This painting almost kicked my ashcan

Last week my anatomy teacher gave out a one week assignment. We had to create a painting of character he made up during the studio class, the character was nothing special, just a result of the       live model and some costuming and imagination. The catch was that we had to emulate as closely as    possible the ashcan school of painting. Here is my attempt. (sorry about the formatting, not sure what just happened)

Looking at this piece after it's all said and done I have a few criticisms regarding the final execution. Learning to analyze your own work from a critical standpoint can be extremely valuable. Since making any kind of artwork is a series of decisions, understanding what those decisions are and why you are making them will help you be more effective. In this particular painting I should have done a few things differently. The first major flaw, especially since it is supposed to be ashcan, is that the dark's throughout the figure and robe aren't dark enough. I think this is taking away some of the sense of form I was going for. The next thing I should have done differently is carried the darkness under the chair and robe further down the painting, there is a sense of depth that starts to appear just under the hanging robe but it is lost with the lighter tones brushed up against it. The third thing is the forearm got a little too light during the painting process and I also let the modeling get away from me a bit.

Enough about the final piece as a whole, I want to talk about how I got there. Normally in a class painting session I either scumble in or draw a loose sketch on a canvas to paint over. I really don't like this method because I'm not fond of painting on canvas, and I also have a tendency to work too quickly and working over an underpainting with minimal detail doesn't help.

I solved this problem by spending about 20 minutes on a drawing in class.

I then scanned my drawing, (i started drawing recently in a toned sketch book and I love it!) blew it up, and made a print on enhanced matt paper. I made the print out as big as my roll allowed which is 16 inches wide (i want to get a 24 inch wide roll cause bigger is better) and I wet mounted this print to a piece of masonite. I love working this way because I enjoy painting on a smooth surface, and I get to save all of my drawings.

During the painting process I just kept making sure to take my time, and make my brush strokes count. My favorite facet of the ashcan school is the bold, meaningful, and expertly placed strokes. I just kept looking at my reference and following my drawing while paying constant attention to the location, shape, size, and value of each stroke. I think I made a pretty decent attempt. I love oil paintings and one day that is all I will do so it was nice to have a chance to get in some practice on both oil and patience.

There is one thing that I think is special about this piece and can serve as a good teachable moment for any aspiring artists reading this. From where I was sitting.... let me back up for a second. Always move around the room when it is time for the model to get into a long pose, getting that perfect angle can make all the difference in the outcome and your confidence. Anyway, so from where I was sitting, the right hand of the model was buried between his knees with only a smidge of hand poking out. Rather than accept my fate, I chose to manipulate reality for the sake of a better piece. After all, that is the best part about a painting and about being an artist.

The image on the left is the knee area from where I was initially sitting, I chose this spot because 90% of everything I wanted was perfect, most notably the head and shoulders. The only problem was that darned hand. I made my drawing, leaving out everything to the right of the left knee, then I moved and finished my drawing. I made sure to get a picture of both so I could refer to sound reference and pull off a successful synthesis of both angles. This kind of staging is important and can take your illustrations and artwork even further. Now I just have to learn to draw and paint hands.

I hope you all enjoyed this, sorry for the length, I like to talk about art.... a lot. Just ask my class mates about our critiques. I'm going to leave you with a 15 minute digital sketch from earlier in the semester that I did during a model session in anatomy class.