Transitions

The privilege of having my own studio in the basement has been replaced with the grace of having my own spot behind the couch of my new living room.

<-- Moving from my old studio

MOVING DAY IN PROVO

To my new studio -->








Honestly, though, I'm just grateful to still have a spot of my own to paint and jam out. (Notice the cool headphones.) I'd like to say that I paint to audiobooks and TED talks. And sometimes I do. Sometimes, though, it's more fun to zone out to some good music. My friends have sent in playlists of their favorite artists, as such I've become a bit of an enthusiast. I'm seeing Ed Sheeran and Rudimental on Tuesday, Vance Joy and London Grammar in November. Do you have any suggestions? I promise I'll think of you while I listen.

I'm making good progress on the verdaccio. Darin helped me fix the angle of the eyes--since remember the eyes must be parallel to the line beneath the nose which must be parallel to the line that parts the lips. Mine were originally a bit wonky.

That hair though. It's driving me crazy. I ended up blacking out the left side, I'll start over once I get back to Provo. Darin advised me to just black out the parts I don't like, but... well... I kind of took his advice.

I've started thinking about my own work. I'm still refining my craft, but I don't plan on only doing Renaissance reproductions. My dad took a cool picture of my eye with his new full frame that might be fun to paint, and I may consider doing a blow up of this little girl's hands. Painting body parts, though, will only do for so long, haha, so we'll see what else I come up with.

Thoughts?

Love \\ Christelle

Try It for 30 Days

Hey Blogosphere,
I'm going to China for two weeks for my grandma's 80th birthday, so I won't be writing much. While I'm gone, I'd like to challenge you to learn to draw.

This morning I came across this video on TED.com. Matt Cutts, a Google engineer, urged people to pursue something they've always wanted to try-- for 30 days. He says it takes about 30 days to make or break a habit.

Now here's my challenge to you. Go pick up a book, go find a good website, and for 30 days, just practice. You set the time. It can be 15 minutes a day, though I would recommend 30 minutes. If you're into multi-tasking put on an audio book or the radio. You'll be surprised at how proficient you can become in a few days, much less 30 days. Below are a few tips to get you started:

The biggest hurdle is learning how to see your reference. In elementary school we learned how to draw a stereotypical apple. But if you really look at an apple, it has different values--lighter where the light hits it and darker in recession. With modern photographs, pictures are so crisp and sharp that people's features seem to have lines--edges, when in reality, they're soft. So the next time you draw an apple, don't think about drawing an apple. Identify shapes and light.

Think. Where is the light coming from? How would that light affect your perception of the object? What is the object made up of? How would that affect your perception?

Hold your pencil at an angle. Quickly outline / sketch your reference to lay out everything. When working with pencil you draw light to dark but play around and see what works for you.

I used this book to learn to draw back in high school. Really it taught me how to see:

I'll try and check my email (christelle.t.xu@gmail.com) periodically if you have any questions, or comment below, I'll respond as soon as I get back to the states. Good luck!

Love \\ Christelle

Starving Artist

My price theory students are learning about "smoothing consumption" in two states of the world. Unless you save when you are in a good state, you'll starve in the bad state. Those that rely on painting as their sole income are subject to this model. They can either sell a painting and eat, or fail to sell and starve if they have not saved.

You never want to HAVE to paint for financial security. Darin

Darin (left) helping Kelly (right) with his painting :)

works at BeachBody (makers of P90x) so he never has to worry about feeding his family. It's almost impossible to paint when you're stressed about the painting, when you feel like to you have to produce. During those times, your work suffers because your mind is no longer on the details of the painting, and it becomes impossible to get lost in the work.

I felt a little bit of that this weekend. I was anxious about school, but mostly I was anxious to get the color done, which in retrospect is so silly, because there's no point in rushing. I had made so much headway on the verdaccio so quickly and had such good intuition that I was expecting that same result with color. Darin reassured me that the intuition would come, you'll learn to see what you need to see. Sometimes it's hard to see what's right in front of us:

Some people devote all their time to their art, and that's incredible, and many of them are consistently successful. When you have a family, you have to have derive financial security in some way, which is what Darin is doing. That being said he wishes he had more time to paint.

Love // Christelle