Dutch Paintings

Trying to learn from the Dutch Masters. 

Most of these were studied from the Utrecht School (active late 1500s to mid 1600s), who were highly influenced by my favorite painter Caravaggio. 

This above is from a painting called "The Roman Charity," this was painted by Dirck van Baburen, Ruebens did 2 versions of this painting but it's not nearly as good as Baburen's interpretation. 

I'm fairly confident that the above is a study of Hendrik Terbrugghen another Dutch master who did lots of paintings of people playing instruments before "slappin' skins."

Frans Hals (also up with Caravaggio in my list of favorite painters).

More of the same but with a Dutch Palace.

Also I haven't posted in a while and may not very soon because I don't have my scanner with me. Just moved here to Seattle and I'm also pretty busy finding a job along with going to school, so have mercy.

Caravaggio - An Exercise in Fanciness

Caravaggio is by far my painter who ever walked the face of the Earth. This is one of his early paintings (before he started doing his bleak church-commissioned paintings) call the musicians. The man peering over his shoulder looking right at you is the painter himself. A lot of painters at this time didn't do many self portraits but they would sneak themselves in their paintings some way or another. 

So here it is, my amateurish attempt of replicating masterpiece artwork. I do say that even though I do like copying from cartoons, copying renaissance period paintings is far more stimulating. There are lots of subtleties to look out for.

At first, i was having difficulty with the lips of the lute player, here's a page of the lips. I found the lips on all of the subjects to be very difficult to capture. Once i got it I made sure to make lots of notes so I wouldn't forget.

I didn't work much on Cupid. He really isn't the most interesting part of the painting just a device to suggest that the musicians are singing love songs. I worked on the body's a little, I have a horrible habit of only focusing on the heads. 

At this point the features are being played around a little more. 

Problems lay with the nose and mouth the bigger the mouth was the smaller the nose got. Also, for some reason or another the nose went from slightly bulbous to flat. 

Fairly proud of my Caravaggio render here. Below are the placements of the head. 

Didn't have an easy time caricaturing Caravaggio but these are first attempts and i haven't gotten much further than this. The most intriguing part of this gentlemen in the background is the neck, it's very graceful and swan-like, beautiful s-curve in the front. 

I know these aren't incredible renders, but I haven't posted in a while. Not only that, but there's lots to learn from these painters because they were excellent draftsmen and they use lots of forms and shapes which can be applied to my own work. 

DODDLE DUMP!

Not too many drawings this past couple of weeks, I've been busy reading about drawing. I got a copy of "The Practice & Science of Drawing" by Harold Speed, so far so good. The first 80 pages is about what art is and talks about the differences between academic and real world drawings/paintings, and once you get past that he doesn't even dispense techniques on drawing. Rather, he explains the ideas and thought-process behind them. It's good so far, I'm about halfway through it.

Here's another J.S. Copley study, this one is more caricatured.

These are the practice sketches leading up to what you see above. This is from the painting "The Sitwell Children"

Some girl I saw walking around one of the college campus'. I have a lot more drawings but they are all scribbly gestures that no one will ever want to see. I've been caricaturing the gestures to see if I can use them for future reference to apply to drawings like the one below. One thing that I notice is that girls legs tend to be longer then men who have shorter stubbier legs. It doesn't apply to everyone but it sure is interesting to think about!

Caricatures at a bar.

More bar caricature, when the girl on the top of the page saw her drawing she was very upset. However, to my surprise she didn't know that caricature is making fun at the models features.

These were done today. These are just weird looking kids I found in a magazine.

more sketches!

People in Elle magazine

Taylor Swift is all the way on the right

     Recently I've discovered two websites, one from Kristen McCabe called They Fight Crime. TFC generates a hilarious Duo of oddball characters that fight crime together. The other I found is called Fellow Humans and has pictures of many many people from different locations, this is great for caricature. I've only done two, the other caricatures was in a diner.

     

      Waffle Woman however is my own creation, yet it wasn't till 2 days after creating her that she was very reminisant of Powdered Toast Man, except she's a vigilante spy but she's inspired by an Abbott & Costello joke and TFC.

This page just has some random stuff, Ruby Poolcue is of course the symbol
of affection from Lou Costello, and Leslie Beanbag is his shrewd neighbor.
I got some Bavarian architecture, and the first drawing of Waffel-woman and Pizza-face!

All of these are based of TFC, the top two I adjusted for my own tastes, an opera singer that becomes obese and a black woman from the 1970s with her Disco Fortune Ball.

Sketches of Marc Anthony from Chuck Jones' "Feed The Kitty"

Strangers with Candy bit players and Shawn White caricatures

more to come!

Gestures - and the first 8 pages of a book!

These are all doodles of people in the television-box, with the exception of the cat. I have Rita Hayworth, Orson Wells, Oprah, Groucho, Chico, Heidi Klum, 2 contestents from project Runway, a weird looke Tim Gunn, as well oddly rendered alec baldwins and the guy who plays Kenneth the page.

Harpo on the harp, and another gentleman from the movie I saw singing. I saw "Minding the Store" which was... alright, i think "A Night in Casablanca" was better, oh and the Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles was from "Lady From Shanghai" which was awesome, highly recommended.

people on the bus

And here it is. The first 8 pages of Walt Stanchfield's "Drawn to Life" read, print, and enjoy!

doodles meet watercolor

i've been using watercolor a lot more often. Partially because I try my best to sketch everyday, when I don't feel like drawing i just color in ones that have been previously done.

Blind gesture drawings I think look fantastic colored in! I think i'm going to do more in future.

Watercolor kind of crinkles the paper of course, but it's alright i think it makes the sketches look more completed and makes em' more interesting to look at.

Also tomorrow i'll scan in the first couple pages of Stanchfield's "Drawn To Life" it's got lots of goodies in it.

Pinocchio Comparisons

warm-ups

I saw "Pinocchio" for the first time online, I really enjoyed it, so much so that i snatched a bunch of stills to use as references, and boy golly did i get some good'ins! I decided to start of with one of my favorite scenes where Lampwick tells Pinocchio to take a BIG drag off the cigar. Pinocchio being extremely naive does so and suffers the consequence.

Above are my drawings, I'm doing 2 per page. Below are the original frames.

haha! Ouch, that looks painful just to look at.

Okee-Do-kee! Let's analyze this, shall we? There's actually a lot wrong. The eye left to us isn't slanted upward enough, the nose needs to be down and shifted to the right slightly, that threw off the mouth which the same needs to be done. The ear needs to be up and right more along with the hairline, the back of the head is not nearly big enough. The body isn't too bad but i need to watch out for those arms.

Face wise this isn't too shabby. The base of the nose needs to be larger, the ear needs to be shifted down along with jaw line and the back of the head needs to be extended further out. The Cigar however is waay off, and so is his bow-tie.

Ohhh! Is he gunna blow chunks??

Ewww. He sallowed it, gah-rose!

The major problem with this one is that the body is way too big (or the head is too small?). Otherwise in the face the main features seem to meet up just fine with the exception of the eyebrows and ears. Again the head needs to be extended in the back, the hat is too low in the front. The cheek on the left in just a tad-bit too big but not that bothersome to me.

This would be a pretty decent drawing... IF I FUCKING MOVED THE BACK OF THE HEAD AND EARS FURTHER BACK. That seems to be a huge problem. Along with that the jaw needs to be moved down further, and the tie moved in more. More minor issues would be that the left eyebrow needs to be shifted up and to the right a tad and the brim of the hat a little but up.

I loved this part, his eyes fill all the way to the top with tears and then when he closes them a huge waterfall pours out of his eyes. But right before it pours out the tears squash down like they do below.

Awesome, I know. Kudos to whoever planned this out.

WHOA! The head and ears are allllllmoooossst where they need to be, they're still off though. The eyebrows need to be placed further down, and the mouth needs to be scaled down a bit. The neck is way off and therefore the rest of the body even then the back of the collar is not at the right angle and needs to be facing away from his body more.

First thing i notice is that the neck is too long. and like the previous drawing the collar needs to be going away from the body more. The ears are near perfect! But the back of the head... you know. The jaw line needs to shift up and the left eyebrow needs to move left more. The mouth is placed too high. As for the nose, down more and larger.

Love the above expression!

Hey! What's the first thing you notice? EAR AND BACK OF HEAD!! everything else is either where it needs to be or close. For example the nose is too long and so is the cheek. The right eyebrow is a little high as well as the hat.

I am not sure what's going on with the hat so let's ignore it. Once yet again, ear... back of head. The jaw is down too low and the nose needs to be smaller aswell as the wrinkles. The body is too big and the bow needs to be upwards and over to the left more.

PHEW! There is a lot wrong going on in these pictures. Obviously I need to watch out for the ear and width of the head. Second i need to be cautious of the size of the head or body making sure one isn't too big than the other. My next issue I would say would be watching out for the eyebrows, nose-size, and jaw. The neck is also a problem. Those are the major ones that i notice right off that bat and what i'll start working on. I'll be posting more Pinocchio stuff, i got lots of stills of the lead, Gepetto, Jiminy Cricket, Figaro the Cat, Honest John, and Lampwick.

ALSO, if you have any critiques, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE post them!