Thursday, October 29, 2009

Our Friend Adrian


If every person who commissions a portrait was able to pose this well, I would be done in record speed and they would pay less. Adrian had never before modeled for a group of painters. He held the pose extremely well! The result was a decent 24 x 18" painting, with good color. I hope he was not in pain when we ended. Modeling is very hard work and it's best to be in shape.

Friday, October 23, 2009

A Berkeley Figure Painting Session


I was invited to a painting group that meets in Berkeley, at the home studio of a local artist. I have painted the model before, but this time, because of the strange size of the canvas (15 x 30") I extended the view to include a fellow painter hard at work. This palette had Titanium White, Pyrrole Orange, Pthalo Blue, Dioaxine Violet, Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow, Lemon Yellow and Pthalo Green.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Our Standard Schnauzer

This painting started as a family joke. Kafka, our schnauzer, is a perfectly well-behaved dog until he sees either cats, picas or squirrels. The later seem to flip him into another channel! Standing is his favorite position once he has spotted one. Because I am teaching a basic painting class at Richmond Art Center, I wanted to do this painting completely from references. Thus began a series of life sketches (all interrupted because he is 16 months old and barely able to stand still), diagrams of his muscle system, and a value study followed by a color study. By the time I grabbed this small (20 x 16") canvas, I was feeling much more comfortable working from photos. A friend gave me permission to base the background on a photo of El Sobrante Ridge, and I painted the squirrel from memory. It has this tinge of magic realism, which is what I was going for.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Two Moods, One Lake



We went to Lake Anza in Berkeley for two consecutive weeks and I worked in acrylic again. On the first week it was quite sunny, but on the second week the day was overcast and even dark, with an approaching storm. I revised the sunny painting (24 x 18") on the second week because I thought the water reflections were duller than they should be, and I had time to embark on a second painting (20 x 16") with the same palette: ultramarine blue, pthalo blue, lemon yellow, cadmium yellow, pthalo green, cadmium red, alizarin crimson, permanent violet and titanium white. It wasn't exactly a split primary palette or even a colorist's palette, but it worked well for this subject. The woman in the background is a colleague who recently joined our East Bay Plein Air group.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Bruce at The Firehouse


I occasionally visit the Firehouse group on Tuesdays to do figure painting. This 20 x 16 acrylic painting felt wonderful, because it flowed. The model was excellent! I was happy with the light and the modeling of this figure.