Workshop notes

This weekend I attended a workshop with Marie Matthews about painting faces in watercolor. I have to say it was a
real privilege to paint with her, and even just observing her demo- you can learn so much! I need to defend the crappy painting at the right a little bit- I was painting vertically on my easel instead of at the 45 degree angle, and the results, well, are a little blobby since everything was running together. I think this only works if your brushes aren't loaded with paint and water. The time flew by and I could have spent another 1-2 hours on this painting since there are clearly problems with it (i.e, her skull is chopped off in the back) and the blouse is really an afterthought right now. I think I will continue working on it and see how much progress I can make. Speaking of progress, turns out all of those figure drawing books I've been studying are paying off! I have to say- the features of the face are something I have really been struggling with. Marie gave a few extra tips about placement that seemed to tie everything together I'd read, and sure enough, voila! It was much easier putting the drawing together. I've been thinking a lot about "brush mileage" (practice). Like anything else in life, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Not because the task gets easier, but because your own skill level improves. I am happy to see this happening. So in light of this, I am taking on another task. Right now I am making my way through the book "The Human Figure" by John Vanderpoel, one sketch at a time. For the record, this book claims to have 430 sketches of body parts, torsos, poses, etc. I spent an entire afternoon this weekend drawing eyes in my sketchbook. Eyes looking up, looking down, to the side, closed, and any other possible variation you could ever imagine. Probably about 50 different individual eyes. I'm hopeful that copying these sketches will speed up my progress. And why do I care so much about figure drawing anyway? I'm a landscape artist for goodness sake! Well here's why. I feel like your painting will only ever be as good as your drawing is. And because a lot of paintings I do have a technical aspect to them with buildings and perspective, I have to be able to get it right. I have a painting in our den that just drives me bananas because the perspective is off. And I wonder, how did I not spot that 3 years ago when I started it? Signing off until next week- I will be travelling this week for work so not much time to paint. But you can bet my sketchbook will be packed!