Bouguereau Master Study

I have always loved Bouguereau's portrait studies. They seem less resolved than his full-size portraits but are still incredibly lifelike and beautiful. I've always wondered how the artist was able to create such porcelain skin tones, so I decided to do my own small study to see if I could recreate his palette. This was done on an 11x14" burch panel, in oil.

Ingres Master Study

This is an unfinished master study of Ingres' portrait of Baroness James de Rothschild. We recreated an 11x14" portrait (successfully avoiding the difficult large silk dress that takes up the majority of the original painting). The amount of detail in an Ingres painting is just incredible - I think the details in the dress and jewelry take more time to paint than does the actual face.

Starting the first layer.

After several more layers, but still not finished.

The original full-size portrait by Ingres.

Gerard Master Study

In progress - not finished
"Cupid and Psyche"
Oil on canvas, 18" x 24"

This was a study started over the summer. The intent is to copy a master work (in this case, Cupid and Psyche by Francois Gerard) in order to hopefully learn how the work was made. We began by projecting the image from the original and started with a traditional raw umber ground, followed by a gradual build-up of the French triad for painting flesh.

There is still work to be done on the sky, background, fabric, and wings, but I'm ready to finish it and pick out a nice gilded antique frame.

Figure studies

Just a few of the many figure studies from my artistic anatomy course this past semester. They were drawn from life in a two-hour session.

Anatomical studies

The skeleton drawings were completed in the first half of the semester in order to learn the bones and structure of the body. In the second half of the semester, we used our bone drawings to create diagrams of the muscles of the body.

Charcoal and pencil on primed paper

Colored pencil on vellum, 22" x 30"

Hand Studies

Pastel and pencil on primed paper

Foot studies

Pastel and pencil on primed paper

Still Life

Oil on canvas, 18" x 24"

Krohn Conservatory study

As a final project for Drawing I, we were sent to the Krohn Conservatory to take about ahundred pictures of plants and flowers. We also read some excerpts from Michael Pollan's Botany of Desire to finish our botanical study. I chose a light pink hibiscus and tried to create an exaggerated depth of field.

Charcoal and pencil on primed paper, 22" x 30"

Greek bust study

Charcoal and pencil on primed paper, 22" x 30"

2D Rhythm Manipulation

Ink, 3"x 3"

The assignment given was to use two different rhythm systems that manipulated and changed one another.