Color and Experimentation

Part of working day and night on a portfolio involves pushing yourself into uncharted territory. This allows you to become a better and more well rounded artist. I'm currently going to life drawing at least five days a week. I scoured the city for all the classes it has to offer (I actually have to make a phone call after this post because I think I tracked down another class). When I first started going to these classes, I was shy and intimidated. I was also blown away by what a few people were producing. But now it doesn't impress me at all. Why? Because it has been about 4 months and they are still drawing the same way with the same paper and mediums. They don't experiment, so of course what they're doing looks good. They've basically mastered it, and have no desire to move on. Who knows how long they were doing the same thing before I showed up.

It's just plain boring to me to stick with the same medium for so long. Those people aren't going to grow as artists until they try new things and really test themselves. They'll just keep plateauing until they eventually think there's nothing left for them, or they don't need to go to life drawing. I use a different medium on a different kind of paper almost everytime I go now, and I'm absolutely loving the crap I'm churning out. Why? Because every once in a while I'll produce something I really like, and I add it to the portfolio. In the end I'll have a highly diverse portfolio (I hope).

Here's a couple drawings from August I did using charcoal and Letraset markers (On sale for $1 each!):




A weird combination, but I liked the result (for the most part). Up until about a month ago, Color was one territory I had yet to explore when it came to life drawing. I dove head first into pastels, conte, chalk, colored pencils, and markers. I'm thinking of trying water color soon.

I'll be dedicating a few of my classes every week exclusively to color, so hopefully over the next few months, I'll be able to come up with something good enough to post. Here's one I did with India Ink and Pastel on Canson Mi-Tientes paper: