Adam Nowak Art

2012-02-20T21:41:00.002-06:00

Misha the Sculptor
11" x 17", oil on linen

Misha is a Russian sculptor who emigrated to the US back in the 80's. His website's here, along with his fathers art, which is pretty beast. http://mishafromminsk.com/index.php

4.5 hours at the Palette and Chisel today. Tons of fun, just going, going, going.

Portraits and figure sketches!

2012-02-18T13:33:00.001-06:00

9 x 12, oil on canvas

9 x 12, oil on panel

11 x 17, oil on canvas

A couple 20 minute poses done in charcoal


A student from school posed for us and had the entire Pikachu getup! At one point she looked desperately bored, and that's what I wanted, along with that ghastly hat. 11 x 17, oil on panel

A tiny 4 x 6 color study I did for the painting below. Took about two hours and I'm okay with the overall image, just a little too warm for what was actually happening.

This was a daily capture of the process I used to glaze with oils for the first time. I used Liquin Light Gel and a raw umber underpainting. The underpainting was quite bad, it was rushed to try to get enough time to glaze since I only had a little over a week to work on it so I thought I could fix mistakes in the glaze which I luckily was able to. It was a lot of fun playing around with it, slopping it on there, wiping it away, rubbing it in, seeing colors intermingle and lyer on top of each other.

This was done with 4 layers of glazing oils. Trying to figure out how to glaze as I'm so used to painting directly and even moreso, a lot of what I do is done alla prima.

11 x 17, oil on panel

2012-02-01T03:27:00.000-06:00

Toussaint oil on panel, 23" x 17"

My good friend Toussaint posed for a group of friends after school for 6 hours straight! Great pose, and great outfit which we needed to undo a bit to get it wild and messy.

2012-01-30T21:43:00.000-06:00

"Meg" Oil on board

"Cushman" Oil on linen

The portrait of Meg definitely came to be by an accident. I had oil primed a wooden panel about a month prior to the painting and since it had been dry to the touch I picked it to start painting on. Thing is from my experience, the room where I leave all my supports to dry makes the oil primer take a very long time to dry. There are stages where it's tacky, then dry to the touch, then completely dry (starts to feel a little gritty). I had started painting and I noticed the oil primer underneath starting to mix in with the oil paint!

Long story short, it had made the paint very difficult to move and it had sunken in and dried completely the next day. Over the course of 4 days I painted and it gave me a very interesting surface texture I'd like to work on in the future.

2012-01-21T23:39:00.001-06:00

2 hour foot study.

2 hour head study at the Palette and Chisel.

20 minute form studies.

Coffee and sketch some more.

2012-01-19T01:19:00.000-06:00

17 x 11 portraits in oil from a weekly portrait session.

2012-01-15T10:57:00.002-06:00

More sketches while sipping coffee and riding the train

2012-01-14T11:04:00.000-06:00

Recent sketches aboard the Metra and in coffee shops

2011-11-23T02:00:00.001-06:00

Zespo, oil on linen

One of my friends got into an accident, totaled his car but made it out alive. I didn't see how after looking at the photos of the damage and especially since he only got a few nicks and bruises.

2011-11-18T04:37:00.001-06:00

Han, oil on canvas

Portraits

2011-11-14T23:17:00.001-06:00

I've been doing quite a few portraits recently. The surge is in part that I've been able to hold a semi-regular session during the week with fellow students. These are all done 3 - 4 hours.

Still lifes

2011-11-14T23:15:00.001-06:00

Other work

2011-11-14T23:05:00.001-06:00

Recent life sized bust

The "Chimney Sweeper"

I took a recent trip up north with my friend to visit her parents, hometown, and to paint outdoors. It's something I really want to do more often but this was only the third time I've been out to paint. Viroqua, Wisconsin is full of photogenic scenery that is just sitting (literally) there waiting to be painted. It started to rain and I didn't bring an umbrella but I was not about to give up an hour in so I stood my ground and got soaked. Good thing oil repels water somewhat.

Previous day from the above painting during the 5:30 a.m. sunrise. I only had about 30 minutes max to get most of the sunrise before the blood red sunrise was gone.

Hand studies of myself, my sister, and my friends

Recent drawings in charcoal

2011-11-14T22:56:00.001-06:00

20 minute head studies

Portrait of a student

Portrait of another student

Quick gesture

Figure gestures

Quick gesture

Drawn during a workshop with Bo Zhang

Another drawing done during the workshop

5 minute head studies of students during class

More 5 minute head studies

Big update

2011-11-14T22:21:00.001-06:00

I've been gone for a little while and I've come back with some new work. I'll organize recent work into different groups of posts. Here's some recent figure paintings I've finished.

2 week pose

Detail

2 week pose

4.5 hour at the Palette and Chisel

Detail

4.5 hour at the Palette and Chisel

2011-08-05T11:25:00.000-05:00

Self portrait in black, 9 x 12, oil and glass on canvas

2011-08-03T23:12:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone, got some more stuff done in the past few weeks.

First piece is a 3 hour portrait study, with an intention of just laying down strokes and not touching them again. Not interested in edges in this one, many of them are obviously too sharp, but more so color shifts and accurate placement of strokes. Second a still life in watercolor. Third and fourth are some 3 hour studies done at the Palette and Chisel recently and last is a 3 hour portrait of one of the instructors at the Academy who teaches anatomy and illustration.

2011-07-15T10:09:00.000-05:00

I got the painting done from the last update, kind of happy with that one. Features studies, they're all of me except for the top left. These took about 2 hours each. The actual piece is a 11 x 14 so they're quite small. I used a limited palette of Ultramarine blue, cadmium red, and cadmium yellow pale. And a hand study from the same pose above.

2011-07-09T13:04:00.000-05:00

16" x 17" oil on board, still a work in progress. The board's been primed with an acrylic gel medium. Is it completely archival? Not sure, probably not, but I need to experiment once in a while, and I wanted a transparent ground with a thick texture to paint on.

2011-06-23T13:44:00.000-05:00

First portrait is from the weekly portrait club we have at school after all the classes are finished up. This week the schools registrar, Marcia, posed for us. 12 x 16 on mounted linen. Second is a small study (about the size of your hand) that I wanted to push a little further than I normally would for such a size. It's on a block of wood that I prime usually for small studies. Third is a watercolour from last week.

2011-06-17T11:39:00.000-05:00

Just finished this small painting. It also became an interesting texture study with some dry brushing on top of palette knife. Definitely something to keep in mind in the future.

2011-06-12T01:04:00.000-05:00

First painting is of a statue I found at school when I had some downtime today. All in all it took about 6 hours, 5.25" x 7.5" oil on wood. The second is a 3 hour portrait of one of the instructors, Jen Thomas. Third is a work in progress or a slightly larger painting. Fourth is the latest watercolor I've done. I just started the watercolor class and I never really took time to try to learn it. I only dabbled a few times with it before.

2011-05-27T09:15:00.000-05:00

The first portrait is of my father who sat down for me sometime last year. I never wanted to show it as I felt indifferent about it. But I stumbled upon it again while cleaning up my work and saw it with fresh eyes. The second is a color study of a larger painting I'm working on. Next is a portrait of one of the students at school who gladly posed for us after class. The figure painting was a difficult pose to describe. I needed to have the weight really push down into the cushions and leave the abstract presence of her pose intact. Last portrait is of another classmate who posed last week.

2011-05-05T01:05:00.000-05:00

Did the still life today at my friends house while waiting to go to work. I've been wanting to paint a more traditional still life setup where you can't see the ground plane.

The figure was done over at the Palette And Chisel. I used a somewhat limited palette. White, yellow ochre, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, and cad red because I realized all the other colors were too cold by themselves. I also mixed in Raw Umber to a lot of my colors I was mixing making them a little less saturated and cooler. Drapery and background I usually don't make the priority unless it's really interesting so like this time I only see them as abstract shapes and patterns to compose with. In this one I specifically went to get the form down in such a complicated pose in 4.5 hours but it's really tough and I didn't get what I was aiming for. Some parts which looked okay when painting (left leg especially) get lost now that I see it in front of me. In real life the only part that stands out to me that was decent was the right thigh. Even in the photo it's pretty bad. Another piece to learn from.

End of the semester

2011-04-30T12:52:00.000-05:00

After a very tiring and somewhat difficult semester, it's over. This is the last life drawing from the semester and the first landscape of the summer.

2011-04-22T16:55:00.000-05:00

Here's the latest pastel finished. I was able to help choose a pose for this past week and I decided to try something off of one of Prud'hon's figure drawings.

2011-04-20T01:46:00.000-05:00

My most recent WIP pastel on Rives BFK, a finished pastel, and a self portrait.

2011-04-01T15:18:00.000-05:00

A small 1 hour monochromatic oil portrait, pastel figure study, and a 1 hour copper metal study done in oil.

Self Portrait 3.20.11

2011-03-22T23:55:00.000-05:00

Self portrait using two colors, Alzarin Crimson and Prussian Blue together to create a very rich, deep blue-violet. 8 hours, 14" x 18".

2011-03-08T23:56:00.000-06:00

Recent alla prima head studies, each between 2.5 - 4 hours.