new books

I received my copy of color and light by James gurney today and I'm half way through it already.  Also ordered 4 other books. one is on facial expressions to help me along with non referenced heads and the other 3 are character poses to help me with weight and position for making poses out of my head.

currently reading

today i started reading andrew loomis´s book, "head and hands" and copying the illustrations.  when i finish that its on to bridgemans complete guide to drawing from life and then gary faugains book on facial expression, all in the hope of being able to draw without reference.

Lets stick to a learning schedule...

right lets try this on for size..
1 hour drawing head
1 hour drawing anatomy
1 hour hands
3 hour still life from life
2 hours of quick digital head studies
is that 8 hours already... maybe ill add more lateri´ll see how this pans out first...
oh and one extra hour landscape compositional studies

a useful aid for drawing faces

wow just happen upon this app that generates faces of all different races and can be rotated and the expression changed.... brilliant especially for practicing drawing

FACEGEN


There is a free trail which has good fuctionality
enjoy!

Edit out your studio lights

after doing a painting containing a metal spoon today i realized there were to many spectacular highlights on it, the reason being it was catching some from my studio lights, and even though the studio lighs are weaker and further away than the light on my still life they will cause highlights which need to be mentally removed from the scene when painting glass, metal, wet  surfaces and other shiny objects.

This also reminds me of something that carlson wrote on somall areas.  He states that a small area of shadow surrounded by an area of light will be much lighter than a bigger area that is receiving the same amount of light.  This also goes for small areas of light in dark areas.