This one is my baby. Oil on paper on masonite, 48"x24" Of all the paintings I have done thus far, I am proudest of this one for several reasons. Compositionally I consider this piece to be my most successful. The reference was shot from a bird's eye perspective and this allowed me to create a feeling of movement that evokes that voyeuristic mood, but is also visually exciting. I'm a big fan of cropping elements in a painting and not following any traditional formulas for composing. When I was designing this painting several friends and instructors felt the other option I had drawn was a better painting because it was more comfortably suited to the format and everything was in there, sitting nicely in the picture plane. That was all the feedback I needed to say "F--k this!" and so I went with this composition.
Composition aside, I played around with paint handling a lot more in this piece. There is a great deal of brush work and palette knifing that interact with each other. In many areas it may not work, but as a whole I really think this is my stand out painting and one that is leading to bigger and better things. This is also a pretty personal piece. While it isn't exactly a self-portrait, it is a truer depiction of who I am than any self-portrait I've done before.
That's all for now, but stay tuned!
