Desaturated Wasps (Part2), Portraits and Churches

This past week, I made three more paintings for the Saturation Project in my Color Theory class.  I finished one more muted hues square, and then we used pure prismatic colors (no desaturation) for the last two.  These pictures aren't the greatest, so you can't really tell the difference between the muted and prismatic colors, but the prismatic paintings really do make the muted colors look less intense.  Still not a big fan of this project.. but I guess it's kind of interesting.

Muted Hues (narrow range) of a European Wood Wasp

Prismatic Colors (broad range) of a Fairy Fly Wasp

Prismatic Colors (narrow range) of a Yellow Jacket

Here are the chromatic, muted and prismatic paintings next to each other.  Ya know, so you can see the difference:

broad range paintings (chromatic, muted, prismatic)

narrow range paintings (chromatic, muted, prismatic)

And here is the conclusion to the two weeks of drawing portraits in Figure Drawing.  Our final project was a two and a half hour long portrait of one model in class.  I drew most of it with vine charcoal and only accented the darkest parts (nostrils, some shadows in the eyes, corners of her mouth) with compressed charcoal.  I used to hate vine charcoal because a slight breeze can make all of it fly off the paper, but I think it's grown on me.  It creates realistic looking shadows, which is super hard with charcoal, and it gives a pretty, soft look to the drawing.  You just have to spray it with fixative every thirty minutes to keep it from smudging. Woo!

20min portraits done in vine charcoal

2.5hr portrait done in vine and compressed charcoal

And finally, some random figure drawings:

20min - done in vine and compressed charcoal

20min - done in vine and compressed charcoal

I don't have any artists to show this week, but I do have some Baroque architecture from the seventeenth century Spanish colonial period!  I'm currently writing a research paper about this in my art history class, so I've been looking at a lot of churches, cathedrals, basilicas, conventos, and anything else related to Christianity in the Spanish colonies.  While this class is unbelievably boring 90% of the time, these buildings redeem it for me.  Their overwhelming decorations were designed to convert the indigenous people to Christianity, and I assume that it probably worked.

La Compania de Jesus, Quito, Ecuador 

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Church of San Francisco, Quito, Ecuador

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 Sanctuary of Copacabana, Peru

Church of Our Lady of Mercy, Cajamarca, Peru

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Church of San Francisco, Lima, Peru

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In 1943, a large series of catacombs were discovered beneath the foundation of the Church of San Francisco in Lima, Peru, and inside of them were the remains of around 70,000 burials.  This location was the first cemetery founded in Lima and it remained in use until 1808.  But what makes these ossuaries strange is the arrangement of the bones.  Bones were found strategically placed lining the walls of the catacomb's hallways, as well as in massive circular patterns that filled entire rooms.  To this day, no one knows when or why the bones were placed in these configurations.

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