Portrait in Oil

oil on canvas
10 x 8

One last portrait to show, this time in oil. This one is more dramatic than most of my work, but I think it works. I wanted a kind of "in your face" look this time. I also wanted to see how far I could push the values and chroma before it went off the deep end.

I've posted some pencil portraits recently so I think another one isn't really necessary. In these last few posts I've tried to show my range in portrait mediums and styles. I hope you get the idea of what I try to capture. Oh, did I mention I take commissions?

Shawl and Rose

Watercolor
16 x 9

In keeping with the portrait theme here's a one in watercolor. Most of my portraits are in either oil or some drawing medium, but I can do them in watercolor too.

Crown of Flowers

Silverpoint
10 x 8

I thought I would post of series of portraits over the next few days. If you like them, I am available for commissions if you feel so inclined. This one is silverpoint which I really like especially for more delicate pieces like this. It's great for smaller, more intimate drawings. It allows for a great amount of detail in a small space if the subject calls for it, and it gets better with age as the silver tarnishes.

I will also be showing watercolor, oil and maybe a pencil over the next few days.

Curls

silverpoint
12 x 9

It occurred to me that the last two posts were of the same model. She's really quite a beautiful young woman, but you can't really tell that from the previous posts. So here's one where you can see her a bit better. I don't consider this to be one of my better pieces, but it's not too bad and it is a decent likeness.

Storm at Sea

Oil on panel
16 x 12

I have no idea what to say about this picture. I had considered saying something about the start of hurricane season, but that doesn't really have much effect on us around here. Then I thought maybe I could tell you about my love affair with the sea, but that's boring besides given the choice between going to the ocean or the mountains, I'd choose the mountains every time. Doesn't sound like much of a love affair. I never really cared for the pictures of waves breaking on the rocky beach either. So what's left?

Hopefully this will stand on its own. It's definitely a story telling picture. You supply your own story.

Pink Hat

Watercolor
21 x 14

Finished this one about a month ago, maybe a bit more, and never got around to adding it here. So here it is. A nice airy, summery painting.

Autumn Hillsides

Oil on Canvas
12 x 24

This is a very simple scene, but I really liked it. The contrast of the sunlit hill receding into the distance next to the nearer hill in shadow was very appealing to me. Add the light strip of the field in the foreground and the creamy clouds, and it really captured my attention. But I think the light branches of the sycamore trees are necessary to make the picture.

cast drawings

I thought I would post a few of these drawings since I haven't had a chance to photograph anything new. About a year ago I decided to sharpen my drawing skills. So I started doing drawings of Bargue plates. I don't have access to the actual plates, but the book is pretty good. Having said that, none of these are from it. They're all stashed away in sketch books, and getting the paper to lay flat for a photo is just more trouble than it's worth. These drawings are fairly similar though.


pencil
This is one of the earlier drawings. The paper was a bit rougher than it should have been. There's just more "noise" than I would have liked. Live and learn right? You may think the nose is kind of funky too. It was actually broken off, so it's not really funky, it's just gone.


pencil
The paper problem has been corrected here. I think this one is fairly successful. One of the problems I have with the Bargue plates is the lighting. As I understand it the casts were purposely lit to minimize reflected lights. So you have a light, a dark and a transition tone which, to me, results in a flatter than necessary image. On this one I worked from a photo of the sculpture that I downloaded from the Louvre site. In the Bargue book there is also a plate of this same sculpture. At the risk of dislocating my shoulder while patting myself on the back, I like my version better.


charcoal
This is just a bigger version of the same kind of drawings, this time in charcoal.

I don't know that anyone would consider these great art, the originals are, but these drawings, not so much. They weren't really meant to be. They were meant to be practice pieces designed to train the hand and eye. Look, see, draw, then check keeping the drawing as close to the image being copied as possible. Once you get good at rendering from two dimensions to two dimensions start doing the same thing except this time work from life, from a three dimensional object, maybe a real cast. Sound boring? Maybe, but if you want to really polish your drawing it works, and if its done right it works pretty fast.

Spring Rains

Oil on Canvas
22 x 36

I don't know what it is about me, but I love foggy, rainy days (to a point at least). This is one of them. Hopefully it speaks for itself because I don't have much to say about it right now. I'm finding that talking about my work is the hardest part of this blog stuff.

Winter Church

Watercolor
22 x 30

I was looking through photos trying to find something that might be of interest, and I ran across this one. It's a bit on the old side, but it's not too bad. On to the interesting part.

This was in a show once upon a time. When I have shows I like to kind of blend in and see what people really think. If they know you are the artist you rarely get true feedback. You get the "Oh this is wonderful" stuff whether it is or not. While that may be good for the ego, it really doesn't help all that much. Anyway, I was wandering around and there was this one guy talking to a rather attractive woman in front of this painting. A little eavesdropping seemed to be in order so I started listening to him tell her all about my painting. It seems that this piece is all about life and death and spirituality. The green tree represents life with the dead (actually leafless) tree and cemetery representing death. The church of course is the spiritual part. I don't know if she was buying all this, but I was quite impressed, especially since I had no idea that I had done that. I thought I was just balancing out lights and darks not commenting on life and death.

I guess I'm just a deep kind of guy, deeper than even I knew. Something was sure getting deep that night.