Week 15 fall Semester

The fall semester has basically come to an end for me, I have two crits tomorrow and one next Monday, but this pretty much in the bag, i have one last painting to finish for my class with Scott Noel on Monday and then I am done.

It's been a super busy semester, maybe my busiest between the freelance, teaching and classes at PAFA. But it's been a good one overall, I have a few gripes, but who doesn't, my main one is I wish I could have done more personal painting, but come the winter break I will be working full tilt on my own work, not class assignments. I learned to play with color more in the past weeks, the class at Incammanatti helped quite a bit there as they use a very chromatic palette. I definitely employed that on the painting of Jennine I did in Bruce Samuleson's class. Bruce also really encouraged me to just run with this one and push the shapes and colors. A lot of this paintings was done after the pose was over so I was painting the model in parts based on memory and what i had done before as there was no way to get that pose back. there were a lot of times on this painting, no, most of the time i was just winging it-going with the flow and it was fun. I know, in some places having fun in art isn't allowed.

I was rushing like mad to add the last few touches on this painting in Scott Noel's class, this was a 4 week pose and every single week the light was completely different from the previous week, add to that the sun sets a lot earlier as well, and this is done in natural light--it was a battle most of the time to judge what I was putting down on the canvas because it was so DARK! It's always great to have Scott as a teacher, we don't always agree on points but he's really there for you, encouraging you all of the time and challenging you at the same time, my final crit with him on this painting was really great, he was very, very complimentary and still managed to toss out another challenge or two. First, to work in bolder shapes and group things more into the various camps or color/light envelopes. I get there, I do, but he wants me to be bolder from the start. I love doing a drawing first to block the shapes in, he'd rather have me just wing it and 'recover" the drawing on the fly. I think this is where we start to have the real difference as he feels my "illustrative' leanings and narrative work have a big influence on my work--and they do. I don't see it as a bad thing either.
I finally wrapped up the baby skull and pine cone three color conte drawing. I bought a few pastels a very pink yellow, green yellow and cool cream yellow to go into and add the whites and accents. With the conte drawing you don't get the rich, dark darks you get with something like a pastel, but you do get a great airy quality to the work.
This is a study for a painting I want to work on over the break as well as the Super sad one. This image came to me in a dream, so I'm just running with it and seeing where it takes me. I think this will also be a large painting, though not as big as the 8 footer I have ready to go. I actually wrapped myself up in plastic bags and video taped myself to get the feel for the image I want. What's next--performance art?