Thursday, August 12, 2010

Figure Paintings



During my last semester of teaching I returned to a style of figure painting that I had left when I was working in a more abstract fashion. This style has a stronger emphasis on the creative use of white paper and a more established and expressive line. The figure becomes more representational but not so much so that it is intimidating to the novice drawer. I think the unfortunate thing for some painters is there reluctance to work figures into their paintings due to their fear of accurate drawing. What they are missing is the fact that unless you are painting the ultra representation figure the model just becomes an interesting shape that can be exaggerated and creatively designed with focus on position on the paper and lost and found edges. No need to project the image and fake your drawing skills just really emphasize the character of the pose and then use dramatic colors, and move the lights and whites in and out of the figure.

Monday, July 5, 2010



I have been working on a couple of paintings for the Studio Gallery All Members Show later on this month which has a theme "Tripping the Light Fantastic". I wanted mine to be minimal, sublime yet powerful so I am working out light just light in a monochromatic palette hoping when done people will need sunglasses to view the work. Wouldn't that be funny if I blinded a few unsuspecting folk, just kidding, sort of kidding, well not really kidding. The pieces I am putting on the blog are not done and will have white over top suggesting glare. Hopefully it is not too trite when finished but it is what I am doing so there. They are about halfway done and I have about a weeks worth of painting in them so far. The white you see is plain gessoed canvas and feels pretty strong to me.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

A new Southwest Painting


I have been working on the Southwest as an abstract theme since my trip out to Zion and Brice several years back and occasionally hit what I feel is the essence of the place. This new piece is dominated by the desert dryness in the middle of the canvas with long passages of landscape vistas in black. It feels to me like looking down on the salt flats of Utah with its heated dryness and textures of sodium deposits. The orange is the pieces of sedimentary formations that begin to protrude out of the desert at the southern edge of the plain. I have many more pieces of southwest paintings at the Studio Gallery in DC.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Entry to the BWS regional show




I hardly ever enter watercolor shows because I just never know what to submit. I am so involved with the abstract acrylics that I feel rather odd presenting fairly representational work to shows. But after the wonderful 3 day "Moving towards Abstraction" workshop and the feedback I received on my figures I decided to enter 2 figures to the show. I have always thought they were nice and do represent how I would like to paint figures. They have enough detail but are based on a fairly abstract composition and a personal style of handling the medium.