I got schooled!

In keeping with my idea that you've got to remain a student if you want to improve, I recently took an oil painting workshop at the Norman Rockwell Museum. The workshop was taught by a super-brushy illustrator named Greg Manchess whose work I've always really liked. Since I've got very little experience in painting with oils and painting from the live model, it was a struggle but I learned a lot and am itching to continue. Greg is a great teacher and a fun guy so the time flew by.
If you're ever near Stockbridge, Mass you really owe it to yourself to check out the Rockwell museum. Even if you don't dig the subject matter, I guarantee that you will leave with a whole new appreciation of just how good a painter he was.

Loomis and Leyendecker are coming in September!

I sure don't want the Summer to end, but there are some great reasons to look forward to September, two of my favorite artists have new books coming out....a brand spankin' new book about J.C. Leyendecker and a looooooong overdue reprinting of Andrew Loomis' Creative Illustration.
Along with a lot of other comic fans in the eighties, I discovered the great Andrew Loomis drawing books through Steve Rude's Nexus series. From the moment I got my hands on one of his books, I knew that I had found gold. While my tastes in lots of things come and go as time goes by, I still want to be Andrew Loomis when I grow up ;)
I have all of his books and every time I pour through them I make some kind of connection that I hadn't before.
While "Figure Drawing for all it's worth" seems like a better choice to test the waters with, "Creative Illustration" is a great book too, it covers everything from composition, to drawing and painting techniques to making a career in art.
I''ve heard that the new publisher may do other Loomis books if this one is well received, so go preorder it now!
Heck, I'm ordering it even though I've already got a copy of the original!

More Moleskine girls

No time for painting, but I thought that I could bury you in more moleskine sketches ;)

Moleskine day...

While I haven't been turning out too many paintings lately, I do continue to fill up my faithful little moleskine book with spontaneous little ink sketches in cafes and airports!

Eye Candy for me!

Just heard that I got some of my paintings accepted into the next Eye Candy for Strangers book, woo hoo! Each Eye Candy book features the girl art of a bunch of artists. I sent in a batch of jpgs of my sketchpaintings for consideration, but I have no idea if they will be using one or all of them, so we'll all find out together I guess ;)
I think that the book is scheduled to be out towards the end of the year. Brandstudios publishes a great line of art books, check them out. The books always make me wonder,"Who the hell is this guy?" and ,"Wow, this is great stuff, why haven't I seen this before!"

A happy profile

I know it's been a while, but here you go.
I keep a folder on my computer of photos that for one reason or another I think would be good starting points for these loose paintings. Case in point, here's one that I snagged from Molly Crabapple's Dr. Sketchy site.
You would think that with all of the crazy sh#t going on there ;) that something else would jump out at me, but I really liked this profile shot of Molly.
This is also a good example of how far I stray from my reference material too. I just focus on the aspects that draw me in and ignore the rest.

Another gothy girl

In paintings, I like it when the hair and clothes kind of merge into one shape I think that it makes the skin pop even more. I wanted to keep the emphasis on the pale skin here so I didn't put much detail anywhere else. This one was painted on a piece of cardboard from the back of a drawing pad which is a really nice surface to work on.

The furry black hat

This time of year in New England we are all bundled up so I guess that was the motivation for this one, plus I like girls in hats! I was drawn to the way the hat covered her eyes in particular, you don't see that very often in portraits.

Victorian beauty

While I may be comfortable living in the "modern" world, I can't deny that there is something very appealing about the slower pace of the 19th century that tugs at my soul...especially the girls in fancy dresses and the art!

goth girl

I admit it, I like to see people dressed up, whether it's in nice clothes or some kind of crazy outfit. I've always admired punks and goths for the pure dedication to their lifestyle...man, no one else in the world shouts out,"THIS IS WHO I AM!" better than they do.

Pink girl's progress

Here are some progress pics I took while I was working on the pink girl. I told you that you would be horrified! One thing about acrylic paints is that you can paint on just about anything, and I guess I proved it this time. This one was painted on an old book cover. The cover was falling off and I was going to chuck the book when it struck me that hardcover book covers are basically canvas boards but with a finer weave than most commercially made canvas boards. The finer weave worked out well at this small scale and it was actually a nice surface to work on...crazy I know.

Pink girl

Well this was a change of pace. First of all because I don't usually paint kids and secondly because I painted it on a piece of canvas board (well kind of). I took some in prog photos that I'll post soon and you'll be horrified to find out what I painted this one on ;)

Heart shaped tattoo

This one kicked my butt...repeatedly! I started and abandoned it a couple of months ago. I've found that if things are not working it's best to just move on. But since it's in my sketchbook, it just kept staring back at me whenever I flipped past! Every once in a while when I had my paints out I'd take another whack at it. I've long since come to grips with the hard fact that I'm not the kind of artist that can just 'do it', most things are still hard, which is probably the challenge of it all.

Hoodie snowstorm

I didn't get to it in time, but I was toying with the idea of making a quickie Christmas card out of the Hoodie girl. I adjusted the colors and added an instant snow storm in Photoshop.

Hoodie girl

I did this one on a small (4x6 inches) piece of masonite for a change of pace. It's always fun to paint on different surfaces. I noticed right away that I had gotten used to the feel of working on paper in my sketchbook because this surface didn't "give" at all to the pressure of my brush, but hey, at least I didn't have to worry about the paper buckling!

Down to two!

As I've mentioned before, I use a limited set palette for these quickie paintings that consists of white, black, yellow ochre and red. I recently read about a REALLY limited palette of just two colors so I thought that I'd give it a try...just white, burnt sienna, and ultramarine blue. With this small range to choose from, you can still get some nice warm and cool color relationships and an interesting variety of colors (a lot more than I'm showing in this one). This makes me want to play around with some other color combos!

Violin practice

I don't do too many horizontal format paintings but some subjects just work better that way.
One of the liberating aspects of these small paintings for me and one that really separates them from my professional work is just being able to leave things alone....like here, the bow and the fingers are described just enough so you know what's going on but they aren't rendered out precisely.

Red Top

Usually for these quick paintings I stick to headshots. Once I get into arms and legs and hands etc it becomes a lot more complicated and time consuming and let's face it....more like work. But , I have been thinking that I should start to do more than just heads...so here's a torso! Eventually at this rate, slowly but surely I'll get to full figures :)

white shirt

I've noticed that the recent painting have been pretty dark which is odd since it's Summer and the world is so colorful! It may have something to do with the fact that I usually do these at night in a dimly lit studio ;) Whatever the reason, I needed a brighter girl, so here she is!

Cloaked

I've got a folder on my computer of "cool photos" where I put pics that I think are interesting and some that might make good painting subjects. Case in point, this painting was done from a photo of the daughter of a friend of mine (Hi Rachel!) at a science fiction con where she was trying on a cloak. Costumes at cons seldom look too good especially in the flourescent glare of a crowded convention floor, but in this case she made it look just right. In fact, I'm thinking she should wear cloaks all the time;)