Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Wyeth Demo


Today I took about an hour of class and did a really quick and dirty demo of Andrew Wyeth. I always get a little nervous doing this. Sort of like a magician on stage worrying that his trick won't work and he will be uncovered as a fraud. It did not go exactly like I wanted and is far from finished, but I thought I'd bring it into Photoshop and put in a few tweaks. I intend to finish it a bit more with paint, but here it is for now. Ron Spears , a great artist and friend of mine has been painting some really great historical costume models lately. In today's post, he bravely shows what happens when you bonk and have to start over in front of a group of fellow professionals. I love that he was able to pick it back up and come up with something nice in about the same time I did my little demo (and his is 16" x 20" not 5" x 9" like mine!).Go take a look at his inspiring work.

3 comments:

John Calvin said...

Hi, I'm curious about the process, if you don't mind answering a question or two... Did you come to class with a preliminary drawing completed, and just demo the painting process? Or, did you start with nothing but a blank board and do the whole thing from start to finish? It looks great, and I really like it.

Unknown said...

John,

I drew the face in beforehand and indicated some of the values in the face with a brown Prismacolor pencil. I knew the coat would be dark, so it was just a few lines. All told, I probably spent closer to two hours. I began with semi transparent washes of Holbein Acryla gouache on cold press illustration board and then built up to more opaque paint. The digital touch ups pushed the color closer to what I wanted from what I did in class, which was pretty monochromatic. It's hard to do a demo that looks like anything in only a couple hours but I sort of like the unfinished spontaneous quality- especially the coat.

M.Lee said...

Amazing work! I am in complete awe. I feel unworthy that I just now "stumbled" upon you. Very cool stuff!