Friday, April 20, 2012

Ecce Homo Painting

Here is the final painting called "Ecce Homo."  It's inevitable that I'll be oiling it back up and doing some touch-ups once it's completely dry, but it surely won't look much different than this.  Hope you guys like it.. more to come later.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

~Isaiah 53:5

Ecce Homo
oil on canvas
30x24 inches
2012




Sunday, April 15, 2012

Ecce Homo

I had an idea yesterday for a painting based off of one of my recent figure studies.  So I did the study again, along with a few anatomical studies.  Hopefully this will make its way to a canvas within the next few days.

Study for "Ecce Homo" (or "For the Sake of His Sorrowful Passion")
graphite and conté on toned paper
2012
I got a little carried away with the drawing... it's a bit overdone and redone.  I was going back and forth and making quite a few corrections and revisions, and honestly overthinking out the details of the figure.  It was around 8:30 tonight (after about 3 or 4 hours of drawing) when I finally had to remind myself that it's just a study.  But it's a fairly decent idea of what I have in mind.  I have a few more studies to do before I get started on the canvas.  That will be my objective this week, and hopefully by the end of the week, I will be ready to start painting.
To be continued...

Friday, April 13, 2012

Figure study soundtrack

One of the things that makes drawing, painting, sculpting, etc. such a demanding craft is the fact that it is often so tedious.  I typically need some kind of musical score playing while I'm drawing or painting.  Such was the case this week as I worked on a few figure studies.  I did two sets this week - a male and female set of three figures.  So as you can imagine, the laborious task of quite literally getting my hands dirty... and every tedious hatch of my pencil... it's enough to make me go mental. 
So with that, I thought I would share a sampling of the music I listen to during my long hours of drawing and painting.  I love a whole bunch of different genres of music, but the kind I most frequently play in the studio is classical, and old Renaissance a'cappella choirs especially.  I know, pretty odd.  But take a listen to one of my favorites here.  This is called Trahe me, post te, by Francisco Guerrero (1528-99), and it is without question one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.




Female figure studies
graphite on toned paper
2012
Male figure studies
graphite and conté
2012

Friday, April 6, 2012

Updates 4/6/12

No new art to post just yet... just a few updates on what I'm up to lately.

Wow... so lots of stuff going on.  First, I went to my first meeting with Summit Art in Lee's Summit so I could see what they're like and get an idea of what they do around the K.C. area.  And from what it sounds like, some pretty big things are starting to happen with them, and it is the perfect time to join them as a member.  So I've decided to do so.  I'll be submitting my application soon, and they'll be having a jury review a sample of my work in May.  I'm pretty excited, and hoping you all will be seeing a lot more of my work hanging up in galleries in the area a lot more often.

Apparently, some people are seeing my work that is currently exhibiting at Blue Springs City Hall.  I received an email this week from one such person who is helping to organize an art/antique show on April 28 in Blue Springs, and she has invited me to participate (even though the official app deadline has passed, she's offering me the opportunity anyway.. pretty cool).  I'm not sure yet if I'll be able to do it, but if I can I will let everyone know soon.

Speaking of, if you haven't seen my paintings at the Blue Springs City Hall yet, I hope you will!  They are my two award-winning paintings from the Blue Springs Art Show, The Artist and Juan de Pareja, and they will be there until the afternoon of April 20th. 

In other art show news, I am looking into applying for a show that will take place in... wait for it... Nashville, TN!  The show is called Artclectic, and it is an indoor show (one of the main reasons I'm looking into it).  The show itself takes place in October, however the deadline to apply is April 27th.  So it is really just a matter of deciding which paintings I want to submit, and making sure I have good quality digital images of them to send with my app.  From the looks of it, they don't appear to get a whole lot of contemporary realist paintings, so this could be interesting.  Hopefully they'll like what I have to offer.

So that is all for now, stay tuned for more paintings soon!