every year I paint a self portrait for my family for Christmas. It's a tradition! This year I did a quickie, like I do the live 20 minute sketches, only I indulged myself 2 hours. 12 by 9 inches. I think it has a pretty good feel for daylight, outdoor shade. Here's a few pics of the work in progress.
Also, here's Diana with a little line superimposed. I'm keeping with Vincent's idea of color first and then later line. I don't plan to do any serious new painting without working live with Diana again, but this is the arrangement I like.
Tonight we had a small turnout at the drawing workshop, I have a feeling it's the cold rainy weather and the holidays. Still, we all who showed up had a great time and I got a few drawings I was really happy with. Here's one of our model Amy that I thought was good, it's a 15 minute sketch from life with a little photoshop noodling for fun.
Here's the first stage of a painting (36 by 24) of a model named Diana, I met her on the movie shoot that this painting came from. She's a beautiful Romanian actress who sat for me in a blue dress in my backyard. It's hard to show work in progress because it's so RAW and all you can think about is everything that you want to fix about it, but I think it's good for students to see the beginning stages of paintings since all we ever see in the museums is the "finished" ones. About this painting so far, I'm experimenting with a manner that Van Gogh talks about here:
"The first two figures I painted this year were done in the way I tried last year, drawing them, and then filling in the outline. That is what I'd like to call the dry manner. The other way is to make the drawing last of all, and first find the tones without caring too much about the drawing, only trying to put the tones in their right places; and then gradually make the form and the subdivisions of the colours more exactly. That surrounds the figure with more atmosphere and gives it a mellower aspect, while the colours become more delicate for the very reason that one often brushes them over, and mixes one colour with another."
So in this piece I'm purposfully starting with a disregard for the drawing and instead just am revelling in the color. I'm happy with it so far! Next time we meet I plan to just focus on drawing her so I can get a hold of that aspect of the composition. It really is a fun way to paint and I can see why Vincent worked this way! It's working like Cezanne said to, i.e. Build up the entire painting all together at once rather than finishing part to part as you go.
This blog is primarily about my art. And with regard to what I find desire to paint I am non-political because it's not what I choose to remember of my time on earth. But of late, in this new presidential election season, I've found myself becoming deeply involved in politics and the future direction of this nation. I am of the profound belief that Ron Paul is this only man who will redirect the course of our domestic and foreign policy towards peace and prosperity rather than war and economic collapse. I've joined a meetup group, I hand-write postcards to voters, I canvas door to door in my neighborhood, I donate to the campaign, I show up at rallies, I promote the man and his ideas.
I went to a rally for Ron Paul today in Santa Monica in celebration of the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party and a day chosen for people across the country to donate money to his presidential bid. The original Boston Tea Party in 1773 was an act of civil disobediance in response to tyrannical governance by King George the III of England. Today we marched in support of Ron Paul and in opposition to the tyrannical domestic and foreign policies of George W. Bush.
This is a video of some of the folks gathered before the march. It shows only a small portion of all the people there! There were easily 700 to 1000 total and the honking response from people in their cars was thrilling! Hondas, Porsches, Metro buses, Brinks Trucks! It was remarkable! The line of people was an entire city block. AMAZING! What an exciting spirit for this to spontaneously spring up without any direct organizing by any central campaign office! Such a thrill! REAL grassroots politics!
I hope everyone will post their videos of the event because there were a lot of cameras there. My video is a pale reflection of the scope and spirit of the actual event!
I thought to post a pic of my recent nude in progress. I have left her entirely untouched and focused on resolving the background. I want to work on her figure again from life, but I also want to get the background looking right to me. That way I have a good, rich foundation against which to see and paint the interesting differences, and the chiaro-scuro, of her flesh.
I can't express to you the delight I take in drawing. It's stimulating to every part of me! Like a puzzle I know I can solve but I never know how, if, or when I'm going to get there. This is a drawing of a new model I've been working with, Liz. This is a very "academic" study, but I think it still retains a good feeling of life, not too stiff. As you can tell if you're a regular reader of my blog, while I always work within the realm of representation from life in some sort, I feel free to vary how naturalistically representational I work. In this day and age, representational painting is such a thin slice of the "Art with a capitol A" pie, that whether you're working like Stella Vine or Henri Matisse or Adolphe Bouguereau it's the same game, the same language. I just prefer to find my inspiration from life, how "realistically" I work is my prerogative.
p.s. come and see my artwork in person at the Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk every second Thursday of the month. Click downtownartwalk for info
I met this woman Liz at the Hive gallery recently and she came over and modelled for me, she is a great model! Right now the light and color are really beautiful. The sun is low and clear and the sky is intensely blue which makes for deep blue-green, blue, and blue-violet shadows. This combined with the yellow leaves of the tree in my backyard, the dark, wet earth, the tree, and the grey cinderblock wall and I was excited to see and paint a nude in this environment. This painting is work in progress, acrylic and pastel on canvas. I started right out with color and no regard for the accuracy of the drawing, just get things kinda close but get the color as I see and feel it. The painting looked like even more a mess than it's present state! I should have taken a picture of it but I forgot. :-( Then with the painting blasted in after about 45 minutes I let it dry without fussing over it. After that I moved on to line drawing and drew Liz in various poses, shifting with the light... Afterwards I looked at everything I'd done and chose this pose which I superimposed on the painting with a grid and used pastels to shift all the colors here and there. I like how it looks so far, nice and raw; I plan to move to alkyds next and slap dash another coat of paint on it, basically aggressively re-painting the way it looks at the moment. I still want to keep that really raw because I plan to have Liz back in a few days so I can work from life again more.
Last night was great fun! I brought my oil painting setup and did 6 twenty minute portraits! Here are some of the ones I think came out quite nice. I sold the one of the young girl to her dad, he sent me a picture he took of me painting her. Cool! I think I did all right on that one, but it was a challenge! Between the funny faces, the cracking up, and the laser pointer it was tough to get her likeness. Still, Franny was a great model! I hope you like the painting! Thanks to everyone who sat for me. Here are some of the others...
also here is a video walking through the gallery when the place started getting busy. I wonder if anyone out there reading this took a video of me painting? If you did let me know! I forgot to get someone to film me, I think that would be fun to see!
