Progress report part 2

continued from progress report part 1...

Once teds workshop ended I stayed in Paris near the Charles de Guille Airport for several days. I  went to the eiffel tower to meet up with friends I walked the canal near the eiffel tower, I also had lunch with a close friend of mine and explored the city. Most Importantly I went to the Louvre! what massive paintings they were! It is important to remember though that back in those times going to salon shows was a family event so these paintings were a form of entertainment. Much like the entertainment that we have now is Television and football games..

I flew home back to Arizona For 2 days and left again for San Francisco, California. I took a 2 week workshop Bay Area Classical Artists Atelier please check out the website and find further information regarding upcoming workshops, many of which I plan to attend in the coming year.
 http://www.bacaa.org

The stay at the school (http://www.bacaa.org) was wonderful the environment in itself is very relaxing and there is always breakfast and coffee for the students.

I then studied with Graydon Parrish of Grand Central Academy.  For those that do not know Graydon Parrish check out his website http://www.graydonparrish.com/Graydon_Parrish/Home.html he Is an amazing painter and is considered by many to be a leader of the realist movement. Graydon was taught by Michael Aviano and was trained on mixing color using the munsell method. He was very kind to share his information regarding color theory and color application as his method of mixing color really takes out a lot of the guesswork which is fantastic because it is incredibly frustrating to mix a color and to find yourself with the dreadful "gray"

He has a very simple non mathematical formula for mixing color. It is Hue=Value/Chroma.

In this case the Hue would be the color, the value would be the specific level of lightness that the color is in and the chroma would be the level of intensity or saturation that the color is in. Its actually very simple once its been explained in person and if anyone has any questions on the process of mixing colors according to the Munsell Method I would be more then happy to share the information.

After the workshop I took the train to los angelas for business matters and flew back to arizona yesterday afternoon. During this trip I was also able to complete volume 1 of my workbook which contains 4 years of notes on workshops I have attended and on my theories of painting as well as my work schedule. I was ALSO able to complete my anatomy plates book by elliot goldfinger, this was another 4 year project which I would practice copying anatomical plates to memorize the special shapes of the human figure. The Anatomy book though I will have to complete again 4 more times, with my work book I have initiated volume 2 of my workbook which does contain notes on graydon parishes workshop..

I will also be opening up another go fund me account to raise funds for my next trip to Argentin-Chatue in France I will be studying at Studio Escalier for 6 weeks. Following this event I might also be studying at the Art Students League for a week.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!

Progress Report Part 1

Recap of the events that have occurred so far starting from 5/31/2015.

Just wanted to do a quick recap of everything that has happened so far starting from 5/31/2015. First I  want to extend my thanks and appreciation towards Linda Dulay at http://www.bacaa.org who is the founder and owner of Bay Area Classical Artists Atelier. Without her kindness and extensive experience in hosting workshops with some of the most talented artists in the industry Ted Seth Jacobs Workshop would not have been possible.

My journey began with me leaving for France and studying with Ted Seth Jacobs with students from all over the world for 5 weeks. It was quite an enlightening experience as Ted has been my idol in the art field from the get go. Although Ted has matured in age his energy and passion for drawing and painting the human figure has not died down.

I stayed In a small farm town called Les Cerquex Sous Passavat, It is 3 hours from Paris, France. The town itself was a little isolated so for the class to get any food for the week was always an endeavor. We typically carpooled with our monitor Sara and the drive itself was only 15 minutes to the nearest city. We learned to be more cautious with the food that we purchased and to conserve our food when we were running out. Typically towards the end of the week before we would go grocery shopping again we would have dinners together to scrap the food that we had left and make it last. I stayed at a small cow farm with a lovely family the farm itself was called Les Moulin (according to my friend this meant the windmill)

The Head of the household was christophe corrioult him and I had several discussions between my 5 week stay at the farm. He has an interesting story, he always wanted to be an electrician but his dad wanted him to be a farmer, so he was given an ultimatum. Be a farmer or he can leave the house, in the end he chose to be a farmer. His Wife Kristen and him have a son named Sebastian who is VERY polite and very quiet and very tall. I stayed in a very old building which I believe was at LEAST 100 years old. There was so much charm in staying in an old home like that so much history.

Teds class in itself is packed with valuable information regarding light, and color and learning to see accurately not only the figure but learning to see everything! His biggest impact i believe was his method of measuring which was to not use ANYTHING as a form of measurement other then your eyes. This was no sight size, using a stick or a pencil this was only using your eyes and finding the measurements based on that. I asked ted one day what was the one thing that i should take away from his class that would be the most valuable, he told me it was the block in. That is the single most important aspect of drawing. Without the block in being 100% accurate then the entire drawing itself will fall apart. Modeling can come afterwards.

There are certain aspects that I did disagree with on ted seth jacobs method of seeing, which was structure. Now ted talks a lot about the special shapes of everyone and that we must not only copy the portraitistic shapes of each individual but also the portraits of there special shapes. He did mention to the class that studying anatomy was irrelevant and we should only focus on drawing the figure that we see before us however i did hear him mention anatomical names several times. The same concept was also applied to painting, he did mention to the class that we should only paint what we see and not use color charts. Again I know for a fact that in his training as a youth at the Art Students League that he did have training with color charts.

I have also learned that we must take what we can from each artist we study with but also apply our own concepts so we have our own "voice" as artists.

I remember reading in Bougeroue's 1984 montral exhibition catalogue that the reason bougeroue's painting instructor was so popular was that he did not apply his style to the students yet he let them find there own voice and gave only vague ideas for which the students to take and utilize in there own fashion.

Continued on section 2