The Draftsman

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!

The Struggle

This is the first painting I completed using primarily palette knife techniques.  It's a painting of my friend Chris Coogan in the act of decision making while working on a large scale piece.  Palette knife creates a really textural, physical paint quality that I felt embodies the mood I was going for.  Coogan is a phenomenal painter, but always plagued with self-doubt.  To quote him, "You sunnavabitch!  You painted my painting better than me."  For him every painting is a struggle in every way possible: technically, emotionally, mentally, etc.  At some point in every creative person's life, if not every single day, we go through this roller coaster of emotions.  And despite the defeat it sometimes brings along we still do this... we are really all mental :)  So while the image itself is quiet, I hope that the physicality, mood, and color evokes that internal struggle.  The painting is 24"x24" oil on canvas. 

Focused

This bad boy is a painting of my friend and incredibly skillful artist Lucas Bononi at the easel about to start work on a drawing.  It's 51 1/2" x 36" oil on paper on masonite.  It also garnered 1st place in the MFA figurative category for the Spring Show at my school (Academy of Art University).  I don't think I've put so much time into a painting as this one, and happily it shows.  I definitely learned a lot while doing this with regards to edges and technique, but mostly this was a lesson in patience for me :)

Quiet

Not going to write a lot.  Going to be posting one finished image daily from school over the last year.  First one is a painting I did last Spring that got into the school's Spring Show and placed 1st in the MFA figurative category.  It was a major breakthrough piece for me that ultimately sealed my fate in terms of my thesis being about artists at work.  The subject is one of my best friends at school, the incredible artist Theresa Morgan, caught reading a book on the model stand with all her painting supplies out and about.  It was inspired when I actually caught her like this several weeks prior as I went to that room to chat with her as her class was cleaning up and leaving.  She was just waiting for everyone to clear out to begin her work.  The title of the painting is "Quiet" and it is 36"x24" oil on canvas.  Enjoy, and as always comments are welcome :)

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.

Nighttime in Montmartre

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New small painting.  5" x 7" oil on canvas.  The next few I post will be fairly entertaining :)

New

Buy Now

Small 5" x 7" painting of model named Jess I worked with a while back.  Really liked this pose and always felt it would work really well as a smaller painting.

Gots my blogging pants on

Just an update on what I've been doing.

Small 6 x 8 study.  I have a lot of extra stock photos from previous shoots, so I'm just going to start painting them.  Going to hit this one up again to put some final accents and highlights.  Model is Liana, hired her last month for some thesis shots.

this is oil on fabriano hot press paper prepped with matte medium (3 layers homeys!).  I did the drawing first, sealed it, then laid in a wash of permanent alizarin crimson and permanent magenta.  That combo is quickly becoming my favorite base color plus it dries really fast.  Again, some extra photos from a shoot I had back in NJ for a job.  She's one of my favorite models and a great friend, Caitlin.

Liana again.  Did this one tonight after class with Jonathan Ahn.  I actually worked on it a bit more after I took the last pic, will post better quality photos when I finish these.

Bit late... but HI!

This semester I begin my thesis work in my directed study classes, so I'll be posting quite infrequently as I'll be in my studio most of the time.  These are some quick studies I did over the weekend after I worked on my assignments that I ended up loving even more than the homework.  So I think there's something to these and a number of people seem to think so, as does my prof Kevin Moore.  Let's see what happens.  Apologies for the crappy quality as they were taken with my phone.  Each one was no more than an hour and a half tops.

painted from life

In Kevin's class today we worked from the model but we were set up facing away from him.  This is a contemporary painting class and it is hands down the most fun studio class I've ever taken.  We essentially play and experiment without sacrificing the fundamentals.  So we had the model and were only allowed to observe and do sketches for our memory's benefit, but we had to leave any notes/sketches behind when we went to paint.  While painting we were not allowed to turn around and the same held true when we were observing; no turning back to compare the painting.  It was a helluva exercise in information retention but I turned out a painting I'm quite proud of, even got a damn good likeness.

I forced myself to exaggerate the colors and ended up working with mostly chromatic pigments plus white and transparent red oxide.  There's a lot more work I need to do to get my observational chops up, but considering this was done with mostly memory... not too bad.

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

More Caitlins

Worked with both Caitlins this week.  First painting was done on Thursday and the second one today at open studio.

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...