Portrait Giveaway Completed!
Oct 26, 2009 On my Easel
Rossi’s, portrait is all finished! She was the winner of my portrait giveaway. I hope she likes it! You can also check out a work in progress shot.
This is a 5″ x 7″ drawing, all graphite on 3-ply bristol paper.
Portrait Giveaway – Work in Progress 2
Oct 22, 2009 On my Easel
Half done!
Rossi’s portrait is coming along nicely!
I’ve been working really hard on this, trying out a new technique. It involves lots of layering, and starting out with a harder pencil. The result is much smoother shading!
The eyes were quite tricky because of the angles and the shadows, but after much tweaking, I’m happy with it!
Enjoy!
Portrait Giveaway – Work in Progress
Oct 19, 2009 On my Easel
A week ago, Rossi won my portrait giveaway. I was thrilled when she sent me her photo because it not only has great shadows, it’s a totally cute picture of her and her sister!
Here is Rossi’s portrait so far… I’ve done my outlines and erased my grid, now I’m ready for the shading. I had to really play with the contrast on this picture so that you guys can see my lines. The real drawing is much lighter, but this at least shows you where I’m at!
Stay tuned for more updates, and check out my portrait website!
Three Abstractions
Sep 28, 2009 On my Easel
I thought I’d give you all a little update on what I’ve been working on recently. My time has been split between three very different abstract paintings. I love working on more than one piece at a time. Each piece informs the others and your ideas can bounce around. The painting process becomes more fluid. Not to mention, you have something to work on while one painting is drying!
You may remember the canvas I cut up. Well, here it is in its current form. I rearranged the pieces, layering them on top of each other, then painted the light blue rectangular shapes. Then I rearranged the canvas again to form this composition. I thinned the oil paint down with poppy oil, which was a mistake! At one point, my paintings were drying too fast and was I advised to add poppy oil to make them wet for longer. Well, for some reason it had the opposite effect and the painting dried within hours. That was what I was expecting this time, but it’s been days and the paint is still wet! I’m waiting for it to dry so I can work out the next step.
I’m at a bit of a loss at what to do with this one next. My instinct would be to collage these pieces somehow: glue them together or glue them to a backing. The problem is that the glue wouldn’t stick to the oil paint. Until I figure out a way to put the pieces back together I can’t really do anything else! I considered sewing, but that has so many historical connotations I’m not sure I want to go there!
This piece is entirely different. I was in the middle of reading my book about Rothko when this idea hit. Here I’m using thinned out oil paints to produce flat, transparent shapes. The plan is to keep applying these washes, alternating between the colours to create a sense of layers and depth. The drawing line was something I added after the fact using an oil stick.
To get the composition, I worked from a paper maquette. I painted shapes on the paper, cut it into smaller squares and rearranged them, then painted more shapes on top. The idea is that these squares could be endlessly rearranged to provide a random, geometric composition.
I really like this process of producing a composition and I think it could be used in future pieces, but I’m not sure this painting is going in the right direction. It’s really just an experiment at this point. The colours were inspired by one of Rothko’s works, but I have to admit that I am more drawn to the colours in the maquette.
And finally, here is the insanity that is my living room floor!
My other half went away for a few days and this is what happened! I tried combining the ideas from the other pieces (transparent layers and collaging), using the same process I did for my other abstract paintings. The difference being that the other paintings were made of wood veneer while this is made from cardboard.
I’m really enjoying how the cardboard works. It has all the characteristics that I liked about the wood (it’s lightweight and it tears easily) but it’s not as awkward or painful to work with. I like the way it curls a bit when it’s wet and I will be able to achieve much more depth without the heaviness of the wood.
This is done in acrylic paintings, which makes it much easier in a practical sense. It dries faster, less worry about getting paint everywhere, and I know I’ll be able to glue it eventually.
I’m sort of at a crossroads as you can see, trying to figure out where to go next. Each of these paintings is exploring a different idea, or a different form of the same ideas. Of the three, I think I’m most excited about the third one, but we’ll see where I go from here!
Tags: abstract, acrylic painting, oil painting
The Art of Deconstruction
Sep 2, 2009 Art General, Creativity, On my Easel
Speaking of taking risks…
I just had my meeting today with my prof from art school. He told me exactly what I expected he would: I’m not getting anywhere, my paintings were mediocre at best, I needed to take it to the next level.
Okay, he wasn’t quite so mean as that, but that was the basic gist of it.
He also had some very nice things to say about me and my work in general, he just felt like my recent work wasn’t up to snuff. And I agree.
I’ve known it for awhile now. That’s not to say that what I was doing wasn’t relevant or useful. It’s been a great learning experience for me and I’ve definitely gained a knowledge of paint and colour in the process. However, they weren’t strong works in an intellectual and contemporary view point.
So what did I do? I took the canvas off the stretcher and tore it into pieces!
How good did it feel? GREAT!
You have no idea how liberating and freeing it is to destroy your own art! If you’ve never tried it, you should!
Deconstruction was what started me on the path I’m on now. During my last year at art school, I was farting around painting shapes on doors. I didn’t know what I was doing. One of my teachers said to me, “do something extreme! burn it, or tear it apart!” So I did. I tore that door into pieces, then used the pieces to build a whole new painting. The ideas snowballed and soon I had a process that freed me from my pre-occupation with the final product, but also used my strengths as a logical, systematic thinker.
Back to today… My teacher basically told me I had too much going on in each painting and that all these elements were fighting for attention. He said that I was too wishy washy: I had to either get really clean, or really messy. He hinted at destroying the paintings and going back to a collage/assemblage style of work.
Well, it was the kick in the butt I needed to make me do what I knew I had to do! Before I lost my nerve I got out my pliers, pried the staples out of the back of my painting and tore the canvas up. I must say, it looks better already! I’m not sure where I’ll go next, but that’s the beauty of the process! I think I’ll start with some sketchy lines and then paint out some areas before rearranging the pieces and building it up.
I’ll keep you updated on the progress!
I will admit, I chose one of my least favorites to try this on, but the rest of them will have their turn, I’m thinking! Here’s the original piece pre-deconstruction. What do you think? Improvement or not?
Tags: art, Creativity, oil painting, paintings
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