randomness

Portrait in Gouache

Geisha
Almost forgot about this little sketch. At some point I plan on doing a little Geisha series.

Falling in Love again
Over the past few years I have fallen out of love with drawing. My painting has suffered because of it. I just put big shapes of color down and didn't really put my attention on the drawing. It has become painfully obvious to me. Guess I have or had a foolish notion that while I paint it will all fall together. Unfortunately this isn't always the case, not even close, least not for me. So in effort to fall back in love with drawing I went to a gesture session TO DRAW!!!
going to make this a priority once again.

did these studies on the same day last weekend. the bottom one I painted looking through a fence from across the street .It's a Steel mill and I was watching them dump this hot shit on the back of this dump truck. I would like to go back during the night and try to capture it. I was painting under a overpass and cars would drive by me getting on the freeway, it was very busy and noisy. I don't know what it was but people kept honking at me. Everytime it scared the crap out of me . So I painted fast, only trying to get the color. next time.

I start to paint this little sketch outside and about 15 minutes into it a old friend of mine walks by out of the blue and we start chatting while I paint. In the process I didn't watch the valves and the piece ended up not being strong. Of course all this an excuse for the suckage.

Under the Over

Did these outside all last saturday. I spent no longer than 2 hours on a piece.

A little 6 x 8 oil sketch

I ate something that was killing my stomach. Gah!

from a rough to reality

48x 60 oil on canvas

If you remember my old post
then this is the result.
Something I've learned about the palette I was using is that most Cerulean Blues are just Thalo blue mixed with white. So then I went and looked on the back of a lot of paint brands and that is what it is, It's just some brands mix it with different whites. Gamblin paint has two Cerulean blues one is a hue the other is the real deal. I haven't tried the "real one" yet cause it's so freaky pricey. And don't know if there is a big difference. But that color has a full time job on my palette. It's warm for a blue and it's has a wide range for mixing. Thalo on the other hand just has a part time gig with me.

This was one of those paintings I could have just kept working on but I decided to just wrap it up and move on. I don't like when I can look at my own paintings and see it over worked.

Also a quick thank you to Colleen for posing for this piece. thank you!

This was the first 20 minute after gestures.
Ironically it was the best one I did today.
Scanned in at a higher rez since it's no bigger than 4 inches.

Tinyset

My Friend Dev was in San Fran a couple weeks back and was so cool, that he got me this book. I was blown away at how good this guy Henry Yan is. So if your looking for a good figure drawing book, I highly recommend this one. I also recommend having friends like Dev.

8 x 10 oil

11 x 14 oil

Maybe because I performed so badly yesterday at figure drawing I got the extra juice to get out and paint. I bagged going this morning instead I went outside in the fresh air and painted. There was patch of real blue sky on and off and the sun would pop out then it would be swallowed again but another cloud. For the most part it was bright out, just not beaming with direct sun.

Went figure drawing this morning and I was off, so off that it put me in a funk for hours, then I decided to hop in the car and give nature some attention.. Although I did end up painting this in my car due to the on and off drizzle so it didn't feel like I "got out" as it were.
gouache on watercolor paper.

The plan is to do a lot of outdoor painting this year and I'm so happy it's starting to get nice outside, it was cold but I did manage to get out and do this little number



Brought the little painting box to the drawing session. I will be more brave next time.

I managed to get up and go to figure drawing this morning. Haven't gone on a Sunday in a while. But the sun is out today so i'm off to go paint.

Little gouache heads

this was after a 3hour open painting session.

And this after another 3 that i did last night. I got bored with the background and chair so i started throwing down some palette knife action and just playing with some dry brush-ish strokes.
Oil 24 x18

This past week I got out and tried to paint this wicked little truck again. Still can't seem to get it, but I will probaly try yet again. 12 x 10 oil

Easter morning painting!

The sun was constantly coming and going and I didn't realize how cold it was outside till my painting hand started to go numb, but I did manage to get out there and give it a shot. It's super wet and juicy hence the crazy glare. 14 x 11

Another painting from the monday night 3 hour open painting session.
This last one was my first outdoor painting this year. It was overcast and ending up raining which pushed me to finish in a hurry. One thing that sucks about painting when it's overcast is that there are no hard shadows. Things tend to look very flat. All ambient light and I really never noticed this before I started painting outside years ago. Maybe thats why the great Northwest isn't known for it's outdoor Plein air painters like Souther Cali is, helps to have some sun.

Offerings

Sometimes i think it's a smart idea to paint over old paintings. Getting the texture of the last painting to play with. And other times it just seems to get in the way.