It's Getting To Look A Lot Like Christmas

This is an 11"X14" acrylic on canvas that I painted at a live model session last Saturday evening from 6PM to 9PM. I'm slow. It's still not done. I shall complete it from the ref. photo I took. That damn sleeping cap kept changing position every time the model came back from his 5 minute break. Colors used: Napthol Red, Cad, Red, Cad. Yellow Light, Burnt Umber, Pythalo Blue, and Titanium White. This is my idea of a limited palette although I guess I could have limited it to maybe four colors. Limited palettes is less confusing to work with, harmonizes your painting, and forces you to mix colors. With that said, have a rollicking good season, whatever your holiday might be!... could this skinny old man with attitude be reading a Kwansa story? In reality, his prop was titled "Flattops", a book about aircraft carriers, which, by the way, is the traditional book for the Festivas holiday.

Yes siree bob!

This here cow girl that I painted from a live (not stuffed or from a photo) model about a month ago, is finally completed (this time with the aid of a reference photo that I snapped at the time of the model session). When I was painting her, a father and his little daughter came up to observe. The daughter said, "Why are you painting a boy?" I told the little rug rat to buzz off! But she was correct. I painted the cow girl's chin to look like Jay Leno giving her a distinctly cow BOY look. I corrected that in my studio. Hope Dad's little precious is not turned off to artists and their art. You can see my start and midway efforts here. I paint the big picture first before I begin to refine. Always the "big picture first" is my mantra, cow boys and cow girls. Painted on un-stretched canvas taped on a wood board.

Meow.

Ooops...I mean Woof! Woof! 11"X14" acrylic on stretched canvas. This was a commission. I paint human and animal portraits on this size canvas for $385 from a photo of the subject. This guy's snout was a kick (not easy) to paint!

One of my students in Art 300

This is a quick, unfinished charcoal (soft vine) of Diana that I did for my students to show them how to sketch a very light contour drawing and then go in (lightly again) with a few value SHAPES. I squint big time as I do this to eliminate a lot of similar mid values. It is like turning up the contrat "dial" in photo shop...high contrast leaves you mostly with dark and light shapes. Sure makes life a little easier and allows you to render a likeness quickly. You can always go in later and add more subtle value shapes if you so desire. The sketch ends up being a combination of light and dark shapes, soft, hard, and lost edges. The contour lines are no longer there, because as we all know, there are no lines in life...only demarcations between contrasting value shapes. Those initial contour lines were only there in the beginning to define the shapes. By the way, I did not start with any of the facial features. I first loosely rendered (lightly with contour lines) the head, cap, neck, and some of the shoulder area. Only after I was satisfied with that did I contour in the eyes, nose and mouth. After that process, I played off dark against light values. If I ever get the time to finish this sketch, I'll post it. Go onto Youtube and search for "The Face of Lincoln". Its an old black and white elementary/high school (circa 1960's) movie that I saw when I was about 12 years of age. It made a deep impression on me and shows a similar concept utilized in drawing and painting. It delightful and mesmerizing...nuf said!

Wacknov Goes Berserk In Classroom!

About half a year ago, I invited that crazy and wonderfully inventive San Francisco Bay area artist Myrna Wacknov to come to my Sacramento City College water color class to show us the right stuff. She came about two weeks ago and did a self portrait from a reference photo that she had shot using the photo booth function on her Imac. Myrna went berserk working on a weird paper substrate and using funny drawing instruments and mondo bizarro inks and bleach! At the conclusion of her demo, she simply picked up her self portrait and smiled!... so did my class!!! Check out Myrna's blog to see more of her crazy and beautiful experimentations. Tell her Lobenberg sent you.