What are you working on?

[stlukesguild]

I got to experience the effects of the Supermoon on the first couple of days of school with students.

 

[brianvds]

Now I know why I don't paint portraits. Everyone would look like Alfred E Neuman. I had to look very hard to see what the problem is. Gorgeous painting, again St Lukes.

Thanks for the comment. You are right about portraits. What's the old adage? A portrait is a painting where there's always something wrong with the nose? Or was it the ears? Mouth?

It's the mouth. It's always the mouth. I learned this from hard, frustrating experience.

When I look at the great portraitists (Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Sargent) I am struck by their fluid paint handling. Doing that while still capturing the appearance of an individual really blows my mind.

Indeed. They somehow manage to paint the mouth in a sort of impressionist style, all blobs and smears and bits, whereas it is well known that if you don't get it precisely right, you lose the likeness. And then somehow their likeness works better than anything I could ever achieve.

 

[brianvds]

I looked around on the web for police mugshots - criminals have vastly more interesting faces than celebrities. I found plenty to turn into quick sketches. And no, I actually did not exaggerate these all that much - truth is consistently stranger than fiction.

 

[Artyczar]

These are great Brian!

 

[Hermes2020]

 

[Hermes2020]

Now I know why I don't paint portraits. Everyone would look like Alfred E Neuman. I had to look very hard to see what the problem is. Gorgeous painting, again St Lukes.

Thanks for the comment. You are right about portraits. What's the old adage? A portrait is a painting where there's always something wrong with the nose? Or was it the ears? Mouth? When I look at the great portraitists (Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Sargent) I am struck by their fluid paint handling. Doing that while still capturing the appearance of an individual really blows my mind.

That's why I hide in abstraction.

 

[Marc]

This painting's for my wife. It's her on a dune watching the yachts going past with her dogs.
It might be finished, I'm not sure.

 

[Marc]

I looked around on the web for police mugshots - criminals have vastly more interesting faces than celebrities. I found plenty to turn into quick sketches. And no, I actually did not exaggerate these all that much - truth is consistently stranger than fiction.

Australian 1920s mugshots

 

[brianvds]

Australian 1920s mugshotsView attachment 43005

Criminals dressed better in those days, but it seems the "interesting face" phenomenon is a constant.

 

[Artyczar]

Marc, I love that painting for your wife! WOW!

 

[PaintBoss]

Hey Marc, I just got back to this thread. Really like your painting. What an interesting viewpoint you choose for painting. It really does remind me of those excellent memorable artists mentioned earlier and of a few others I cannot recall the names of. Unique alternative view of the world. Like we are all drawing and painting it from one or two perspectives and you’ve just turned the scene / the viewpoint around 45 percent. Fresh work that makes s viewer think! Great style. Love it!

 

[bethany]

Great photos! I could tell that these mug shots were Australian. They all have a white forehead from wearing hats in our strong sun. Farmers also have the same white foreheads.

 

[Rich53]

I looked around on the web for police mugshots - criminals have vastly more interesting faces than celebrities. I found plenty to turn into quick sketches. And no, I actually did not exaggerate these all that much - truth is consistently stranger than fiction.

Celebrities can afford better plastic surgeons than most criminals can?

 

[snoball]

Great sketches, Brian, and Marc, the painting of your wife is great. I'm working on a pencil drawing commission. It's going very slowly, due to distractions, appointments and such. I still haven't finished with the color on the irises, but thought I should get started on the commission, since I'm doing the irises just to be doing.

 

[OliveOyl]

Wow Sno…how many commissions do you do? How do you find people, or how do they find YOU? And good luck with it…I’m sure it will turn out fantastic, as always.

And…by the way, those Australian mug shots were actually, beautifully photographed, especially for what they were. In 2013, I used some of them to make a painting on wood, with stenciled flowers. Each guy was on his own little panel which were drilled into the larger panel. (This was pulled off Saatchi so you can see the size.)

And…this is what I’m working on now. It’s the second of what I’m loosely calling “future people.” They’re all 40x20 and their heads are in big circles and there’s text and some mixed media bits. In this photo, I’m just pondering some ideas. It makes me laugh. Always happy to keep myself amused…

 

[PaintBoss]

Hey Olive, nice to see you and what you are up to. Your stuff is always so interesting. I love your creative ideas.
Sno- congrats on the commission!

 

[stlukesguild]

At the present moment… with all the chaos at the start of the new school year… I am only in the planning stages for my next painting/drawing. Looking across the years of my figurative painting/drawings I realized that only once have I focused on the back… and yet one of my favorite paintings is Michelangelo’s Libyan Sibyl for which the artist made this magnificent study:

I have been collecting photograph’s of women’s backs… especially those of athletes and fitness models where the musculature of the back is emphasized:

I am certainly going to need to spend some time in careful study of the muscles of the back… probably making a slew of studies…before I move onto the big paper. Subject matter? Theme? Colors? All that’s still up in the air. I’m currently pushing my Middle School students to go beyond their usual approach to portraits by having them draw profiles… so I should push myself to go beyond my usual frontal and profile views.

 

[john]

Marc, super cool painting. Top notch! Olive, love the portraits of the degenerates. Those future people have a lot of potential.

This is an oil I mostly did with knife and will get two sand piper birds eventually. Hopefully they will add some scale, it's a zoomed in shot. Never thought just painting sand and wave would be this difficult. Now I know why Winslow Homer painted the sea while on an island off Maine.......so no one could hear him scream.

This is the start of one for the abstract challenge. Supposed to be an upstairs artist's studio. Once again I'm wrestling between abstraction and representation. I want to add boats but then it might be too real. The tape masking failed to fully keep out the water.

Trying something different....using watercolor ground coating on gator board as the painting surface. Idea being that when done I can just varnish and frame it. Or use the other side if it's a disaster.

Having a hard time finding the time. Our one hundred year old house is making me work on it.

 

[Grapes]

Here's my setup today. Trying to paint the castle right next to the wasp warning sign, the yellow sign close to the ground. I didn't believe there can be wasps and I set up by the sign anyway. There were wasps. In the end I had to move as the wasps started to get out of their nest.

The day was beautiful. I got little bit done, drawing + painting some shadow side of the castle etc. Will try to return tomorrow to work more on the painting.

 

[Grapes]

John, the view you are painting is difficult! That's probably true what you say about Winslow Homer!
It will be interesting to see if you go for abstraction or representation.