I'm taking Sean Cheetham's Monday night at the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art. I've learned so much already. We paint from a live model and we create a new painting each week. Painting is really about having an accurate drawing first. Sean's method is amazing because it makes sense, and is organized. He develops the images from dark to light values. He first thinly tones the canvas, sketches in a thin outline of the person in front of him in thinned paint. Sean first marks the top of the face, the chin, the sides of the face, then places the eyes, continuing with the nose and out from there. After the face is thinly outlined in, Sean mixes the beginning of his mud-palette. First he puts in the darkest darks and after that Sean moves on to the shadow-side flesh tones. He mixes those from the darkest dark mixture (mud). Once the shadows are in, Sean moves on to using alizarin crimson in the eyelids, nose, lips, and ears then the background gets blocked in. After adjust for cooler or warmer shadows and painting them in, Sean develops the halftones by adjusting the light mud color. Highlights are last. Whites of the eyes are not usually actually white. I am working on my drawing skills more now and look forward to creating many paintings using this organized method.
20x26 oil on canvas panel
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