The Art of Will Sentman

Vincent Desiderio Workshop (Indirect Painting)

2010-10-25T08:36:00.000-07:00

Once again, Vincent Desiderio has come to the Academy to share his thoughts with those who seek it in a 2 day workshop. Vincent is a humble and strong minded man, with a plethora of artistic knowledge ranging from painting/drawing technique to the business of art. I for one take great pleasure in his lectures, for each one I learn something new, or awaken a thought long forgotten. If you are unaware of who Vincent Desiderio is, I suggest to do a bit of research, for he is an artist I would highly recommend to anyone.

This is a drawing done during his lecture to show how one can achieve painting Form correctly using the effect of warm and cool color combination. The image on the left is explained as the classical approach apposed to the image on the right which is considered the romantic approach (seen in Eugene Delacroix's paintings)

Vincent Desiderio beginning his lecture to the students of PAFA

After the lecture, we began to work on our own studies. We started by doing charcoal drawings on Reeves BFK paper, focusing primarily on the effect of light and shadow. Once the drawing was at a good stage, amber shellac was poured and wiped across the drawing to seal it from the paint that would later go on top. Once preparation was complete, we watched a demo by Vincent and began our own paintings.

Here is the demo pieces Vincent Desiderio did for the class. The objective was to create an optical color effect by placing a warm on top of a warm, then by tapping the paint down with either a finger or stiff brush a transparent blue or neutral gray would appear between the warm ground (amber shellac seal) and warm color mixture. The other goal was to make the painting seem as if a light bulb had gone off in your painting to enhance the effect of light and shadow.

Close up from the painting above to maybe get a better idea of what I am talking about.

During our lunch break on the first day, Vincent put on a video for us all to watch that explained his absolute disgust for the Art Market. The video we watched was The Mona Lisa Curse by art critic Robert Hughes. After watching this I can see why Vince would want to show it to young artists. And I insist you all watch yourselves.

I myself will be doing another painting based off of this method taught by Vince and post it soon as a step by step for you all to see.

Illustration, Life Painting, and Still Life

2009-09-24T20:17:00.001-07:00

Its already 5 weeks into the semester here at PAFA. Time is flying by with so much still to do.
Its a real shame how time seems to pass right by when your enjoying something. Sigh.....but we must not waste the time we still have left. Here are three primary things I am working on at the moment.
Here is the Illustration I have been working on, still once again in progress. The purple background no longer worked for what I am going for, so I decided to remove it. To me this Illustration should have been done by now, but I have been fighting several problems. The first big issue was a poor drawing underneath. I was hoping to take this painting with mostly glazes, but that turned out to be a bad idea due to the amount of time it would take to finish. So with the Advice of Dave Golas, I made my attempt to his it with more opaque paint. In doing so, I lost track of the planes and the painting went to mud. At this stage I changed my background, and took my time evaluating the planes of the Hand. This should be a lot less of a hassle.
This painting SHOULD be done by next week. I am excited to get back to work on it. This needs to be finished for the Boston Comic Convention. I need at least one pieces to show to the other artists there. I will not screw myself over again, this is part of my career.

Here is the Life Painting I have been working on in Renee Foulks Class. This is my Third week into this painting. I feel it as been taking a turn for the better. It is a difficult pose not to mention the lighting in the room is all natural. So this planes of the form do not pop so well. This exercise is all about subtly. Which is something I am striving to learn. Even though this pose is like pulling teeth, I am learning.

Here is another thumbnail for Advanced Still Life. I am pretty sure I like this a lot better than the last one I posted. I intend to go with this for my final Painting. It should be interesting painting on something scaled like this. I am so used to standered sized panels or canvas.

Drawings, Figure Paintings, and Illustration

2009-09-20T20:41:00.000-07:00

Here is this weeks recent work. I only have a few anatomy sketches, a Life Painting in progress, and the Illustration I am working on for my portfolio. With the addition of my two liberal Arts classes this year, my work has lowered in amount, but quality of quantity I guess.

Here is my illustration in progress. I tried to tighten it up a bit, but in the process I lost to much detail so I went back in and did a bit of drawing with the paint. In the next stage I will be painting a lot more opaque. I have been using the method of several of my favorite illustrators, Donato Giancola, Dan Dos Santos, and David Palumbo. Each of these artists start with a strong drawing beneath their painting, then glaze over it. My drawing was not at the level it needed to be before I started the painting. So to fix my issues, I will be going back in and re establishing my values using opaque paint.

Here is a short study done in Foulks Class.
This is my thumbnail for a still life I will be working on for the next 5 weeks in Advanced Still Life. I threw in a bunch of glass bottles, metal, and cloth for these are weaknesses of mine I want to conquer.
Anatomy Sketch
Anatomy Study

Life Drawings, Life Paintings and Illustration

2009-09-15T09:22:00.000-07:00

So the school year has finally come. Three weeks under the belt and no post? Well here comes the weekly post again. Every week I will have new art or art in progress showing everyone what I am up to in and outside of class. I hope you all enjoy and maybe you can learn from my mistakes and successes.

Here is an illustration I am working on. This is the first stage block in. My goal here is just to distinguish my local colors and values. I still need to hit my darker dark's ad lighter light's.
But overall its off to a good start. (Oil on Paper on Panel)

Here is a quick study in oil of the figure. Only focusing on the big shapes and simple Values.
I dident quite hit the mark I wanted, but better luck next time. (Oil on Panel)

Here is another study done of the same figure (90min study) The goal of this painting was to once again stick to the big shapes and basic values. I will be doing a 8 week painting of this pose, so I would like to have a few studies under my belt before I get to the big one. (Oil on Panel)

Here is a study done in Studio Anatomy (20 min study) (Charcoal on Ruff Newsprint)
Here is a drawing done in Sidney Goodman's Life Drawing class. Not quite a finished drawing, more like a study. (Charcoal and Conte on Ruff Newsprint)

Recent Work - Landscape/Illustration

2009-07-09T20:07:00.001-07:00

Here is Some of my most recent work done this week. The Above image is a landscape painting I did today in Philadelphia during the last DPC meeting. This was a several hour painting done directly from the subject. Overall I was pretty happy with it, being that landscape painting is pretty much new to me. The image below is one of the Hand based illustrations I will be starting. My goal as an artists is to get into the illustration field, while still doing fine art work.
So this painting allows me to study the human hands anatomy, while allowing me to begin my illustration Portfolio. More pics are soon to come of this painting in progress.

Landscape Painting

2009-07-05T07:23:00.001-07:00

So its the summer.....and even though school is out, the painting never stops. At first I wasent painting anything or even drawing. Bad idea. Lately I have been doing landscape
painting with my good friends Mike Manley and David Golas. Here are the first two landscapes
done this summer.
This was my first landscape painting. I had a struggle with this through out the day. In the end I went back and fixed some of my drawing issues, leaving my painting flat. My key problems were all ones I've been lectured on countless times by friends and professors. Its to easy to lose track of advice. Part of being an artist is the ability to sit down and focus on your techniques until they become 2nd nature. Just jumping into a work of art or exercise can be fatal in the long run.
Here is my second Landscape painting in progress. This painting went a lot better. I broke all those poor habits and took my time. First I blocked in all the big shapes with my biggest brush. Using a small brush in the beginning makes it too easy to forget abut the big picture.

Here is the finished painting for the day. Progress has been made since my last landscape. I am pumped to go forth and start another now.

Vincent Desiderio Workshop

2009-04-05T21:41:00.000-07:00

Well folks it nothing else is to be said, this weekend was the most inspiring/informative two days I have had in a long time. I spent Saturday and Sunday with one of the most profound contemporary artists today. working from 9-5, two days straight with Desiderio, sure makes the brain wanna explode....but in the best of ways. Ill cut to the chase here. The workshop involved learning how to work from a photo as a painter. Saturday's agenda was based off of lectures, photographing the model, and the beginning stages of the drawing/painting. Sunday was a full 7 hours of intense painting full of critical advice by Vincent Desiderio.

The first painting here is the under drawing/painting before any real color is added

The 2nd image involves the addition of light and value on the figure, with the inclusion of background.

The 3rd image consists of the addition of color temperature.

The final version of the painting consisted of refining details, tweaking the color/value/anatomy.

Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings

2009-04-02T20:23:00.001-07:00

Once again I have been super slack ass in terms of posting my current art. Shame on my...bad
The body of work you see here is some of my in class as well as out of class projects.

This is my head sculpture in John Horn's Figure Modeling class. For a decent time it was progressing slowly, but now that I know what has to be fixed I will begin to catch in in time to have it casted in plaster.

This is my most recent figure painting in Jill's Basic Color class. This is after one session of figure work. I am happy with some of my color choices, but so far its an unresolved painting.

This painting was done in Pyform's Life Painting class. This is the result after 2 weeks of working. My big issue with this paining is how dwarfed I have made her. Due to poor figure planning and poor Patience, I jumped into the painting with out fixing my proportion issues.

This painting was done in my Still Life Painting class. After three weeks of work this was my end result. I am happy with very few things in this painting. I feel for the amount of time put into it, there should be a much better end result.

This is my most current painting which was started tonight during the 12th session of the Dirty Palette Club. (http://thedirtypaletteclub.blogspot.com/) It is an interior painting of the Academy's cast hall. Within one session I have managed to block in my entire painting and establish some of my values. This will be an ongoing project until the end of the semester, or until deemed complete.

Here we have a figure drawing done in Scott Noel's Life Drawing class. This was a one session drawing done using pastel on crappy newsprint paper. This is not the finished drawing, but due to my camera battery dying, this is what I have at the moment.

Here we have another drawing. This is a cast drawing of old Benny Franks done in Patrick Connors Cast drawing class. This turned out to be a pretty dame good drawing for only 2 hours worth of work. I will most likely be taking some of my spare time to finish this drawing.

This is a thumbnail sketch of my next 4 week still life painting soon to come.
Nothing to special, just to give an idea of what my composition will look like.

And finally my most recent drawing in Scott Noel's Life Drawing class.
Here we have John the model from the back.

Portrait, Nude Figure, Still Life

2009-02-26T13:15:00.000-08:00

Here are some recent studies done this week.

This is a One session study of a clothed male model, done in Pyform's Life Painting class.
For the most part I am happy with the end results of this pieces. Mainly due to the fact I only spent about 2 hours tops.

This painting is the second session of a nude female model done within Jill's Basic Color class.
This painting started out as a really nice underpainting, then brutally tortured over the next few poses. Only until the last 20 min pose was I able to save it. Although the Painting lacks a finished quality, I felt it turned out ok for being the first time I have painted an African American using color.

This is my most recent painting which I am currently working on. This is the result of my wipe out within 2 hours of work. This painting, when completed, will be submitted into a gallery.
The Exhibition title is " Art of the Flower", located at the Philadelphia Sketch Club.

Still Life, Figure Paintings and Pastel Drawings

2009-02-21T15:59:00.001-08:00

WOOOOO!!!! Its that time again. Here I have some drawings and paintings done throughout the week including some previous work done this year.

Here are some thumbnails done in still life class. I think I like the composition of these, but I plan on doing a 3-4 week painting so I will be attempting the entire still life. For being small quick studies I am impressed with way they turned out.

This is my most recent painting done in Pyform's life painting class. After my class had a long discussion about wanting to paint a clothed model, our teacher brought one in. This study was quite difficult due to the dark, baggy shirt he was wearing. Also I had to break out some colors I do not have on my palette normally. I also decided to challenge myself and not use any black since I have a tendency to over use it.

This figure painting was a one week study using a wipe out technique. I had a bit of trouble with the left leg, which was never fully resolved. I am happy with how the values turned out.

This was done in my materials and technique class. The medium is egg tempera on rag board.
I had a lot of fun with this piece, but I do not think I would per fer this medium over oil any day.

Here we have another figure painting done in one session. Our model decided not to show up and out teacher, Pyform, posed for us. The drawing is not as far I would have liked it to be but, I am pleased with the color and value control. Which from my understanding is the goal of her class.

This is the first drawing I have posted from Scott Noel's life drawing class due to the quality of the work. Even though this drawing is still poor quality, its better than most of the others.
Every time I throw another layer of pastel, the drawing get muddy. Which from my understanding is a paper issue. I hope to try out the reeves bfk to see if that improves this issue.
Here we have another wipe out done of the human figure. The torso turned out to be very flat due to the lack of dark and shadows. Overall, I am not to happy with how this painting came out. The values are off, the drawing is poor, and the composition is bad. I hope the next session will help.

Here is the 2nd session of my still life. The metal tea/coffee thing ended up getting wiped off due to EVERYTHING going wrong with it. I wish I had more time to work on it now that I know what was wrong with it.

Oil Painting Portrait Study

2009-02-12T22:42:00.000-08:00

This was the painting I finished off with at the latest meeting of the Dirty Palette Club. The Process was rather slow shooting from good to bad and back again. In the end I decided to wipe it down. This photo was taken within the first hour of the pose. A couple issues prevented this from being a good study. The panel preparation was poor on my part. I decided to use a surface that had already seen two previous paintings on it, preventing me from making a decent wipe out. Also, it is a gessoboard brand panel. Which I have a horrible time getting paint to really grip to the surface, even with older paintings below it. Although I had a tough time working on this painting, I do like the end results seen in this photo. Its not quite how I would normally go about a portrait, but I do like the effect.

Self Portrait -Oil Paint

2009-02-08T10:34:00.000-08:00

This weekend I spent my time completing a self portrait for the Student Exhibit. The last self portrait I had done using (acrylic paint) was about a year and a half ago. The improvement I have seen come out of this portrait makes me feel great. Here below I have the steps taken throughout the painting. (Oil on Masonite) (8x10)

1. Image one is the finished block-in/wipe out. Looking back at this step I wish I had spent a little more time focusing on structure, due to the struggle I had in the next steps.

2. The second image was the focus on color, value/light. I felt I did a good job nailing the background, hair and clothing, but the face still needed to be changed.

3. The third image was done with detail work in mind. This was Issue number Uno. I discovered later on that I rushed into detail way to soon, (relaying on my block-in) after a crit by Mike Manley and Dave Golas. A lot of structure was incorrect, and with a little more Patience and better observation, this would not have taken as long.

4. The fourth image is a strong improvement of structure. I soaked in the advice of Mike Manley and grabbed my biggest brush, pre mixed my paints, and dived in there big shapes to repair the facial features.

5. Image five is the final results of the painting. Due to my deadline and drying time, I had to call it quits. Overall I am very impressed with the results and amount of improvement on my part.

DPC - Session 5

2009-01-23T19:45:00.000-08:00

Once again we did another still life to include all our members. We like weird things in the DPC, thats why our still life is so awesome. Tonight we had yet another member joining us from school,
WELCOME CHRISTINA WEAVER!!!
Tonight was a lot of fun painting out to good old Ozzy Osborne. DPC theme song - Crazy Train.
My paining did not go as far as I liked it to, but due to time, we did not paint as long as we normally do. We plan to continue this set up during the next session......as long as Mike's cat stays off the table in that time. (Oil on primed illustration board) (120 min Session)

DPC - Session 4

2009-01-23T19:35:00.000-08:00

The 4th session of the DPC was a still life we set up together. We did not like the idea of one person not getting to paint during the previous sessions so we decided to change things up a bit.
I felt this painting was a nice jump of improvement from my last few paintings. I took more time on my block-in and slowed my ass down to paint the planes of the objects, as well as lowering the amount of brush strokes used per load. Ever though this painting has its flaws, I am proud to say I am getting better.

(Oil on primed illustration board) (120 min session)

DPC - Session 3

2009-01-23T19:28:00.000-08:00

This painting was completed during the 3rd session of the DPC. Once again I struggled with many painting issues including, over blending, anatomy, and worrying about the little shapes to early in. Next time I will watch for these issues of mine. I rush to quickly when starting a painting. My impatience will be the death of my work if I do not learn to slow down.

(Oil on primed illustration board) (180 min session)

DPC - Session 1

2009-01-23T19:03:00.000-08:00

This was the very first meeting of the Dirty Palette Club held at PaFa. It consisted of David, Mike and I. We spent the morning reviewing each others work from the previous semester. The crits were very helpful for all of us I thought and I hope to set one of these up at the end of each semester. After trading thoughts, we headed over to Olga's pizza to grab some lunch, then it was off to the studio to begin painting. The session went well as Dave generously posed for us.
I found much struggle with my painting from beginning to end. Even though there was much stress, I learned a lot from my mistakes.

(The painting above was done in oil on primed illustration board) (90 min session)

The Dirty Palette Club-Session 2

2008-12-20T13:22:00.000-08:00

This was the second painting session since the school semester at PAFA had ended. My fellow friends, Dave Golas, Mike Manley and I decided to get together outside of class to further our painting skills. We spent the morning and afternoon painting, looking at other artists work, and eating delicious food at the thai restaurant near Mikes home. Its exciting to break loose from the models our teachers always set up at PaFa. Having the control to move the lighting, or pose of the figure is nice for a change. These sessions give me the chance to experiment with paint application, drawing issues, material use and many other questions I usually do not ask myself in the classroom. We intend to continue our outside education with activities such as, landscape painting, interior painting/drawing, and illustrative projects.

Its a great group and were always looking for more to join in our learning experience's.

(90 min alla prima portrait study)