J Dunster Art Blog – Oil Painting, Portraits, and Cats
Figurative art, oil & acrylic painting, figure drawing, and cat portraits
Another cat head! As you know, I love painting the cat heads.
This painting was used as an exercise for some oil painting classes. (Yes, I now am teaching!) I wanted to start my student out with a simple, limited palette, and the Zorn Palette is well suited for that. Continue reading “Zorn Cat”
And here is a post where I will rhapsodize about art materials.
But first, about the painting of the day, “Pretty & Fluffy Kitty.” Continue reading “Pretty & Fluffy Kitty”
I’ve agonized over this painting long enough, so even though I believe it’s not “quite yet” done, I am calling it DONE! I can’t take it anymore! This painting is more like abandoned, rather than completed.
This is just a study, slightly larger than what I usually do these days (which are mostly little daily paintings of 8×10″ and smaller). While 12×16″ is far from large, it seems “big” to me!
So, back to “Quizzical,” the subject of today’s post. Continue reading ““Quizzical,” and various other updates”
I loved Rapidographs at art school. I didn’t “get” pen and ink at first, always having worked in pencil when I was a teenager and before going to Otis. But they were really stressing ink in the Illustration classes, so I wanted to learn. Continue reading “Blast from the past—Rapidographs!”
This is a painting started about a year ago, and now finally finished!
The Winter of 2014 (January or something?) I was attending a local painting group run by a fellow artist (and my sometime teacher), Adam Clague. We’d get volunteers to pose for us each week. It was such a good experience for all of us and I hope we can start doing it again. Continue reading “Micah, from life”
Another experiment with student paint (sort of) as well as an attempt to get better at acrylics! I dabbled with some acrylics recently, and was so abysmal at it, that I have now decided to try to improve my skills. I don’t recall having such dire issues with acrylics when I was much younger, but I paint differently now, I guess. Continue reading “An experiment in acrylics & limited palette”
So… I got a bee in my bonnet and decided to do a review, or perhaps a treatise, on the subject of student-quality paints.
Lately I’ve had reason to shop at the North-American-based chain craft/art supply stores, Michael’s and Hobby Lobby. I realized that for many people, these types of stores are their only access to art materials, at least hands-on. So, I thought I’d explore what it would be like for a new artist to try to select paints (oils or acrylics) from one of these stores, while also being budget-minded.
So I purchased some oil and acrylic sets from both stores (haven’t finished collecting my samples yet) with the intent of trying them out and reporting back what I experienced.
An overview of chain craft store brand paints. Continue reading “A word about student paint”
I wanted to do an itty-bitty painting, and finally got around to painting this orange, fluffy cat head. I tried to keep the brush strokes more spontaneous, but alas, I must fuss. For a little 4×4″ painting, there is a lot of detail, I suppose! Continue reading “Fluffy and Orange”
This white kitty was so adorable and all the colors in his fur were fascinating to try to capture. This is a slightly different pose for me, as I often paint just the head of the cat. (I call these paintings my Cat Head Paintings.) Well, this is still a Cat Head, but we have some paws and some indication of a body. Woo hoo, I’m moving outside my comfort zone! 😉 Continue reading “With a Black Spot on His Nose – Cat Head”
Little fluffy kitten, how could I resist painting you? You are beyond adorable! Continue reading “Fluffy Siamese Kitten”