Quick Studies Revisited

In the Fall of 1995, I enrolled in Craig Nelson's "Quick Studies" painting class at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. Class assignments involved painting directly from life (usually still life or live models, but sometimes landscapes on location). Unlike most other painting classes, these assignments were typically painted in an hour or less (often just 40 minutes), usually in either oils or acrylics. Decades later, I had the opportunity to reconnect with Craig during his workshops at Patris Studio and Gallery in Sacramento. Below are some of my efforts from his 2017 workshop. 

After years of painting in Photoshop, I really enjoyed picking up an actual brush and painting on actual canvas (well... ok, it was canvas board or illustration board, not stretched canvas, but it's still a big step away from "painting" on a computer screen). 

Craig returned to Patris Studio and Gallery for more Quick Studies workshops, and I was able to attend again in 2018 and 2019. Each time, I relished the opportunity to return to traditional media. For the 2017 workshop I had worked in acrylic, but for the next one I decided to break out the oil paints. Here are my efforts from the 2018 workshop. 

Oil paintings from the 2018 Quick Studies workshop

For the 2019 workshop, I opted once more to work in oils. This workshop focused entirely on figures (no still life or landscape). Painting a live model in oils brought back fond memories of art school, an exhilarating time in my life when I was fully engaged in the pursuit of art. As a student, I was well acquainted with the messiness of traditional media: getting paint on my hands and clothes, remembering to make time for mixing my palette and cleaning my brushes, or planning for how to carry home the wet paintings after the workshop is over... Since the animation industry went all digital (and I've had to spend whole days working in Photoshop just trying to make deadlines), I sort of forgot these things. Craig's workshop reminded me how messy painting can be, but also how much I loved painting in spite of the messiness.

This last painting here was started by me, but Craig worked over my painting as part of a class demo

(so some of the stronger brushwork and color here is actually his, not mine).

Looking back over the years and contemplating all of my efforts to improve my painting skills, I can’t think of anything that made a bigger impact than the practice of “quick studies.” Before quick studies, I did what many conscientious neophyte illustrators do: I overworked my paintings, second-guessed my color choices, belabored each brushstroke... I burned up many hours chasing a finish but not quite arriving at a satisfactory resolution - mainly because I was obsessing about details rather than the big structural decisions about value and color (the decisions that make or break your painting). This problem is not uncommon among art students (especially detail-oriented students like me). Craig first recognized this in his students at the Art Center College of Design, and so he developed the "Quick Studies" class (which he later brought to AAU, and his traveling workshops).

The idea of quick studies is simple: a time limit concentrates the mind. When you have no time for details and refinements, you are forced to work on big shapes, broad strokes and spontaneous color decisions... You learn to solve the big visual problems before getting lost in the details. You also get lots of "brush mileage" - a term Craig often used to describe what most art students really need. With mileage comes skill, and the confidence to solve paint problems efficiently. Brushwork becomes bolder, color choices more confident. Many students find that without the option to overwork a painting, they actually do better paintings. This was certainly true in my experience. By my last year in art school, I was able to arrive at a stronger finish in much less time. 

My traditional painting experience has carried over into my digital work, and the lessons from quick studies have proven especially useful for creating color comps, or rough color studies, in preparation for final paintings. Below is an example of a color comp, along with my finished painting for Russia from the video game Reversed Front: Bonfire. I used the comp as an opportunity to explore color and atmosphere. With the comp as a reference - or a starting point - I was able to focus on detail and refinement during the final painting. 

Rough Color Comp for Russia

Final Painting for Russia

Another example from Reversed Front: below is my color comp and final background painting for India. For this one, I did my color rough over a copy of the final inked version of the drawing, but the idea is the same: quickly block out paint to suggest color, light and atmosphere. Don't waste energy on detail or refinement - save it for the final painting. At this point in production, I was learning to push color much more strongly than I had done before - notice my comp is rather muted compared to the more vibrant color in the final painting.

Color comp and final painting for Hindu

My final paintings don't always follow my comps exactly. Sometimes I make substantial changes from the comp to the final painting, but having the comp as a starting point really gives me more confidence to tackle the finish - especially for paintings of really complex environments. It certainly cuts down on wasted time, since I am not scratching my head, fretting over "which color should I use here?" Quick studies taught me to make good color comps which let me know what color I want to use - which, in turn, has led me to stronger finishes.