More Notes From Dan Thompson

20 x 24 inches, oil on canvas

I thought I would show the progression of painting which Dan Thompson taught at our workshop, using various drawings and paintings I did during the two-week course at BACAA. (The earlier set of notes from the workshop is here.)

We started out drawing short poses, starting at one minute each and gradually increasing to one hour. The three following drawings were each one-hour poses. The basic steps were to block-in a line drawing of the major contours and shadow shapes. Then fill all the simplified shadow areas in with a single tone to create a two-tone drawing.


Next we started grisaille paintings, using flake white and raw umber on a neutral gray toned canvas.

20 x 24 inches, 1-day pose

The beginning of the second week Dan set up the model with a bright, artificial light shining directly up at her from a position on the floor, with brightly colored fabrics all around and behind. He covered the light with colored theater gels, so we could practice painting "just the light" without any local color. He cast first a cool light and then a warm light on each of the two setups. We were to block in the most basic, simplified shapes of color, and we only used a palette knife - no brushes. These are the 4 small paintings I created:

9 x 12 inches for each panel, 2 days of painting

This is where I started having a philosophical crises and found the exercise very difficult. Technically it was challenging, working in dim light for hours, trying to see very strange colors, wielding the awkward palette knife, only to create a very disharmonious paintings. But more than that, it was hard to keep the paintings truly perceptual, and not merely expressionistic.

Finally, Dan set up the model in a natural-light pose for the final three days. I did two paintings of the same pose, the progressions can be seen below:

20 x 24 inches, two days

I got a bit frustrated working on the above painting, so the last day I very quickly started over with the painting below, same pose but more closely cropped. The drawing suffers, but I think I began to get a glimpse of the color concepts Dan was trying to teach.

20 x 24 inches, 4 hours

Since Dan's class I have been very inspired to improve my figure drawing skills. Dan's knowledge of constructive anatomy is truly daunting, and I felt my clumsy attempts really got in the way of my painting. I bought several drawing books Dan recommended, and started studying from Bridgeman's Constructive Anatomy. This is one of the pages I sketched while on vacation the week after the workshop:

9 x 11 inches, or 3F size
pencil on paper
(Japanese Multi-Drawing Book is my current favorite sketchbook,
I draw on the backs of the pages as they have a smoother tooth)

It is certainly easier to draw from books than from life, but the understanding I am gaining will inform my life drawing.

Notes From Dan Thompson's Workshop

Dan's Painting Demo on AmericanArtist.com

I've had three days in Dan's 2-week class, and we've been learning his method for capturing the proportions and values of a figure. We've mostly done drawing exercises, no finished drawings and no paintings yet, so I don't really have anything visual to post.

A few notes, links, and ideas from Dan's class:

"The Human Figure" by Vanderpoel (Google Book link)
Dan recommends the 1920's version for better reproductions of the drawings.
UPDATE: Ebay got too expensive, but I found a reasonably-priced copy of a 1920's edition on Biblio.

Myron Barnstone
Both Dan Thompson and Juliette Aristides studied drawing and the Golden Section at the Barnstone Studio in Pennsylvania.

Reiley Lines
Six codified lines for defining a figure in any position. As his student says at the above link: "The six line figure is not the way to draw, it's the way to think"

Goldstein: The Art of Responsive Drawing

Steps for drawing the Figure:
1. Gesture
2. Proportion
3. Envelope
4. Light/dark block-in
5. Orientation: x, y, z

Balance the conceptual (what you know) with perceptual (what you see).

Tonal Relationships, 1-5 tonal scale
1. Block in only two tones, light and dark, for the entire figure
2. Tone all the light areas with a 2-value tone
3. Sketch in the darkest tonal accents ith a #5 value
4. Only apply #3 values at the end. Keep major tonal relationships constant.

Andrew Loomis

Howard Pyle

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Oh and a neat forum I found digging around online:
Society of Figurative Arts

Silver Pitcher with Apricots

11 x 14 inches, oil on panel

I decided to try a longer painting, so I have been working on this one for about a week now. Working over dry or semi-dry paint has different challenges than working wet-on-wet in a single session. It was nice to have the time to refine things a bit more, but I found a whole new set of things I need to learn.

Luckily I am about to begin a marathon of painting workshops. Tomorrow I start a 2-week figure painting workshop with Dan Thompson at BACAA. Later in August I'll be taking a two-week still-life painting workshop with Juliette Aristides, up at Gage Academy in Seattle. I'm really excited about everything I will be learning this month from these two amazing artists.

Here are the process shots taken over the last week:








(Yes, that's me reflected in the middle, with my white painting apron on.)

Cast Drawing, Sessions VIII and IX

Vine charcoal on Canson paper, 18 x 24 inches

It's done! It took nine sessions for a total of 36 hours. You can see the last session, and every previous stage, by clicking back through the previous posts.

Onion on a Paper Bag SOLD

11 x 14 inches, oil on panel

Process shots:


I spent a lot of time on the underpainting to get the proportions right. The bag leans so far to the right, and we often want to "straighten" things out. Drawing is basically just making your brain stop editing what you see.


I quickly put in the basic colors of the onion first, with saturated, clean colors. I knew I'd spend a lot of time on the complicated bag, and I wanted the onion to be fully incorporated even if I neglected it while the bag developed.


I blocked in the basic structure of the bag with flat brushes. I just bought some new long-bristled Princeton brushes I like, in both flats and filberts. I use a large sable filbert for the background after I have blocked in the color with a bristle brush.

I used smaller filbert bristle brushes, and in some cases a small flat bristle, to refine the various planes of the crumpled bag. At this point I am very happy I spent so much time on the underpainting - the basic shapes are right so I can focus on color rather than drawing.

After a lot more refining, this is the final. It took about 8 hours to complete.

I experimented with Prussian blue instead of my usual Ultramarine, it was a nice change for me. The whole palette was:

Cad Red Medium
Cad Yellow Deep (an orange I love)
Cad Yellow Medium
Sap Green
Prussian Blue
Raw Umber (just for the underpainting)
Mars Black (yes, I just started using black last week for the first time ever)
Titanium White

I used to get really frustrated where a light area meets a dark area - because so much white mixed with so much dark (blue, umber, black, or all three) makes a really chalky, ugly midtone. So I have started pouring a ton of color into my midtones and it has really helped.

Two Onions

8 x 10 inches, oil on cradled panel

This would have been a whole lot easier if I had just painted the onions, and left the silver platter out of the composition.

Silver Pitcher & Plum - SOLD

1o x 10 inches, oil on panel

Wow, today was a blast. I went out this morning and bought a bunch of fruit for still lifes at our little neighborhood grocery store, and then checked out a little antique shop around the corner. I ended up buying about 5 different vessels, including this amazing globe pitcher and the little pewter pitcher.

With all the new props to play with my still life just fell together, and over the next 5 hours or so this painting just fell out of my brush.

I'm trying with these recent paintings to let objects melt into the background and into each other, finding as many instances of "passage" as I can, while still retaining the structure of the form. This is the most successful I've ever been at that, and I'm really happy with the painting.

Here are the process shots. I included a shot of the block-in this time, which I usually do in the first 10 minutes and never photograph.

Green Vase with White Roses

10 x 10 inches, oil on panel

I decided to try my hand at a flower arrangement, a subject I've never painted before. Maybe I'll do a longer painting like this one sometime, there isn't time in one day to capture all that detail. But it was fun to experiment with an impressionistic style.

Process shots:

Teapot and White Flowers SOLD

8 x 10 inches, oil on cradled panel

My mom gave me this teapot as a birthday present this year because I said I want to start a collection of teapots. I love the color of this one. Anyone know what these flowers are? They look kind of like roses, but they have no thorns.

Here are the process shots:

Peach on Green SOLD

8 x 10, oil on cradled panel

This painting was a real breakthrough for me. I finally started to feel like my recent investment in intensive drawing study is showing up in the painting.

I had fun with the colors in this one, the pale lavender "fuzz" around the edge of the peach was so satisfying to paint. And the red/orange fruit on the pale green cloth just pops.

"Cradled panel" mean the wood panel has a lip around the edge on the back, so the panel is easy to hang and has a nice hefty depth (about an inch). I need to buy a bunch more this size and larger, it was a much better size to paint on than the tiny panels I've been using.

Friday Cast Drawing - Sessions VI & VII

Vine charcoal on Canson paper, approx 18 x 24 inches

This is the result of the 6th and 7th sessions, see the 5th session.

I think I have just one more 4-hour session on this drawing to complete it - I plan to develop the fabric of her dress and her hair a bit more.

Daily Painting - Brown Bag Fruit SOLD

I don't know if it's the new art studio, my new flat brushes, different lighting, or a new book on oil painting I skimmed last night, but today was the first day in a long time when painting for me felt has purely enjoyable.

I just plopped these plums on top of the paper bag they came in, and suddenly realized I loved how they looked all nestled in there. The brown bag itself was a great opportunity to try for planes and structure. It looked a little plain, though, so I added the red strawberry for balance and color interest. Then the painting itself just happened. I wish every painting day was this easy.

My New Art Studio

My new studio, affectionately dubbed "le shed", is officially done! This morning I woke up like a kid on Christmas, so excited to paint in my new space. It's small, but everything fits, and it was totally comfortable to paint in.

Daily Painting - Bud in a Bottle

6 x 6 inches, oil on panel