New Paintings

 Simple still life with a plane-linear 
color patch approach.

This isn't everything, but it gives you an idea of some of the work done in and outside of class over the past few weeks.

This was another still life study where the objects had to be white and identified with subtle hues within the white.

Here's my product from attending the Alex Folla "Caravaggio Workshop." It focuses on glazing over a dark background. The image is defined by glazing with a light hue; leaving a light coating over an area constitutes as "dark". So, in a sense, the artist is painting the dark areas, as well as the light ones, with white.

Even though glazing in the tradition of the Renaissance artists is not my preferred method/style, the Alex Folla workshop did inspire me to go back to that time honored technique and apply it to a portrait. This piece has a lighter brown under-painting and is obviously in process: a few more layers of glazing to go (Titian's approach). As far as I'm concerned, this is an easier way to paint than compared to direct painting.

Here's some further development on the portrait. I added detail to the facial features, but had to redo the skin tone of the body (made the mistake of not varnishing the ground and that pigment was bleeding into the glazing). The piece was done on a larger panel, so I came up with the idea of a "hand portrait" in juxtaposition. That image has a lot more work to be done on it.

Yeah, another modification. I had to redo her skin entirely. Lost the purity of the facial features as a result. But, with some more tweaking, I should be able to get the skin tone right and restore the features.

On the other hand (ha, ha!), had success with my hand. Pretty daring with the lime green background (I'll wait for comments from my crit group on that).













Here's the final for my painting class. Four panel landscape with a twist. I used two images from a video clip from my world bicycle tour: a ride along the Rhine River Radweg. I'm saving the hardest part for last...the figures.

The finished product has a unique conveyance of time, motion, and composition interplay. I used a palette similar to that of Fairfield Porter (though not as heavy a value contrast). Some adjustments had to be made to subjects with red-orange to avoid a predictable repetition. Shadows had to be altered as well, to maintain the cool side of hue selection.

The work in this class has taken me back to the basics and helping me to sharpen my skills.