Hands

These are three 12"x12" studies done on wood.  Hands have forever been the most difficult aspect of the figure for me, so this semester I made it a point to give prominence to hands in all my pieces.  All three of them were also experiments in palette knife and brush combo techniques.  In keeping with my thesis, these are all hands of my friends and incredible painters in their own rights.

In Progress Paintings

I'm currently working steadily on three out of four mid-size paintings, the fourth hasn't had much work done except a light sketch.  The first painting is of my stepfather Helder drinking espresso and using a toothpick after dinner.  It's one of those scenes I grew up witnessing on a daily basis, and the kind of scenes I find myself attracted to the most when it comes to painting.  

The painting is 16" x 20" linen mounted on wood.  

The next two paintings are from a photo shoot I had last week with my good friend, model, and fellow artist Caitlin Albright. 

20" x 30" on linen

18" x 24" masonite

The colors on all three appear really strange when uploaded to blogger, so I'll have to figure this out.  I'll post color corrected shots of the paintings when they're further along.

Just a small taste

Here are three of the better life drawings from yesterday's open studio.  I forget the model's name but she was pretty good.

Here are two landscapes.  First one is another Crissy Field painting done almost entirely with palette knife:

Second is a work in progress, being done in my room from reference.  Although interestingly this one was started based only on my thumbnail from life and colors blocked in from imagination.  The colors and values are keyed a bit more accurately to how the scene actually looks, but it was fun starting with no reference.

Both are in my limited palette of titanium white, gold ochre (or italian earth), raw umber, burnt umber, brown pink, and ivory black.

I still haven't had a chance to shoot any of my paintings from Zhaoming's class and I'm still working on a couple small figure paintings that I'll post when they're done.  Stay tuned!

First post from San Francisco

Hello hello!  So I've started my first semester on campus at Academy of Art University.  So far I'm loving every second of being here.  I could probably write a whole lot more about it, but I want to get back to some studies I started yesterday in the room.  For now here are some life drawings I did yesterday at Valerie Winslow's anatomy workshop as well as a plein air painting I'm really proud of and the strongest study from yesterday's output.

5 minutes

two 10s

two 20s

40 minutes

study done using ivory black, titanium white, and brown pink

monochrome landscape in ivory black, titanium white, raw umber, burnt umber, and brown pink

Last Open Studio Sunday :(

Today marked the last time my group met for Sunday open studio before my move to San Francisco.  It was a bitter sweet afternoon as I have had such an incredible time working with everyone, growing and learning together, sharing many laughs, strengthening existing bonds and making new friends.  And while it's certainly not the end, this marks the definite closing of one chapter and start of another.  When I get some of the pictures that were taken I'll post them on here.  On a personal level it was really lovely to have been surprised by the group with a going away festivus complete with yummy food and a pretty awesome gift; Andy did a quick sketch of me drawing a couple months ago and everyone signed the mat...

Not gonna lie, I got a bit choked up.  This played all the right notes on my heart strings :)

Now onto some art.  I had a kick ass day!  These are more or less in chronological order from my favorite 5s to the long pose.

If any of my open studio mates are reading this, thank you all for a wonderful 8 months :)  Much love to you all.

A tale of two Caitlins

Worked with a new model named Caitlin today.  One of my best all around sessions, so I'm happy with how almost everything turned out.  These are some 1-minutes

Now on to some 5's

I think this next one is a 10-minute

A 20

Long pose in oils.  

This next painting was done in my friend John Atura's class a couple weeks ago.  The model was the other Caitlin who I've worked with before.  It seems models named Caitlin tend to be pretty damn good.  Mental note made...

Life Drawing... today and last week

Here's my batch of better open studio drawings from last week and this afternoon.  Last week we had Robert Fortunato.

Today we had the lovely Erica, one of my favorites and always a pleasure to work with.  These are in order for the most part from 1's to the long pose at the end.

Booty Shot

Today we had the lovely Caitlin as our model for open studio.  This was subsequently my favorite drawing from the day's output and the one she proclaimed "Oh!  Booty shot!" hence the title of this post.  Because I'm nothing if not highly clever :P

Anyway, it was a 5 minute drawing.  The next five pages were 1-minutes...

Next two are 20s

and this last one an hour

All in all I had a pretty good day.  The best drawing in my opinion was that initial 5-minute and I gradually became more timid with the longer poses.  I have to work on that.