Robin's content... :): Portraiture

Tony Ryder Workshop

Fri, 31 Dec 2004 00:28:20 GMT

In three weeks of December, I attended two workshops given by Tony Ryder. Here's some background on Tony from his website: “Tony Ryder studied at the Art Student's League of New York, the New York Academy of Art, and at the Ecole Albert Defois, in France, with oil painter Ted Seth Jacobs.” Tony speaks about Ted and his teachings with a deep admiration and respect - think Luke speaking of Yoda.

In order to create his extremely realistic work, Tony works at a slow pace to carefully observe and mix each color for every minute brush stroke. Similarly, he is thorough in his descriptions of how his painting process works and patiently provides positive support to his students. He employs many analogies to help convey concepts – something that many students found quite charming.

As far as my work went: the position of my easel in relation to the model wasn’t, shall we say, a standard view. I had the rim light position so I had the challenge of finding color in shadow. This has really sensitized my eyes to subtle color – it’s kind of like being given a new set of eyes. The world is a really beautiful place once your eyes are calibrated correctly.

The images below are as follows:

A “poster study” (a quick study of the color and light of the subject and surroundings)
My initial drawing of the subject
The unfinished painted piece
The model I was working from (I wasn't able to truly capture a photo of the color and light that I saw as I worked - cameras seem to like light :-)

Portrait Drawing

Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:55:26 GMT

Toward the end of the quarter we focused on portrait drawing. I was grateful to have time to refine these skills because I had signed up to do a portrait painting workshop in the end of December that I feared was a little out of my league.

Self Improvement

Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:58:33 GMT

The self portrait is tough. One has the usual challenge of trying to create a drawing with a reasonable likeness to the model skewed by the fact that the artist is the model. All sorts of freaky psychological components come into play. Some students create self portraits that are dark and morbid. Others portray themselves as stunningly beautiful. Interestingly I think over the last 3 months, I’ve managed to create one of each in the following order: There’s the “I’m so pretty” one created the weekend before school started in September; the dark and disturbed one created in October (AKA the "I’m trying to be like my instructor and failing miserably"); and finally the “OK, I think I’m getting a handle on this hand eye coordination thing” one done in November.