Andrew Loomis - art instruction

to get one of my amazon xmas orders eligible for free shipping I bought the above book on supe-artist Joe Dillon's recommendation.

Loomis talks about form and line and their function on making an interesting image but quickly he mentions going into creating interesting compositions and i come to an art assignment?!

Mostly i want to share these paragraphs as an exercise in creating or finding interesting compositions.  Something i certainly need help with.  As i go through this book i'll share any exercises or findings or revelations that i may come across.

step 1: make a picture finder

step 2: find interesting compositions or just shoot your camera in random directions like i do

step 3: draw what you see (i think i went a bit far with the shading where the exercise might be to see how the forms interact to form an interesting composition.)

Loomis shows how the line itself, shapes and letters can be seen in some of the compositions you may encounter.

Creative Illustration is just another interesting book that I haven't yet finished, like...

and (recommended by another talented artist, Zafer Louisa)...

as well as...

untitled update 8/31/10

Well ArtWalk is over for this year. I had a good time meeting people and taking compliments on my art and i feel it's a big step for me. I'm not one to put myself out there and there are a ton of artists in the area that can do it better then me. It was important to take a step toward becoming an artist. I suppose I was already an artist but these events helped me be more professional and field questions about drawing and painting. Next year i'll hope to be a year better when i step back out onto that sidewalk if i'm asked back.

Went the Borders last night to art a little and wanna give a thank you to the couple that stopped over informed me of the artistic happening of the LValley and commented on this:



been working on her a while now off and on and i'm deciding to finish up this week so please stay tuned.

I've switched to charcoal for the background because it'll be a lot faster than gouging the paper back and forth with a 3B.

Charcoal was sitting in my drawer since my college art class days. I only took that one class in college but it was pretty good with exposing me to different mediums (media).

you may not notice but i fixed the nose a bit since my last scan of her and the eye will be worked a bit in the next one.

Watercolor Class 2: The Pear

Last Tues in class i learned how to effectively mix paint and different ways to make/mix black and grey! Our still life was a Pear, on a mirror with a black background:




and i'm enjoying my learning in this class. Brian Stelfreeze, here i come???


and i'm currently working in my watercolor sketchbook and did an Angie sketch from this weeks Entertainment weekly:

Watercolor class

I suck at color and i'd be the first to admit it =)

But i love the look of watercolors and i've tried the watercolor pencils with ok success but i wanted to paint, after years and years of hating paint

(sidenote: I used to hate pen until i took a drawing in pen class by David B. Sullivan)

so many of my christmas gifts consisted of paints, paper and how to books

but i needed to set aside tome to be consistant - I've decided to take a watercolor class taught by the awesome Andrew Kish ~!!

here's some stuff from my first class =)

learning about washes, wet on wet, wet on dry, brushes, colors, mixing and tools of the trade
excited for this weeks class~!!

I'm no Brian Stelfreeze but that's my goal~!!