Tag: man

Animals · portraits

After over a year… (IMAGE DUMP!)

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The guilt over neglecting this blog has finally become too much! I’m trying to catch up with so many things in the past year. After a lengthy period of sharing caregiving duties with a sister for our mom (who had dementia) the “new normal” is requiring some adjustment. Furthermore, there were other things that have happened in the last year, things that kept me from painting (or updating this blog) as much as I’d like.

I can’t say that everything is now perfect and normal, but when is it ever? All I can say is that things are gently pushing upward. For that I am grateful.

Anyway, I have done many paintings in the last year. I’ll post many of them in future posts, but just want to share a select few here:

Backlit Tiger – 8×8″ oil on canvas panel.

I’m going through a “tiger phase.” This is just one tiger example. I’m not done yet! I’ve got many more tigers (and other big cats) to paint! If painting tigers is wrong, I don’t want to be right! Continue reading “After over a year… (IMAGE DUMP!)” →

Animals · paintings · portraits

After another long absence, some updates, awards, etc

J R Dunster4 Comments

I have neglected this blog (as well as painting), but it hasn’t been without a reason.

Some old (but still exciting) news is that I got some recognition from the Art Muse Contest for April 2016. Thank you so much to the judge! I was a finalist in the “Emerging” category and also got the additional honor of being eligible for Gallery Representation. Pretty cool, and I am honored and thrilled!

“The Greek Artist” 12″ x 12″ oil on panel. Finalist in the Art Muse Contest! This is a portrait of a fellow artist who has strong Greek roots—a detail that brings him great pride! I snapped an impromptu photo of him while he was attending a figure drawing session. The photo made a good basis for a portrait.

“The Greek Artist” also got a “Fav 15%” from the Bold Brush awards, so that was also very cool.

There were a couple of other honors, and I need to update my “About Me” page to include them! This Spring was especially good to me.

And for other news… the last several months I’ve been quiet on this blog. I also haven’t posted any new paintings for sale on DailyPaintworks or UGallery for quite a while. Continue reading “After another long absence, some updates, awards, etc” →

paintings · portraits

“Quizzical,” and various other updates

J R Dunster1 Comment
“Quizzical,” 12×16″ oil on cradled panel

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” →

drawings

Blast from the past—Rapidographs!

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“Jon Erik Hexum” ink on paper, approx, 9×12″. Drawn many years ago, using my trusty Rapidographs.

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!” →

paintings · portraits

Micah, from life

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“Micah,” 12×16″ oil on cradled panel.

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” →

paintings · Tutorials

A word about student paint

J R Dunster9 Comments
“Jorge – Zorn Palette” approx. 4×6″ oil on unstretched canvas. (From a canvas pad.) If loving Jorge Salinas is wrong, I don’t want to be right!

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” →

paintings · portraits

THE HEAD

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“THE HEAD” (or “Roman Youth Plaster Cast Study”), 6×8″ oil on canvas panel.

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” →

paintings · portraits

Hot and Cold

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“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!

Animals · paintings · portraits

New Paintings, New News!

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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!” →