“In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, For then it costs nothing to be a patriot.” — Mark Twain
Tag: photography
First dandelion ever
This is a 24″ x 20″ portrait that I am finally starting. I’m working on the preliminary sketch which I will get quite detailed with. I’ll lose it all once I start painting but I’ll have some good coordinates to work from. This is not a picture that I took but instead a photograph that was taken by my client and was asked if I could do a portrait from it. This is a very nice image although I did crop it by switching it from a landscape image to a portrait image. This is day #2, Day #1 was printing the picture and doing the grids.
How many days does it take to finish a portrait?
Day one: A friend of mine recommended me to someone who wanted a painting done of their cat. So I met them at Alterra coffee-house a neutral place where we could meet about commissioning a portrait of a cat named Bartholomew/Bart. We Looked at photograph’s, I said I could do this painting and then signed a contract I brought along.
Day two: I reviewed photos, did some sketches, e-mailed client back and waited for confirmation.
Day two: Confirmation from client, printed image and picked up canvas.
Day three: Did grid and started drawing on canvas.
Day four: Still drawing image onto canvas. This is a crucial part of the process getting everything right from the start although it all gets covered with paint.
Day five: I started with a basic under painting worked on background and went straight into the fabric.
Day six: I began with the eyes the most important part. I need to get the eyes perfect.
Day seven: Worked on the face of cat and whiskers.
Whiskers really helped painting.
Day eight: painted the ears.
Day seven: I needed to darken the pattern on the fabric. Darkening some fur shadows and added fluffy accents throughout cat giving it more shape and form so it looks like a 3-dimensional cat also filled in front of sofa.
Day eight: Worked on tail made it longer and changed background.
Day nine: Worked on the paws or the impression of the paw.
Day ten: Touched up shape of head and edges of fur.
Day eleven: Pushed more dark shadows and white areas.
Day twelve: Ears and ear hairs needed some work.
Day thirteen: I always keep coming back to the eyes.
Day fourteen: Worked on back leg, body shape and pattern.
Day fifteen: Finished. e-mail client confirm pick up date.
day sixteen: Went with hooks on back of painting/attached.
Day seventeen: Coffee shop 9:00 dropped of painting. Waitress walks by and says it’s brilliant. It catches me off guard. I laugh. They like painting. It was exactly what they expected.
Taking a break from painting the figure.
Painted today. Taking a seriously needed break from painting the figure. There’s freedom in not having any pencil marks or guidelines to follow on the canvas. The pure artistic desire to just paint. Taking the time to figure out on your own where everything belongs, how it visually looks and how it all relates.
I always start with the under painting. I use raw sienna and prussian blue and a little white for a change basically establishing my value study as I covered the whole canvas with paint.
I am working from a photograph I took some time ago in North Carolina while we staying at the Hilton. It was a summer night and we would stroll down the boardwalk. The evening lights and water reflections were a delight to be around while we would watch the sun set and then stop at a nearby bistro for a local beer and southern platter. Our little get away from the party at hand. The ocean breeze was so warm.
“The boardwalk in Charlotte” I have a few other photo’s so this could turn into a series. When I finish this one I’m hoping to bring it down to the local coffee shop called Smith Bros located right along Lake Michigan/one of the great lakes. Some very interesting array of artwork is on display there and some by a couple of friends I have unexpectedly come to know by chance. My work is not on display at this time because I had a piece disappear with the owner from another coffee shop that closed it doors unexpected. Stolen in other words…we take our chances as artists not like it’s worth a million dollars yet. There are a couple of other galleries that have pop up in Port Washington lately I need to inquire.
Looking back before taking that leaping forward.
As a passionate or most times obsessed artist I always have to reflect back on what I painted in the past and relate it to what’s on my plate now. I earnestly try to strive for a higher level of execution or thought. Having said that I still believe that ‘ I myself do nothing the holy spirit accomplishes all through me.’ William Blake. I went back to 2010 in an earlier blog but felt the need to go back one more year to 2009. Great things happened that year sometimes it never hurts to relive and relearn. I started the year out working on some portraitures. My top 10 for 2009.
1) Oil painting portrait 24″ x 36″ ‘Deana and Reid’
2) Oil painting portrait 24″ x 30″ ‘Jeff and Gloria’
3) I lined up an art show at ‘ The Dance Works gallery’
4) Grava gallery: put on display “Layla” throughout the summer.
5) Co-written and published 1st e-book.
6) Finished a nude figure painting in oils 30″ x 40″ for sale $2,500.
7) Worked on series for up coming show: Started (2) large paintings 24″ x 30″ called soul-searching and finished up the 11″ x 14″ smaller version of soul-searching.
8) August/pool party at The lighthouse: Displayed and delivered portraitures.
9) October: Gallery night opening at The Dance Works art gallery.
10) Flew to North Carolina for a wedding stayed at the Hilton. Took a lot of photographs plan to do a large painting of the boardwalk. I have new ideas about flying. Thank God it was only an hour flight!
My top ten paintings a year in Review 2010
1) The year started out with the sale of two paintings at The Dance Works art gallery. The show started in October and ran through the beginning of January.
2) Reworked ‘The Lilly’
3) Started taking my photography to a higher level.
4) I started preparing for my artist video. Release date will be in 2011.
5) I scheduled to do a speaking engagement at the local elementary school on career day. It was very enlightening.
6) Displayed art work at The Smith Brothers Coffee shop in Port Washington.
7) Also had work on display at The Last Drop of Coffee in Shorewood.
8) Worked on getting the Zazzle store up and running.
8) MIAD had an Art Sale for alumni/faculty/and students.
9) Most important completion and delivery of portrait called ‘GRANNY’.
10) Started preparing three new canvases.
Boo Radley lives across the street.
It’s that time of the year. When my daughter who will stand at the corner of the lot peering across the street for long periods of time according to my watch shivering and whispering to her little brother who follows her around faithfully. It reminds me every time of the book To Kill a Mockingbird you know the part where Scout and Jem would wait to see if Boo Radley would come out of the house. Not that this house looked run down, overgrown or there were any rumors circulating about the neighbors that I care to mention, but instead the haunting decorum of Halloween that they displayed in their front yard religiously ever year antagonizing my daughter as she looks to see and not see at the same time. At night it only got brighter as she peaks through the curtains. I’m sure the neighbors were amused and look forward to her curiosity every year.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee was a coming-of-age novel told from the point of view of an adult looking back at her childhood something I keep wanting to do myself. Scout was 9 years old an age I remember very well and she was, as the saying goes, ‘wise beyond her years’. Another familiar line ‘Roaming freely all day, coming home only for meals or the bathroom.’ An era we will only remember as a child and never repeat.
Taking photo 101 is not the same
Photo by almostfinnish
I take a lot of pictures. It’s a habit I learned not on my own. I have two sisters that insisted I take photo 101 in high school probably because they thought it was an easy credit and all you had to do was show up and then leave to go take pictures as they would laugh ‘skip class’. So it was my sibling duty to follow in their foot steps. I intern took this very seriously in learning to break open your roll of film quickly, transferring it onto a reel and then into a case of solution while being in complete darkness hoping that no one comes in and turns on the lights by mistake. More importantly the challenge was at developing a good image in the dark room under some faint light while being all consumed with these vinegar smells that filled the air and trays. You needed to know by smell which one was which because when adding more solution in the dark your sense of smell was more important than your sence of sight. There was a beginning and an end and you can not mix them up.
So once I was set up and ready I was in no hurry to go and could be there for hours. Each attempt was earnestly made a little lighter here darker there and even the pictures that didn’t turn out had some intrinsic value. I regret I don’t have them now tangible and in hand but in memory I see them a building, a pier, people I knew and pets we had. Black and white, some grainy but all from an adolescents point of view.
Now I take pictures download them into adobe where they show up in a matter of minutes. I enhance them in a matter of seconds and then upload them to another site and have them available for viewing. The images are very nice. Digital has not lessened the image. They are sharper and clearer and more dynamic than ever.
I value what I have learned and have a better appreciation for the camera and photography over all. I look forward to what the future brings.
Summer meant lazy days of sleeping in, sun tanned from head to foot and dirty feet.
Photo by almostfinnish
We had some really amazing days here. The temperatures reached up into the near 80’s and there was a warm zephyr that blew our hairs around in delight. And then there’s this smell of the earth rejuvenating you know that wet mosey damp soil smell that always wisps past us for that first time in a matter of seconds. For me it’s a nostalgic smell, a reminiscent smell, and a smell that keeps bringing me back to my youth. Most of my greatest memories are collected within a smell like the smell of lemons, gas cans, musty old basements, an old paperback book, foggy nights and with that hint of alewife in the air.
So I have been thinking about telling my story as I remember it. It’s about a place and time. There are no antagonists and no sidewalks. Although we battle nature and growing up. Some periphiral characters seem to come to light as we tell the stories amongst ourselves.
More importantly, along with writing, I’ve started a series of paintings originating and departing from some photographs taken during my recent return to the old farmhouse, duck pen, silo, and the trees we sit under or swing from.
As a child, I would lay in bed at night and a warm breeze would blow into the room and the shear curtains would slowly rise and fall. The lights outside would sometimes reflect on the curtains making them more white than ever. I would lay there wide awake, observant and listening to the quietness, maybe a cricket, a whippoorwill, a frog on occasion but my thoughts made me distant to all. As my mind wandered an old familiar smell passed in front of me it was always sudden and it was always a surprise. Spring was here I wanted to remember this smell and this moment forever. It also brought on a longing as I remembered the anticipation and the excitement that was to come not only was it spring but that school too would soon be over.
When school was out it meant summer was about to begin. Summer meant lazy days of sleeping in late, being sun tanned from head to foot and bare feet. Summer meant ice cream, watermelon and that smell of fresh cut grass. We would go to town occasionally for a trip but mostly it was long filled days of exploring through the woods and dragging along a red wagon, a coffee can or a butterfly net. We spontaneously created and built these things beyond our imaginations and never to be seen. Our life was of great adventure and our minds full of wonder and possibilites.
Sometimes my sanity is more important than my art.
I like to think I eat sleep and breathe art but in reality it is like the last thing I get to do on my list. Tuesday and Thursday are my two big days if these days fall through so does the whole week.
Last Thursday I invested all my time in just cleaning brushes and my palettes. My theory in the past was to just buy new paint brushes when I ran out of clean ones. But instead of throwing brushes away I kept them and now I have a gazillion brushes and when I paint I use a gazillion brushes. So I’m trying to stand back and analyze my predicament. Clean up time should be short and sweet.
My whole way of thinking has changed. Although I am painting more and better my time to paint is less. I really don’t need a lot of time to paint. A solid one, two, three hours can be sufficient.
As for this Tuesday well everyone was out of the house which is unusual. As much as I wanted to busy myself. I stopped and got breakfast and a coffee with three creams. I just came back and enjoyed a nice solitaire breakfast for a change and caught up with some stuff. Sometimes my sanity is more important than my art.
It is late and I have been painting. The room smells of turpentine and oil paint and it is a welcoming smell. I have too many canvases in process and unfinished hence the name ‘almostfinnish’ and some that are just taking up space so I need to take serious measures to be able to differentiate from ‘has potential’ to ‘hopeless’. How many times in the past has an artist painted over their paintings???? Is there too many times?
One thing I don’t have is a shortage of supplies so if a few canvases end up in the trash I’ll be okay.
It’s spring break here for us. Ten days all together. So my quest is to try to finish up some paintings sitting in limbo.
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