What? Me Worry?? Me mad???

Nope. Not me. Sure Lehman (spelling?) Brothers had to be purchased by B of A, and Dean Whitter (spelling?) is kaput, and Fannie Mae and the other one needed government bailouts, and the USA is way in debt to foreign countries, and AIG insurance (the largest in the world, for god's sakes!), is in BIG financial trouble (as is my state of California), and our car insurance is with AIG, and my car was totaled last week (thank god for seatbelts and airbags), and my sternum was fractured in the accident, and I'm waiting for a settlement from AIG. It doesn't faze me in the least, because today I received my four Carol Marine paintings that I purchased from her last week. They are beauties, and I plan on using them as teaching aids for my '09 spring semester acrylic class at Sacramento City College! PS: Here are three acrylic portraits on 12"X16" stretched canvases that I previously posted that have been tweaked. What do you think?.. good, bad and ugly opinions are solicited here.

Thank You Theresa Rankin!

Theresa Rankin is a very fine oil painter and has bestowed this award on my blog. Thank you so much Theresa! I am suppose to pass this award onto 5 other blogs that I highly admire (and I know that this award is suppose to circulate), but I humbly submit my "Fav. Links" on the right...more than 5 for sure, but they are all fantastic, and I just can't bring myself to edit. Sorry.

Spiky Hair

If I had much hair (it's almost all gone...just a memory), I'd like to have it spiky for a little while. I have maybe eight hairs on the top of my head that I suppose I could spike with mustache wax, but the resulting look might be a tad scary, and I really don't want to scare anybody. So to satisfy my spiky hair envy, I painted this gentleman who works around the corner from my studio and is a graphic designer. Now to be real frank, the only reason I bothered painting him was to use my Princeton Art @ Brush Co. #12 Jumbo Round water color brush. These brushes are super flexible and tapper down to a beautiful fine tip thereby allowing me to have a rollicking good time rendering his hair while listening to The Rolling Stones. Don't get much better than that! Yeah, yeah!... I know...I used a little white opaque paint in a few places on his face where I lost some highlights. That's the challenge of water color. If your painting "goes south", you have to go to Plan B or throw it away and start over again. I chose to go to Plan B. ONE FINAL THING... if I left him bald, I'd title the painting "Etc., Etc., Etc."

Venus and Paynes Grey Watercolor

I have a watercolor workshop coming up this Saturday. Here are two subjects that we will be painting in Paynes Grey for practice of brush technique, values, and edges. In my previous post, I painted the same female subject in acrylic. This watercolor version was painted on Fabriano Uno, 140lb. cold press (about 11"X16"). The male subject is also water colored in Paynes Grey. I painted to the music of Andrea Bocelli. His magnificent voice keeps the brush at a sure and steady flow while not interrupting one's concentration.

The Birth of Venus

I have just completed this study in acrylic on board (11"x16") of one of my workshop students. I thought that I'd just start to rough paint without laying down a prelim. dark or middle tone. I went right into the eyes, and nose, and mouth crude and rude. Why? Just to see what would happen, after all I'm working with an opaque medium unlike what I'm used to with watercolors. Ya need to plan somewhat carefully with watercolors, so doing this portrait willy nilly was kinda fun! When I was finished, I looked, cogitated, and said to myself..."self, this looks like a woman I've seen before. This looks like Venus in Bottecelli's (spelling!?) famous Italian Renaissance painting. By golly and gee wiz, I think I'm correct in this. What do you think?

Help!! I'm Shrinking!...or...The Incredible Shrinking Artist.

Last summer I posted a solution for us aging baby boomers. All ya gotta do is TAKE OFF a year when your birthday comes around! In Feb. of '09, instead of being 62 yrs. of old age, I'll be 61 yrs. of age and getting younger! It's kinda of the Dorian Grey effect. I'm finding, however, that unlike Dorian, I'm not getting more grotesque in visage but am shrinking in stature! And this after only one yr. of subtraction! Lord knows how tall I'll be ten yrs. from now (age 51 and getting younger and smaller). Will I even be able to get onto my painting stool?! Anyway, here I am standing by a 36"X46" acrylic painting on stretched canvas I did last year. You can plainly see that I have shrunk substantially!

"Erik" step-by-step

Here's "Erik", from my previous post, showing the sequence of the painting process. I first covered the canvass in a middle tone hue, and then started the highlight hues. Next came some dark tone hues followed up with some middle tone hues. Next I began bumping up the warm and cool colors, followed by lots of didling until I was satisfied with my colors and rendering of the facial features. Like I said in the previous post, I still haven't got this medium in my bones yet. I have only painted seriously in acrylic for about 4 years, but I do a lot of it and therefore am progressing apace.