Robie Benve Art

Hello, this is Luna, the very energetic dog of my family in Italy. You never know what she's up to, it's always fun and adventure with her. I saw a cute picture of Luna on my niece's facebook wall and decided to give it a try. I wanted to make it colorful, so I started with a bright magenta ground color and made sure I let it show through till the end. I like the results. I want to paint more doggie pictures now!

"Self Portrait" 11"x14" Acrylic on canvas Cool, my first self portrait!  :) A few times I tried to pint myself looking in the mirror, but boy is it hard to keep the same expression. AND I found out I look terribly serious when I paint! So after a few failed attempts in the last year or so, today I finally decided to paint from a photo, and it has been MUCH easier. I did this today in short and hurried time periods between kids activities and errands, a true daily painting, started and finished in an afternoon (with many breaks). I have to say the breaks helped me getting back to it with fresh eyes, they actually made it easier. Overall I like it. Does it look like me?  I'm not sure, I'll have to ask my family, they'll usually tell me exactly how it is. : )

Work in progress of colorful portrait On Fridays I go to a figure painting class and I love it, but sometimes the model does not show up, and then we need to get creative. This time the traffic was awful, full of accidents here and there an the model must have been swallowed up by the chaotic situation because we did not see her. While we were waiting, still hoping she'd make it, the teacher posed for quick poses, just for warm-up drawings. That was nice. Then our fellow artist Chuck (pardon me Chuck but I can't remember your last name right now) volunteered to pose for us. The time available was quite limited, since we started late, so I still have to a little work to do on the the painting before I can post a finished photo, but this was the work in progress. I used a simple abstract landscape I had made some time ago as background, turned sideways, and had fun working with colors and contrast.

"Winter Is Coming" 12"x16" Acrylic on Canvas Available   I am really pleased with how this painting came out.  And to think that I used to be very intimidated by painting people, now I can do portraits that really resemble the model, woohoo!  :) I used a canvas that had an abstract pattern already painted on it, with the idea of covering the pattern in most areas, leaving only a few hints of it here and there. However, when I started the new painting, I really liked the pattern background and how it was peaking through everywhere, so I kept it visible as part of the composition. The model was wearing a warm scarf, and it made me smile when shortly after we got our first big snow of the year, she must have known that winter was coming, and coming soon. :)

Vibrant Portrait III Acrylic on Paper I have been having so much fun doing these colorful portraits at the figure drawing/panting class! We had the same model and the same pose for three weeks, and each weeks I did a colorful portrait of her with acrylics on paper. Seeing other artists drawing with charcoal vine, kind of made me miss drawing the figure with charcoal, but this colorful experimentation is too much fun. Next week we'll have a different model, that will keep her pose for three weeks again. I can't imagine giving up color for now, I plan of doing three colorful version of that model too. Thanks for stopping by!  :)

"Vibrant Portrait II" Watermedia on Paper Today at the model drawing/painting class we had same model and same pose as last Friday (It's a 3-week pose), everyone kept the same spot from last week so those who were continuing a painting could have the same angle. This is why this looks very similar to the one from last Friday - that you can see in a previous post-  though it's a brand new painting. I love doing these experimental colorful portraits! I try to use color temperature and value to make believable portraits, with unbelievable colors. So much fun! "Vibrant Portrait II", Detail I love painting colorfully, so exciting!  Next week I'll do another one, maybe changing position, and having a different view of the model, I heard some people won't be there next week, I could take their spot, we'll see.  :)

Vibrant Portrait I Watermedia on paper Today started a new session of my figure painting class and I had lots of fun experimenting with colors. I tried to render the beautiful model with bold and vibrant colors, using warm colors for the areas in the light and cooler colors for the shade.  Lots of decisions to make as far as color choices. The main thing was squinting at her and my painting to make sure I used value correctly. Darker colors for the shade and lighter for the light, keeping in mind that each color can be also warm or cool. So I had to juggle bright hues, temperature, and value, and hope that at the end ir made sense. My classmates said the colorful portrait looked a lot like the model, and that made me happy. Vibrant Portrait I, detail  

pastel portrait of model Last Friday I woke up in the morning and I was craving color. I wore a very colorful top by Rising International (I loove that brand!), I packed my never-used-before box of pastels, and headed to the figure drawing class. In one class I made two portraits of the model. Pastel portrait of model One looks more like him, the other looks like some relative of his, maybe his brother lol - but that's besides the point. What I really wanted to do is create a colorful portrait, using colors based on their value, not on their hues. So if it's light, it does not matter if it's yellow, blue or lime green, it will go on an area in full light. If it's a darker color it goes in the shade, no matter the color. Overall I was very happy with these first attempts of colorful portraits. Considering that it was my first time using pastels, I did pretty good I think.

"Remembrance" 9"x12" Oil on canvas panel I've officially broken the ice:  for the first time I painted a portrait with oils! AND it came out pretty resemblant to the model, amazing uh? :)) I'm happy with the flesh colors that I came up with. Skin color is not easy to mix, and I with my limited palette I was able to create nice combinations of lights and darks, though the photo changed the hues a little. I don't know if it is a good painting at the stranger's eyer, but it's great to me because it's the first one of a its kind. I love giving myself new challenges and get over my own fears (or at least trying to! lol) Thanks for stopping by, Robie

Phase 1 of a two-week pose We are in October already, can you believe it?? After painting every day in September, I changed a little bit gears for this month. My goal is to keep painting as often as I can, but work on bigger paintings. This means my postings will become more sparse, but it does not mean I'm not working. :) Yesterday I started a painting a sunset on a 22" x 28" canvas. It's going to be a bigger version of a small one that I did in September. Today I went to my weekly figure painting session, and started my first ever oil painting of a model. She'll be  back next week with the same pose, so it's not even close to finished yet. My biggest challenge is mixing flesh colors. It has been fun overall, and for being the first oil portrait I can only be happy with the midpoint results. We'll see how it evolves next week. :) Have a wonderful day!  :)

Model Drawing - work in progress Charcoal During my 30 paintings in 30 days challenge, some days I'll have to draw instead of painting, especially on Fridays when I go to a 3-hour life drawing session - very hard to get in, always full, but this time I made it, yay! Today I went to the first class of the Life Drawing session, and this is a two week pose, which means the model will come back next week and she'll sit in the same exact pose, wearing the same expression. So I'll have the opportunity to finish this drawing next week. Preliminary sketch of model done in about 30 minutes. In this life drawing class the model poses for a periods of 20-30 minutes with breaks in between. In three hours we usually get three, max four periods of posing, which is not a lot, really. In the first period I did a preliminary sketch, to get my hands warm after a long time without drawing models, and to test the lines of the composition. Then I started the drawing using a med...