MURAL ART in UCA Berkeley!

MURAL ART @ UCA BERKELEY!

Casa de Cultura

It has being 3 months since I've started working on my spare time on the weekends for a mural, to improve and give life to BRASIL CASA de CULTURA, (Brazilian culture house, where much happens there, from concerts to music to dancing to playing music and capoeira, covering cultures from south america to the north.)

It has being a very gratifying experience and lots of hard work, due to the sheer scale and specially due to the rough texture of the wall. I had the opportunity to coordinate 4 others hard working artists to make this vision come through. I've made numerous sketches and different color palletes of the illustration to be used for this mural that I hope to post them up here soon.

A lot of people have being asking to see a picture of it. So here is a glimpse of it. But if you would like please come by @ San Pablo and University in North Berkeley from a closer look and if you stop by on Saturdays or Sundays you may catch me there finishing it.

-Kjeld Pedersen   / Requeijao ( a type of soft cheese, my capoeira name)

Sunnier day! About 50 buckets of mixed paint...

 Early work, adding a figure playing the berimbau

Some early tests with projection in my garage, and card board masks but the area was too big for it. So we went with a grid.

Early sketch that didn't get used, the beginning of a game.

Cleaning it up. Splitting the planes and figures.

Used Sketch for Mestre Accordeon done at a coffee shop, the original is 10X larger!

More to come!

Life Drawing at the Old Safe House Atelier

I started last month attending Carl's Dobsky Life drawing classes and boy it has knocked me out, I assumed I knew how to draw, art school can teach you many things but the time is limited, you don't come out learning like the renaissance painters did, to be fair they took a life time in pursuit of better work. I was amazed how much more there is to learn and at Carl's studio it really shows that. With real empashis on a solid foundation, like how has being traditionally done for centuries. This is forcing me to see things in a new light.

Life Drawing at the Old Safe House Atelier - Part 3

Life Drawing at the Old Safe House Atelier - Part 3

It has being a while, but work hasn't stopped, still sorting them out to scan them finished, here is a glimpse of the 13 of them! Lucky number, hopefully soon a Gallery and some real paint in the future!

Glimpse of the pieces being worked on.

2012

Pencil on paper

24X10

Adding the chair

2012

Pencil on paper

10X20

Block in

This chair!

To be added, beautiful piece of furniture!

2012

Pencil on paper

10X20

Shots of work In progress

Block in

I just finished this one, but this photo is the WIP

2012

Pencil on paper

10X20

Shots of work In progress

Block in

Shots of work In progress

Of current one

Block in

Hey and this is me working on it!

Very exciting on how they've being turning out, no longer struggling so much with all the pieces of the puzzle, its like an orquestra, everybody are playing along I can focus on composition and finer details now, speed has increased too :-)

Ohhh and I'm proud to say that on this rainy day I taught Luana to draw this one, with what I've learned so far, posing while I drew. This is her first one, can you believe that? I taught her in less than 5 hours! Not bad!

Life Drawing at the Old Safe House Atelier - Part 2

Finished! Well for now, happy with the results,

 there's a fleur de lis tattoo to be added soon.

for now already onto the next one.

2012

Pencil on paper

10X20

It has being a while I haven't updated this blog but work has being steady and excited to show these new pieces to you, as I feel they keep evolving.

Here is the latest one I'm currently working on,

 

2012

Pencil on paper

12X8

2012

Pencil on paper

16X10

Here is the block in

2012

Pencil on paper

20X10

2012

Pencil on paper

14X18

Here is the block in

Life Drawing at the Old Safe House Atelier

So here we are 4 months in and thanks to the holidays I was able to put the last touch ups, frame the work, call them done and move on :-) , happy with the results, I hope you like it, bellow you'll find them individually.

2011

Pencil on paper

18X24

2011

Pencil on paper

14X20

2011

Pencil on paper

18X24

2011

Pencil on paper

11X17

NEW YEAR 2012!!! New drawing, here is the blocking sketch, starting to shade the face at the very early steps, needs to be softer. Still eager to paint and guess what, the oil paintings and boards just arrived!

Oh my forth drawing in progress, blocking is going faster now, happy with the proportions even more, shading in progress.

Here is my third drawing, happy with the results, progress made, lots learned, lots to learn, excited about the new one, in a couple of months who knows all will be instinct and may see some chances to paint!

Another blockin, proportions are good, but now I see some areas that could had rechecked, these drawing processes are to create shades at the right tone on the first time hitting the paper, to shade forms correctly base on its light source and proportions to be solid, so that moving to painting colors on oil becomes all about colors and not fixing patchy foundations.

This is my second drawing, unfortunately, I had to leave on vacation and didn't get to finish it, like her left side and head. Even though, I feel that's a good improvement from the previous.

Here is the sketch and initial shading of the areas in shadow according to the set light source.

So I went to this life drawing with my usual mind, draw as fast as you can, animation style, before the model changes pose, there it was, my familiar scribble proudly done in 2 minutes, and I look around and people have barely touched their papers, they had crazy plumb lines, measuring devices, some were walking around, others had sewing needles to measure the width vs height. I sure knew i was doing something wrong, and boy I still am, but I'm learning quickly!

Ironing out the shadows terminators, this will later serve for many things, one of them is to shade it with a technique of the old masters, avoiding multiple bounce lights and focusing on one first allows you to maintain your work within your grasp and allow to identify your problems so that they can be solved before extra complexity is added, a little bit like rendering in maya but without AO, raytrace, bounce, only one strong direct light.

It all starts here, the most important part, on the foundation of the proportions, look at an Alfons Mucha painting and you will see why it makes all the difference.