[Zorglub]

You are a genius! Nothing more to say really.

[meatspoon]

well shit, i want to die now. . .

[Flexible Elf]

Hehe I was about to cuss someone out for using a variation of your name but I was pleasantly surprised to see it was, in fact, you. Welcome back FFS.

-Flexible Elf

[Lunatique]

Ron- I can't see the images or access your site.

[ftgjcf]

wonderful!
Glad to have you back!
I hope you post you paintings and tutorials too

[Dr. Bang]

Thank you so much Fred for replying to my msg, one important things i left out. I've been praticing learning anatomy for a long time now, i dont draw from life much. But like you this is how i learn most of my drawing, i buy books of human anatomy and learn the shape of the skull and all its muscles and bone and try to memorize it while drawing a normal human form. Do you recommend that over drawing from life? Or incorporate both.

Sorry for the double question, this is just too big of a opportunity Oh, if you need any help with your website, i'll be happy to help you out

[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: Dr. Bang ]

[S4Sb]

Hey, welcome back. Could you please post some of your concept designs. I think I've never really seen any concepts from you. Mostly humans instead. I'm really curious

[strata]

good times are back agaaaain!

many welcomes back Ron, you've been missed!

[nova]

Welcome back, guy.. A lot of stuff has gone on since you were last here. [psst.. I'm working as a game prop monkey with dhab now!]

It's sort of bittersweet when you post your stuff -- I learn a ton but at the same time my efforts seem futile. Oh uh.. post your concepts here: http://pub51.ezboard.com/bconceptualdesign You'll make a lot of people happy

Question.. what kind of medium/tehcnique did you use for most of those drawings ^ to get them soo smooooth?

[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: Nova ]

[Rid]

Whoa fantastic!

[horstenpeter]

Hey welcome back, I hope you're here to stay ?

Still remember you from the time I was just lurking, you have been missed a lot. Your posts and tutorials taught me a lot (and still do!).

As for the pictures you posted, I'm in awe. Love your style and your skill.

[Cos]

woah welcome back man.. nice entrance hehe. Top class stuff fred, your rendering style is amazingly tight yet still has a sketchy looseness which is really impressive. Easy to lose that in all the rendering, u can see they were done quick.. some have a very Frazetta feel too, the more characature ones I think. Looking forward to seeing more, set your page up and get those oils photographed soon!

btw, I remember you talking about a comic you were going to work on for DC, whats the latest with that?

[fffredffflickssstone]

Aquamire--Jess- Sorry about that, there is another guy coming out from your neck of the woods next semester to attend the school. Since you both are coming from the same place, I thought there might be a connection, my bad. Many apologeez�Hope you can come out, theres a lot happening, and so many people are getting so good, it is a great inspiration to be there.

Gimbal8�the skulls were just warm ups. These were drawn from actual skulls, we have one that has muscles strapped to the entire right side and the other side a bare skull. We do warm ups at the beginning of each class, with the expressions class, we start with these. These are ten minute warm ups. They are the full size on the page. The one with three was just more of a composition exercise. These really help me assess where I am with the day and my ability or not to draw during that class. If I feel like I am going to draw badly, I will lean more on construction for the day. We do have an exercise where we take one of the skulls and ask each person to come up and attach(sculpt) a muscle to the face locating its point of origin and its insertion,(in clay) this is a good memory exercise, and it helps understand the muscles in three dimensions.

And yes, this place is full of talent, and soon to be greats�that�s why I like this place, it is inspiration all the time�and from everywhere, so there are many great opinions and ideas being shared and debated.

Immi-thanks, and glad to be back. The stir up, well, I heard about that. Sounded pretty funny, when I went to look, the link was broken or down or gone or something. That whole thing should never have been public, but he decided to post it on his site�and wow, you guys found it and went further than we did. After I wrote my letters, and I saw the argument going nowhere, I realized two things, this is going nowhere ever, and why am I doing this anyway??? I always get irate when someone rants, I just need to know when to say something, and when not to say anything. In that case, silence is golden.

Manta2saint-I agree, there is always room for improvement, I don�t care who you are, including greats like Sargent, Frazzeta, Repin, Rockwell, etc. what improves in artists is clarity, what we see, how we see them and then depict them. That part, coupled with practice that leads to better manual dexterity, which leads to finer precision, fresher brushwork, etc. All those levels of creating images can be improved, and they all increase in their potential individually, and/or simultaneously�ok, science class over,getting in over my head here�

JasonN-where has spooge been???

El scoono-Pratt and the Art Students League was where it all began. The artists shared ideas, and I think instructors as well. Are you working currently in the arts? Illustration is tough to break into, but once you are going for a while, develop a name, it isn�t tough to get consistent work. Remember with it too, paint what you love first, don�t do arbitrary imagery, it wont show your enthusiasm as well as doing the things you love to do. When I first started, I started in the skateboard industry, a place I was highly involved with, and loved. It was an easy transition into doing art comfortably. Any job is uncomfortable, but if you enjoy the art you are allowed to produce, it makes it easier to do it and commit to doing it.

Zorglub, meatspoon, strata, Rid, geelimp, horsetenpeter -thank you for the kind words�

Flexible Elf- thanks, I couldn�t get back into my old account, I couldn�t remember my pass word. I think I have a few other versions of this name too, they are all dead with the original name till Dhabih sends me my password�

Lunatique-if you cant see the site, it might be down till the end of the month. That happens at those stupid free site places, if you go over the limited bandwidth, the site is down till the end of the month. I cant wait to get a real site�

Dr Bang-study both from life and books. Books can only show you so much, and they only show you it in 2 dimensions, seeing it in reality, being able to walk around the object, pick it up, use it, etc. are all the experiences that make studying from life so valuable. We record experiences in our brain computer�they make invention easier to do, they make believeability more convincing to all, and they help us design the experience. Absolutely draw from life, it needs to be part of the whole repertoire�

S4Sb-as soon as I can scan some of my own in, I will post the concepts. All the other concepts I have I cant post yet due to work legalities�kinda ridiculous, but rules is rules�.

Nova- congrats on the job�learn all you can from Dhab, he is amazing� Can you ask Dhab to email me over my old FFS password account number.

Cos-Yeah, I gotta get those oils up. The book, well, they wanted too much from me. They wanted 3.5 painted pages a week. That means, pencils and painting, that is a lot of work. I also wanted a life, and the project I do for the comic industry is going to be, or in my eye, has to be top notch or I don�t want to do it. 3.5 pages a week means shitty product and that�s something I don�t want to have attached to my name ever again. I have done enough shitty stuff to never want that for myself. Just a standard I am setting for myself, which eventually I think every artist needs to do with himself/herself to realize where they have been going without aim�schools keep one in check, that is why I am thankful to have the Atelier, I cant get lazy. Having a freelance career can begin the downfall of an artist, especially artists of today, who are so preoccupied with so many other distractions surrounding us. Or just getting too greedy with having lots of work, and/or fame, success a.k.a. the comics industry in the early nineties�I have a few other good things lined up, I don�t want to say anything before getting em though for fear of jinxing myself�

[Markus]

Hi Ron!
Great to have you back online. Excellent examples...my my, I notice some real improvement over the earlier things of yours I've seen -- if that's possible. Both encouraging and discouraging to me. I just wish there was a Watt's-like atelier here in Northern California. If you hear of anything let us know on the Forum. Man, would I love to be able to spend 5 years learning and teaching at Watt's like you!!! Andrew Burward Hoy is certainly someone I'd love to be mentored by.

I've been looking for books and reference material on Reilly for quite awhile. Nothing to speak of online except for Feragasso's book. Although I'd agree Feragasso's drawings are not the best example - I think the methodology is still fairly well laid out, for those who want to explore it but cannot attend Watts or another school teaching this technique. I can't find much on the Reilly palette either. Dick Blick Art Supplies used to sell a packaged set, but I haven't been able to find it recently. Although they still sell the Sanden palette - and Sanden based his on Reilly, from what I understand. If you know of Reilly learning/teaching material I can get my hands on without being able to come to Watts, let us all know here on the Forum.

Thanks again for posting, and taking time to respond to folks.

[CyberArtist]

Fred, spooge has been off working on Star Wars: Episode 2, and probably about to start work on Episode 3 if he hasn't already.

[Malachi Maloney]

Very impressive stuff.
I really like the one of the heavy set guy, the lighting is beautiful in that piece.

Can't wait to see some of those paintings.

M

[lookitsfrank]

welcome back ron. it's good to see someone with your expertise here. I just wanted to give a quick THANK YOU for posting your stuff here and for hanging out to mentor us uneducated fools. I learn so much from just looking at your stuff. by the way, what's the average age for a student at the school that you teach at? and is it open to the public or do you have to be admitted first? man, I'm demanding and full of questions. heh.
Frank

[klaivu]

I was wondering where this guy had been ..
I love your work.

[fffredffflickssstone]

Markus-unusual coincidences. I was looking through a magazine today, and there was an article on John Sanden. I had never heard of him prior, I was blown away by the guys art. He is very impressive. I just ordered his book and raped his website of all the portraits on it. I am studying his technique, which is a more refined version, and more colorful version of how zorn and sorolla worked.

As for their Palettes, Sandens and Reilly�s, don�t worry about them. The ferregasso book is a great book to check out, so your in good shape with the technique. We at the Atelier changed methodologies a bit to include some philosophies from other contemporary schools of thinking. This I think is what art schools need to continue doing, refining the craft till there is one philosophy that can govern the teaching methodology of art. Art is really just visual science. Everything visually can be applied to a category, or a theory can be attached to, so, learn the theories, practice them, becoming intuitive with the information. The practice makes it effortless.

The palette. Find a simple one. Start with Zorns, or the basic Velasquez palette to practice with. Zorn�s palette is nothing more than White, Black, Yellow Ochre and Venetian Red. THE two paintings here that I grouped into this are painted sith that palette. You can see we can make good flesh colors, greens, blues,purples, its just a matter of exploration with your tube colors, not from the computer, and learn how to make mixtures. Mixing paint in the computer is an entirely different process, with training from really painting, color is much easier to handle when you work digitally.

Velasquez� basic palette consists of white, black, yellow ochre, ultramarine blue, and burnt sienna. The burnt sienna acts as your red, thus giving you a useful palette to work from. There is a basic earth tone palette that has more colors in it, i.e. white, black, yellow ochre, alizarin crimson, sap green, burnt sienna, burnt umber, and I think cad red, and or cad yellow. This palette however, contains more color than you might be able to handle early on, or, too many choices. Work with small palettes to begin with to learn color control, if you are just learning to paint, stick with black and white, or burnt umber and white, so as to learn to draw with paint.

As for figure studies. Get ferragasso�s book, and study his concepts, with exception to most of the head drawing stuff. He goes way over board with the forehead, cheeks, etc. His figure info is much more helpful. Then, go find some weekday classes or workshops where a model is hired, or ask someone close to you to pose for you. Then draw, and draw�studying from photos is a good substitute temporarily, but there are many false impressions that can be made for the lack of 3 dimensional depth. We need that 3D to understand what is volume, what is edge, what shapes are really what shapes, etc. Life is the real way to go. If you work from photos, keep em black and white. Don�t go overboard with color images. Since color �is� value, certain values may end up misrepresented if the true nature of what is seen is not entirely understood. Turning the images to black and white just help to understand this, it mutes out extreme color shifts, and turns everything into form�

Hope that helps a bit�

Cyberartist-Damn, spooge has a cushie life. That project would be fun to work on. I hope he is enjoying himself.

Malachai/Klaivu-thank you both, just been bustin my ars trying to get better. When I am on the computer too much, it crunches away valuable work time. I just need to develop a better, more manageable time schedule�

Lookitsfrank-the average age of the school, there is no average. The range is pretty extreme. I guess, to be safe, the average age is between 17-45, we have some jr high school . We also have a great number of older folks coming in. There is no admittance, just show up with enthusiasm, and the willingness to learn, and its all good.



Both these images are done in the zorn palette...

[ February 15, 2002: Message edited by: fffredffflickssstone ]

[Markus]

Hey that's great stuff Ron! thanks for the confirmations on things I've been thinking about too. I'm getting back into gouache myself, but my tendancy is to use it like watercolor rather than acrylic or oils, (or like gouache !!!)

Glad to see we're big fans of the same painters. Valasques is my favorite painter, Zorn is my second favorite -- my wife is Swedish/American and my brand new baby son's middle name is Anders... after Zorn. Pretty funny.

I was interested in Reilly's palette mostly 'cause it's always interesting to see what paints other artists select. I finally got down to four basic colors on my oils palette several years ago and I recommend a limited palette to others as well too. I think you'll like some of the things in Sanden's book, it's very clear and concise.

I'd love your opinion on the digital flesh page in my digitallaprima.com web-site (look in the workshop area). Just getting this new website going again after critical-depth had to quit. Hope I'm not causing more harm than good with my experimental digital flesh palette. (As well as the other comments in my "workshop" area.) You can use the private contact button on the forum or just email me rather than clog up the forum threads, or keep this one going. Thanks again for your posts, looking forward to seeing your oils and tutorials.

btw, if Watt's ever offers weekend or week-long workshops...I'm there.

[fffredffflickssstone]

Markus-I checked out your website. It is very informative. The Creative Illustration section did not open at all. In fact, there were just a bunch of yahoo link pages but nothing to link to. I think the evil Yahoo doesn�t want you doing that�are you going to get it up and running again? I was working on the same thing but I ran into a problem with a German publisher who was/is reprinting the books. I don�t believe they can reprint creative illustration because the plates for the book all belong to artists I know, and no one has contacted them about it. I commend you for doing this though as that is the definitive book on illustrating.

I have a couple more books for your book list.

Composition

-Henry Rankin Poore Composition in Art a must have, the definitive book on the subject

-Edgar Payne Outdoor Composition the only other book I have found with good info on the subject, Henry�s book deals with both figurative and outdoor subjects.

Anatomy

Eliot Goldfinger -Human Anatomy for Artists : The Elements of Form


Oil Painting

Richard Schmids book-Alla Prima, everything I know about painting
Tom Brownings-Timeless techniques for Better Oil Painting He worked with Haddon Sunblooms techniques, his paintings may not be that quality, but the book is very informative�

All the other books I have now, with exception to Sandens 29 steps book.

One thing on your site, I would pick a better reference to exemplify with regards to light and shadow. That guitar player image looks like a second generation newspaper image. What I would do is show a very clear image of very obvious values. Only reason I mention this, is when showing off the �righter� ways of working with art, the clearest and most obvious examples are necessary to show, as, if we show bad examples, and not call them as such, those who are learning might misinterpret that as a good example of what to look for when referencing.


All your other write ups are very clear and concise making the learning process easy.
Now if there was only a way to have a figure drawing class online�

If I may ask, what is your full time profession? And, is it freelance or do you work for a corporation/company??? Just asking�


As for the Reilly and Sanden palettes�I agree, knowing what others use is a great place to start. But, once you know color, you can virtually go with any palette, no matter how garish the colors, and make em work. I have been toying with a palette that consists of Lemon Yellow, Cad Yellow, Thalo Green, Viridian, Cobalt Blue, Thalo Blue, Rose Madder, Cad Red Light, in gouache it would be flame red�cad orange and violet, black and white. I can achieve any earth tone with the right mixture, proving to myself that color is again, just another science to master�

The digital flesh section is actually well written. You go to great lengths to make sure no one just assumes that this is the way it has to be. Color does what color does on the face bit breaking it down onto the primaries is correct and should help shed some light on things. Keep up the great website. Places like this are important to have.

I also like the images you did for the forum, especially the portrait. Very loose and fun to look at.

I am currently outlining a book for new generations of artists, a C.I. for the 21st century. I would love to get a publisher so all I would have to do is sit and write it rather than write it in my spare time, but whatever, it will get done. I m going to put up much of it online as I am writing it, and if there are areas that need reworking, I am hoping through crits that people will let me know what is missing or not working.

Hope to see you sometime. Keep up the great site, and good luck with your art.

We are going to slowly introduce weekend workshops with the school, right now we are establishing drawing marathons between semesters, 12 hour sittings with models. I am looking forward to this. I am currently working on doing traveling seminars, but I need to find some schools that are really worth doing it with, or what I mean is, very committed art schools. These are all things we are shooting for in the future.

[Markus]

Wow Ron, thanks for taking the time for some feedback, and encouragement. It means a lot.

I'll definitely change the bad newspaper example, it's been bugging me, I know it's wonky but...so many things, so little time. I was talking to the painter Robert Burridge awhile ago and he told me his own rule for self-critique... "If you wonder if "x" is not quite right in your drawing or painting, you already have your answer." I should've changed the pic long ago...

I know those books, yep, I should definitely add them. I have and love Payne's and Schmid's especially.

I'm full-time freelance, by the way. I do a lot of themed environmental and architectural illustration work usually, 'cause it's steady income, but it's the figurative work and narrative I've always loved, so the digitallaprima website is intended to go that direction. Like you said yourself, do the kind of work you love Until recently have (luckily?) been so buried with work and deadlines I've not been able to participate in the forums like I planned, nor work on my website, nor update my portfolio ...nor finish up the Loomis C.I. stuff. I know you can relate. I do sometimes think about going back to work for a company...ah well. I've got friends in the gaming industry up here, and they keep asking me -- well, they did until so many lost their jobs in this last years massive lay-offs. I actually used to work in L.A. in the early 90's - but came back to Northern California when the L.A.economy collapsed back then. Got married and now have a new baby...life moves on

Thanks for the note on the Loomis C.I. stuff, I'll try to get the links working this weekend directly to my digitallaprima site for the first two sections. The Yahoo/geocities site keeps shutting off 'cause of too much bandwidth. I'm sure my digitallaprima host will have a cow too - so I'll move it to another more permanent site as soon as I can.

I'd heard rumours of the German publication of Loomis C.I. but haven't seen anything concrete. If I get a cease and desist I'll of course have to comply, but until then I hope at least a few people on the Forums can take advantage of this.

Love your idea for a new C.I. I've thought about it myself, but since I don't really teach much and I don't get the time I need to improve on figurative work, I don't think I've got anything like the quals you do. I'll be eagerly awaiting your online stuff, and will hopefully give useful crit.

Maybe see you at Comicon in august

[snarf]

Holy gopher!

[snarf]

... and now a concrete thought. :P Are the head studies at the bottom of Jeff Watts, Ron?

And more importantly, does Steve Olds have a page or somewhere to view his work?

[The Magic Pen]

Again masterful !@

[Dizzogg]

Ron, Great to see you posting. It is awesome to see your work and your progression. You've been working hard it seems..... whew....

Dont know if you remember me talking to you about Nghia Lam, but by the time I wanted to pick his brain at work...He left for greener pastures....Oh well...So much to learn... A lot of it is just applying my lazy ass to open my sketch book and draw. You are inspiring fo sho! Keep em comin no doubt, and definitly give a shout when your tuts and other endeavors are online...They mean a lot to the community as you can see!!

[Rinaldo]

Hey Ron=)

man I can't believe you're actuialy still getting better at this. blows my mind.
that sketch page of the guy with the cool hat is amazing, got a bigger res version of it? *drool*

some of the stuff on your site i haven't seen before, not sure how new that site is tho. I dig the ink drawing demo pic. Do/show more fantasy/sci-fi/imaginary stuff alright! you're so good at it.

I feel like typing something long, drawn out and profound to say about how good you are. but it's too late/early in the morning for me to pull it off. so I'll shut up.
Suffice to say *ahem* that art forums aren't as fun without ya. =)


Oh, and thanks for reminding me (not for the first time mind you) that I really need to do some more bloody life drawing. ^_^

[Xoco]

different topic: what�s about these nudity hints? is it a us-political correctness thing or just a running gag? on lumental I even saw the warning "slight toplessness". can�t be true that it is meant serious, can it? last question: am I too stupid to understand?

[lookitsfrank]

Xoco: hrm. He might be referring to the "large" guy that he did a sketch of. after all, who wouldn't find that more offending and disturbing than a nude female?

[DiXter]

Wow..

You make me wanna try harder.. shit!!
absolutley amazing sketches..