Photo Ref

Here's a few reference shots from a recent photo shoot.  The worst part for me is frankensteining all the shots together to get a believable, cohesive image.  As much as love painting drapery it tends to be the most work for me to get right.  I also think I'm probably more anal than I need to be.  Gonna try and tackle this right now.

quick update

Refined the drawing a little.  Lot of anatomical weirdness that will have to get worked out after I take some photo ref.  Lots of potentially cool fabric that I'm looking forward to/dreading.  Over all I feel pretty good about the composition.  Not going to listen to the little voice saying "this would look really nice as a giant painting".  Maybe next time.

Sketch

Pretty sure this is going to be my next painting.  My sketches are the worst!  Need to refine this idea, get photo ref, transfer and start slangin some paint.

Hi Fructose Feature

I just wanted to share this.  Thanks to Hi*Fructose!  Be sure to grab your copy when it hits the stores.

"The Demon Haunted World"

"We accepted the products of science. We rejected it's methods." ~Carl Sagan

This painting is a tribute.

This piece is for the upcoming 20th Anniversary show at Copro Nason Gallery opening this Sat, Aug 17th in the LA area. If you're in the area it looks like a kick ass show. Also, I rarely have a chance to attend shows I participate in and I'm always curious how the openings go. If you do end up there post some pics!

Let's start off with the original thumbnails. Originally, I thought it would be cool to show the exposed back. I still think it could be cool and I may do a companion piece someday. I like the idea of light from the window illuminating a section of the mattress. Obviously, for this piece a different path was taken. I think the first sketch may have a heightened sense of mystery but I wanted to engage the viewer more.

Usually, I transfer the sketch then use my photo ref to make the final drawing right onto the watercolor paper. Lately, I've found it more helpful to correct the figure's anatomy on a slightly more refined sketch prior to transferring. It doesn't add a lot of time as I'm still leaving the rest of the drawing fairly rough. But it does help to reduce unnecessary erasing on the main figure and potentially disrupting the paper's surface.

Final drawing on watercolor paper

It's a balancing game here. I want enough information with the pencil that I feel comfortable laying in my paint. At the same time I don't want to fully render everything. It would waste time especially in darker areas that the paint would naturally give value to. Also wet on wet paint can offer really cool affects that may come off as too contrived if I tried to draw it all in.

While painting this marble table top I wanted to try and let the paint work for me. So I mixed about four colors I planned on working with and started in with a wet base color then moved left adding in other colors when appropriate. It's acrylic so it's not going to stay wet forever. One has to be very mindful of time and application. Note that my paint mixture was the consistency of melted ice cream. That is to say, not too thin. When the paint dried I was hoping to see for the most part a surface that resembled marble. There was obviously more painting required to give the surface a subtle reflective quality. Another reason I started here is in the beginning, as you'll see, I'm trying to paint in some dark areas as a point of value reference. Otherwise I may inch too slowly towards the necessary values. This inching happens anyway. There's always some back and forth with painting. However, I am trying to cut down on the baby steps. Not always easy for me.

Something cool started to happen with the texture on the wall here. Although there are subtle changes, I try to maintain the basic shape and flow throughout the piece.

Off to the right you can see my scrap paper where I test my colors. It's a good idea make sure that the color and consistency are where I want them before applying the paint onto the actual painting. It makes even more sense to test it in a spot with similar color and value as the one you're about to paint on.

Here I tried doing some wet on wet application to try and give the look of bruising or perhaps some infection on the arm. Again, what I thought was dark enough was not. As the rest of the painting progressed I realized repeatedly that the bruising needed to be much darker.

Shower curtain?  Who uses shower curtains? 

What do you do when you've been staring at something for too long and need a quick and different perspective? A nice large mirror comes in very handy for a quick change of perspective. Viewing the image on your phone or computer screen can also help. I'm assuming that everyone reading this is locked up in a studio somewhere and lost all of their friends long long ago. Of course, people are a great resource for feedback as well.

This last image is basically the finished piece. Unfortunately, I'm away from my studio and probably need to tweak colors slightly before posting the final image online. I'll update this post with a finished finished image soon.

UPDATE:  Since I was getting some requests for details I decide to go ahead and upload a few.  Thanks for all the love everyone.  Means a lot!

What does "Success" mean? Let me think about that...

What does it mean to be successful?

This question has been on my mind of late.  It’s the basis for a documentary I’m participating in titled “Making It” about the struggles and successes in the arts industry.  How does one make it as an artist?  What does it mean to be successful?

Consider what it must feel like to be in Heaven.  You’ve been waiting for it your whole life.  You’ve worked hard, did all the right things.  It feels good.  Like freedom, like peace.  Then you realize that there are billions of people who didn’t make it.  You know some of these people.  You’re related to some of these people.  Some of these people also worked very hard.  But you made it to Heaven.  How happy can one be?  How does success feel?

Perhaps personal success in this way is a bit myopic.  I find it increasingly difficult to just make art and feel good about myself when there are so many unemployed, underemployed, impoverished people slipping through the cracks.  Most of us, it seems, associate success with our jobs.  Our placement and ranking within the industry.

The more I learn about technologies like automation, the exponential growth of computing power, and our rapid increase in productivity the more I realize that jobs are becoming more and more obsolete.  It seems apparent that at some point the bond between income and employment will break.  It’s cheaper, safer, and more efficient to use software algorithms and robotics.  It’s just a matter of time.  What will we base our success on then?  College is mostly about preparing people to find jobs.  Not necessarily about learning for learning’s sake.  Will people attend college and take on huge debt if jobs are becoming automated out of existence and the remaining jobs become more and more scarce? 

These technologies will probably not affect artists and other creatives nearly as much as people in other fields.  Yet, even now I can ask myself how many artists do I know with BFA’s and MFA’s?  And how many of them are making a living off of what they studied in school?  I would submit I personally know quite a good deal that are successful and at the top of their game.  But not nearly as many as the people struggling to get a foot in the door.  Some of which are quite good.  A college education is no guarantee.  Hard work and mastery is no guarantee.  Networking is no guarantee.  Amazing fellatio... well, you do what you gotta do.  But still not a guarantee.  Even if you do make it I don’t think most nonartists realize how many hours a week it takes to be successful and to run your own business.

At the end of my life do I want to look back and say “I did it.  I spent most of my life working my ass off.”  Admittedly, part of me would be proud to say so.  My mom came to America from Vietnam with a ridiculous work ethic.  It rubbed off on me.  And the other part of me would be exhausted and burned out and probably suffering from numerous affects of chronic stress(worth looking into see Robert Sapolsky and his amazing beard).  With such technical capacity for the extremely high productivity levels that we possess today does it make sense that even now work and jobs remain our society’s main goal?  Do we really need even more jobs?  Is that success?  Perhaps what we need is a revolution in social thinking.


Consider some of these quotes from some people who may know a little about this topic.

What my painting looks like at 1:34am