Monday, February 26, 2007

Final Frog


Here is the final Frog still life. I won't say it's done, but I've stopped on it. I feel I can stop here for fear of going too far in tickling it up and them over doing it, throwing it out of balance.
I may try one more painting for the portfolio for PAFA, I don't know if I'll have time or not, or even if I use Liquin, if it will dry in time.

8 comments:

artisan555 said...

you know, the thing i adore about your paintings aside from the drawing, the lighting and the composition is the fact that you capture TEXTURE so well. the frog looks like wood. the drop cloth feels like cotton duck. your apple still life: you can tell there's that waxy gloss the market puts on the fruit. i admire the heck out of this! keen observation. i just discovered your blog, so i want to see if you have any plain aire work. . .

and btw. thanks for the thoughts on frank robbins.

Unknown said...

Nice! great color on this one. Maybe I'm just a frog lover, but one thing that struck me right off is that if you deleted the standing bottle, the focus would be more on the frog . Just by holding your hand up and blocking the bottle, the whole feel of the painting changes , it suddenly looks more like a scene of a sad frog than a still life with objects...just my two cents! Paint on dude!

Unknown said...

just noticed that your link to bret blevins site is a typo (http://www.bretblvins.com/), I know he's your bud so thought you'd want to know.
mr. %$&*# helpful

Mike Manley said...

Hey, thanks for the good comments and thanks for noting the link typo!

Unknown said...

Love the painting, beautiful warm color scheme and love the texture of your brush stroke!

william wray said...

Your getting so much variety in you paint in textures and in colors. this aslo has the best lighing so far. Each one an improvement! You will be teaching your teachers before graduation. ;-)You have the rendering down, may Isuggest you to try going simpler with your compositions so it feels more natural/ less grouped and trying harder for moody harmony light: feeling. Check out Justins work linked to my blog. He gets so much from one half peeled orange on a dark background.

Meesimo said...

beautiful lighting, very fresh!

Mike Manley said...

Thanks Bill for the nice notes on the painting. i tried adjusting the light down so it wasn't so harsh and this allowed me to have a closer value in the painting. It was a lot harder t do it on the masonite instead of a canvas, it was a lot more greasy...

Yeah, I could do a simpler still life and i might try that for the next one or maybe a landscape. It's snowing here today so i might try a quick one. I have been studying a lot of painting and drawing intensely for a month now, going to the school several times a week and going to the museum which I can get in for free. the more you study the more you realize you have to study...