Category: Painting

Mar 14

Reese 1.3

Went to the Cincinnati Art Museum, took several hundred more photos of paintings,  saw the Monet exhibit, and checked out Daily News by Yasuo Kuniyoshi. My previous photo of it gave it a warmish tint, someone else’s photo online gave it a blueish tint….and lo and behold….in person it had a blueish tint. Drat….not sure the blueish tint will fit into my painting quite as well…..

Made the mistake of also adding the blueish tint to the wall color…and hated it. Used a palette knife to apply the wall color….just to get some texture to it…want it to look a little rough. Noticed that at the museum the lighting comes from so many different directions……you could see 3-4 shadows of your hand…all in different directions. Therefore, I want the color on the walls to be very variegated….very very variegated…..ha.

Also used a palette knife to apply the paint on the frame. I’m trying to get the effect that the frame molding is going from the outer edge to the inner edge….I tend to paint it going up-and-down instead…what can I say? It’s easier….and after walking through the art museum taking photographs for almost 3 hours…I was very very tired.

In person the frame was very ….mottled looking…in other words…it wasn’t one solid color….so I think this will be a good first step to getting the right look. Used mixtures of Naples Yellow+Yellow Ocher+raw Sienna+Burnt Sienna+Permanent Blue Violet.

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Posted in Inspiration, Painting

Mar 08

Reese 1.2

Trying to copy someone else’s painting can be difficult….unless you’re standing right in front of the original. Lighting, different cameras, and using Photoshop can all result in changing the colors and hues in a photograph of a painting.

This is my photo of Yasuo Kuniyoshi’s painting titled Daily News. I remember it as having distinctly warm tones. But this is a photo I found online…

That’s quite a difference in color…isn’t it? I think the shift to blue is a result of using Auto Levels or Auto Color in Photoshop…because that’s what happened when I tried it. Now I have to go back to the museum to double check.

Finished blocking in the shapes and colors.

Painting Daily News is going to be difficult for me….it’s done in a completely different style than my normal one. Plus the woman’s skin tones seem to have greenish shadows in them. I did notice that my perception of the correct skin tone changed when I started painting in the blueish green background. And that’s what painting is all about….what one color looks like next to another.

Worked on Reese’s skin tones…it will be hard to get them exactly right until I get the floor and wall colors established a little better. Notice how the folds in her dress are more pronounced….glazed Prussian Blue+Permanent Blue Violet into the areas that I wanted to be in shadow. When I repaint the dress I’ll mix 3-4 different values of the Blue, Purple, and Green colors so that I can make the folds come forward and fold back into shadow correctly.

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Mar 05

Love Those Red Dots

As any artist knows….red dots are a good thing….they mean that a painting has sold…..

My solo show at the Sharonville Fine Arts Center was Saturday night…and the painting titled Daughters of Revolution sold. Seems I now have another collector……I painted Elana Rosen’s portrait two years ago……

Elana is also a painter…so I did a double portrait of her. And now she has two of my paintings hanging in her home……hmmmmm, that makes her a serious collector.

Hung the paintings on the wall double and triple stacked….I thought they really filled up the space well. That’s my step-daughter Amy setting up the goodies before the show started.

This is a really nice gallery space. Nice large walls and lots of light.

I got so excited talking to people…that I forgot to take any more photos. That’s my mother on the left wearing a hand dyed and hand woven jacket that I made for her years ago. She showed up with a few friends from her retirement home. She’s always happy to brag abut me…….

And tomorrow I go back into my studio to start painting again.

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Posted in Art Shows, Painting, The Business of Art

Feb 29

Wish I’d Painted That

Was checking out the new paintings on the website of Robert Lange Studios when I saw this Tromp e-l’oeil painting and had to download the free wallpaper…

I love Tromp e-l-oeil paintings…even if I don’t know how to pronounce it properly…or even spell it correctly without using Spellcheck…..It’s a French word for deceive the eye. It’s an art technique using extremely realistic images to create the optical illusion that a 2-dimensional painting is really 3-dimensional. And that’s without even using special 3-d movie glasses!

Tromp e-l-oeil paintings have been around for a long time…this one called Escaping Criticism was painted by Pere Borrell de Caso in 1874.  He was a Spanish painter 1835-1910. I’ve been told that my paintings are close to Tromp e-l’oeil…so maybe someday I’ll try painting one….I always have paint brushes, forks, and knives laying around…..

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Posted in Inspiration, Painting

Feb 28

Mirror Image

I’ve been working on my painting titled Modern Art.

Notice that I dry brushed White on top of the Red painting in the background….hopefully, when I thinly glaze Red over it….it will glow. Thought the painting was going well….until….

Accidentally caught a glimpse of it in the mirror….and thought….Whoa! Something doesn’t look right….

The face on the left looks pretty good to me, but when I reversed it….you can definitely tell that there is something wrong with the eye on the far side of the face. One of your eyes is always stronger than the other…if you’re right handed, then I think it’s usually the right eye. Because one of your eyes is stronger…it screws around with the way you see things. That’s why the face on the left doesn’t look too bad….but you can definitely tell something is wrong when I reversed the photo.

Look at a painting in the mirror to see if there’s something wrong with the drawing. Turn it upside down to see if there’s something wrong with the composition.well….I guess it’s back to my studio to make some changes…..

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Posted in Painting, Tools of the Trade

Feb 23

Leather

Haven’t been too thrilled with the way I painted the  leather jacket in Daughters of Revolution.…this is the BEFORE photo:

Originally I had painted it black, dry brushed over it with white and Cerulean Blue, let it dry, then glazed over it again with Black and Permanent Blue Violet. I’d done all the right things….but it just didn’t look right. Especially the folds – they just didn’t look natural.

Who says I don’t paint from life? I got out my old black leather jacket, put it on a dressmaker’s form, and stood it right next to my easel. That gave me a better idea of what black leather actually looks like.

This time I dry brushed Black onto the jacket and then dry brushed White right into it. Also changed the way the leather folded….painting folds in clothing is very difficult if you aren’t actually painting from life – I always tend to over exaggerate them if I’m just making them up. Notice that the gloves are now Red….they just got lost in the leather jacket when they were both painted Black. Also added Red hair thingies (what are those elastic things called?) and painted some Red on the guitar. I like the way it co-ordinates her outfit and adds a bright spot of color down the length of the painting.

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Posted in Painting, Tools of the Trade

Feb 20

Modern Art

Tom always used to ask me why can’t you ever finish a project the way you’d originally planned it? He doesn’t ask that anymore…seems even he has learned that Art has a mind of it’s own..it knows where it wants to go and it leads you there. Or maybe it’s just your subconscious mind telling you what changes need to be made to make the art better…

Decided to start this painting by first applying a layer of acrylic paint. Did this mainly because it takes Red paint so long to dry….I thought if I got the Red established first..then I could just apply thin layers of Red oil paints over it.

At this point I decided to use my friend, Judy Adam’s face as my reference photo. First of all, I think she’s beautiful…and secondly…I won’t commit copyright infringement by using the photo of a super model as reference. Remember the trouble Shepard Fairy got into when he used a famous photo of President Obama as the basis for his art?

Of all of the millions of photos that have been taken of Obama…how did the photographer recognize that this was one he had taken? His lawyer said it was an iconic pose…but I’m sure there are many many more out there that are similar.

This is day Two after I stared applying oils.

Notice that the face is starting to look more like Judy’s. The lower lip is smaller, the nose is a different shape, and there are wrinkles on the forehead. At this point I realized that the Red paint was going to be too flat…so I wiped it all off and repainted with a Red+White mixture. Hopefully when I glaze straight Red over it…it will have some dimension.

See what I mean about how…art is a process.

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Posted in Inspiration, Painting

Feb 16

Triangle Closet

On Valentine’s Day I started a new painting with lots of RED in it…it seemed appropriate. This particular painting is a continuation of my Cincinnati Art Museum series…..and the painting in the background is…..

Surprisingly the painting isn’t titled RED ….instead it’s called Triangle Closet. If you’ve never seen this painting..that’s probably because it’s up on the third floor in the Modern Art section…..personally…I don’t go up there very often. This was painted by Mary Heilmann who….to quote another website….is a part of the dynamic contemporary art scene. She was born in 1940 and studied literature, poetry, ceramics and sculpture at several colleges in California. She now lives and produces art in New York City. Apparently she’s internationally known……

And this photo was the inspiration for the model who will be standing in front of the painting. Meet Karla Derass of www.karlascloset.blogspot.com……she is a female fashion blogger who mixes vintage clothing with modern clothing from designers such as Versace. She’s a student at the Fashion Institute of Design and Marketing in Los Angeles, she blogs, she models, she goes to New York Fashion week, she styles photo shoots…..a very busy and successful person. Anyway…isn’t this pose inspiring???? Unfortunately, due to copyright infringement laws…I can’t just paint this photo….because I don’t own the rights to the photo. Damn Damn Damn.

This is my very crude Photoshop combination of Karla’s pose, supermodel Candice Swanpoel’s face, and a Chanel handbag. Candice is a Victoria Secret’s model. However, since it’s probably illegal to paint a supermodel’s face (except with make-up!)…I’m going to try and make the face look more like my friend Jen Painter.

Okay, so I didn’t take that photo either…..maybe I should just paint still lifes….I think it would be legal to paint fruit and veggies I’d bought from Kroger’s…right? This whole copyright and trademark thing gets really confusing. However, I was allowed to photograph Mary Heilmann’s painting because it was done in 1972 and the copyright laws regarding artwork didn’t go into affect until 1975.

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Posted in Inspiration, Painting, The Business of Art

Feb 14

Daughters of Revolution

Yesterday I blogged about artist  Grant Wood and his painting titled Daughters of Revolution which is in the collection of the Cincinnati Art Museum.And today I’m going to show you my painting titled Daughters of Revolution….

It isn’t finished yet…and today I made some major changes to it….but it’s coming along nicely….at least, in my opinion! The whole painting within a painting within a painting thing is a little tricky…..

This is the painting which is on the wall in Grant Wood’s painting….it’s titled Washington Crossing The Delaware and was painted in 1851 by Emanuel Leutze. The problem is….Grant Wood painted it in shades of blackish green and his lights and he didn’t completely follow the composition of the original painting. Ans so I’m struggling doing a painting of his painting.

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Posted in Art History, Painting

Feb 01

Making Decisions

Today was a day for making decisions and adding extra touches……

Lightened the over-all floor color by glazing Naples Yellow over it. Worked on the two paintings hanging on the museum walls.

Decided that the tee shirt was too plain without any design on it….so painted on a Superman logo and added yellow piping into the seams. Worked on the skin tone using Naples Yellow+Cadmium Red Light for lips, cheeks, and ears, added Permanent Blue Violet to it for shadow areas. The Basic skin color was Burnt Sienna+White.

This is starting to look a bit more like Caroline…need to let the skin tones dry and glaze some more color on. Realized that I’d made her shoes too small (ouch!), so corrected the fit problem.

Did ya notice the weird painting in the upper right hand corner? Made a feeble attempt at painting an out-of-focus face in the frame…..can’t decide if it’s distracting…maybe I should just make it an abstract.

Thought about putting this lady in the frame….This painting is titled Daily News by Yasuo Kuniyoshl (1893-1953), born in Okayama, Japan, migrated to the U.s. in 1906, and became a painter, print-maker, and photographer.

Thank God for Photoshop….I cropped the woman in The Daily News painting….Photoshopped it in…and yes, think I’ll paint that woman tomorrow. Wonder if an Cincinnati Art Museum experts will notice that I cropped their painting?

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Posted in Painting

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