Wellington

Having a great time in sunny Florida. Here is a picture of my space down here.

Wellington

Sorry, for not posting for awhile. I spent a few days packing for Wellington and a few days getting here. Got in last night and have been having fun with a friend today, before I start working tomorrow.

We were able to catch most of the Grand Prix this afternoon. Here is a shot of McLain Ward and Sapphire, who ended up second in the Grand Prix.

Egg

Never tried an egg before. It was fun to do.

lemon

Did this little guy last night. The funny thing with these quick little studies is I always think they are going all wrong and then at the last moment they seem to come together pretty well! It's great when life works out that way:-)

He's about 4" x 5", Oil on gessoed paper.

1.16.08 - Dogs

If you know me, you know that my dog Summer is my pride and joy, so it's not surprising that a lot of people ask me why I don't paint Dogs. I don't paint dogs because I never studied their anatomy. I am a firm believer that you have to understand what you are looking at in order to paint it (at least in the case of realism). Growing up I used to think I wanted to be a Horse Vet, so I studied all I could about horses and how they worked in addition to following the Vet around the barn! In art school we studied Human Anatomy, skeletal and musclature. I really believe this helps a great deal.

However, I decided to try my hand at painting Summer today. Admittedly the pose is a toughy, with lots of foreshortening, an awkward pose and strange angles. While I'm happy with the painting, I did have to work really hard to figure out what was going on in terms of her body. Maybe I'll have to get a book on dog anatomy and learn how they are put together.

1.15.08 - Thoroughbreds

I guess Wednesdays are my most productive days! I did two small paintings and worked on a larger piece, which is almost done.

These two thoroughbreds are not painted in my usual style, at least for my horse paintings. Of course it's much smaller than normal (7" x 10") so I couldn't paint the way I usually do. The funny thing is, I usually do a drawing in preparation of a painting. This painting I did in preperation of a drawing!

1.15.08 - Kelly

Normally I wouldn't try to paint someone I had never met, however I wanted a challenge and thought this would be a good one. I don't think it's that bad for 2 hours of work. The dimensions are about 5" x 12".

For those of you who don't know who Kelly Slater is, he is probably the best Professional Surfer of his generation. I'm not a surf fan, although I think it's a beautiful sport. He was on the cover of "Outside" magazine recently, which is what I used for this painting. I think he has a very compelling face. Hopefully I did it some justice, the shot is from slightly below, which proved somewhat of a challenge!

1.13.08

Okay, This is an older painting, my copy of Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring. Copying a masters work is a good way to learn something new. While Vermeer is nowhere near my favorite artist, I think this is a lovely piece and I learned a lot doing it.

I am posting it for Mondays entry since I did not actually paint on Monday. I worked all day, but I did administrative things. Since I am going to Florida in a little over a week, there was a lot to get done...boring stuff like licenses and insurance and other paperwork. Yes the exciting, glamorous life of an artist never ends!

And Now For Something Completely Different

Okay, I must have been in a silly mood, because I decided to do this as my daily painting. Now I know I'm not an abstract painter by nature but sometimes you just got to do something for fun...

Last night, my friend Amanda and I went to see the Leibovitz and Adams shows at the Corcoran. It was an absolute crush. I preferred the Annie Leibovitz's landscapes and photographs of non-celebrity's than her more famous work. Much more compeling I think. Ansel Adams is always great, but we felt that his work has been so overly popularized that when we saw a piece that we recognized it didn't seem to have the impact it should have. Still, beautiful, beautiful work.

Landscape

Well, it was only a matter of time before I quit the still lifes...they've never been my cup of tea...for some reason I really like minimalist landscapes, so that's what I did yesterday...

oh and I finally figured out how to crop images...so you won't see any of the background stuff anymore:-)

1.08.08

This is the painting I finished yesterday...I still need to get a better shot of it, but I have to pull out all my lighting equipment to light it so this will have to do right now...I also think it needs a touch more work. I think the dimensions are 36" x 48".

Calla Lily

Wow! What a productive day this has been. I did two of my small paintings today. The reason I did two is because the first one wasn't going well, so I decided to start over with a different subject. That one went much better, it's attached. I might break my rule about daily painting and work for a very short time on the other one tomorrow....I think I know how to fix it.

After doing my second small painting I went to work finalizing one of my larger works, and I think I am almost there...I need to look at it again and the morning and see if there is anything I need to do. I couldn't photograph it tonight, since I need natural light to take the picture, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

1.7.08 Tomato

Well, I'm much happier with this one than I was with the apple. Although I probably could have worked on it longer, these little paintings are excercises and so I made myself stop after awhile. I also worked on some of my larger pieces yesterday and ope to finish at least one of my big ones today...so hopefully I will be able to post that later this afternoon.

Weekend

I had thought I would paint this weekend, but ended up doing a number of other things. I went to a gallery opening at Studio Gallery. The show was a group show of a bunch of DC artists called Mid City Artists, their website is http://midcityartists.com. It was a great show, lots of fun and I met a bunch of new and interesting people. On Saturday I finally found someone who could do my business cards in less than a month. I found this great little store down an alley in Alexandria, it's called Scriptorium...I ended up changing my mind about the color of the business cards and ended up going with a Turqoise card with Dark Chocolate ink because it felt more like me. I met up with a fellow artist and friend Marina for coffee at St. Elmo's. You can see her work at http://marinareiter.com. Additionally I rearranged and partially painted my apartment...now that I am working from home all the time, I am trying to make my small space more user friendly. Whew! Thank God the weekend's over and I can get back to work!

Painting Over

Here is a close up of a painting that has been painted over...I use a different technique for this type of painting and try to actually use the underpainting to make the new painting interesting.

Friday 1.4.8

Well, I promised a daily post so this is what I worked on Friday. I'm not happy with it, but sometimes you paint things you aren't happy with...if it was a commission or something I really cared about I'd keep working on it until I was happy with it, but as it is my "daily painting" I am done with it. I will probably paint over it at some point when it is dry so not to waste the panel.

1.3.8 Onion

In addition to priming panels I also did a small painting of an onion. I've decided that I am going to paint a painting a day for my first week back...There is a whole school of artists who paint "Paintings a Day"...it's a great tool for training the eye. Duane Keiser of Richmond Virginia is generally credited with starting the movement, he did a painting every day for 2 years!http://www.duanekeiser.com He even has video of his daily paintings...very cool.

1.3.8 Priming Panels

Thursday was my first full day back as an artist...Yeah! So what did I do, well I worked on my business cards, seems I hit a snafu on that and have to find a new person to do my cards. Then I primed panels.

What does it mean to prime a panel? Well, in this case it means you paint the wood or canvas before you paint the painting. For some reason Oil Paints are corrosive to many materials, so you have to apply a layer of acrylic paint called Gesso to separate the Oil Paint from the surface. Depending on the quality of the Gesso you usually need to apply 2-4 layers, sanding in between, to get a decent layer of separation. So I primed a bunch of panels yesterday. See them above.