October 2019 - Figure Workshop

This fall has been very busy ... I have 3 workshops (Colley Whisson, Seth Haverkampf and Qiang Huang) plus Monday abstract classes with Paul and Wednesday drawing with Jess and George at Atelier South. I posted earlier about my workshop with Colley and just had a chance today to catch my breath and post about my workshop with Seth at Booth Art Academy.

I'm always nervous before these workshops because I don't want to be the worst student in the classroom. This isn't an ego thing - it's a fear of dragging down the pace of a class. I don't want the instructor to have to slow down for me. Fortunately,  I was not the weakest link. In fact, I felt like I did a good job of keeping up and hanging with more experienced artists. No question, I have a long way to go, but it was exciting to see progress, and I believe that is in large part due to my hard work at Atelier South.

I'm posting photos of my work in the order they happened. I think you can definitely see progression just over the course of 3 days.

We began each day with a 16x20 canvas toned in acrylic gray (5 value). Using transparent brown oxide we knocked out a series of 10 one minute gestures, wiping them out and drawing on top. The point is to move quickly, respond to the gesture, don't overthink it. Then we did a series of 2 minute gestures, with slightly more blocking in and refinement. Then a series of 5 minute gestures, a 10 minute gesture and a 20 minute gesture, with more refinement with the increase in time. It was awesome. It's like running sprints if you're a runner. I loved it.

Then in the afternoons we worked on longer poses. The last photo (above) was the full day pose. I didn't have time to work on the head and face (too small), nor the arm in the background. But I am pleased with proportions and some of the definitions in bone/muscle. On the last day we added cad orange and titanium white for some additional value range. But that's it - 3 colors. Unless you include the gray background, which we scratched out to provide "bone" and it looked more blue than gray because it was surrounded by orange. Very cool techniques.

Seth is an excellent instructor. He did a great job of getting around to each student multiple times a day. He keeps things loose but is also very specific about what he wants you to do. It was a great learning environment.

At the end of the workshop he did a quick 20 minute demo on a face/portrait of our model. I love the bold colors and geometric quality ... finding the shapes!

A++! I would definitely take another workshop with Seth.