Sketch on white board

Chalk on black paper

Pistachio men

Male proportions

Exercise on proportions from Bammes book.

Gottfied Bammes book

For quite some time I had a PDF version of this book in German. Had a few failed attempts to translate it. Now it has finally got translated. Bought it on Amazon for less than $40. I think it's a great deal. Tons of material!

Fun in the kitchen

Drawing with juice.

Christmas toys

These are Christmas tree toys I bought in a small town in England about 6 years ago. The are all hand made out of wood. Very old fashioned. I love them.

Having fun with gouache

Watercolor and gouache sketches

My sister was cleaning her studio the other day and as a result I've got quite a load of art supplies: water colors,gouache, oil pastel, etc.. I was dying to try gouache.It reminded me time from childhood. My dad had a gouache set and we loved painting with it.It was such fun!

Charlie's drawing

It always amazes me how effortless kids make their drawings. They don't analyze them or 'work' hard, but what comes as a result is never ugly.

Recent paintings

iPhone doodles

It looks like the only time I get to draw lately is on Go train.

iPhone doodles

Simple Value Plan

Continue assignments from Peggi Kroll-Roberts DVDs. Merged a lot of small shapes to simplify the information.
For value studies I am now using acrylic paint: Titanium white and Raw Umber. There is no particular reason for Raw Umber. I just happen to have only those two colors in acrylic.

The benefits:
- no need to prime canvas
- you can paint on paper
- easy to clean brushes
- no chemicals in the air

Eyes. Part 1.

Asaro explains the structure of the eye in his book "Planes of the head":


My analysis on real faces with 3 types of lids (not slanting, slanting up, slanting down):

Asaro: interlocking contour lines and planes. Part 2

Asaro: interlocking contour lines and planes. Part 1

P.S. in the lower drawing the chin is off the center. Did not see it until now :-)

I saw similar approach in Nathan Fowkes drawings, take a look here.

Basic planes of the head

"..The planes of the head should be memorized, for through them we have a foundation for rendering the head in light and shadow..." (A.Loomis)

Working on these magazine photos I was surprised to see how smooth were faces. Almost no visible planes. Loomis actually writes about it:

"...If you have softened the edge so much as to have lost the plane, the drawing is bound to take a smooth, photographic look. For this reason, planes have to be established when you are drawing from a photograph, since they are not apparent..."

Human skull

Andrew Loomis suggests to study human skull to learn the bone structure.

Head construction with features

Now I am practicing putting face features on a "ball". If your ellipses are at the right places adding features is easy.