Steve Huston Draws From Life

Explaining the Three Pillars of Art and How To Aim For World Class

Your Suggested Homework Assignment--

Look at some favorite OLD MASTERWORKS, study a few pieces and carefully look, and ask...

What were the choices these folks made that  allow me to recognize their work -- this piece -- from across the room?

Figuring out where the greats took the same old craft we Realists all depend on and got a creative.

What excites me, what I believe gives me the chance to levels up the quality of my work and gives me a ...

Using the Strategies of the Landscape Artist in Figure Drawing

Here's your suggested homework assignment:

Aerial Perspective is letting the retreating background effect the value (and the color) of the advancing foreground.

Using the reference provided, practice "value coding" the foreground, middle ground, and background each with their own value and value range.

Trying both separate each layer of reality from the others AND grouping two together to frame the third for dramatic effect.

...

Style Is A Matter Of Mindset

Here's your suggested homework assignment:

Art is at it's how showing us how the separate connects. In our neck of the woods, we call it composition.

Decide to look for beauty 2 0ro3 times today. Beauty only happens when one or more connections are at work-- some commonality: 

The color connect because they're all turn a little orange from the sunset.

The body parts connect because they all have a bit of the cylinder in common or a certain watery flow in common. 2022-09-12 20:45:11 +0000 UTC View Post

The Power of Simplicity: The 2-Value System

Here's your suggested assignment:

Start with a simple still life object like an egg or coffee cup, or a single jointed part from the figure.

Draw the simple shape or shapes of the form. Then add a shape of shadow on the from. Let the white paper or toned canvas be the light side value.

Choose a darker second value for the shadow shape. Repeat the same process several times, slightly changing the shapes or changing the value of the shadow.

With eac...

Color Harmony and Connective Strategies in General

Here's you suggested Homework Assignment:

Color harmony just means the colors have something in common.

Practice making two (and then later 3 or four) colors move towards each other by adding a little bit of the one into the second. 

Paint a little swatch of that new color to save it. That can be on the pallets or on crap canvas of panel.

Then add a little more of the one into the second -- save a save.

Repeat that several times until you you have...

Aligning Our Art Practice With Our Goals And Our Life

Here's your suggested assignment:

Look at a beautifully rendered from the reference photos and/or the old masterworks provided and draw a Big and Simple structure one of the body parts. 

Do that for as many parts as you like through as many pieces of reference as you like.

We, artists are supposed to be able to distill any part of the world down into their essential forms. 

If we can do this well, we can soon uniquely design anything we ...

How To Draw Convincing Shoulders

Draw the shoulders as a corner to the Arms. That's the simplest way to attach them. And to make it an even simpler practice session, only draw a simple ribcage construction.

Now redraw the ribcage and the shoulders as corners to the arms a second time in a second drawing and take the shoulder girdle one step farther. 

Then do it again... and again....

This is a great intensive way to practice and engrain the steps. But the end of the several steps...

2022-09-12 20:34:58 +0000 UTC View Post