New Painting: "Self Portrait at 39"

Self Portrait at 39
12 x 16 inches, oil on panel 

I have been working on this self portrait for the last couple of months. It was an interesting challenge to take the same process I use for still-life and apply it to a self portrait.

The painting is an homage to an 18th century German-born painter I recently discovered named Christian Seybold (1697-1768). I find his painting of a woman in a green veil particularly stunning. I was thrilled to see how he created extremely fine realist surface detail, supported by a structural understanding of the underlying form, and I tried to emulate this. I also took inspiration from the scale and cropping of the portrait, the fur collar, and the paintbrush tucked behind one ear. 

I’ll be posting the initial drawing and all the stages of the painting as a slideshow soon. Here are some close-ups:

Mary and Ward Drawings: Block-in

Study of Mary, Thursday evenings
16 x 20, graphite on paper, work in progress

Study of Ward, Monday afternoons
16 x 20, graphite on paper, work in progress

I am now offering two new long pose figure drawing sessions per week at my studio: In addition to the original Tuesday evening sessions 6:30-9:30pm, there are now sessions on Thursday evenings, 6:30-9:30pm, and Monday afternoons, 11:30am-4:30pm.

Before the Thursday and Monday sessions, I am also offering a public drawing demonstration and lecture, where I discuss how I approach academic figure drawing and painting.

These two drawings were from the first sessions and lectures, where I demonstrated how to find accurate proportions using the straight-line block-in technique. When we can judge the angles and distances accurately, we don’t need to rely on measuring or other tools to capture accurate proportions.

Next week, I’ll be demonstrating how to infuse figure drawings with energy, structure, and life, by understanding the 4 essential principles of organic form: Tapering, Interlocking, Spiralling, and Convexities.

Attending the lecture demonstrations is an excellent way to get a preview of my studio and my teaching technique.

For more information and to sign up for figure drawing sessions and demonstrations, please visit my Model Sessions page.