Friday, July 31, 2009

Wipe Away.



" Never knowingly leave something wrong on your canvas"


This is a progress shot of a portrait commission I'm working on. I was having many issues with the proportions of the face and placement of ear. So while the first image may seem to be from after the second- the opposite is actually true. Sometimes you have to wipe away and start anew. ( I just had to)

I've read through an article a couple of times of John Singer Sargent's students telling of their experiences with him and his process- apparently if a face was not done to his liking, at the end of the session he would wipe it away- to do it all over again next time.

http://www.goodbrush.com/misc/painting_lessons/sargent_notes.pdf

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

They weren't quite close enough, anyway.

As I was setting up these two flowers, this particular composition grabbed me. Sometimes these things speak for themselves.


"They weren't quite close enough, anyway." 8x10 inches, Oil on linen mounted on panel.


Tuesday, July 21, 2009

One Plus One


"One" Oil on linen, 2x3 inches.


"Plus One" Oil on linen, 2x3 inches.


Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Monday, July 13, 2009

Chained Hearts.

If you remember 2 posts ago, I showed a small painting of 2 heart shaped chain links. well I have a lot of fun with paintings like those, so I decided to start a series of them. The purpose of which is to explore composition and storytelling with only those objects as the " actors". they are also a nice way to use that last bit of paint on my palette and the measly 3 inch strips left after cutting panels from my roll of canvas. The following painting is 3rd in the series.

"Chained Hearts." 2x3, Oil on linen.

Also another art for good measure:

"Time" 3x5, Charcoal.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Irony.

I was reading a thread over at conceptart.org forums entitled" If everyone is so good, why is nothing photo realistic?"The ignorance of the thread starter was so thick that I couldn't even reply with anything because their was no chance he would understand it. Personally, I despise adding the word " photo" next to realism. What would a piece rendered to the extent that it had the illusionistic qualities necessary to fully resemble reality be called, other than realism? Before the invention of the camera? Why must "photo" stand beside the word just because of the invention of cameras? Any attempts at " Photo" realism are most commonly just pieces copied from... a photograph believe it or not. When the intention of the piece is to replicate that exact photo, there is no possible result that can be considered a better piece of art than that original photo. I also find it interesting that most photos that are considered " good" in the first place usually have qualities sought after in a painting- such as an array of soft and hard edges, excellent composition; both in placement of the subject and arrangement of shadow shapes, exceptional use of value ( and color if applicable) etc. There's more I could say about all this but it's hard to get all of my thoughts nice and collected when reno 911 and pokemon is on my mind.
to justify the title of this post, I am showing an update of the self portrait in progress. I am going to let this first layer dry and complete it at a later date. The irony is that lately I haven't been satisfied with my paintings because I feel that being loose is an easy way to hide drawing errors, and worse, the fact that I don't have the skill to more completely render them. My intentions with this self portrait is to bring it to a higher degree of finish, of higher rendering, to create a sense of realism( photo- realism, if you will, for the joke's sake).
I already know of some proportional issues that will be dealt with in the future.
and heres 2 others for good measure. both 8x10



Saturday, July 11, 2009

Painting is hard.

This painting was definitely a struggle from beginning to end. Each painting I do is a humbling experience; letting me know just how much I don't know. I think I may need to go back to drawing for a little bit.


" Still life with wilted flowers and time" 8x10, Oil on linen mounted on panel.

Friday, July 10, 2009

The greatest gift of all: linen, pigment, and linseed oil!

I received my roll of claessens canvas today, and just had to try it out. The first painting is 2x3 inches done on a scrap piece left over from an 8x10 piece I cut for a panel. It is a gift for a friend of my mother's. She originally asked for a painting I did a while back that was very similar to this one- but I have a bit of an emotional connection to that one. She said if I painted her another one it would be acceptable. :]
The second is a post mortem painting of another one of my mother's friends cat. this one is also a gift, that had resided under various watercolor sketches half complete until tonight. I think some may find the sentimentality of pieces such as these ( and also the cliche of the first) unpleasant; but sometimes an artist's rendering of these things hold more value to the recipients than a photograph would. And if the pieces were done with the artist keeping in mind things such as composition, color, value, edges, and brushwork, why should they be looked down upon? ( this is not to defend the likes of a Kinkade, however. There is a difference between cheesy and sentimental)
2x3 inches. Oil on Linen( I feel so official saying linen : D)
11x14 inches. Watercolor and Gouache on cold pressed paper)

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Not all paintings are done in a day.

Sleeping isn't really going so well tonight; I was up working on the self portrait below, and since summer has started I've been trying to get into the groove of working out more- getting rid of the " Eh, I'll do it tomorrow" train of thought. At about 4:30 ( probably later), as I tried to make my way up the stairs, I noticed that my poor dog, Allie* was watching up at the staircase awaiting my return. I didn't know that things that can't speak could guilt trip, but she did. I decided to take her for a walk and hopefully tire her out some so we could both get some sleep. To add, it was raining as I walked my dog around the loop and I didn't bother to put a shirt on- but once we got back home I believe she was ready for some shut eye, and so am I!

* When I first got my dog, my father asked me what to name her. I said" Alley!"
" Allie, as in A-L-L-I-E?"
"Nooooo. As in A-L-L-E-Y."
But of course I was a kid and the spelling must not have took; while I was writing I didn't know which to type so I just stuck with what's on her tags."




Wednesday, July 8, 2009

So today was quite an interesting day, I chose the role of the art teacher instead of the art student!
A friend of mine asked me to help her with painting one day for an in-class art assignment and I guess that's how I became Professor Pariano! I got her to start with some exercises that one of my teachers made me do, and then I told her to dive right in to her biggest drawing ever! 24x36 on newsprint.
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I even did one too, although I took the easy way and did a much smaller one:]
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Monday, July 6, 2009

Conceptart.org gallery

Speaking of conceptart.org, They have a really awesome feature for anyone who has an account there. You can create a very professional looking gallery just by uploading some photos and typing descriptions. I want to use this blog to post more recent art, but this gives a nice look as to some of my older stuff. This gallery is primarily what I sent into colleges for my portfolio.

A Handful Of Self-Portraits

So on the conceptart.org forums, it is apparently " portrait and composition" month, which made something go off in my brain that said " do portraits" oddly enough. SO I thought I'd share two recent self- portraits of mine.


The first one is 8x10, where as the second is 9x12. I actually kind of hated the first one right after I painted it, but It's grown on me. the second was the exact opposite, I loved it until I looked at it in the mirror to reveal all sorts of errors, some were fixed, most not. Although I'm not to found of it, the surface was nice to paint on; my first time painting on oil primed linen. I'm now planning on buying a roll of the stuff for later use.

Coolio.

So I spontaneously decided to create a blog, and while this first post might be a great place to have an eloquently written paragraph about me, it's 3:23 am and I'm not an award winning writer anyway.

So I'll just say I can't get over how snazzy I think my title looks.

I'll get some art up soon, until then I guess I'm basically typing to myself.