After another tedious day, I’m almost to the point where I can transfer the image to my canvas. The drawing is all light and shadows–no shades of grey–because that’s all that will be transferred, via tracing paper.

Well, here’s my first day sketching the model, using the tedious process I described previously. And believe me, it took till the end of the day to come up with anything remotely resembling her! I feel I should mention that this is a horrible photo of her; she’s actually very pretty and young, and tired after posing for 6 hours! And I have no idea how to paint curly hair. I guess the teacher will help me out.

This fascinating work of modern art, symbolic of the longstanding plight of dyslexic lepers in Kurdistan, is evidence of the artist’s burgeoning vulnerability… Ah, I’m only fooling, it’s just me trying out oil paints for the first time. Stunning ain’t it? The teacher calls this “the fleshy ball.” It’s basically an opportunity to mix the right colors to paint caucasian skin, and, for newbies like me, an opportunity to get used to using a color palette.

One day down. After a couple lectures about the oil painting process, we practiced by drawing a plaster bust. The models will arrive on Wednesday. The method they’re teaching is very meticulous, essentially the same as the Bargue drawings I was doing a while back, but one thing that surprised me is that we’re doing all our drawing/painting about 8 feet away from the easel! What that means is the canvas is aligned with the subject.

Couldn’t sleep on the plane, so I pulled out my iPad and started painting this classic photo of Ariana. I applied some of the concepts from an oil painting handbook recommended by the teacher of the class that I start tomorrow. I might come back to this after I’ve actually been through the class.