Getting Ready To Show!

Yesterday was the big move in and set up for my show at Rodger LaPelle which opens tomorrow night at 6pm. Of course the one day I have and must move my work from studio to gallery is exactly the day it decides to pour rain here in Philly!

But the show must go on a despite the bit of a slow-up at U-Haul and the rain I got my paintings all out of the studio and moved into the gallery with the help of my buddies Davis Golas and Will Sentman. I had blankets from U-haul covering the big paintings.

This was my first time with setting up a show in a gallery on a pro level, I've done it at school, but here most of the major decisions are mine to make, where and what to hang in what order and what to put of certain walls. The "cheek walls" in a gallery, a term I didn't know about before, they are the mini or little walls that stick out that are just enough width for a small painting in a gallery but cane be viewed 15-20 feet away. Here I was told to put some little gems to catch the eye.

When I arrived Rodger and his wife Christine were taking down and moving all of the work from the previous show and that gave me the whole gallery. I had 31 paintings to hang in all and to be honest, even though I don't think I could have actually painted any more or any faster I initially felt like "Crap! I don't have enough paintings done!" But after spreading them out and a bit of arrangement I think I had enough and the show will feel full but not overcrowded, nor underfeed. I also went about touching up the gallery walls here or there and in a way wish Rodger had let Dave,Will and myself repaint the whole gallery, but I went about hitting the trouble spots to my eye.

Lastly I had to make my final numbered check list with prices and then we were done, the paintings were in place and would be hung by Lapelle, and I could finally go home and catch a full nights sleep.

Solo Show

I have just wrapped up my last painting for the show at Rodger LaPelle this coming Friday and I will be picking them up from my framers and delivering them on Wednesday. You can see most of the paintings as well as size and prices on my gallery page. There are 4 more paintings which haven't been posted on the galleries website yet, but they should be up there by Wednesday. I don't think I have ever painted as much or produced more work than in the past 2-3 months as the time to get work ready for the show was really short. Most people have up to a year and I had just a few months. But the upside of painting 12-16 hours a day for several days in a row is that I really get deep into my painting trance.

Spring Break-Week 6

here is the big painting finished for now. I'm starting spring break and another painting this weekend, and I'll have a new large size painting ready to go plus some smaller ones.

I had a lot of fun doing this painting and a lot of support and positive feedback from all of my friends as well as my teachers and critics at school. I think one of the things that gets lost fast in the art world is the word fun, which really is sad. I mean we all became artists because we thought it would be FUN to be someone who drew or painted sculpted, photographed, etc. Sure, at times it can be the most maddening and frustrating pleasure to fight with your creation and your ego, your skill level etc.

I know doing the study of the painting and having that to work with was a major aid in working on the larger painting as I solved many problems before the big canvas was started. paper vs canvas, think vs thick, so many ideas from the study that had to be reinterpreted into the big painting. A mark on the study which was a fingernail was now 6 inches and applied with a palette knife the size of a spakeling trowel. It was a fight to keep what was in the study but to also give the larger painting what it needed and so there were always these aesthetic decisions being made all along the way. This is where the advice my teachers like Renee, Scott and Vince came in really handy.

SPRING SEMESTER 2011 Week 3

So the painting part of my week has kicked in solid this week. I finally got to start in on my big painting after a lot of technical issues. And I continue to play with painting with Rustoleum on cardboard. In fact today I purchased a few more colors , a blue and yellow which will give me a full palette. I really look forward to trying these new colors out and seeing what the results will be. The painting above was done to see how the paint would handle trying for a more subtle approach and I really had a blast doing this. because the enamel is shiny it adds a luster to the skin tones especially if you start lighter and then paint over the lighter color and let some of it come through. I am also getting a better handle on the paint and its properties and drying time. It sets up quick, which can be good and also tricky. So I decided top do another in my Super Sad series. The most fun was the hair!
So I finally got the big painting rocking--it seemed like it would take forever to get it going, I wanted to over the break but I was just too swamped with commercial work. So i rented a projector from the school library and hooked my laptop up to it and spent a while trying to get the image as square and as in-focus as I could.
Then I roughed the painting in with a wash of Van Dyke Brown and using a strangle and straight edge I went in and fixed all the wonky distortions and fixed the perspective.
I fired right in and got the whole thing coverd in one day, so all of this was done from late afternoon once the sun was low enough not to wash out the projector till about midnight when I called it quits, and man, my feet were tired after dancing around while slapping the paint on this baby!

The big goal is to make the larger painting just as vital and fresh as the study, which means I have to keep it loose and full of energy and get back from it as I paint to see how the painting reads. I expect this will be another week to maybe 10 days to finish this up--but who knows...the painting will tell me when I'm done.

This was another Rustolem on cardboard and done in my morning painting class with Mike Gallagher. This is a once session painting and I really felt the juices rolling this morning. Since this pose goes for a few more weeks I'll try a few more compositions from this set-up.

Super Sad Study

I finally hopped back on the Super sand train, here is a study for a new painting I will do, it will be pretty big, maybe 80 inches. the study is about 17-18 inches on museum board in oil.

I have to build the canvas for this so that will take me a few days to do.

Super Sad Study

Another one-shot painting/study. With each one of these there are parts I like and things I don't, but its a great exercise to paint something like this every day. You gain a momentum and a flow which i think is essential to growth. 9 x 12, oil on museum board.

Super Sad Study

Here is another one of my one-day studies. This week I'll be shifting things up a bit with more western based landscapes. 9 x 12, oil

Super Sad Study

Here is another of the quick little studies I am doing to further develop the ideas for suture paintings. Still using the limited palette as well which is a great exercise in getting better with mixing colors. 9 x 12 in oil.

Super Sad Study

I jumped back into this painting after nearly a year off. I initially started this from life, working from the model in my living room. Luckily I snapped plenty of pics to use later as I am no longer able to work with the model, which is a shame. Its interesting to revisit something like this after a long time, not only has the idea of what this would become change but I've changed or grown as a paint a lot in that year. The background is completely made up. I'll let this set up for a day or two and the go back into it.

Super Sad Study

Here is another study for one of my Super Sad paintings. I decided to do many smaller paintings or studies, and then yake one of then and work on a larger painting. I'm also using a limited palette on these, Van Dyke Brown, Yellow ocher, raw Sienna and titanium white. Its pretty amazing the variety of color you can get out of such a limited palette. My goal is to do a few dozen of these and see where it goes.

Super Sad Study

Here is a quick open Grisaille study for my Super sad series. I have decided to do a bunch of smaller studies and then go for a big painting. My goal is to do at least 20 of these and really get a great building up of energy on these so the bigger pic will have a strong impact. I have been hitting the "art gym" hard this week, in the studio every day, long hours and it feels great!

Super Sad Final

Here is the finished painting, after a few more days or a week once it's really dry and set I might go back and slightly adjust things. I tried balancing the lights better on my camera for this shot, it still takes a lot of adjustment in Photoshop. I'm very excited about this series and have two more paintings in sketch stage I will be working on next. the painting is 24 x 30 in oil.

Super Progress

I worked on the painting again, really trying to adjust the background and then reworking the feet and hair. I need to let it set up so i can go back in again and keep hammering away at this thing, so many little areas need to be adjusted and reworked.

Super Sad continues

I finally was able to get back to working on my newest painting yesterday. I worked all day and well into the wee hours on it and then adjusted more this am. I still have a long way to go and I want what I did to set up so I can work back into it. I have two more paintings in this series as sketches that I want to get going on maybe next week.

Super Sad continues

Here is the next painting on the easel. I started it last week and blocked all of this in in one day, it's had to sit for a few days while I finished up some commercial work, but I'll get back to it this week.

Super Sad

Here is the final painting, I spent a few days looking at it and then adjusting things and finishing the hand. I glazed back into it. It always looks duller on here than in real life and it's not so blueish, I'll eventually need to get the final paintings professionally shot.

I feel like I have a good momentum here and will be working hard on the next painting after a few commercial deadlines are out of the way.

Super Sad continues 2

I worked again live from the model yesterday morning on the painting and then more on the background after she left. Now I'll work from photos I took and develop the background more until the model returns next week.

The background is in flux and though it will have a dark stormy sky, I'm not sure if I will add anything else in yet, I'll wait and see how I feel as this goes. I'm trying something a bit different here as I am letting this painting grow organically, I intentionally cropped the legs to give the figure a weird heaviness, yet also a incomplete and powerless feeling.

Super Sad continues

I'm working on the first large Super sad painting this week, this is from the first two sets where I roughed in the figure from the live model. I'll keep updating this as I go along.

Super Sad

This is a black and white sketch done for another series of paintings I have planned called Super Sad, this is roughly 5 x 8 in acrylic. The final painting will be quite large.