Wilmington Art Association Spring Show: Best in Fine Art

I had the great pleasure of receiving the Best in Fine Art award at the Wilmington Art Association Spring show. This is one of the first juried exhibitions I've entered, and it needed some traveling ( the NC coast is farther than you think). A big thank you to everybody who helped me get it out there, especially my lovely friend Abby, who also received the award on my behalf! And also thanks to the Wilmington Art Association who was very accommodating in the handling of the painting and award.

Carlyn. Oil on canvas on board. 20x30 inches

Some Portraits

Luckily, I paint more than I show off. By a good deal. 

Dina. Oil on canvas panel, 11x14

Adrian. Oil on canvas panel, 11x14

Running out of paintings

The Muddy Colors blog is a constant source of inspiration ( and a way to procrastinate while not feeling too bad about myself).  Jesper Ejsing's post is a great reminder that we only have so many paintings left to create in our life time, so we should make them count:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2013/02/everyone-counts.html

As someone interested in the nocturne genre, I always find myself coming back to this post by James Gurney: Is Moonlight Blue?

http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2008/01/is-moonlight-blue.html

It's really interesting to delve into the scientific study of night-time lighting and it's effect on color. Apparently, moonlight has a slight reddish hue; who knew?

Been focusing on a slightly different direction recently, specifically trying to beef up the fantasy/ illustration side of my portfolio. Anybody that knows me well knows that If I'm not painting or eating chickfila, I'm probably playing card games. I would love to do some work for games like Magic: the gathering or Legend of the Five Rings sometime in the future. 

Below is a page of my sketchbook where I did some acryla-gouache thumbnails. Sometimes your first idea is your best, or maybe I just got lazy.

And here is the thumbnail taken into photoshop and renderend to completion:

Portrait of Mary

Mary Howard. 36x48 inches. Oil on canvas.

Time

The following portraits I'm particularly happy with due to the time in which they were completed. While in most cases, work is not judged by the time it took, but the power of the image, the alla prima portrait must consider it, especially when your model has a limited time window.

"Danny". 9x12. oil on linen panel. 45 minutes.

"Amanda". 11x14. oil on canvas. 1 hour 20 minutes.