Bar Sketches

If you’re interested, there’s a link at the top of the sidebar over there on the right….

So here’s the latest photos of the two oil paintings I’m working on.  Both have many, many layers to go before they’re done.

As usual, my ability to take a damn photo without the camera being shakey sucks.  It doesn’t matter too much right now since these are just process photos, but I’m going to have to prop the camera on a desk or something for the final shot.

I’m going to litter the floor around the lamp with trash and whatnot shortly.  Soda cans, beer bottles, ash trays, balled-up napkins, etc.   There will also probably be an unlit Chinese paper lantern or two hanging from the ceiling above.  The lampshade will probably get a design too.

The hair is starting to gake shape on this one….the next few layers will be shadows, adding in some pretty strong blacks and burnt umbers…after that, probably some focus on the highlights (one they have something to contrast a little more strongly).

If you look at my last post, there’s a doodle there about the possibility of putting a post on the right covered with flyers and notes.  Don’t know if that’s going to work now that I look at it….there’s not quite enough room for it.  Still might work though.

Eventually, maybe, this might be turned into a generic Dr. Sketchy’s flyer (with pasties added of course).  If that’s done, it’ll be done up to look like a scan of an old pulp cover, even to the point of including “wear and tear” creases as if it had been rolled up in some kid’s back pocket.  The more I look at it though, there simply may not be enough negative space to pull that off.

Goodness gracious, finally a sketch actually done while sitting in a bar.   This was done Thursday night at the Blarneystone while waiting for a few friends to show up. 

Next is a pencil doodle done while sitting through a section meeting…

Last, but not least, well, maybe least, is a couple of visual notes I jotted down during a unit meeting for one of the oil paintings I’m working on.  (A few blog posts before this, you’ll see a photolog of what the painting looked like in the first few stages…..these doodles are vague ideas on what to do with the rest of the space.)

I’ll see if I can take some more pictures this weekend to show where the painting is at now (plus, some photos of the old Alexis and Kiely painting that I’ve started working on again).

BTW, if you’re looking for life-drawing classes in the Baltimore area besides Dr. Sketchy’s (link at the right), you might want to check out the classes hosted by John Brewer for The Charcoal Club.  The Charcoal Club has been around for about 130 years now and is a Baltimore institution….it’s ten bucks for 3 hours.  The have two sessions a week, Mondays and Wednesdays…one day is one long pose, the other day is a lot of short poses.  Sometimes they even have multiple models, which if you’ve done any of these things before, is a blessing and doubles the chances of you finding an angle you like.

Sometime in the next week I’ll make a link button for their page and put it in the right column.

Come get a beer, draw Maria, and call out of work on Tuesday.

For more info, check the main site.

More old doodles today…some of these are really, really old, probably going back to highschool.  (ie, I don’t even remember doing them)

The next one was a Borjun’s Tavern sketch….a top down view of the bar.  (I have no idea what the little guy at the bottom is.)

A sketch that later became a painting (the painting is in a previous entry somewhere….I don’t even remember there being a preliminary sketch, but apparently there was).

Lord knows what this was….

Hopefully I’ll get some painting done tonight or tomorrow.

BTW, I saw two blog posts on Drawn and Lines and Colors that you might find interesting.

First, Lines and Colors had a post on Charley Parker’s attempts to reproduce Rembrandt’s ink sketching techniques and the modern tools he’s using.  I highly recommend you go read it.

Second, Drawn has a post up about a free website where you can make your own fonts.  (It’s called YourFonts)  The site is getting hammered by site traffic at the moment, so if I was you I’d bookmark it and check it out when their traffic isn’t so high.