Hometown I : La Ventana Light - SOLD

"La Ventana Light"

This is the first in a series called Hometown. It is oil on a 8x8 gallery wrap canvas. I intend to make this my first painting for sale, once I have two in the series completed. The second is on my easel now and is going well.

My hometown is Driftwood, Texas. We sometimes ignore the scenes around us in favor of the more exotic. Every day images can evoke strong emotions. Each time I round the bend at this entrance this scene says, "Home" to me.

Red Cup A or B

These are two black and white graphite drawings of the same subject, a red cup sitting in a white saucer with a black card in the background. This was an exercise of manipulating values, the lights and the darks in a scene. I hand drew the same image twice by using  graphite pencils on Bristol Smooth paper.

In image 1, A, I used no pure black. On a scale of 1-10, black being a 1 and pure white a 10, there is no value 1 in the image. The card is a 2 value. Notice that the contrasts are extreme and the scene looks sharp. If I had taken the dark down all the way to black, the contrasts would be even more extreme.

In this second image, B, I used no 1 values, no 2 and no 10. Notice how the scene looks more soft and dreamy as if it is in lower light or viewed on a misty day.

 

 

It is interesting. Artists make lots of choices that influence how we respond as the viewer.



Mary's Bedroom

The intention for this painting was to paint an interior in the style of Mary Cassatt, the American Impressionist Painter from late 19th and early 20th Century. Mary befriended Edgar Degas and the other Impressionists, often funding their exhibitions from her wealth. Well, that's one way to get the good old boys to let you in. This painting is quite different from my usual style but I like it very much. I'm not sure that I was successful in channeling Cassatt, but I do think that I followed her maxim to "do what it takes to make a good painting".

"Mary's Bedroom" is an 11x14 inch painting on canvas.

First Portrait Glazed

Here is the same painting after a mauve glaze has been applied to unify the painting, integrate the subjects into the background, and improve the 3-D modeling in the face. The effect is subtle. Do you think it is better?

I could improve her more, but she is just a study and I am ready to move on to the next one. I've learned what I had to learn from this young lady.

First Portrait

This painting is my first attempt to paint a human head. I painted her from a reference photo, a young English woman posing in the cold light of Wales. She has an odd look in her eyes, not really looking inside her cup but rather looking inside her head.

She isn't finished but she is at the stage of "the best I can do at this point". Soon I will take her to Edward Povey's studio and he will coach me through applying a series of glazes to bring her more "in tune". The 3-D modeling and colors on her skin aren't right yet and I am hoping that they can be improved with glazing. Her eyes need to be set back into her head a bit too. So stay tuned and consider this the BEFORE shot.

I have to admit that I was pretty terrified to try to paint a person. With that in mind, I am now feeling much more confident and am pleased with my first try. I'm anxious to get her glazed so I can try another.

Human Figure Drawing

 

 

 

 

 

I'm still working on the Hometown Series and am nearly finished with the second painting. They are more difficult than you would think that they would be, finicky.

In parallel, I am also working on other projects like figure drawing. The work above is a work in progress, a drawing using graphite drawing pencils on Bristol Smooth paper. You are looking a small portion of a complete nude female figure. This little bit took an afternoon to accomplish. Actually the process is a rather Zen experience. The goal is not to see any lines, just graphite that looks like a human. Tricky. Taking a photo of the piece helps me see what errors I have made. Now I have to go pick up my sticks and try again.

Opposing Views - Jan '13

 

I needed to do a little painting just for fun and silliness after all the serious work this fall in the Austin Atelier. These three fit the bill in a little 6x6 inch canvas. The subject seems right for the times when we can't seem to see issues from a shared perspective. I stopped before actually naming names.