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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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