paintings · portraits

Looking to the Future – oil painting

SummitArt (the local art organization I belong to) has informed members that there’s an upcoming art show at a local university, exclusively for members of Summit-Art. We’re all encouraged to submit some artwork to the show, so here’s what I did. I don’t know if it’ll be accepted to the show, but I had to make the effort!

“Looking to the Future,” 16×20 inches, fast-drying oils on panel.

Many thanks to DeviantArt photographer and model Ursa-Tal for allowing me to use one of his photos as a reference. He has been so encouraging and enthusiastic about this painting. What a great model! Thanks, Kevin!

I didn’t try to get a perfect likeness of the model; I was aiming more for a “feel” and changed quite a few things around. That’s part of the fun of being an artist—to tweak things to fit our own vision.

This photo doesn’t really properly represent the painting. Everything is just . . . off a bit. Yes, the background is RED, very RED, but it doesn’t look quite the way it does in the photo. I usually scan all my art (since I often do smaller works that will fit under the scanner) but at 16×20″, this one was too big to scan, so I used my digital camera. The camera has done fine in photographing other works, but this time . . . not so much. It must have been the time of day that I tried to take the photo or something. Will try again.

paintings · portraits

“Sneaky” oil sketch, almost done

A little 5 x 7 oil painting, done for the fun of it and for practice. It probably took 90 minutes to get this far. He has a sneaky gleam to his eye, so that’s what I’m titling this painting.

It’s not quite done, as it needs some additional tweaks. (I adjusted the problems, sort of, in Photoshop, to see how it looks, and now I must do it in real life!) And I need to finish the hair. I’m trying to refine my technique and aim for a looser, more free style, and it’s my hope that these little oil sketches will help with that.

oil sketch“Sneaky,” oil on linen board, 5 x 7 inches.

UPDATE: “Sneaky” has now turned into “Sideway Glance” and you can see him finished on this page.

paintings · portraits

Lady with a Flowery Hat — Limited Palette

Recently I decided to enter a Jerry’s Artarama art contest. I had nothing to lose, and if I won, I’d get a gift certificate for Jerry’s. Since I am officially an art materials junkie, this sounded very appealing!

The challenge was to use specific art materials. For the contest I entered, it was Jerry’s “house brand” of Soho oil paints. Soho is student grade, and very affordable. I had already bought a set of Soho Oils (because I’m an art materials junkie, remember?) so I proceeded to do two paintings using these paints.

I won’t lie, I love my artist-grade oil paints, but this challenge was a lot of fun and I’m glad I undertook it.

lady in flowery hat6×8 inches on Pintura Painting Panel, using Soho Oil Paint brand. Limited palette of Titanium White, Light Red, Ultramarine Blue, and Prussian Blue. (Another painting where I used no model or reference.)

Well, I got the news a few days ago, I got an honorable mention. So that means a nice little gift certificate for Jerry’s, which was of course, the whole point! 😉