Fall Term 2011

Ok, not actually taking a painting class this term. Sigh. But am taking color theory, where we play with paints.

Only painted one pic in class - a photo of frankenstein was projected on the wall upside down and we all had to paint it in whatever monochromatic color scheme we desired. It was fun.

Acrylic on bristol paper.

Our final project is a 'response' to an artist viewed on the PBS Art 21 series. This isn't finished (obviously.) It's going to say 'Christmas Shopping Kills'. Heh heh. It's red/green complimentary color scheme, so all colors are from red/green/white/black or any mixing of those.

The zombie was from a pic from the 'Walking Dead' TV series. Really some exceptional makeup that the painting doesn't do justice, but it had the right sneer and really good, sunk in zombie eyes.

Acrylic on acrylic paper.

Ok, and the final version. Text is too small, but oh well. Once committed, kinda stuck.

Summer Term 2011

B&W on paper...

*need to take pic*

B&W still life - spent 2 class times on it (maybe 4.5 hrs?)

Monochromatic still life... 1 class +1 hrs at home. Maybe 3 hrs total.

Homework - Red and Green Still life (12x12 on Acrylic paper)
Proportions got off on box, but oh well.

*Note - Fall 2011, Submitted this to the Fall $25 Show at Rock Creek. It was purchased by someone (who didn't know the artist - names are kept hidden) and the money goes to fund the gallery. * glad someone bought it so the money goes to supporting other shows.

This was the still life we did in class all week. Well, my take on it. The parts I took were a cardboard dinosaur, some fabric, a skull, some leaves... er... I jumbled them all up, colored them whatever. Looks weird but it was fun. Done on loose canvas, its bigger than 24x36 I think.

Here's Twinkie meets Degas. Messed up on various aspects of it. The detail is seriously off, but it has the right 'feel'.

This is my final 'small painting' for the class, from a photo. Meh. Still need to black the top and bottom, and it needs more depth... but I'm tired of it.

The wall of Twinkie!

Not all of her pics are up, but here's the collection starting above the couch in the computer room

Spring Term Painting Class 2011

This was between Winter and Spring Term - done mostly at the airport in Denver. Sorry it's blurry. Colored pencil on black paper.

Spring Term painting homework has begun!

First homework assignment is 2 small paintings, any subject, approx 3 hr total time.

Here's still number one - hopefully I'll have some time before turning it in to work it some more. It's flat.

Next I tried Water color crayons. Neat little things. Twinkie didn't turn out that well, but it was interesting to try. I left the detail off of her - so she's extra blotchy. Not sure how to get it in with those things without using a different media.

Both pics are on 9x12 canvas 'paper'.

Class Two - we did the black and white projection still life, working from a projection that was blurred out, then making it slowly sharper as the day progressed. I like this one, though it's hard. It's fun to reduce the painting to blobs of shadow. It really does help free you up from 'detail detail detail' thinking at the start of the painting. This time, we went the whole class with this, rather than half. I liked having the whole class time for one painting better. :)

Proportionally, there are many bits of this that are messed up. Overall, I think I'm doing better on layout though. And I didn't panic so much.

Back to the short homework paintings. First one was to paint a small classic (girl with pearl earring) in B&W in about 1.5 hrs. Dropped alot of detail and have to move on to assignment two.

Second was suppose to be a still life in B&W with 3 objects and strong light. kinda is. :)

Class Work - Still life close up
This one got weird from the start, but oh well.

Next homework was 2 still lifes. One with a little brush, one with a big brush, 3 objects. These were done in the hotel room in Seattle (still life was sitting in the window sill.) The big brush was a flat - at least an 1". The small was a round - #2? It was the smallest I had that wasn't a detail brush.

Little brush

Big Brush

Here's the unfinished stuff for the week I missed... it's going to be late. :(

Master's copy that is driving me insane

And here it is a bit farther along...

Farmer Twinkie

Draft - two masters merged. An Abstract and a Raphael... Gotta go write the abstract dudes name down... this has a long way to go. It's blotchy and a blurry pic. Had alot of problems with the proportions of the Raphael, which I wasn't expecting. The rounded chubness of the figures was harder than I thought and I totally failed on the face.

This is the start of the series of 3 paintings. Still in Progress. Painting was still wet when I took pic, so there's an odd sheen.

Apocalpyse Twinkie - Twinkie Strikes Back ;)

Here it is again, likely 'done'

And here is picture two - Twinkie Toys

And picture 3, flaming god head twinkie... lol

Ok, really disliked how panel #3 ended up... so I tried it again. Here's the almost finished draft of it...

Final 2 paintings - 'Tiny' Ones.

First is just a still life. Didn't turn out that great, but was painted on clayboard, so that was interesting. Kinda fun. Wish it wasn't so spendy in bigger pieces.

**pic pending**

Painting two is a landscape kinda abstracted (lazy me) on paper board. Never used paper board, so that was interesting. It's tougher than I thought. If I'd known it would hold up so well, I would have started with a dark toned background. Anyway, another learning experience.

Random Conference Doodles

Things I learned about my attention span: 5 days at a conference is pretty trying on my ability to focus.

Oh, I was good, I didn't doodle DURING any sessions, just between. But towards the end, the sessions were getting broken down in my head to various versions of 'why we can't do that'.

But I did get some strange looks while doodling, which was amusing.

On the bright side, the free highlighter was interesting to color with and I managed to not break the colored pencils that were stuffed in my bag. Score all around!

Winter Term Painting Class 2011

First class exercise was on paper. Didn't bring that home. Black and white rendition of a classic.

**no pic**

Well, this is Twinkie, so of course it's a classic (LOL.) This was done on a weekend with no painting homework. It's done with water soluble graphite pencils, some inktense pencils, and a tiny bit of color pencil in the eyes.

Had never used the graphite pencils. Biggest thing I learned - on watercolor paper, they suck right in and lock almost immediately like ink. Wasn't expecting that. But I'm not familiar at all with watercolor paper either.



We did two black and white exercises in class. The first was the 'make the still life blurry on the screen' kind of thing where you focus on tone/value first. Painful, but fun.



The second was looking directly at the still life, then painting the bit we chose still in black and white. So I guess doing it 2D fuzzy vs. 3D.



This is an in class still life, unfinished. Had to paint using primary colors, so had blue, yellow, red, plus black and white. Might get to finish it next week.

Trying again on Twinkie pic, this time in acrylics. Still in progress.

Ok, here's the final on the primary color still life. Didn't get it completed, and the still life had moved some so fabric was kinda blown, but time is up on it so it's done.

Now starting the triptych... er... tryphtech? However it's spelled.

Here is unfinished panel one - a revisit of twink from last term. Still need to go back in and do detail work, mostly on big eye/fur.

Here is unfinished panel #2 - to go with the panel above. Twinkie vs. Apocalyptic Mousie. Heh heh.

And here is unfinished panel #3, dreaming Twinkie. LOTS left to do on this one, not even half way there.

And here is the latest update to panel 3. Junk food ditched for mousies. Colors changed (the violet really kept bothering me.)

And Panel 3 changed yet again. I think this will be the final version, I've run out of time.

For the last assignment, we had to do two small paintings. Ok, tiny, but I took the largest size we could do. 9x12.

This is the unfinished first one - simple portrait from an ad.

And here is the finished still life I did. Cell phone pic, so not as sharp. I enjoyed this one. It felt like the objects, even though I strayed alot. And not the orange wasn't rotting, it was a 'blood orange cross' of some sort, so it had red mottling in it.

Really old Stuff

This is the really old stuff archive. I don't have many pics from high school, early college. A few sketches I liked technically, most everything else got ditched.

This is from... er... 1985? Geez. Just a sketch from a clothing ad. Sorry for the glare. Too lazy to take apart the old crappy frame and take a good pic of it.