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

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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.

Etsy shop back up

Starting this whole Etsy endeavor back up and being serious about it.  Take a gander :)

Julian's Art Shop

Also have a Google + account now, so add me

Julian Tejera Art

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.

Dorian Vallejo "Drawings Inspired by Life"

Anyone who reads this blog or knows me also knows that I'm kind of a groupie for artist Dorian Vallejo.  I'm happy to say he is a good friend of mine, so it isn't simply a case of me being a fan-boy creeper who would randomly appear at his door after work to talk and... wait no, that's exactly what I did :P

Anyway, the Christmas season is upon us and as such there are only a couple weeks left before the exchanging of gifts between friends and loved ones.  For anyone who loves art or knows an art lover, especially figurative, then I highly recommend Dorian's book "Drawings Inspired by Life."  The book has high quality images of his life drawings, from quick ink sketches to more fully realized drawings in mixed media.  He captures the human form with an entirely unique vision that, above all else, speaks volumes of his love for the craft and his subject.  Having drawn with him and watched his process, I can also add that he likes to have fun with his experimentations.

Buy the book for yourself, a friend, family, or the homeless guy down the street whose always talking about that time he and Michelangelo snuck into a church basement to do dissections.  For a really special treat I would recommend getting the special edition and he'll personalize it with a one-of-a-kind drawing.  Click on the image below to visit the book site and order.

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