“Hot and Cold,” 6×8″ oil on Gessobord. Thanks to XNB Creative of DeviantArt for the stock photo used as inspiration!
Another exploration of cold and warm light playing on the face. I used a full-body stock photo as reference, and had to really zoooom in on the face, but there was a lot of fascinating information in the flesh tones! There’s also a bit of drama in the lighting as well. I found there were subtle pale blues in the highlighted side of the man’s face, and some warm burgundies and purples contained within the shadows. I left the collar and hair very loosely rendered, because I was most interested in the colors of the flesh.
It’s painted on Gessobord, a favorite “guilty pleasure” painting panel. I keep obsessively collecting Gessobord. It’s a hardboard panel with a wonderful, smooth eggshell-textured white coat of acrylic primer on top. I love this painting surface but try to control myself and don’t use it all the time!
It’s pitiful that I haven’t updated this blog in all of this month. So I’m trying to slip something in, right under the wire!
I haven’t done as much as I’d like, but still, I have done some painting. I just haven’t posted it. There are some commissions in the works (will post them later) and other stuff. I had some busy-work in other areas that kept me from posting to this blog as much as I’d like. I hope to correct that now!
Here’s a Work in Progress. It’s almost done, but still needs a few tweaks and corrections. It is not done—emphasis on NOT DONE!
8×8″ oil on canvas panel. Thanks to Reine-Haru for stock photo used as reference.
“Ray Bans” 6×6″ oil on Gessobord. Thanks to this lenadementieva of dA for reference photo.
I’ve been nursing this painting along for a few days. I considered it an interesting color study—I thought the reference photo (used with permission, of course) had so many fascinating colors, warm and cool, and a blue or green cast to them. I am not sure that this photo of my painting adequately captures what I was aiming for, though.
What I saw in the reference photo was a lot of cool pink cast, with some greens and blues in the flesh, especially the highlights. This photo looks like it has more orange in it. I see more subtle cool pinks in the painting.
Ah well, you can’t win them all!
It’s been a long, long day so I’ll leave this post brief for now, possibly adding more later.
I feel bad for neglecting the blog for a little over a month! But I was waiting for my “big announcement.” And that is, I am now being represented by a fairly prestigious online gallery, UGallery. I learned that I was accepted to the gallery a few weeks ago, but it took a while to get everything set up and actually have my art go “live” on the site. I wanted to wait until it was all a done deal before announcing it.
They say that about 10-15% of artists who apply to UGallery get in, so I’m flattered to be among those accepted. But I must take into account that any gallery, anywhere, has an idea of what niches they want to fill, and so if they don’t accept every interested artist, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the rejected artists are “bad.”
My first day on the site was this past Thursday, and I was greeted on the main page with a graphic containing my cat paintings! Squee! Yes, I have no shame, I took a screenshot of it:
UGallery main page graphic. With my cat paintings! I thought that was cool.
To any fellow artists who may have questions about UGallery, I have only been with them for a short time, so I can’t say much yet. Other than they seem to be detail-oriented (that is a good thing), friendly, and attentive to artists. Continue reading “New Paintings, New News!”→
“Ivory Skin & Black Lace” 12×12″ oil on panel. Thanks to La Esmeralda Stock on dA for the reference photo I used as inspiration!
My latest effort. This was done on the “Artist” panel by Ampersand. A good panel, classified as “budget,” but also still archival. I have a lot of these panels. It has a dovetail slot in the back, so it can be hung as-is on the wall, or slapped in a frame. I love the dovetail slot feature, which is why I’ve stockpiled a lot of these boards. They are about 3/8″ to 1/2″ thick (I think 3/8″) and the sides of the panel are painted a complementary color, so if they are hung unframed, the edges of the board look finished (somewhat reminiscent of “gallery wrap” canvases, which can also be left unframed).
I enjoyed this painting and think the model is very striking. She’s great fun to paint. So dramatic! Her skin is so pale and light, I confess I had trouble capturing that adequately with my color mixing. I think I made her a bit more “pink” than she was in the reference photo, but hopefully she’s not too ruddy or flushed. (All monitors are calibrated differently, but on my computer display, she doesn’t look too red-skinned.)
“Splotchy Kitty Head” 5×5″ oil on Gessobord. Thanks to Nikkayla on DeviantArt for the stock photo I used as reference!
Another month, and some new works! Yes, there has been a lapse of paintings for this blog. It was a busy few weeks. But I’ve still been hard at work, painting!
This cat head painting was a particular challenge, because of all the . . . splotches. Our family calls calico/tortoiseshell kitties “splotched” kitties, because of all the multitude of colors. Well, actually my dad called these type of cats “multi-color.” We can’t just call them “calicos,” now can we? 😉
The challenge in this painting was representing the splotches on the surface of the cat, while still representing the form and dimension. I hope I succeeded in that. It certainly did make me think, as I painted!
In addition, here’s a work in progress painting. Hopefully it’ll be done in a day or two. Not much to say yet about this one, other than I’ve enjoyed the drama drama drama of the pose!
WORK IN PROGRESS. “Ivory Skin 2″ (temporary title), 12×12” oil on panel. Thanks to La Esmaralda Stock of DeviantArt for the reference photo used as inspiration.
This is a bit of an experiment, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while.
I didn’t use a model or a reference photo for this painting, but instead made it up completely from my imagination. While this portrait is not that unique (I make up faces all the time, for fun), it’s not typical for me to do what I did with the color on this one. Instead of simply inventing the flesh tones, the lights, darks, pinks, greens, warms, cools, I consulted a photo (with a different pose, with a different person) just to “get” the color. Not sure I was completely successful, but I think it’s a worthy exercise and made me really think.
After studying with Adam Clague, I am taught to look for the warms and cools on an object, as well as value, and what color is it (blue? green? magenta? orange?). One of the “rules” is that if you have cool lights, you have warm shadow. If you have warm lights, you have cool shadows.
I applied this rule (as best as I could) and so this portrait has cool lights (flesh tones with a more magenta tint are “cooler” than flesh tones with a yellowish tint) and warm shadows (I used a lot of Transparent Red Oxide in the shadows). While this portrait is just getting me started, it was gratifying and fun to do it.
The title “Pretty Boy” refers to my penchant to draw pretty people when I am inventing faces. I guess this harks back to my childhood, and all the handsome TV heros I grew up with, and sketched in my sketchbook.
EDIT: Ah, such is the life of an artist. A crazy, crazy artist. I pulled an “all-nighter” in my studio and tweaked this painting. And tweaked it. (And constantly updated this page with a picture of each new tweak.) I’m not saying it’s better or worse now, just “different.” Oh boy.
“Lady with Hat,” 6×8″ oil on Gessobord. Thanks to swiftsugar of DeviantArt for the stock photo I used as inspiration!
I loved the expression and pose of this one. The original photo that I used as reference had an exaggerated “golden” tint to it, which I didn’t want to paint. So I ran the photo through my iPad photo editing app (not iPhoto) and chose an option that took away a lot of the yellow. Then I used the adjusted photo as my reference. It was an interesting little iPad tweak!
There were a lot of golds, greens, and muted oranges in this one. A different color scheme, but a lot of fun to paint! She has a very vintage look to her, her expression and the way her head is tilted.
I enjoyed painting this one, and now it’s time for the next!
“Jason in Shadow” 5×7″ oil on Gessobord. Thanks to Jason Aaron Baca (model) and Portia Shao (photographer) for the stock photo I used as reference.
I classify this as oils, but to be more specific, I used fast-drying oils (alkyds) on this painting. They are one particular flavor of oils and have been around for a while. (Read more rambling from me about them on this post.)
I’m a big fan of Jason Aaron Baca’s stock photos on DeviantArt. So much drama! Dramatic poses, dramatic lighting, what’s not to love? So here’s another little oil sketch based on one of his photos.
With this painting I was working again with trying to capture the light and shadow, and of great interest to me, the warms and cools. He had a lot of cool tones in the highlighted parts of his face. I’m also working on making more pronounced brushstrokes, more strong and visible. I love bold brushwork and want to get more proficient with that! So exciting!
So, another one done. Put a fork in it! Now onto the next oil sketch. I have several in the works!
I forgot to post this painting earlier. It was completed in August. I loved the intense look on the model’s face, but when I compare my finished piece with the stock photo used as reference, I realize that it ended up being more “inspiration” than a literal reference. I changed the expression, the intensity, the contrast, a lot of things. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s still obviously painted from that particular photo, but the jawline, the shape of the head, and the tilt of the head, among other things, were all changed. I don’t consider it a good likeness of the model anymore. But I have no intention of changing it.
What attracted me to this particular stock photo was the expression of the model, as well as all the variety of colors in his face—the pinks, neutral greens, and even some pale lavenders. It was a challenge trying to capture all of that in the painting. Not sure I succeeded completely, but I tried!
I used Ampersand Gessobord this time, which has a luscious, smooth, eggshell-like surface. I love it. I don’t always want to paint on that type of surface, but it is one of my favorites. It works especially well with smaller works.
