Fathers Day

I usually avoid personal subject matter on this blog due to my private nature, but today I will make a slight exception. This was my last in-class oil demo of the year at RIT. I did it about two months ago and it is a portrait of my dad as a young man. The painting is 12"x 16"and was completed on one of my homemade canvas panels. I worked wet into wet and used a limited palette of Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Yellow Ochre, Paynes Gray, Naples Yellow, Permanent Rose, Black, and White. The portrait was based on an old B & W photograph from the late 1940's.

The photo was tiny, so I scanned it with my Epson 4490 Photo scanner and printed out an 8 x 10 reference photo (still B&W, of course). My dad has been gone for almost 26 years now and it felt good to create this portrait. He was a real gentleman with a great, Irish sense of humor. He was smart, kind, and caring. A great guy and great father. His positive influence stays with me to this day.

Open Road

This is a simple scene that I painted with gouache on an 11 x 14 cold press illustration board. It was used as the cover of a new music CD entitled Open Road. Whenever I complete a landscape like this I am reminded that any ordinary scene can be beautiful and fun to paint. Sometimes we search to paint something spectacular or visually inspirational but maybe that is the easy thing to do. It can be more challenging and eye opening to paint mundane subjects or forgettable scenes. This forces us to really see and invites embellishment and invention. I think we can waste a lot of valuable time waiting for inspiration.

Your Cheatin' Heart

This is another recent in-class oil painting demo. It's a portrait of one of America's greatest songwriters, Hank Williams. He was ahead of his time with original, innovative music and clever, unforgettable lyrics. Hank was before my time, but I've caught up with his entire song catalogue over the past few years and it is great stuff. He also is an interesting character to paint with his rail-thin physique and defined angular facial features along with his big smile and bigger hat. This was completed on a 16x20 home-made canvas board. I like working on a rigid surface but I dislike the low quality, cheap boards that the art supply stores carry. I make my own with Masonite hardboards, sprayment, Liquitex gesso, and high-quality cotton or linen canvas.

Vampire Classic

The popularity of vampires seems to be at an all time high in recent years. Vampire books, graphic novels, TV shows and movies seem to be everywhere. The vampire image here is a recent mixed media piece that I completed as an in-class demonstration for my Illustration 1 class at RIT. This was based on B&W movie stills from the classic Dracula film from 1931 starring Bela Lugosi. He is still the visual foundation for most vampire imagery. Modern versions seem to always take something from Lugosi...manicured looks, sophisticated demeanor, turned up collar.

These classic 1930's monster movies (which I watched on TV in the 60's) were terrifying! Even the music would send a chill up my spine.

I always tell my students that they must change and improve upon the photo references that they use and that is what I tried to do here. I eliminated the Hollywood lighting that was always used on these photo portraits. I subtly exaggerated his expression and of course I used my own sense of color. When I do an in-class demo, due to limited time, I rarely deal with a background, other than to suggest something loose or atmospheric. But I will eventually go back in on this one to add something appropriate. Bats? Blood? Spooky sky? Ominous interior space?

Tastes Like Chicken

Chickens are a lot of fun to draw and paint. They come in a variety of shapes and colors and they are great subjects for depicting form and gesture. They are also difficult to capture due to their odd features, quirky movements, and unsettled nature. Try sitting to sketch, or even photograph, these birds and you will end up with pages of 5 second gesture scribbles and blurry photos. Because of this, chickens are one of those subjects where it is usually necessary to work from multiple references. In the case of the top image in this post, I was forced to look at several different chicken photos to "fill in the details" of areas that were not clear in my main reference. This included referring to an actual Wild Turkey leg/foot that my brother had given me (he's a hunter). I know that there are probably differences between the turkey leg and a chicken leg...but it helped! If this was for a technical or scientific illustration I would have had to do more research, but for a painting where EVERY detail is not meticulously rendered, it works. The top piece (13 x 13) was painted three weeks ago as an acrylic demo in my RIT class. The bottom piece (acrylic, 9 x 12) was painted about three years ago in another class from a friend's great photo reference.

Happy Birthday Abraham Lincoln!

Today seems like the perfect time to show a few portraits of our 16th President that were completed as oil painting demonstrations. They also perfectly illustrate the drastic change of my personal color palette that I have mentioned on this blog before. The bottom image of a younger Lincoln, was completed in-class about six years ago. I was still using some pretty saturated colors at that time. The top image shows an older Abe and displays my newer palette which is more subdued and consists of a variety of grays and muted colors. The top painting was completed two years ago for my Illustration 1 class at RIT. Both paintings are 12 x 16, oil on canvas.

Acrylic Critters

Here are a few more paintings from my vast collection of wildlife subjects. They were all completed with acrylics. I use Golden Brand acrylics with a fluid viscosity which I prefer since I create these paintings by using many thin layers of paint. The paint is loaded with pigment and the quick drying times allow for the layered build-up. In my last post I mentioned that I referred to my favorite acrylic artists when I wanted to learn how to use this medium. I always try to get my students to find examples of art that appeals to them so that they have a standard to aim for. I don't want them to copy these artists but I want them to be influenced by their methods. It always amazes me when I ask some students to name their favorite artists and I get a blank stare. Ask a major musician to name some influences and you will get a massive list of names and albums. Visual artists should be able to do the same thing.