the Alex Schaefer Hour

go ahead, give a listen! put it on while you fold laundry, or pay the bills, or better yet, get creative! I'll post the accompanying artwork soon. Here's a shot of the painting worked on during the show, oil on canvas, 30 by 40 CLICK HERE TO ENJOY THE SHOW!

8-bit mona lisa 2.0

I was asked by someone interested if I had any prints of the first 8-bit mona lisa I did or if there was another version because they loved the painting and wanted one of their own. There wasn't another version until today when I got done with a new one. I actually liked the concept of painting a new version on a number of levels so I took up the challenge. It's an entirely different painting in every way compared to the first one I did, but it's still the mona lisa. I painted it in oil nice and thick over a past work that didn't go anywhere which I thoroughly scraped and sanded so it has a nice dense surface. I used a very limited palette of pigments and it's just about the same size as the original, 36 by 24

get a t-shirt at www.cafepress.com/8bitmonalisa :)

Elysian Park

I went out to Elysian Park today with a couple other painters, Jose and Laurie, and fell in love with all the views! I brought this 18 by 24 canvas and had at this one. I kept the painting brushy but the paint was very watery with lots of gamsol and liquin. I used the color shapes to feel out the composition and then started drawing lines to refine things. when I got back to the studio, I fixed the lines down with more diluted liquin and a mouth atomizer.

the Alex Schaefer Hour, April 20th

Broadcasting LIVE Wednesday, April 20th at 1pm from the Hive gallery through coagula.com it's the Alex Schaefer Hour! We have a special guest, poet, medium, art psychic, tarot card reader, and astrologer to the Hive: Seraphime! Would you like her to channel your favorite dead artist? She will! Questions about love, creativity, the future? She'll take it all on. And on the painting side of things, all questions technical, aesthetic, historical, compositional, pictorial, conceptual, or otherwise will be fielded. There will be art supplies, painting, aesthetic talk, kvetching. Local drop in guests are welcomed and calls are encouraged: (949) 203-4726 join the fun!

Click here for a link to listen to the Show! Seraphime channeled Jimi Hendrix, we talked about world peace, we painted on the painting. We had fun getting things done. Here's how the painting looks at the moment, the same and totally different. Better? Worse? does it matter? we'll get there...

Drawing at the Dragonfly

I was invited to the "hollywood art walk" which is a very small walk as it takes place inside the Dragonfly nightclub! In all these years in LA I've never been to that club, so it was cool to see it for the first time with art supplies handy. I doubt in any other circumstances they'd let me in with a french easel and my work clothes. So I found a good spot, we found a clip light to work by, and I spent a few hours improvising this composition... mixed media on paper, 18 by 24

art in the streets

Maybe it was the opening at MOCA or the perfect weather but a bunch of artists decided to paint outside the Hive gallery during artwalk yesterday. I took the riot scene I'd started a couple weeks ago on the Alex Schaefer Hour and used it as my excuse to paint something, looking at the expressive underpainting and starting to make more refined moves and shapes, it's evolving in an interesting way! oil on canvas, 24 by 36

from memory, from life

I took the portrait of Kim for the first time back to the location and worked on it from life. I'd started it from a drawing and blocked it in from memory of the colors and light. It had gained such a momentum and direction from memory, so it was interesting to take the painting and work on it from life. I'm still working on it but it's looking good and I'm enjoying it! oil on canvas, 30 by 30

the Alex Schaefer Hour

Here's a link to the good times had on April 13th. Live from the Hive gallery through Coagula Radio. For visual reference, here is a shot of the painting I was working on during the show, before and after.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE SHOW!

portrait of kim

Today as an excuse to paint and talk about something on the Alex Schaefer Hour, I spent more time on the portrait of artist Kimberly Zsebe. Last week I worked with a limited value range and only used colors from white to tints mixed to the lightness of yellow ochre, and no darker. I worked to block in large flat areas of local color, like white walls, skin tone, grey shirt, black leggings, tan carpet, etc.; because I only allowed myself to get a certain amount dark, the lay-in was very high key. This week I used the same middle value tints which were the darkest I let myself go last week, only this time they're the lightest I can get and I blocked in all the areas of shadow. I still tried to express the same feeling of all the different local colors of things, but now they're in a low key. With the expanded value range I feel there is a greater sense of 'realness' It's an experimental adventure in portraiture but I'm liking it and enjoying the process. Here's how it looks so far and a digital composite of the painting and the drawing. (p.s. the audio on the show was terrible today, we are sorry. technicians are at work solving the issue)

hustler

this canvas has had quite a journey. It started out as an acrylic lay-in of an image found in an old issue of Hustler Magazine. I liked it ok but it didn't go anywhere and I decided to paint another painting over it, with a clown and showgirl and some rainbows. Don't ask! But that was sucking as well so I decided to go back to the original image. I think that the roundabout journey made for a good painting after all! Here's a composite of the painting in progress and a shot of the painting as it looks right now. p.s. for fun I'm also posting a composite of where the painting went before I went back to the original idea. oil on canvas, 30 by 40

red dot

Well yesterday was the opening reception for the California Art Club 100th Gold Medal Juried Exhibition and when I walked around the corner to see my painting I saw it was sold! woohoo! I've gotten paintings into the past seven shows and this is the first time I sold anything, I'm excited about that! I was told it was sold online before the show even opened, thanks internet! And thanks to whoever bought it. Here's a shot of the dot.

the Mezz

I was back with drawing supplies at the Mezz bar in the Alexandria Hotel for the Circus Maximus variety show. The drawing was a hit, one of the people from the hotel bought it on the spot! I got a decent photo of it on my camera before it was gone so to me I still have everything I wanted from the drawing. It might be a nice start to a painting!