Rockwell coloring book

Just an exercise, I thought I would do a little coloring on my Norman Rockwell drawing from a while back.

Thanks for the comments on the previous post. Don't take my writing too seriously, I am often sarcastic which doesn't always get conveyed through text. My wife accuses me of having no feelings because I don't get offended easily. Its a useful skill to deal with art show judges and to pick through to find the criticism that I can use. I don't really fit the passionate artist mold which I'm sure contributes to my analytic approach to my work. I do appreciate critiques though.

rejected

14"x 18" Oil on board
"The Other Door," A recent oil painting that was rejected by the big local show. This has happened twice now, I've taken in 2 paintings on 2 separate years that I thought were pretty good. I figured at worst one would be taken but no such luck.
I liked this one. It was actually a very relaxing process, working from a photo we took in Venice it was nice to just paint what was in front of me with no real difficult decisions beyond value and color. I thought the composition was interesting as well, but that may just be me. Maybe it is just too straight forward?

I guess I will have to just find a way to go on.

sketchbook #38

This man landed a plane on water, the least I could do was honor him in my sketchbook.

figure drawing #32

Circumstances allowed for a NuPastel drawing this week. I was happy to get back to this mainly because it adds variety to my art exercises. It's pretty different to do the full arm drawing on the 18"x24" sheets.

This was a good model who got the drawing as her reward. It was a tricky pose and she was having trouble keeping the rotation right making it pretty difficult to draw. But I really like standing poses.

figure #31

Friday figure drawing. You can see some of the construction work on this one. Standard pose, but I am more pleased with the way these are turning out in my sketchbook they've come under the blanket that is my style.

Movie poster

For the Avalanche blogs most recent topic "The Land of Oz".
Don't worry I too am ready to get back to the more fine art work.

Oz in progress

A painting in progress for the Avalanche blog

Whitman

I got a great project for the most last issue of The Weekly Standard. It's Meg Whitman, I was happy with the work on the face I like the sculpted feel, but the body is pretty stale IMO, sigh.

Friday's figure drawing

Usually on Friday's I find time for a figure drawing session. Here is this weeks contribution. I think another half hour of refining could have made it pretty good. I would guess this is more like 1.5 hours.

Taft yet again

But this time in color.

figure #29

Finally a live figure drawing done in my sketchbook that is a little more consistent with my regular drawing style. It has a much more polished look.

I would guess the structure is done in about 15 minutes the 20 minutes on the face and about 45 minutes on the hair. Total about an hour and a half.

Taft again

I'm sorry for my absence. Too many competing priorities.

I wasn't satisfied with Taft's shape but this is better.

"What's your favorite dinosaur?"
"Velociraptor!" "Velociraptor!"
"Did we just become best friends?"

Ice

After a long absence, a digital painting is ready to make an appearance. Don't read anything into the meaning because there is none, just done for the sake of an interesting narrative.
I've been a big fan of Thomas Fluharty's digital work. He doesn't try to hide the digital feel to it and there is an appealing mix of hard and soft edges. It's like a digital version of "painterly". This painting has a little of that with a more unfinished feel around the edges.

figure #28

A recent figure drawing. This model obviously didn't feel the need to comb his hair for this session.

I think my drawings from life have a different indefinable quality to them then those done from photos. Maybe less refined but more natural? I don't know.

5 minutes 2 hands

I was finally able to pull my hands away for from their occupier for 5 minutes and do a drawing. You'll notice this is less detailed then usual, that is because the lights were dimmed to let the baby sleep but it does help to change my focus from details to more general shapes, values, etc.

figure portrait

A couple weeks I did this portrait at our weekly figure drawing session. I only had my sketchbook and it is very tricky to do a full figure with my usual .3 size lead mechanical pencil so I typically do a portrait. It is less free then most drawings because I worry more about the measurements on these.
Excuse the image, I gave him the drawing and only had this poor quality digital image left. I've decided my policy is only to give away a drawing if they really really act like they want it and go to the trouble of asking. I'm usually pretty willing but a) I feel very presumptuous offering ("I am so sure you want this fantastic drawing I did, right?") and b) I am not sure how much they want it, I would usually prefer to keep it. He asked about getting a copy but when he got the original seemed less then ecstatic.

sketchbook #36

A small drawing. This face is pretty small so when working with limited space you have to make sure each line placed correctly.

This is not a painting

Well, things got more complicated last week with the birth of our first daughter. Actually she is (obviously) beautiful, but a handful that didn't come with an off switch, so I will have to work harder to find time for my artwork. She will surely be a good muse as she grows and her artist mother and I are already teaching her the basics of color theory, composition using the Golden mean, chiaroscuro, fat over lean, etc. She will be an uber-artist.

Glow

A new oil painting done on a 16"x20" Masonite board. I basically like it. One interesting thing is that as it has been sitting against the wall for the last few weeks I've notice that it has a fantastic glow to the face (this isn't really relayed by the digital image), which is what I had hoped for. The dull cool colors in the background and warm colors in the face to direct the attention. I think the face has 3-4 layers to build up the lights so I suppose it is reflecting light just below the surface.

I've included a detail so that you can see the paint work up close.

Ode to Ingres

I LOVE Ingres. His paintings are so fantastic. Above is a drawing I found in a great book called Portraits of Ingres, I highly recommend it. This is based off one of his drawings, not necessarily a perfect match but I thought is was interesting how carefully he would do the face then a lot of the periphery is done very rough. Some of the hands, like this one, look like their straight out of a Picasso drawing.

Painting final

So here is the final version of the painting. This step is just the fleshing out and final detail. Obviously this is rougher than my usual style but I've done that purposely. The initial and rough work is done with bristle brushes and the more finished work is sometimes sable but usually Langnickel Royal Sable which I really like at the moment. The Sable and hog bristle are from an online company called Trekell, who have great prices.

I'll probably have this propped up against the wall in my studio for a couple months to see if it feels okay or I may have to go back to it.

You can see each step in the process here.

now in Digital HD color

And just in time for the governments scheduled conversion to digital! The textured version of the below model.
Sorry to visitors that are not interested in 3D modeling.

Sculpted Royalty

I was hoping to post a new oil painting but here is a sculpture based off of a painting I did a little while back, which you can find here. I would love to do a sculpture in clay and actually bronze the thing. This one would be nice to have on my desk.
This was all done in ZBrush, again thanks to Danny Williams for his mentoring.

sketchbook #34

I found this picture of Caroline Kennedy as a child, I guess I am too young to know how cute she was as a child. Very interesting eyes.

One, in my opinion very important, art tip is learning how to throw away what you've done and being confident that you can do it again. A lot of artists are way too hesitant to start over if they think something is pretty good already but maybe one portion is off. Don't be afraid to erase it and start over. These drawings are usually the second or third attempt, consider it as 3x the practice.

sketchbook #33

Today's drawing.

I've been breaking my cardinal rule lately which requires me to draw constantly. Luckily today I did. Don't worry this drawing is not a jerk I saw on the street, he is a jerk that I saw in a catalog. While drawing from photos, especially not my own, is not preferable to life it does give me a nearly endless supply of good subjects that don't take breaks.

3D model - Pirate

I did this model while experimenting in Mudbox. It was modeled in a flat gray but I wanted to see what it would look like colored and got a little carried away. So this is a full painting done entirely in overlays over the rendering. He definitely looks like a pirate so I was inspired to give him tattoos, the mother one is cool but you can't leave him without a Koi fish. I'm sure all pirates had at least one Koi fish tattoo, it was practically a ticket onto the boat.
Actually, I was initially trying to just learn by copying a brilliant model done by Daniel Williams (the first in his gallery). But as it developed I could tell I was failing and going way to realistic. You can see some similarities if you look closely.

Painting painting - step #4

So here is more of the meat of the painting after a day or two of drying time. Again kind of a rougher process then usual but I've enjoyed the more straight forward approach. Similar to my drawing style the face is were I like working, I like the challenge, and the background is more of an afterthought. That's why with this of any other painting the face is done first.
I've laid down an extremely thin layer of walnut oil (non-alkyd) to give the feeling of painting wet on wet but without the messy mixing colors. The colors and draftsmanship are being tightened up at this point. And I am building up the lights, one thing I really like about painting in layers to build the hi-lights over 3-4 stages because it gets a really nice glow especially in good light. I've pushed the sky toward blue but wasn't comfortable with it so it will change.

My mind is muddled so if you have any specific questions come to mind please ask. More to come.
Also note, the step #3 image is awful, this is much better.

Pomposity

I found this cool picture of an art critic, started a painting a while back then never really got back to finish but the face is nice.

Base painting - step #3

Don't worry it gets better.

So this is step #3 in this painting. If I remember correctly I was in a hurry to get painting so a rushed value under drawing, a quick spray fix, wait 5 minutes and time to paint. I slapped on a burnt umber thin layer with turpentine to thin and painted into it with no medium except more turpentine if needed. That explains the dark colors because anything you paint picks up about as much Burnt Umber as it adds new color. I used a lot of quick loose strokes to get the face and was very proud of it when I was done, only to return the next day to be disappointed (was obviously staring at it too long). I did like the way the brush work looked but not the details of the drawing, no matter there are more steps to come.
Excuse the blown out light values, I'm also still learning to use a camera effectively.

Upcoming show

Good news about on the gallery front, I've got an upcoming show at the Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona on February 19th.
I'm excited to get my work out there and see how it does in the real world. I got a feature in this months American Art Collector which is a very nice magazine. I'm a little uncomfortable with my comments, it's like watching yourself on tape, my own direct quotes always sound bad to me.