Some drawings

These drawings are from my figure drawing class. I love the full figure one. I was feeling pretty comfortable while doing it and I got some good feedback from my instructor. I started the head in the last hour.....meh! Good to practice though!

Quick Study Homework Assignments

These are four of the six quick study homeworks I did for this weeks class. My instructor really liked the first one and so do I. I included some of the in progress photos for that one. I also did one of the same photo of my friend Linda. As you can see it is not as good as the one I did to give to her, but I also did it in less time. My instructor liked it though (as do I.)




Linda/Hotel in New York on New Year's Eve/Cops in either Italy or Spain

Surrealism Class: Image on an Object

This is the result of a homework assignment where we were supposed to find an image and paint it on an object in order to make a statement. The object one chooses to paint on can add to the meaning of one's piece. So he wanted us to pic an object that would, once again, be juxtaposed to the image. Our intent and meaning should spark a conversation where the viewer could see both the positive and negative.

I chose to paint the Gerber baby on a TV. Any guesses as to why I did this.? I really enjoy looking at this piece. I think it is because it is so small and it was such a pain to do (painting on glass is no joke).....so I am proud of how it turned out.


My Intent:
I decided to juxtapose a picture of the Gerber baby on a television. I chose a television because I am addicted to TV. Up until a couple of months ago I had to watch it all the time and had to watch it when I ate and whenever I painted. I don't watch it as much anymore but that is only because it is more convenient for me to watch movies on my computer. I wanted to show how television can be and is both a negative and positive thing in our American society. I thought a good way to do this would be by painting the Gerber baby on the screen. This trademark is a universal symbol in America and around the world. It is a household name and picture even for people without children. Most of us were probably fed Gerber foods at some point the same way we might have been fed TV growing up. So the question is, "Is this a good thing or not?" I think TV is a positive thing to a certain point, but there is a fine line. [I have more thoughts and examples but no need to list them all...the above is pretty much the gist of it.]

Surrealism Juxtaposition Final: Cupcakes and Women

These are the final two paintings of my Juxtaposition assignment (don't have a final picture of cupcakes cause the finished version was swiped :( in my surrealism class.
We were supposed to paint two images that aren't our own and juxtapose them in order to make a specific statement that can be argued to be both positive and negative....no propaganda. He wants us to spark discussions with our work.

So what do you think? What am I trying to say by choosing these two images? What statement am I trying to make by the way I painted the images and how I painted them? What do you think my intent might be. You wouldn't need to get the exact meanings and reasons that I have but hopefully I did my job well enough so that you can be in the same ballpark.



I wanted to juxtapose beauty and women in our society and how beauty is sometimes seen as something that should be placed on a pedestal and as something that can be consumed and as something that everyone wants to be or to have. So I decided to do this with a painting of picture perfect cookie cutter cupcakes and a black and white painting of very beautiful women painted very flat. I think that this piece shows both the positive and negative of this concept.

Quick Study Final Painting.

Like I said before it has been a while since I have posted, but for now I have a homework assignment to show. We were asked to take one of our small studies and make it into a large painting. I chose this one which I really liked.









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I was excited to see it in a large format and to really take advantage of color. My study was very muted. This is what I came up with for the final. (I still have some things to change but otherwise I love it.) My instructor also had some good things to say about it and was very encouraging. He said that I should be very happy with it....and I am.










I did not like the fabric color so I decided to glaze it to change the color. I had always wanted to glaze something that had already been modeled in order to change the color like some of the old masters would do. Word to the wise, DO NOT TRY SOMETHING NEW on an important painting, PRACTICE it first. I ended up not being able to get the glaze to the consistency I wanted. I accomplished the color change I wanted (pale green to red) but for some reason the glazing mediums (ended up trying two...prefered Galkyd but will try something different next time) caused a tacky gooey consistency. I messed it up, but I think I was able to salvage it. I am excited to master this technique.

Anyway, here are photos of the process to get to the final painting I have now. I am VERY happy with this painting and what I learned from doing it.






You can see the original study in the background of the second photo.






















Notice the various changes in the fabric color. What a chore but I learned what TO do and what NOT TO do :)

Surrealism Juxtaposition Part 1: Cupcakes

So it has been a long time since I last blogged and I am not quite sure why. I think life just happened and I also don't think I had very many things to show or that I wanted to show. I have been working on a few big pieces and I finally have photos to post of the progress.

These are various stages of a juxtaposition painting that I am doing for my Surrealism class. My instructor has asked us to take two images that aren't our own and juxtapose them in order to make a specific statement that can be argued to be both positive and negative....no propaganda. He wants us to spark discussions with our work. More on this later. This is my first of the two paintings to be juxtaposed. The above is where I am with the painting now.

Cupcakes....I LOVE cupcakes!!!!

I still have some final touches to make.

UPDATE:

Final cupcakes.....one of my favorite paintings EVER! Was stolen (or something else) from the building. OYE! It pains me so. I just hope that they are hanging on someone's wall versus under a layer of someone else's painting. I really loved them and got such great feedback on them AND it took me FOREVER!!! Oh well I shall do another set at some point!

Quick Study Practice

I really like these first two pieces. I think I like the first one because of the red Illy label and since it reminds me of Amsterdam (where I took the pic.) They just pop for me too...and they were fun to do. I really like them from far away (second pic.)










(Me grabbing my tiny cup of coffee :)

Rave Reviews for my painting of Mike!!!!

Today in Surrealism class we had our homework critiques. Can I first begin by saying that the work that the other students created was AWESOME! I love seeing from week to week what people do in this class. So original and very talented.

I am so freakin excited! I can't even tell you how excited I am. I have been walking around with knots in my stomach for the last few days because I have been so happy with my painting of Mike and yet I have received some interesting feedback from some of my peers and friends. I kept getting what seemed to be the same response when people would look at the piece while I was working on it and when it was finished. Not the response I wanted....

Here is the typical scene:

--I say "Here it is," with a huge smile on my face.
--They look and then stare IN SILENCE and then say "ohhhhh, wow he has a green face" or "that's interesting."
--(See my smile fade.)

But now that I think about it my smile shouldn't fade because I want them to be somewhat wow'd (but I want it in a positive way) because Mike makes me go WOW (in a positive way :) Cheesy but true.

No worries though....I am here to learn, experiment, improve and become the artist that I need and want to be and create art that I LOVE and hope that someone out there (IS IT YOU!!!! :) loves it too....not to mention this was an assignment and not exactly how I want to paint.

I told myself that I was just going to see what my instructor had to say. I worked my butt off and put so much thought and care into doing the assignment correctly. I was happy with it (very happy) so now I just needed to see if in his eyes I accomplished the goal. I DID! Kevin said he really liked it and that I did a great job using the paint application, brushwork, color and design to show the story behind Mike. He said that it all made sense and that I handled it well, especially with showing the layers of Mike through the physical peeking through of his black and white layer.

He only had one criticism (of which I was aware....one of my instructors said we should be able to give ourselves the same critique as our teacher.) The issue was that my background was TOO saturated and competing with Mike who was supposed to be the thing popping out. And he also mentioned that there were some minor issues that I could have fixed like making the shape of the eye better, but that this was minor especially in light of the assignment. But I think I will go back and make these changes, especially since I agree with the suggestions.

Check out Kevin's book. You can get it at Blurb.com It is called ARTITUDE (Kevin Moore.) It will give you a taste of all of his great insights and what I am learning in his class. I highly recommend it.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/167290

Oh and yes, I would have recommended his book despite being very happy about the critique I received.....come on, who do you think I am ;)

UPDATE:

Here is the most recent version of this painting.......

VERSUS

First Stage of my Surrealism Homework

So here are two pictures of my Surrealism homework so far. The assignment is to do an over sized portrait of someone we know and are close to, so of course I am doing Mike :) The portrait is not supposed to be academic in fact he wouldn't mind us pushing towards abstraction and potentially not making it looking like the model. The painting is supposed to be about the paint application, brushwork, color and design. He wants us to be able to show the story behind the sitter through the paint and not through the expression on the model.

My plan so far is to show the two layers of Mike. The serious (black and white), sensitive, calm (smooth and thin), stubborn, in his head layer compared to the vibrant, wild, crazy, humorous, outgoing side. In this first stage, I am showing the former layer and now (today) I plan on showing the latter layer via thick, colorful, vibrant, expressive stokes. BUTTTTTTT I plan on (somehow) having parts of the black and white version showing through to represent how if you are close enough to him and are able to get through the thick outgoing layer that you will also have the pleasure of seeing his other deeper layer.

We'll see how it goes. This is TRULY an experiment.
Wish me luck!!!

Copy of a Rembrandt 2007

This is a copy of a Rembrandt painting that I did last year.

A couple of Quick Study Assignments 2/10

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These are a couple quick studies that I did the other day. I really like the first one. I like the second one too, but it is not well done. That is, the colors and paint application aren't great, but I am drawn to it for some reason. I was trying to not use any new paint because I only had the last 15 minutes to do it in the workshop. So I forced myself to stick to the paints that were left on my palette from class earlier in the day.