Wedding Portrait 2013

This is my cousin, Brad, and his wife, Karisa, who were married on June 1st of this year. My gift to them was this portrait, a graphite drawing sealed in encaustic medium (heated wax and other components).

This sort of mixed media technique grew from the impetus of working for Inspire Prescott. I still haven’t completely worked it out. So in truth, I experimented on my dear cousins :). Even so, I’m confident they were happy with it, and I can’t wait to try another portrait in this style.

A closeup of some oil paint detail:

The drawing before encaustification.

God bless your life together, Brad and Karisa.

Commission Painting – Window

Documenting my next commission painting. View from a Window. Oil on canvas, 30″ x 48″ (about two-thirds of a doorway). Mediocre photography by me :-P.

The lines are completely straight, I promise, though they look bowed and tilted in the photo. I finished it and sent it to its new home a few weeks ago.

Preliminary watercolor sketches:

Detail:

Distance is already a challenge for me. In fact, that landscape a couple posts ago was a bit of distance-practice while working on this commission. Gonna keep trying :).

Finished Landscape

Calling it finished. I added more detail in the foreground, amongst the shrubberies, and glazed over the darker areas with some alizarin crimson. I tried to build up a simple foreground/mid-ground/background, but they’re not as distinct from each other as I would like. Have a look at the previous post for in progress photos. I welcome all the feedback :).

In Progress: Landscape Painting

Lately I’ve been getting requests for landscape paintings, but they’re tough for me. Conveying distance and deep space isn’t easy. Time to practice. Here are some in-progress photos of my current attempt. It’s not yet finished; I’ll post the final version soon. -oil on canvas.

Step 1 – Horizon

Step 2

Step 3 – more blue

Step 4 – some ochre, some umber

Step 5 – some pthalo blue (to create green) and a touch of red

Step 6 – some details

I need to study up more on painters like Joseph Mallord William Turner, in whose paintings you can see for miles: ^ this is one of his watercolor landscapes.

Artist to Note

Take a look at Matt’s paintings on Matt Sterbenz Fine Art. He and I were fellow painting students at ASU a year ago. See for yourself what a fantastic painter he is, and how well he explains his process.

He is presently trying to fulfill a challenge to paint 100 tiny (5″x7″) landscapes. I might like to take on such a challenge :). Stay tuned ~

Recycled Paintings 1.2 – Video

Recycled ASU painting #2 is complete, this time with some time-lapse movie magic.

It’s roughly 36×36, oil on canvas. Please watch!

Explanation: The first painting is a class assignment from 2010 which I never liked :P. Now (December 2011) I painted over it and filmed the process. This is my first timelapse movie attempt, so my apologies for the poor visibility (due partly to my person being in the way) and ever-changing lighting. Here’s a photo of the end result:

Comments welcome!

Portraiture Update

Another portrait commission :). This is the daughter of a friend of mine.

To answer a common question, I’ve worked from photos for all of my portraits. Painting from life would be best, if it were possible in my case.

The painting is 12″x16″, oil on cradled masonite.

Recycled Paintings 1.1

Time to recycle some old canvas.

Initially, this was a class-assigned painting from 2008—a study in complementary colors blue and orange. The other day, I finished painting over it with another study in blue and orange. Same canvas; same color palette. But the new study is based on the mountain next door.

BEFORE:

IN PROGRESS:

AFTER:

Commission Painting

Before this commission, I’d never attempted anything western. But this was fun to try, especially with the desert landscape and wildflowers. Arizona is my home, after all :).

This painting was finished and sent off last week. It’s oil on canvas, 18″x24″. I’m showing here the preliminary watercolor sketch as well…….

Portraiture Update

Okay. Self-portrait. Here’s me as a study in likeness; oil on birch plywood, 16″x20″.

I had a really hard time photographing this painting. This is the best I could do for now, but the colors are weird, and it’s a bit warpy-like. As soon as I get a better photo, it will be replaced ;). Click to see them in detail.