More Work from My Study at Golden Gate Atelier

Elegance - Life Drawing of Anne, 
Chalk & Charcoal Drawing from Life on Fabriano Roma Grey Charcoal Paper, 25"h x 15"w

Oh boy! Did this blog suffer some serious neglect in the last two months! (I cannot believe I have not blogged for two months! I really need to make a more serious effort in keeping a regular blogging schedule...) So here it is: "Elegance - Life Drawing of Anne" is my latest long pose figure. It measures 15"w x 25"h and is done with chalk and charcoal on grey Roma paper. The entire drawing took more than 80 hours to complete, with 60 hours of model time, and a couple nights staying at the studio working on background and folds of the drapery. We experimented with black background for the first time in this set-up, and I found it great to create mysterious atmosphere as well as set the glowing light effect on the model. But to achieve proper value of the black cloth in the background, it took many, many paintful hours sitting at the easel adding layers and layers of vine charcoal...

Still Water Run Deep - Life Drawing of Yeshi, 

Chalk & Charcoal Drawing from Life on Fabriano Roma Grey Charcoal Paper, 25"h x 15"w

"Still Water Run Deep - Life Drawing of Yeshi" is another long pose drawing I did earlier this year at GGA. It took about 42 hours to complete and was my first figure drawings using both white chalk and charcoal on grey Roma paper. It was a relatively simple standing back pose, and my goal is to capture the cascading light down her (viewer) right shoulder, and have the light gradually diminish as it descents the figure. For hair I have tried not to drawing in every single strand, instead treating it as fabric with light and dark planes and fuzzy edges... 


I really liked it and entered it into the Livermore Art Association's Spring Juried Show, and was very happy to find out that it has won second place in drawing/pastels category, as well as the City Selection Awards from the City of Livermore! Now it will be hanging in the City Hall of Livermore for a month, until May 9th... What a great honor!... 

In the mean time, if you have an image of a beautiful landscape, or a flower you like, or anything you might want to see painted, please email them to me at arena.shawn@gmail.com. I will paint them and post them here. From every 10 paintings I make from them, there would be a random drawing, and the lucky winner get to take a original back home for free! Interested? Then send me your photo!

You can now buy high quality Giclee prints of many of my sold paintings, both on paper and canvas, as well as some note cards with my paintings here:

Simple Grace -- My Other Half of Artist's Life at the Classical Atelier

Simple Grace, 
Charcoal Cast Drawing from Life on Fabriano Roma White Charcoal Paper, 18h x 16"w

I haven't done much of sharing of my work from the atelier I was attending so far -- this is one of the latest projects I have finished there. It is a charcoal drawing about the size of 16" x 18" of a plaster cast from a 19th century French girl. The drawing is done from life with sight-size method, and took me a good three month to finish. I was quite happy with it and thought it has somewhat captured her calm, gentle expression, and the effect of light hitting her forehead and cascading down from there. The training at Golden Gate Atelier is amazing and I felt in the two years I am attending it, my drawing ability has just improved by leaps and bounds...

It is very interesting that this cast is supposed to be a cast direct from a real girl's face, after she has tragically cast herself into the river water of Paris to end her life, but the expression is so vivid, peaceful and lifelike, it's hard to believe it is cast from a deceased person... The interesting story behind the cast is that the contemporary CPR's training mask is designed according to it, so that people who are trained to do mouth-to-mouth CPR could have something pleasant to stare at when doing it...

After completing this project, I decide to submit it to Lodi Art Center's Spring Juried Show, and yesterday I was informed that this drawing has just won the Best of Show. This great news came as a total surprise, as this is the first time I submit non-watercolor work to a juried show and I was very nervous how it would be received... Of course I feel a huge sense of encouragement now. 

I would never be able to do this without the two years of priceless training I have received at Golden Gate Atelier -- before entering the atelier I was literally scared to death to pick up a pencil and draw free-hand! The rigorous training -- drawing from life 6-7 hours a day every day has not only taught me how to see and how to use different drawing materials to achieve an effect I want, but gradually built up my confidence to DRAW. Again, this proves you learn drawing by -- actually draw a lot... Along the way I have received so many valuable instructions and help from my teachers, Andrew Ameral and Sean Forester, as well as my classmates. I owe you all a big "Thanks" -- you are the best!


I also owe a big "Thank You" to Sadie Valeri, my first teacher in classical realism and personal inspiration! I took my first life drawing class with her when I was still working my engineer job, and was totally hooked! Now I am on this road of no return... Lol...

In the mean time, if you have an image of a beautiful landscape, or a flower you like, or anything you might want to see painted, please email them to me at arena.shawn@gmail.com. I will paint them and post them here. From every 10 paintings I make from them, there would be a random drawing, and the lucky winner get to take a original back home for free! Interested? Then send me your photo!

You can now buy high quality Giclee prints of many of my sold paintings, both on paper and canvas, as well as some note cards with my paintings here:

Figure Drawing Session I (6 Sessions Starting 02/07/2012)

I had a very busy day today, but not actually painting. Instead I planned out for the current Daily Paintworks Challenge "White on White", and the Cook-Waller Painting Challenge for February, "Love Letter", and went out to purchase the flowers needed, set them up and photographed them. I have several good concepts, which I would like to explore, but probably none of them would get done within this week -- as you probably have already noticed, I am an extremely slow painter, and there are several deadlines coming up for shows...

I also worked on a potential commission piece of poppy flowers, did some colors sketches that I'd like to send to the potential customer before deciding a final format. I would probably show them in a later post, when the final painting is done...

In the evening my time was spent doing a long-pose figure drawing at the new studio of the amazing artist, Sadie Valeri. I just love and admire her work!... I started to study drawing, especially figure drawing with her in the summer of 2009, and her work -- both drawings and oil paintings -- are absolutely stunning! (Check it out if you haven't already -- it would not disappoint you, I promise!) The methodical planning and patient execution of her work is something I greatly admire, and try to learn from. 

The figure drawing session she set up in her studio is something that is not easy to find but absolutely useful -- it's one pose, six three-hour sessions or six six-hour sessions, for people to practice classical atelier method of figure drawing/painting. I worked on the first straight-line block-ins during the session this evening -- as you can see, only a few lines after a whole three-hour slot. It's extremely slow... 

Figure Drawing Session I 02/07/2012, Graphite on Strathmore 400 Series Drawing Paper

Sadie's method (which I am practicing here) basically starts from putting down a top and bottom line for a vertical format drawing, and ensure the figure would never exceed that top and bottom line, so that the figure can be composed on the paper without the worry that the feet is just going to grow out of the page as you adjust the drawing later. Then a middle point is drawn on the page and corresponding middle point is measured on the model, and a mental note is being kept for where that middle point locates on the model's body. This middle point on the page would never change from this point on, and corresponding measurements can be made against it. 

The next steps are estimating the width of the figure on the widest point comparing to its height, and make tentative left and right boundary lines. From there on, long, straight envelope lines are made to enclose the whole body of the model on paper by imaging these long, straight boards making tangent to the "high points" of the entire body shape, and smaller, more segmented lines are drawn to enclose more and more detailed shapes of the body outline. It is very important when drawing the shorter, more detailed lines, one should extend them and see where the extended lines intersect the figure on paper, and compare that against the place these imaginary extension lines intersect with the model's body, since it is extremely hard to measure the angle of a short line, but relatively easier when they are extended longer. It's also very helpful to compare various lines of similar angles to one another, since it is much easier for our eyes to differentiate relative angles than absolute slants. Contrary to the more traditional "sight-size" method, in this method only angles of lines are measured (against horizontal or vertical reference lines) and translated onto paper, not the absolute length of the line. 

It's an extremely slow process to draw using this method, but also a great training for observation, estimation and hand-eye coordination. I was just trying to get the big proportions and gestures of the body right on paper tonight, and it would need quite a bit of work in the next session, probably...