J Dunster Art Blog – Oil Painting, Portraits, and Cats
Figurative art, oil & acrylic painting, figure drawing, and cat portraits
(This painting was a recent award-winner! I ramble more about that in a previous post. This work got 1st place in the Oil category at a local art show.)
A mini 4×4 inch cat head!
Okay, I’ve got a lot to cover in this post, no time to waste! Continue reading “Warm & Cool, plus Close-up Cat head”
I liked the expression on this model, and the colors in the skin, so thought it would be an interesting study!
The color scheme in this painting seemed to be predominately green, and peach. I like this color combo and had a lot of fun mixing the colors. Continue reading “Windswept”
I’ve been picking at this painting, nursing it along, and there comes a point where it has to be DONE. I think there might be a few dabs here and there I might add… but not now! Not today! Not tomorrow! I can’t take it anymore!
The back story on this painting is as follows. Continue reading “Levi portrait”
A recent effort! Jabba the Cat was done as a class project, for an oil painting student I’m currently teaching. We wanted to tackle the many different values and colors in a white animal–where are the values (lights and darks) the lightest? How light? How dark? Continue reading “Jabba the Cat, and the Clague workshop”
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”
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”
An interesting little story behind this painting.
I had a simultaneously fun, exhausting, and crazy evening (and night, and morning!) at the studio yesterday. I was visiting with a fellow artist, we were yakking about art, doing some painting, just having fun, and some circumstances were created which made it necessary for us to both stay overnight at the studio. (It’s a long story. Continue reading “THE HEAD”
Here are two “new” paintings that are actually old paintings that I finally decided to finish up and post online!
I liked this very simple cat portrait—just the silhouette, with a little light touching the sides of the body, and the tip of the tail. It’s that tip of the tail that really catches my eye. I fussed with this painting off and on, and finally decided that simple was best, put a fork in it, it is done!
This second painting is a portrait of fellow artist Pavina. She sometimes models for our art / drawing groups, and during some of these modeling sessions I took a series of photos of her. This little oil sketch uses one of these photos. Continue reading “Cat in Silhouette & Pink Ribbon”
I started this painting several months ago. I kept on picking at it and picking at it, then put it away. Finally I decided to finish it, once and for all!
Rose is a model for one of the local drawing groups I attend. Continue reading “Rose of Iceland”