Tag: portrait

paintings · portraits · Works in Progress

Looking Outward – acrylic WIP (with a long story attached to it)

J R DunsterLeave a comment

First off, let me thank photographer Cathleen Tarawhiti for allowing artists to use her work as stock photography! Thanks beyond words. Cathleen is one of my favorite stock photographers and I already have acquired a stack of her photos, which I plan on using as reference in the future.

Acrylic on Gessobord, 5×5 inches. WORK IN PROGRESS

There’s a long story behind this painting. Well, maybe not that long, but I’ll make it feel long! 😉

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not participating in Daily Paintworks. The key thing for many artists is “daily.” I haven’t been very good about producing something “daily,” but lately I’ve been really trying.

Today (well, last night) I had a busy day and couldn’t get to painting until later in the evening. I had several oil paintings in the works, almost done—but decided that they weren’t quite ready for prime time. (Later I discovered that one probably was. Oh, what a fool am I!) So I decided to pull out the old set of acrylics. Well, the new set of acrylics (I bought a few new tubes and had some samples to try out) but you get the idea.

I haven’t done a lot of acrylic painting lately. I never really have painted as much in acrylics as I have oils. The last time I painted in acrylics it wasn’t that tough and kind of fun (finished a portrait sketch in about an hour) so I thought, “How hard can it be?” I thought I’d bang out my “daily painting” in an hour and that would be it!

Oh, what a fool am I!

I chose a lovely stock photo to paint from and got started. And had trouble. I don’t think the painting is beyond hope—not at all—but I had a very limited palette and I didn’t like my brushes (that’s it, blame the materials!). Ugh. Anyway, I got stressed out. The “quick one hour sketch” took several hours. Very frustrating. But not beyond hope.

So that is this painting’s story. I’ll update this post when I do whatever else it is I’ll be doing to this painting. Probably not too much more. (I hope it’s close to being done! I’ve suffered enough! 😉 )

UPDATE: I may not complete this painting for a while. I may actually just start a new painting using the same stock, but with a larger size. (And I may do that one in oils.) Am still not quite sure.

paintings · portraits

Sad Tears (oil study)

J R Dunster3 Comments

Another painting! I fuss over this one, but I do like it. It’s called “Sad Tears” and it’s part of my “novela” series, inspired by those fabulous, campy Spanish-language soap operas. So many tears, so many emotions!

Click on image to see larger, uncropped picture. Original is 6×6″ on oil panel.

The panel I painted on uses a “dovetail slot” (which you can read more about here). The panel is about 3/8″ thick and has a slot in the back where you can slide the panel onto a nail and it’ll hang flat on the wall. Pretty cool; no worries about framing or attaching wires or hooks to the back!

I’ve been enjoying working with my oil paints. I do love oils! They are so expressive and forgiving. So many rich colors to choose from! I’ll be writing about that more in the future.

paintings · portraits

“Brown Eyes” small oil study

J R DunsterLeave a comment

I’ve been neglectful of this blog lately, but not of painting! Several paintings are in the pipeline, or have been completed. This painting is up on my account on Daily Paintworks. I love Daily Paintworks. It’s perfect for me. A lot of artists doing studies, like I do, and practicing to get better! And there’s the motivation to do daily paintings, which is exactly what I need!


Click on the picture to see it larger. The original is oil on cradled panel, 6×6″.

I was simply enjoying the colors and light on her face. The texture of the panel (Ampersand’s “artist” line) was kind of nice. Kind of “canvasy.” I call her “Brown Eyes.”

paintings · portraits

Roger and Sideway Glance—Jerry’s Artarama Runner Ups!

J R Dunster6 Comments

I have been entering the online Art Store Jerry’s Artarama’s contests recently. The prizes are just up my alley—gift certificates! I am an art materials junky, so this just feeds the addiction.

In June they had their annual Charvin Oil paint contest, and my two entries got Runner Up awards, which meant a nice little gift certificate (which I promptly spent, of course!).

“Sideway Glance,” 5×7″ oil on canvas panel. I used mostly Charvin Oil paints, which I enjoyed. More on the paints below. Click on thumbnail to see uncropped image.

“Roger” oil on 12×16″ canvas panel. (Pintura Painting Panels, which I love.) Also using mostly Charvin oil paints. Click on thumbnail to see uncropped image.

A few bits of info: First, while I already had some Charvin paints in my paintbox, I bought some more tubes to make it easier to qualify for the contest. (Jerry’s knows what they’re doing, since they know some artists like me will buy more supplies just so they can enter the contest! Well played Jerry’s, well played.) But as I was painting, I made a discovery—I really like the paints! They are nice quality, plus there are so many interesting colors. Now granted, some of them are “convenience mixes” (tubed mixtures that I could easy recreate myself) but some were using pigments, or variations on pigments, that I hadn’t really tried before and I haven’t seen elsewhere. Sure, I could have lived without some of the new colors I “discovered” from Charvin, but still, I found them interesting and I think they’ll serve me well in the future. A particular favorite is Sanguine Brown, which is more like a blood-red. Fantastic color and wonderful for portraits.

Also: These above two paintings are from what I call “The Novela Series.” They are inspired by scenes from my favorite telenovelas (Spanish-language soap operas). I’ve long admired these shows, starting when I watched L.A.’s local Spanish channel 34 (KMEX) many years ago. So you could say I kind of “grew up” with these shows. (Kind of.) Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I speak Spanish that well—yet. (But my vocabulary is improving gradually!)

I decided to start a “Novela Series” for a lot of reasons. I was in need of a “theme” for some portrait sketches. Good practice, to do the sketches. And also, I love pop culture and have for a long time, starting with my art “career” painting movie start portraits for fans and aficionados back when I was in high school. Furthermore, I find the over-the-top melodrama and campiness of telenovelas to be simply delightful. Just my style. What’s not to love?

But if I were to put it in my artsy-fartsy terms (like, if I were to have to fill out an “artist’s statement” explanation) I’d say (truthfully) that telenovelas reflect a fascinating part of our American culture. Telenovelas are very popular in the USA (sometimes winning out the time slot over English-language network shows) but at the same time, if you don’t understand Spanish, you might never have heard of them, or are are barely aware that they exist! It’s like they “hide in plain sight”—part of our culture, yet invisible at the same time. So I just want to explore that a little bit with some paintings.

A FINAL NOTE: Besos, chicas! If you are visiting this page because you recognize either of these paintings as resembling a favorite telenovela character, welcome! Lo siento, my Spanish grammar is just too embarrassingly bad so I won’t attempt to write it here. But I am glad that you like the paintings. I didn’t attempt to make the portraits resemble the guys on TV, but I guess some of you can recognize them anyway! Je je je!

paintings · portraits

Looking to the Future – oil painting

J R DunsterLeave a comment

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

J R DunsterLeave a comment

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

J R DunsterLeave a comment

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! 😉