Busyness

I've been very busy lately. I have, in my head, the deadline of May 1st for a fair amount of work (the actual deadlines are a bit later, but I want to be done early, and have wiggle room,) and, accordingly, I've been spending most of my time working on those pieces. My inspiration, however, has a bit of a short attention span, so I've been letting it wander to the occasional figure or flower study before dragging it back to the other. 

Here are the latest Sebbie paintings, still in progress. They've been an adventure for a couple reasons. One, they are being painted using the same set up, but from different angles and with different lighting--something I've never tried before. Two, both are requiring a fair amount of painting from memory. In the first one, in the actual set up, there is a little toy deer standing in front of Mr. Sebbie, so I've been doing a fair amount of bobbing and weaving to see what I need to see. In the second one, to get the lighting on the set up as I want, I can't see the colors on the painting properly. I'm sure I could play around with lightbulbs, screens, etc., but I haven't, so the result is that the painting I'm doing with the lighting correct on the set up is more in the manner of taking notes, and the real painting of the painting I'm doing when the light is completely wrong, using my notes, what I remember of the light impression, and the incorrectly lit objects as placement reference. It's kind of awesomely fun, and I'm excited to try some nocturnal landscapes using the same approach. So here they are, neither are finished yet, but you get the idea:

Sebbie:

Sebbie at the Shadow Puppet Theatre:

And here is the work my inspiration's attention span would rather I be working on. (I actually think it's more a matter of my inspiration being stubborn and immediately disliking, or pretending to dislike, anything it's told it has to do--it may take after the more adolescent aspects of my personality.) I would like to work on them more, as they are they're still rough studies, but they'll have to wait until the other work is done.  

I've always done standing or, occasionally, seated, nudes, reclining is new for me.

And some more ornithogalum, quick study:

Salon International: update

Happy to hear this little guy won both an Honorable Mention and a Jury's Top 60 award at Greenhouse Gallery's Salon International this year.

Salon International

Greenhouse Gallery's Salon International 2013 opens tonight in San Antonio, Texas.  These paintings will be there, will you?

Sebbie and the Spyglass

June Bug Portraits

Sebbie and more Sebbie

I started two new Sebbie paintings this week--an experiment to see if I can set up a still life to work from two different angles.  

Yearning for spring

I'm afraid I've never been a big fan of winter. It's beautiful, yes, but also cold and dark, which in my world translates to fatigue and grumpiness. Spring is clearly coming now, though. You can feel it in the moisture in the air on sunny days, you can hear it in the birds (who are the only creatures I'll freely admit beat my enthusiasm for the coming of warmer weather), and the days are longer, there is actually enough time between sunrise and sunset to get things done: it's wonderful. The only wrench in the gears is that here in New England, there's still a nice blanket of snow on the ground, and I'm ready for flowers. Indoors, however, I've been cultivating a fair number, and, in defiance of the snow, perhaps, have been doing little studies of the various blooms. Find below, orchids, daffodils, grape hyacinths, and ornithogalum. (Oils on panels).

Spring?

I know it's not technically spring yet, but the fact that we're sooooo close made the reality that today was snowy and cold all the worse. I chose to ignore the weather (as much as possible) and paint daffodils. Below is a rather quick study of the flowers. I've always loved daffodils --I think because, to me, their smell signals the end of winter-- but I've never tried painting them before. I was always daunted by the yellowness of them. But they were cheery subjects to paint, perfect for a day of gloomy weather. 

Daffodil study, 8x10" oil on panel

Step by step, day one

Periodically, people ask me about my process as an artist: what steps do I take to complete a painting? So, for sake of demonstration, I took a bunch of in-progress pictures of my latest Sebbie painting. These are all from today, day one of the painting.  I started with a tinted (imprimatura-ed) canvas, and sketched out my composition with charcoal, as you see at image 1, and then proceeded to block in the big shapes--for the skeleton that meant paying as much, if not more, attention to the negative shapes as the actual forms. And then I got so caught up in the work I forgot to take pictures between 2 and 3... and again between 4 and 5. Remembering to do other things while painting is not my strong suit--this is why I never put things in the oven while I work, no matter how wonderful it sounds to have a nicely baked something at the end of a painting session: I will forget about it while caught up in painting, and it will burn. Ah, well.  But hopefully you can get a rough sense of how my painting takes shape. After the block in is finished (image 6), comes the hard part; I'll keep you posted.

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