Skully

The following skull studies are three of my four most recent oil sketches done at Geoff’s. Geoff has a human skull that he bought over eBay (and no, it doesn’t come from a prison in China, but rather from Africa – which is equally sketchy in my opinion, but at least it’s being put to good use…). Each was painted within a three-hour period.

It’s actually quite cool to paint a skull: it’s human head form, but bone is of course an entirely different plate of beans than flesh. Easier, since you don’t get the semi-transparent effect of skin. I drew some skulls in my anatomy drawing course at ACAD, but they were plastic models, and always really quick sketches. (And at times we were encouraged to draw them so large that they were cut off on all four sides of our gigantic drawing paper!)

The first one was a conscious effort to use chiaroscuro and to move from darkness/ambiguity to light/clarity of form. I hoped to approximate the kind of falling-off of detail that might occur in shadow. I was really blown away when I completed this sketch successfully in 3 hours. I hadn’t thought I could do something this finished in such a short time.








The second sketch was an effort not to paint the skull in the same way as the first sketch. One commonality between them, however, was the attempt to paint the lights more thickly, and to leave (as much as possible) the mid-tones as suggestions of form. This is a characteristic of my painting in general at this point.








The third sketch was done on a larger, smoother canvas. I also selected a different angle from which to paint. (This photo is slightly cropped on the right compared to the canvas, although the skull does go off the right-hand side of the canvas.) It is, beyond question I think, the most successful of the sketches, but on the other hand, it is probably the most timid, as I painted it more clearly throughout. It has the most detail, and besides a somewhat aborted start, was the easiest to paint.





Two days after the last skull painting, on a Saturday, the model didn’t show up, so the group painted…. The skull! I decided I’d had enough of old Skully, and went home to work on my latest oil sketch….and actually did work on my oil sketch...eventually. Would that it were finished so I could post it here (…and get to work on whatever’s next)!



...Speaking of David Leffel....

I FOUND A PAINTING WORKSHOP WITH DAVID LEFFEL IN JUNE!!!!!!

I haven't registered yet, but I am going to be in this workshop!