Leopard Commision

It has come to my attention that I had long ago promised to complete a painting of a leopard for a close friend of mine. Fear not my adoring public, I have not lost steam with my self portrait. One simply needs to acknowledge the value of maintaining friendships and connections, for it is those that are most important, especially in the art world. As it is a straight living room piece made for aesthetic value, I don't foresee this piece consuming too much of my time. That said I will still approach it with the same vigor and dedication that I do all my work. If anything I should put more work into this one since it will go out into the world and be a face of my work.

I messed around with various compositions and finally fell upon this one. I took inspiration from the Romantic era, my favorite =3. At the moment I have only partly developed the tree trunk that will dominate the picture plan because it was just so seductive as a subject. The colors and texture begged me to paint it. I will start work on the leopards during my next session.

Self Portrait 3

The work continues, but it is too slow for my liking. I must seize this moment of inspiration and light a fire under my brush. This is always a weird stage in painting for me. There is so much work to be done and I can see the final piece peeking out. I find myself too often just staring at the piece reassuring myself that the composition is sound and a beautiful painting is emerging. I am a bit afraid to continue for fear I will ruin it and push away any potential genius.

Despite this I enjoy this in between moment. Someday when I have a more masterful control of my technique I want to create a piece that makes full use of all the painterly texture. The dripping solvent, the thick brushwork, the bold color patches, a painter's wet dream so to speak.

 At the moment everything seems to be playing nice still, unlike Pandora who is still sitting in the corner. There are some glaring proportional issues with the arm and hand, but that is not worth the worry it will be fixed in the next hour of work.

Self portrait 2

I feel good about this one. I'm not quite sure what it is, but everything is going good. Now I just need to stay on task and make sure it doesn't run away from me. My professor told me to make sure I maintain the relationship between the foreground and the background or the composition could quickly degrade.

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I'm pleased to see that this familiar subject was really easy to get. Maybe I'm more vain than I thought. More tomorrow

Self Portrait: Twenty Five

My Pandora series continues to misbehave so I put it in the corner for now till it decides to play nice. In the mean time I have begun work on a self portrait. It has been a while since I made one so I am definitely due for one. Also I have the feeling it will be a pleasant milestone for later in life when my body has deteriorated and my fame is overpowering.

This is one of those pieces where I am working on pure inspiration which is a really awesome cycle. I feel the need to create without any research backing the work. I have no idea where this composition came from, all I know is that I need to paint myself as some sort of general overlooking his battle plans. I threw on a face vest, set up my camera and away I go. I plan to put something on the table edge, but not sure what it will be. Proportions look a bit odd, but I was good and used a grid so I'm just gonna say foreshortening is messing with me again and ignore it.

Pandora #2

I have been working hard to maintain my manic pace of work, but the other day I hit a conceptual wall. I was painting away progressing nicely when I stood back and realized I made a wrong turn. Everything looked completely wrong all of a sudden. Painting is sneaky like that. I did my best to fight and work my way out of it. They were not hearing any of that though. After a few hours of thought I decided that I lacked the substance behind the paintings. I was so excited to get back into my work I forgot what it means to properly research. If you go into a piece with an empty mind, its going to show. On that note I got some reading to do, but here is where I am right now.