Portrait of Mom

Mom, Acrylic on Canvas, 10"x8", NFS

Portrait of Mom

This is my Mom. I left her glasses off because I like the way her personality shines through her eyes which are really deep-set and kind of get lost behind glasses. I started this portrait earlier this year. At the time, I left it unfinished because I wanted to think about what level of finish to use and how I wanted to deal with the background. In the end, I went with a loose look with some unfinished passages.

Exotic

Exotic, Acrylic on watercolor paper, 10"x9", NFS

Report from Camp - Part 3

This painting was actually painted a few days after I left the workshop. During class, we had made a number of abstract substrates to paint on. As part of that, we applied a variety of gels, pastes, mediums and textures as we learned how each of them looked and acted in a variety of conditions. This one has modeling paste, gel, copper paint, pumice paste, gesso, and more, smeared around using palette knives. My palette for the background is Phthalo Blue (Red Shade), Alizarin Crimson, Indian Yellow Hue, and Iridescent Copper Light (Coarse.) For the painting, I added Titanium White and Carbon Black.

The idea here was to assign the background a value (light, medium or dark) and leave that showing anywhere that value appeared in the portrait. In this case, I assigned the background a dark value - that meant most of the portrait would actually be painted positively over the background; only the hair was truly dark. I have other substrates ready to go - I made a point of making sure they were lighter so I can make them a larger part of the face. 

My next step is to decide where to take what I learned. There are a lot of pieces and they need to be integrated into my work in a way that reflects what I want to say and how I want to say it. That will be an on-going project.

Men......

Oom Daan, Acrylic and collage on watercolor paper, 10"x9", NFS

Report from Camp - Part 2

I started this painting during my workshop with Jean Pederson. As with my last posting, this painting incorporates collage to create decorative elements and interest. I made the collage papers using sticks, stamping maple samsaras and cross-stitching mesh, etc. I cut and glued the collage pieces to fit the drawing I made.Although the collage elements really worked here, I really struggled with the man's head - I had a number of features incorrectly sized and ended up with a portrait that was just - off.

This week I finally got around to fixing all of the incorrectly rendered features and he now looks like a real human being. My post's title refers to the fact that I find men far more difficult to draw and paint than women - I'm not sure why that is but it is quite noticeable to me. As with the previous piece, there were a few collage pieces that ended up being painted over when they failed to work as planned.

Experiment in Collage

Untitled, Acrylic and Collage on Watercolor Paper, 9"x10", NFS

Report From Camp - Part 1

I recently went to a watermedia workshop on portraiture with Jean Pederson in North Carolina. Part of that workshop involved experimenting with collage, abstraction, wild and crazy grounds - all of which would be used to create unique and interesting portraits. This painting involved most of the elements that were covered in the class - the substrate began as an abstract collage on watercolor paper; the portrait is that of one of the models I sketched during life drawing; the elements of the collage were created using paint, stamping, splattering, etc. on sketchbook paper and cut up. The portrait was painted over the collage, incorporating the collage into the face and background. Because this was a classroom piece (my experience with collage is minimal), parts of the collage ended up getting painted out, while other pieces of collage paper were added as needed. I used a light green wash to unify the entire painting (the photo is more intensely green than the actual painting.)

Flying Heron

Flying Heron, Acrylic on Canvas, 20"x16", $600

The Sky's the Limit

Good news! My painting, "Flying Heron," has been accepted in "The Sky's the Limit" show at the Bryan Memorial Gallery in Jeffersonville, VT. I painted this painting a while ago when I was messing around with a minimalist approach to composition. The show opens on June 28 and runs until Sept.3.

To purchase this painting, please contact the Bryan Gallery at (802) 644-5100 or e-mail them at info@bryangallery.org.

New Work In Progress

Untitled, Acrylic on Canvas, 10"x8", NFS

Back to the Studio

I started this painting back in February when I was still struggling with the Thirty Day Challenge. I abandoned the Challenge and the painting when "life intervened" and I wasn't able to stay focused. Now that I am back in the studio (and getting ready for a workshop on portraiture in April), I picked up the roughly blocked in portrait on my easel and took it to the next step. I took this photo to post as an example of one of my interim steps in my process. The more I look at it, though, the more I like it the way it is. It does need a little bit of clean-up and finish work, but, overall, I like what I have here. So I think I'm going to leave it here for a while.

Day 12 - Doodling

Doodling, Acrylic on Gessoed Watercolor Paper, 7"x5", NFS

Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days - Day Twelve

This painting is a crazy experiment in doodling. I put in a variety of transparent areas and then added apaque passages. When those were dry, I used a small round brush and fluid acrylic black paint to doodle on the black patterns.

Day 10 - XOXO

XOXO, Acrylic on Gessoed Watercolor Paper, 5"x7", NFS

Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days - Day Ten

This one was a struggle. I wanted to do some Valentine-y with hearts and Xs and Os. The background got painted a bunch of times to get the feeling right - not too many hard edges or weird patches of color. In the end, I think it came out OK.

Day 9 - Spiraling Inward

Spiraling Inward, Acrylic on Gessoed Watercolor Paper, 7"x5", NFS

Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days - Day Nine

This painting reminds me of a log cabin quilt with its inwardly spiraling paint strokes.The colors are mostly Phthalo Blue and Alizarin Crimson - my camera and Photoshop truly hate this combination - I always struggle to get these colors to photograph properly. In the painting, the inner-most blue strips have a pale greenish cast.

Day 8 - Portrait Redo

Sunny Day, Acrylic on Canvas, 10"x8", NFS

Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days - Day Eight

I decided to redo the portrait from the other day. There was a lot that was right in that but also a lot that was wrong. This is a lot better and feels a lot more natural. I've been trying to really focus on creating a painterly look while capturing the way a person normally appears. I find that I'm put off by very stiff, formal portraits even though the paint handling and accuracy are superb. I've got a long way to go, but as they say, "practice makes perfect."

Day 7 - Chain Link Fence

Chain Link Fence, Acrylic on Gessoed Watercolor Paper, 7"x5", $50

Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days - Day Seven

The patterns on this painting remind my of chain link fences, hence the name. I like the roughness of the texture. It started out quite differently with strong lines and defined spaces, but I didn't like it at all. There are only two things you can do when that happens - paint over it, or throw it out.

Day 6 - Window

Window, Acrylic on Gessoed Watercolor Paper, 7"x5", $50

Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days - Day 6

This painting started as a collection of brush strokes using mostly pure pigments. The red and gold on white gesso just glows. I messed with it for a while creating shapes and painting over them. Fortunately I had the good sense to leave the gold and red patch in the middle. Although it is always a challenge to decide when I am done with an abstract, I have decided this one stops here.

Day 5 - Highlights

Highlights, Acrylic on Canvas, 10"x8", NFS

Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days - Day Five

I really struggled with this one and the result was color that is muddier than I would like and features that are a little off.  I think if the nose were shortened and all the features moved up in relation to the nose, it would probably be pretty close to what's needed. I do like the hair, though - good colors, texture, and body. The lighting was especially tough - the face was lit from behind and overhead on the left side. That left the entire face in shadow and almost entirely one value. I will have to try this one again.

Day 3 - Smiling Faces

All Smiles, Acrylic on Canvas, 10"x8", NFS

Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days - Day Three

It's still early in the month, but I have to say I am pretty excited about my results so far. Somehow starting with an abstract background and deliberately leaving rough passages in the paint seems to be helping me stay a bit looser and more lively with my paint. I still have a ways to go in the accuracy/likeness department, but I am definitely getting the feel that I am after. The photo for this one is me at a wine tasting in Maine about ten years ago.

Edited to Add:  For some reason, my paint brush subtracts about 15 to 20 years from the faces I paint. If I could bottle and sell this, I would be rich. I had the same problem last year - how to capture the aging process without adding every wrinkle and line.

Day 2 - Portrait #1

Untitled, Acrylic on Canvas, 10"x8", NFS

Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days - Day Two

This is the first portrait I've done since last January's 30 Day Challenge. I made a point of staying loose and unfinished in this painting. I want to really push the expressiveness of the paint to capture the essence of the person. Because of that I will likely lose some amount of likeness until I get more practice but I think it will be worth it. I really like the feel of this portrait, so I decided to stop before I lost that.

I really like the technique I used last year so I am using it again. I started by painting an abstract background. Next, I painted in the lightest and darkest areas with white and black, starting with the eyes. Then I went in with color to build the features. I don't do any drawing at all - I depend on a system of shapes and values to create the features and bring the face to life.

This is the first step after the background has been painted. I marked in the lights and darks with black and white.

In the next step, I start adding color. As you can see, some of the features need to be shifted a bit and re-sized. That gets done as I add more paint, refining the features and correcting any problems. This is an iterative process - I keep messing with it until I am happy with the results or I've messed it up beyond repair.

Day 1 - Random Pathways

Random Pathways, Acrylic on WC Paper, 5"x7", $50

February 2018 Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days Challenge - Day 1

Another year, another 30 Day Challenge. This one is starting a month later than usual because the person that does all the hard work was traveling during the month of January. This is my tenth time participating in the challenge which occurs twice a year (usually in January and September.)

For this challenge, I decided to focus on a combination of abstraction and portraiture. That seems like a crazy combo but it makes sense for a couple of reasons. The main reason is that my life has been a little more interesting than I prefer lately and I find myself short on time and focus some days. Doing a small abstract on those days is a fun way to cut myself a bit of slack without giving up the challenge. Another reason is that I want to combine abstraction with portraiture to create interesting, thought-provoking works so doing them together and separately furthers my goals. Finally, I have signed up for a portraiture workshop led by Jean Pederson at the Kanuga Watermedia Workshops in North Carolina in April. I want to go in ready to absorb as much as possible and figured that refreshing my skills before I go might help me get more out of the workshop.

Some of the paintings will be for sale and some will not be. I frequently hold paintings back if they do not meet my standards for sale (I still post both winners and losers during the challenge - to me that is part of what the exercise is about), that are personal (portraits of my family for example), or when I am not sure what I want to do with them or where I am going with them (paintings that fit in some interim place that I might want to revisit.) Paintings that are for sale will appear in Daily Paintworks - the icon sits on the right side of the blog page.  

Today's painting is a small abstract painted with heavy-body acrylics on gessoed watercolor paper. I used my currently favorite palette - Phthalo Blue Red Shade, Alizarin Crimson, Indian Yellow Hue, Titanium White and Carbon Black.