Connor de Jong's Art

December Pose

2011-12-20T15:20:00.000-08:00

Here's the December pose... my time on it got cut down due to my trip to Paris, but it was worth it to miss the time on the pose of course.

John - 9 day pose

More GCA and Paris

2011-12-10T09:42:00.000-08:00

Here are a few images from the last few months at GCA, as well as some sketches from my sketchbook while I was in Paris. I spent the last week in Paris, which was quite an amazing experience. It felt very comfortable to walk around the city and see the architecture and art that I value deeply present everywhere.

Sketch of the Louvre's Sculpture Hall. The sculpture in front is called "The Soldier of Marathon announcing the victory" by Jean-Pierre Cortot.

4 hour oil portrait of my classmate Omar. I have a few more oil portraits to put up when I get them photographed.

2 week pose of John, from September. I'm working on another drawing of him right now.

Quick sketch of a horse woman statue in the Louvre's French Sculpture Hall

Another sketch of a marble sculpture in the Musee d'Orsay.

"The Muse of Andre Chenier" by Deny Puech.

On the other side of the sculpture, she's cradling the severed head of Mr. Chenier, a French poet during the French Revolution. He was guillotined during the "Reign of Terror."

"Eve After the Peach" by Eugene Deleplanche. It was much likelier a peach than an apple that Eve bit into in the Fall of Man story from the Bible. Apples were a European fruit, and when the Bible was translated into Latin for Europe, the wording was changed from any sort of fleshy fruit to the quite specific "apple".

An unnamed bronze sculpture in the Orsay.

Back at GCA

2011-09-21T16:38:00.000-07:00

I'm back at GCA and into the routine of school again. Feels great to be drawing the figure every day, that was something I missed over the summer. This year I'm working on figure drawings, cast paintings, and oil portrait sketches. I have some of those to put up when I get better photos (portrait sketches), but for now, here is my first rendered figure drawing I've completed at GCA.

John - 2 week pose (40 hours)

A Few Things I've Done in August

2011-09-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

The quality of photos still isn't that great, I really need to figure out how to take better photos.

3 hr Portrait of Maria

the 1.5 hour portrait block-in for above painting

(I really lost the drawing in the transfer, it was the first time I had ever

transferred for painting)

4 hr landscape sketch

6 hour landscape sketch

6 hr portrait sketch

4 hr portrait block-in (working on the painting now)

4 hr landscape sketch

6 hr landscape sketch

Back from the Hudson River Fellowship

2011-08-04T15:52:00.000-07:00

I finished up my time at the Hudson River Fellowship a few days ago, and since then I've been working on my first studio landscape painting using the studies I completed in Hunter. The experience was fantastic, and I learned so much from the other fellows and nature. I had not painted to any serious extent before the Fellowship, so these two paintings are all I have to show in that department. I did a lot of drawing and fiddling around trying to understand how to paint the landscape.

Summer is Here

2011-06-26T18:16:00.000-07:00

So, I finished my first year at GCA. What an experience! I learned a lot this year, the school is so great and I'm so happy to be part of this tight-knit community. I'm already looking forward to starting next year. I'll finally have earned the right to render my figures, and I'll start cast painting!

For now, here is where I left my cast drawing off at the end of the year; sorry for the poor photo, I had to take a shot while it was hanging in the student show.

Here is a block-in I finished today, it's our great model John. I was the monitor for the GCA track at the Weekend with the Masters workshop, which was a ton of fun and a good experience. I had the chance to watch Nelson Shanks and Odd Nerdrum demo, which was quite interesting.

Finished Block In and Progress on Final Cast

2011-05-14T10:02:00.000-07:00

Hello out there!

Here is a 4 day block in I just finished in the studio, the extra day really helped to tie up some issues in the portrait and hand. I'm also working on my final cast now, I'm trying to finish it pretty quickly; I don't know if I can make it before the end of the year, but I'm trying my best.

One Day Portrait Block-In

2011-04-15T20:28:00.000-07:00

It was the last day of the pose so I decided to do a portrait block-in... very relaxing.

Cast Drawing Work in Progress and a 3 Day Block-In

2011-04-11T14:30:00.000-07:00

Self Portrait Finished

2011-03-01T14:25:00.000-08:00

This was the definition of a rush job, I did it as a scholarship entry at my old high school. Wish me luck!

Drawings, drawings

2011-02-27T16:46:00.000-08:00

Figure block-ins... some errors in these I really wish I could fix. I'm looking forward to progressing to the 3 day block-in stage so I can really pull the drawing up to a more complete level, these 1 day block-ins are great practice though.

And a WIP block-in of that self-portrait I've been putting off forever.

Another 1 Day Block-In

2011-02-17T16:43:00.000-08:00

Block-in of the model Tram. Pulling inspiration from the Russians... I added the modesty cloth for fun.

A few things

2011-02-16T19:53:00.000-08:00

I finally moved onto 1 day block-ins of the figure. This means I get 4 hours (3 hours of actual drawing time) to complete the initial stages of the drawing. Students normally spend 3-5 days in the block-in stage, so these 1 day block-ins are really just to get used to drawing the figure and learning how to start a drawing successfully.

Here is an example of a few of the Bargue figure copies I was doing before I moved into the figure room.

Christmas Break

2010-12-26T11:39:00.000-08:00

Closing in on my lip cast drawing, just a couple more days:

I'm going to start a self portrait and try to to finish it over the break. I will post it later in the week once it is done.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Week 14 Finished

2010-12-11T17:33:00.000-08:00

Progress on the cast drawing, and a finished cast sculpture. I will post the update of my figure drawing next week when it is done.

Week 11 Over

2010-11-21T18:25:00.000-08:00

Heya all! Here is progress on my newest figure drawing. I am not yet done with the block-in stage; I have spent 7 hours on this so far but I will need another 4 before I am prepared to begin rendering. I only have 20 hours (sounds long but at GCA that's considered extremely short for a figure drawing) on this pose, so I am going to experiment in my approach to rendering because there is no way I have the ability to render it in the usual GCA manner.

I'm still working out issues on the right side of the lips, I just threw down some graphite and it needs work before it is turning properly.

Week 11: Progress shot on lip cast drawing

2010-11-17T20:46:00.000-08:00

Week 10

2010-11-13T19:52:00.000-08:00

Here's a little anatomy drawing from the skeleton, just so I don't forget to post here. Monday I will post up my cast drawing progress, I forgot to take a photo today.

Week 8 and Halloween

2010-10-31T08:59:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

I finished (more like ran out of time) on the figure drawing. I'm pretty disappointed in how it turned out, but I did learn a lot that I will be able to apply to my next drawing. I also have my finished block in of my new cast drawing, and a Michelangelo study! Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on my work, it means a lot to me. Happy Halloween to you all!

Week 7 Complete

2010-10-25T20:26:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone... sorry for the lack of updates in the past weeks, I've been really busy between school and work. Hopefully I'll balance things out better though, I'd like to update weekly.

Well, I finished my first cast drawing (almost)! Wow, it was a crazy learning process: a lot of frustration, revelation and excitement. Spending so much time on a single drawing meant that my path in rendering the forms through the ear visibly showed my improvement in my understanding of form... thus I had a lot of clean up to do at the end. This thing is essentially done, though. I could keep working on it for a long time, but at this point, I feel like it would be more productive and less frustrating for me to move onto my next drawing and do it the right way the first time around. I haven't finished flattening the cast shadow underneath the cast sculpture, but otherwise the rest is done. I'll post it up in a few days once I've finished flattening that sucker.

I would also like to mention that my classmates are really inspiring. All of them work really hard and are very skillful; it pushes me to try and keep up with them. I can't wait to start my new cast drawing tomorrow morning and do my best to stay astride the rest of my class.

Weeek 4!

2010-10-05T16:29:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Here is a look at my cast drawing in progress, as well as the cast hall where the first year and second year students work. I will take a better picture of the cast drawing once it is done, the painstakingly long modelling process is easily obliterated by a bad photo.

Entrance to the cast hall, that's my friend and fellow

classmate Ken Yarus on the left.

This is the cast hall. The door to the South Studio is cropped

out of the far left end of the room.

There is Jacob Collins giving Zoe Dufour a critique on her cast drawing.

And finally here is a shot of the sculpture studio. From left to right

that is Anthony (first year student), Chris Waddell (teacher), and

Angela Cunningham (fourth year student/teacher).

For those of you who have never visited GCA, I hope you find these photos somewhat interesting.

Week 2

2010-09-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

I have a Michelangelo study here, more progress on the figure drawing, and more progress on my cast. The cast drawing really kicked my ass this past week, learning how to conceptualize form and draw the corresponding values is nothing at all like copying the values seen on the figure. It does create a lot nicer looking image, but it pretty much blows my mind and it is difficult to work quickly. I will get faster though.

First Week at GCA

2010-09-13T20:05:00.000-07:00

So, GCA is really really awesome. It is exactly how I imagined it; my instructors, Scott Waddell; Josh Larock; Nick Hiltner; and Chris Waddell (no relation to Scott), are awesome. Even though they are all extremely talented, they each have their own varying process, so it really rounds out the instruction.

So far I have started a lip cast sculpture, an ear cast drawing, a bunch of bargue block-ins and some figure drawings during night classes. Mon., Wed., Thurs. and Fri. I do cast drawing in the morning and bargue block-ins in the afternoon. On Tuesdays we substitute block-ins for sculpture with Chris. I will also be in an ecorche class with Mason Sullivan next Monday which will run all year. On Wednesdays I am doing short poses in Jon DeMartin's class, and on Saturdays I am studying the long pose figure and anatomical structure of the body with Colleen Barry and Will St John.

For now I will leave up my ear cast drawing and a figure block-in from Colleen and Will's Saturday class. I finished the block-in of the ear and now I am working on flattening the shadows to a smooth gradient. So far I only have the top left corner area done, so I still have quite a few hours to go before the shadows are smooth enough to begin the rendering process.

Vanderpoel and Portrait

2010-08-09T09:32:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the Vanderpoel studies I have worked on in the past week, as well as a portrait of my girlfriend I did in about 45 minutes (she was reading a book hence the down-turned eyes). This is the first time I have really studied Vanderpoel, there is more information locked in his drawings than I could have ever imagined. It takes me a long time to do these pages, probably around 3-3.5 hours each.

Introduction

2010-08-01T20:18:00.000-07:00

Hello anyone out there!

I'm a 17 year old kid who has recently been accepted to Grand Central Academy in NYC. It's been a dream of mine to attend the school and I'm very excited to begin this September, the 7th. I am spending this whole month drawing like mad in order to get ready for the even heavier load I will be taking on at the school, so right now I am working through Vanderpoel's book "The Human Figure". My goal is to copy every drawing in the book, cover to cover.

Right now I do not have my camera with me, and I will not have it for a week as I am vacationing with my family, but when I get home I will post up my figure studies and the landscape studies I do here in Long Island.

For now I will leave this up; I have just been released from my NDA for the Clinton wedding. I worked in conjunction with La Tulipe Desserts in Mount Kisco, NY to design the wedding cake for Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky's wedding. Here is the final drawing that turned into the cake!