Crunch time

It is getting down to the wire. So much to do, but most of it is manageable I think. Tomorrow I'm going to dig through Goodwill to see if they have any frames, last year I found a few decent ones, and it's so much more cheaper than buying new ones! I have been working in the studio everyday after work, and as exhausting as it all is it is so worth it I think, although the studio is a wreck! Even amongst the rush to get things done, I've managed to still try new things with painting. Here is a shot of the fabric I'm working on; I've always used burnt umber and cobalt or ultramarine blue for a base for white drapery - force of habit or something. Just for the hell of it, I threw in a little color. Could be disastrous, could be not, we have yet to see. More info on the festival coming soon!

July 2011 - Novita!

Again I’m recharging this blog. Since the two years that I painted “L’Aragosta”, I’m happy to report that it saw many faces and is now comfortably installed in a new home. I hope to visit it again someday.
For now though, I’m working towards another show, the Portland Sidewalk Art Festival. Last year was an adventure, I met so many interesting people. The most awesome thing about my experience was seeing how much people do like art, and how some of those people like my art. When it’s such a struggle to make something that’s just bearable enough for me to look at, it’s a relief to see someone take even some small joy in it.
Anyways I have much MUCH work to do before we start setting up for the show, paintings to start and finish, frames to be pondered over and put on, and I’m most excited for the return of Dad’s doors as the display for the work! I’ve posted a few pictures of last year’s show. You can see these doors- unique and antique!





As for what I’m working on now, I feel like there is a lot going on at once.
I’ve been working on two full-figure paintings, which is fun and something I haven’t done in a long time. Major influences have been, well, pretty much everyone. The thing about being mostly self-taught is the luxury of being able to choose your teacher. Simply find art that you love, find out why you love it – which in my opinion is finding out how they did it- stare and stare until you figure it out, experiment with that, rinse and repeat. Here are some studies of the model’s portraits.
Still lifes are both challenging and interesting, but only when you get them just right. I’ve been looking at a lot of different still life painters, Latour for the florals, Hensche for the color, and most recently Melendez. Examples here:

Luis Meléndez Still Life With Bream, Oranges, Garlic, Condiments, and Kitchen Utensils

Henry Hensche The Yellow Bowl

Henri Fantin-Latour Flowers

And further work has been looking to the sea. I got to get out and do some plein air with a painter friend Joshua Langstaff, who is a pro at it. We took a trip to Two Lights State Park, which has a view that reminds me of Winslow Homer's ocean work. I was mostly just getting over how overwhelmingly awesome the ocean view is, and tried to figure out the coloring more than anything, as it was one of those cloudy, balmy days where it looks threatening of rain. Luckily for us it didn’t. I’ve posted a picture of my view, and a picture of Winslow’s painting that I was just studying nose-to-nose with at the Portland Museum of Art recently.

Winslow Homer Weatherbeaten

I’m hoping to use the sea view in two current paintings, so most likely I will hit Two Lights again soon. I promise to post some more of my own work, for now here’s a picture of one of my many sporadic methods of starting a still life, and the 'finished' product!

August Update

So it appears its been a long time since I posted. A lot of stuff going on, though not as much art done as I would have liked. The lobster painting did get done and there is a picture (forgive the quality, my better half is using our camera at the moment and I am using a cell phone camera!).

Next up for me I think will be trying out some copies. Although school starts back up for me in a week and a half so then I will be concentrating a lot on that. But my free time will be spent either sleeping or painting hopefully! Other good news, have been looking for a space for a possible new drawing group in Portland, Maine. There are a few interested parties as well as a very interested classical realist trained painter moving to Portland soon, so hopefully there will be something interesting coming out of that, more when I know more!

Lobster Still Life

So I've been trying to get a lobster still life together, its been an interesting week to say the least. I am not fond of lobsters as a meal, or any seafood for that matter (tuna is possible). They're pretty much bugs I have learned, and I'm not good with large bugs, so setting one up for a still life wasn't without a little squeamish squeaks from me. I decided to take a lot of photos of one in different positions so to get a good reference to work from. I would then use either a toy lobster or something in the shape of one as a stand in for the still life I was painting from. A little confusing, and I would have loved to have used one for hours on end, but these creatures like their cold and wet environment, which a table next to an open window wouldn't satisfy and he would slowly die. So we bought one, and I tried to find the best way to keep it still for some shots. This is what I came up with:


I put him in a dish with sides because he was pretty active, I can imagine why! (I say 'he' because I just do, I don't know what gender it was.) I put a cool pack under him just so he could stay cool... so the still life set up is still ongoing, I keep changing it around, I'm currently using a dark red shirt molded and wrapped up to shape like a lobster.
I've been looking at other lobster still lifes for inspiration, such as this one by Jan Davidszoon de Heem (Still Life with Lobster and Nautilus, 1634):



and this one by Anna Vallayer-Coster (Still Life 1767):



I'm still getting ideas and making sketches and such, I will post more pictures of painted/drawed on things when they are worth putting up!

This is how our lobster ended up:




N says it was delicious! :)

P.S.-The other blog has been found and taken care of thank goodness... its probably a good thing that I'm a painter and not working with computers ha!

New Blog plus a lobster

Ciao there, I've decided to start one of these things (although I had once already, and it seems to have disappeared, lost somewhere in the Google universe! If someone spots it let me know!). I've never been a journal sort of person, let alone an online journal person, but this seems like it might be a fun experiment. I'm not too sure about how this whole thing should be done, but I will do my best! I'm hoping to put a lot of stuff about art on here, mine and other people's. And maybe some extra stuff about books and music and film and such.
I am a self taught traditional realist painter, living in Maine, painting as often as possible and trying to finish a BA in Art History (which I also love). I say traditional realist because I've found that that is the best description of what I do. Well-known contemporary painter Jacob Collins talks about the phrase in this article from The New Criterion.
At the moment I am starting to work on a piece that features a lobster. There's a whole story behind it, I will post more when I have more concrete evidence to show!