Still-Life # 4

I think I might name it "random arrangement" or make a series entitled that, as right now the set ups I'm creating have no narrative and are just exercises in color combinations and lighting. This is the painting from the last post that couldn't scan well. Enjoy!

Still-life painting continues

While I can't say right now that the images I'm about to post are all too exiting compositionally or content-wise, I'm really happy with how they turned out from a technical standpoint. Especially the lone skull. There is a third painting that I absolutely adore in every way, compositionally, paint handling, colors, and technique that unfortunately isn't scanning well. I'll have to photograph it instead. These three were done last week. The still-life with the earthen jug was started initially around the same week that I did the one-evening studies from the previous post and then I spent the better part of the following week painting it. Turned out nice, but I'm not crazy about it. To celebrate finally finishing it I painted the skull. That bad boy turned out better than I expected in just under two hours. Something about it resonated with me, in particular with the smooth rendering and thicker, impasto strokes playing nicely off each other. The third painting presented me with an A-HA moment once it was completed and I can't wait to share it on the web. With all of these I am continuing to pre-mix my palette using only the colors I see and deem necessary. Once Everything is nicely blocked-in, however, I have begun dabbling with adding a bit of an accent color that isn't as chromatic as it actually exists. That is more evident in the skull and the unscanned painting. Enjoy, and feel free to leave any feedback.

Still-life month

So I have decided to take a break from attempting big figurative paintings and getting frustrated. I know I can do them but the battle to correct my stupid mistakes is really silly. So for this month I am only going to work on small still-life paintings from life. The idea is that a) I never worked from life enough for it to really influence my knowledge of light, color nuances, form, etc b) I have a few bad habits that I need to break out of NOW if I want to be serious about making art a career, and c) discipline. I'm reading James Gurney's Color and Light book and using it as a guide on this journey (ha). The three individual objects are done alla prima in one evening and before I get to work I sit in front of the object and pre-mix four strings of colors with my handy palette knife. Lots of artists do this and it helps simplify the madness that is color, but it also helps maintain a sense of freshness without mixing color piles of useless paint. Pre-mixing is not my preferred method as I really enjoy the happy accidents of mixing with a brush, but this always leads to me mixing bad colors since I don't quite get it just yet. I've noticed that my color tends to look dull and life-less because I struggle mixing the right value and temperature of a certain hue. I will produce at least three smallish paintings a week and one mid-size one. For these four paintings I set up the light coming from the left either from above at an angle or lower down so that it looks like it's hitting it straight on. I was looking for interesting ways to play with the shadow. The light in these works is a yellowish "natural light" bulb or something like that so the lit area is usually really warm. This week I want to switch the bulb with a florescent one to cast a pale bluish light on some of the same objects, and will probably be working like this for all the paintings I do.

This was the first one I did last tuesday evening. It was drawn from life beforehand as a drawing demo for a private student, then photocopied and mounted onto the masonite panel as a demo of the Donato mounting for my oil painting students. I've had this t-rex skull for 3 1/2 years and it has never been used for anything but a handy decorative dust gatherer in my studio.

This is a plastic prop squash we have at the museum that I borrowed on Thursday evening to paint. I've always loved the color and so voila! I painted it.

Here we have a horseshoe crab shell I found at the beach over the summer with a group of friends. This one was particularly tough considering how low key and muted the colors were. It was tricky making the light side seem illuminated but I finally got it after knocking back the chroma of the surrounding area with some neutrals.

Last night I arranged these objects, all museum borrowed, and there are some dried up flower thingies in the front that aren't painted in yet. I drew it last night and did a wash of values before I went to bed and this morning I did a first pass color block-in. Tonight or tomorrow I'll finish it off. I welcome all critiques and helpful tips on anything you see or notice. Thank you all!

sampling

This is just bit of a preview of a couple paintings in the works. The first one is a small head study of my dancer friend Cara. I'm going for a somewhat tighter finish than I have attempted in quite a while with this one and it is currently on the second pass of paint. It is oils on a quadruple primed and blue tinted piece of really rigid cardboard.

This second painting is a bit larger, 20x30 inches I believe, and it is Cara once again. Her pose came as a result of one of those moments whilst checking my camera for settings or to check out previous shots and the model takes a lovely, relaxed, and perfectly natural pose without any direction from me. So I quickly shot it before it went away. This is a couple night's worth of work. I know the values on the face need to pushed a bit more than I have, but the light really is shining brightly on her in that shot. I'll probably glaze it back tomorrow and re-establish the hierarchy.

First post of 2012

In lieu of this being humanity's last year on earth, I am hoping to post more frequently. But knowing me that's probably not gonna happen. Anywho, first three drawings are of a lovely young dancer I had the pleasure of working with back in December named Cara. I didn't really have a clear idea of what I wanted to shoot other than the figure in motion and just get some good poses of a dancer. So that is that. I realize her hair is way too big in the third drawing, but that'll be fixed. The 4th drawing is from my last portraiture class at GCA with the model Vasilia(sp). Greatly enjoyed the class and learned a lot but I think my atelier days are over. Enjoy!

Some overdue images

First is a painting I finished a few months ago of my neighbor Monique. It started off as a full body painting but I didn't like or feel that the body was necessary. It didn't add anything to the image so I just cut it out of the board. Right now it needs a final varnish and to be completely cut out.


This next one is my first drawing at the saturday portraiture class at GCA. Our model was Ana Nina


Last is the current GCA class drawing of Vasilia (sp). I really want to paint but I'm forcing myself to finish it as a drawing.

Ole part deux!

Here is a second dancer drawing I just finished up. Enjoy :)

Ole!

So I took one of those 4 sketches and blew it up to a somewhat finished drawing. I'll probably do more youtubing and sketching to familiarize myself with the movements. Ideally this will allow me to recall the fluid grace of the dancers from imagination and make it easier to pose the model :) Enjoy!

oh my damn!

I have all but disappeared off the face of the earth. SO much going on right now and not enough time to accomplish everything I want to do. This will be the first post of my current whereabouts and artistic doings so stay tuned. There's a lot I'm up to :) I'm starting a series of paintings depicting dancers and ultimately it will culminate into a narrative series... hopefully. It may take a few years but the initial idea and concept I have promises to be lead to exciting things. So this is a page from my sketchbook of some flamenco dancers. I may take all these to finish in drawing and then work them out in painting.



One of them may be for a client :)

This next drawing is just a quickie I did in Alex Piccirillo's class last Wednesday. Roughly 45 minutes or so. The portraiture class at Grand Central Academy has increased my drawing abilities significantly in a matter of a few weeks. Enjoy!

Follow the link... CLICK HERE

And hit like! The more people hit like through that link the more counts go towards my painting's popularity. I'm not looking to win the popularity contest, but if I can get as many hits before the end of the month it'll certainly feel nice to know people are actually looking and liking my work. I'm trying to get my stuff out there as much as I possibly can (and afford, entry fees are killin' me dawg!). Thank you to anyone who follows through and if not this month, let's make next month count :) The link is below, but for funsies I also made this post's title link to the page as well. I'm having fun with that :P

http://faso.com/boldbrush/painting/25581