More Commuters

This weekend I got to finish a painting and start two new ones, one of which is a commission. I finished up the painting of my buddy Ricardo Villagran and will submit that to the school wide student show tomorrow. I started a painting of my friend Alina, which I will work on for one of my final paintings is school for Al Gury's portrait class. the painting of Ric will also count for a painting toward my finals and that leaves me only one more portrait to do. I am honestly looking forward to the break now to paint as much as I can and get some more paintings done on my commuter series so I can start approaching galleries. I'd love to do nudes, but in Philly that would be a waste of time gallery wise. I feel like I am finally back into my groove painting, I felt I was out of sync for a spell there.

Read a whole issue of Doll and Creature--for FREE!

A few years ago I worked on a really fun project called Doll and Creature with my buddies Rick Remender and John Heebink. They wrote and drew it and I inked it and I think it's one of the best, if maybe not the best inking job I have ever done. The book was originally a graphic novel that came out through Larry Young's company AT/Planet Lar, which Rick later got reprinted in color at Image as a 4-issue mini-series and then reprinted/collected as a graphic Novel.

Well now you can read one of teh entire issues online for FREE right here. I had a lot of fun on this series and hope that maybe someday we all can either revisit that dark zombie-like world of the future or work on another project again.

Week-13

I skipped school today to work at home since the painting I had going in my portrait class was really close to being done, instead I worked on this portrait today of my buddy Ricardo, and since this is from a series of photos I took of him riding on the train, this will fit in with my Commuter series to boot!

Week 12 Done!

With this week's classes coming to an end we have less than a month left of school now and I still have a lot of work to do, mostly paintings but also two papers to write. I am starting my final paintings for school this week for my outside assignments and working on a commission I have to do one of my urban/train paintings. the painting above is another pass on the portrait I have going in Al Gury's portrait class. the drawings below are from our last trip to the Natural History Museum to do some drawings of the live birds in their bird habitat. The parrot and cockatoo were really animated, I think the cockatoo was in love with me as he really put a show on whenever I got close to sketch him.

Week 12 Progress

I slapped some color on this painting yesterday and today, I have a few more passes at it before the final crit.

Week 12

One month of school is left as of today and I know these last four weeks will fly faster than the first four weeks. I have a bunch of paintings due in my painting classes and two more papers to write for my 19th Century Art class. The painting Above is my under painting for Renee's class which I worked on in a second sitting. Now tomorrow I'll take it into school and start the color on it. The under painting was done in Burnt Umber and titanium with just some terps to thin it down, it dried really quickly as a result and will be ready for me to load on the color. One of the paintings I have left to do was this more abstract pieces for Media & Methods class. I had to do this using an earth palette and I guess we are going to do something else with it in class.

Week 11 The Final Countdown Continues

Here are two more paintings underway in school, the one above is in the block-in process in Renee's class and the one below is a study in Al' Gury's portrait class. Both are in oil.

Week 11 The Final Countdown Continues

Well, this week certainly has flown by. Friday will be the 12 week in my Animal Drawing class and so that leaves me only 4 classes left there. The drawing below of Mr. Ed as I called him was finished up last Friday, i tried to work back in and even add more of the environment. the picture isn't the best I'll have to shoot a better one when I get the drawing home and set up the lights. The painting above was a quick in-class the other day as I sat in on Al's morning class at school, I grabbed a panel from the school art store and did this quick little study in a little over and hour plus. Oil, 9 x 12.
I did this painting today in media & methods class, Anthony had us do a quick grisaille...so I decided to whip out my iphone and grab one of the pics I snapped while riding the train into school. I dickered around with this a lot and tried to keep it fun and loose. I was looking a the huge Richard Diebenkorn we have in the school museum this afternoon. 18 x 24 in oil, next week we are supposed to glaze color into this...

Week 11 The Final Countdown Begins

The semester has turned the final corner with final crits basically a month away.This is what ened up on canvas the other day in Materials and Techniques class. The teacher Anthony didn't want me to do anything figurative, so I must have banged out at least 10 images that I ended up wiping out until only this ideas remained--basically because I wanted to leave class and not start over. This week we are supposed to paint over this as well as start yet another grisalle.
I was happy that my painting I did of the SEPTA commuters was accepted into the returning students show at school even though I am really pissed off about the SEPTA transit strike here in Philly. Now I have to drive in every day and fight the horrible traffic to go to school and to teach. Maybe I should do a painting of that!

Week 10

This is a quick burnt umber wash-in I did in portrait class yesterday afternoon, for a quick color study I'm doing before I do my larger picture. it's 9 x 12 on gesso board in oil.

Brandywine Paintout

Yesterday I ventured back to the Brandywine river Museum in Chadds Ford for the 4th time this year. but this time I didn't visit the mueum instead I went along with a group of friends from school to do some plein air painting next to the museum along the Brandywine river. After painting in the damp chilly weather we had a great dinner cooked by Jane in her beautiful home with her awesome dogs. A great start to the week and I think we just caught the very, very tail end of the fall colors.
Here you can see me posing with my paintings after my block-in, the final is in oil, 8 1/2 x 11.