Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Male Nude Charcoal Drawing

"The Dreamer"

25" x 19", Charcoal and White Chalk on Paper

I really enjoy life drawing. There's nothing that can compare for me to the concentration and pleasure I get from trying to capture a pose. In order to hold myself to the discipline of drawing, I host a life drawing group at my studio on Mondays. We hire our models for up to six weeks because those participating in our group want to take time to develop a drawing to a high level of polish. This model is one of my favorites. He keeps himself in great shape and works hard to hold a pose. Here's my latest drawing.


Thursday, April 09, 2015

Oil Painting of Cloud Scape

"Salt Flats on the Hood Canal", Oil on Linen Panel, 36" x 25"
















I've started a new series on cloudscapes in the Northwest recently. This is the first in the series. I used to do a lot of landscape but got away from it in order to pursue the figure and still life. However, recently I was asked to do an in-kind trade with a charity in exchange for some publicity. It seemed like a good idea.  But I wanted to be sure that the painting would have a good chance of selling for them. Landscapes generally do better than still life in the sales department so I figured I'd do one of the local Sol Duc Falls. But then I have a student who has expressed a strong interest in painting clouds and so I decided to try my hand at doing a cloudscape for the charity and that way my student could watch the process.

I'm very much attracted to salt flats and river basins. Perhaps it's the dreamy look or the interesting shapes that they take or maybe just the color of the grasses. But I had the idea to use some photo references I had of the Hamma Hamma River basin/salt flats in Washington and combine them with a cloud reference from my overflowing box of photo references that rarely gets used. In order to avoid getting stuck with the color in the photos, which rarely looks good, I put the two photos together on Photoshop and then took out the color and adjusted the values. Then I built the color that I envisioned for the piece. Hope you like it. 

Thursday, April 02, 2015

Painting of a Jade Plant

Journal Entry, Thursday, March 26th.  Done. I've been on a mission to finish this piece so that I could get started on a landscape commission. I brought the piece to a finish over the last three studio days and let it rest between to see what it needed. Overall, I'm happy with the painting although my vision for it was a bit different, the end result was satisfying. I'm pleased with the fabric and the vase design came out well. The last change I made was to the vase where I darkened it with a glaze a bit on the right side.

So, off to the gallery and onward and upward.