B561 Harris Fine Arts Center - no charge. Available to BYU students and faculty only.

Springville "Art Store" Session (undraped)
Springville, Utah
Saturdays 10am to 1pm costs...last I heard about 7 dollars. please let me know if it's different.

University of Utah Open Figure Drawing Session (undraped)
Salt Lake City, Utah
Saturdays 9:30 am to 12:30 pm

5.00 per session or 40.00 per semester (16 weeks = 2.50 per session)

take 400 south from I-15 or use I-215 to Foothill Drive to get there.

The session is on the third floor of the art building. The arrows lead to the elevator in the building where the session is located. During the school year there is often both a long pose drawing and a gesture drawing class.  A wide variety of students, artists, and art teachers attend.

Castle Speed paint

Castle one hour speed paint from today. Here's the Corel Painter Script. The image is 800x600 and you may want to add a dark gray background to the canvas before you start it.

 

Animated gif below, click to watch

Speed Paint 3

Today we moved past the black and white landscapes that we've been copying into still lifes. With this series of copies I want them to do them in two tones while keeping within the one hour limit. They also selected their own images to copy, while before I gave them a selection of simple atmospheric landscapes to choose from. The limitations of the two color palette can be seen in my selection. I chose a Chardin still life that includes a green apple and some yellowish tones, but I went with a blue and an orange as my base colors, neither of which can give me those two colors. By using the value scale that Chardin has and by maintaining the temperature relationships, I can still approximate a copy that gives a similar sense as the original.

My copy is below.

Speed Paint 2

Another demo from this morning's class. This is a copy from Arnesby Brown.

Speed Paint

As part of my digital painting class this semester, we're doing one hour speed paints. The first part of the semester we are doing speed copies, later on we'll be doing more imaginative and original works. I'm priming them with black and white atmospheric simple landscapes. The set we're starting with is on the digital painting handouts page.  Today I copied "Gray November" by Bruce Crane.

Here's my copy from Painter.

Van Der Geest Demo

After introducing my students to customizing their wacom tablets and styli, they requested a demo from me.  Their first assignments in the class are to do master copies, so I selected van Dyck's "van der Geest" portrait. The first two are to be in black and white, the second set in duo tone, and the third in full color. This comes from the second set. I selected a dark blue equivalent of Blue/Cold Black and an approximation of Transparent Red Oxide. These I put up in the upper left hand corner for reference and then quickly blocked in the lights and darks and modeled the turnings. After initially setting up that palette in the corner, I primarily selected colors from the picture as I worked. The brushes and papers I used come from the sets in the Digital Painting Handouts section of the blog. While I worked I answered questions and showed off various websites from different digital painting masters. I probably should have paid closer attention to the drawing, but either way, this is where I ended up at the end of class. Click to see full size image below

Animal Anatomy and Drawing Links and Resources

Updated June 1, 2011

I've seen a lot of posts on the importance of animal drawing and various methods by various artists lately.  Here are a number of them that I've collected. Let me know if you have any other great artists and resources that I should include.

First off, a few links to interviews of creature designer and paleo-illustrator Terryl Whitlatch.

Dan Dos Santos interviews Terryl Whitlatch.

Academy of Art interviews Terryl Whitatch in two parts.
part 1
part 2

She has a book that collects her work on Amazon.

Gnomon workshop interview and DVD.

 

Animal anatomist, draftsman and animator Joe Weatherly has a dvd and several books on animal drawing and sketching on AnatomyTools.com The DVD and the Guide to Drawing Animals are particularly useful, though the other ones are nice too.

Marshall Vandruff also has a digital download available from Gnomon Workshop on Animal Drawing (it's on my wishlist).

Fredrik Persson's Horse Ecorche process shots on Deviant Art. Be sure to look at both gallery pages.

Article on Creature Design for video games.

On the proper use of animal reference in creature design

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3 updated

Liu-Jiyou

Other Reference Sources:

Animal Gesture Drawing Tool 

books

Eliot Goldfinger-Animal Anatomy for Artists 

Atlas of Animal Anatomy for Artists

animal blogs 

http://thebigcatblog.tumblr.com/ updated

http://anelephantblog.tumblr.com/ updated

http://membracid.wordpress.com/

http://herpblog.blogspot.com/

http://animalblog.me/

http://fieldherper.com/

http://theroamingnaturalist.wordpress.com/

http://beetlesinthebush.wordpress.com/
http://nutcase007.blogspot.com/
http://www.sybilofdelphi.com/blog/

animal photo websites
Bugs
Underwater Invertebrates
Mammals
National Zoo Photos