Sunday Figure Painting

This painting is from the Sunday Open Figure Session at PAFA that is run by my teachers Scott Noel and Peter Van Dyck. Every week during the semester a bunch of us students and Peter and Scott get together to paint the figure in a great communal atmosphere at school. Its much more informal than class and everybody just hangs loose, has fun and paints. You can ask for feedback, or not, just sit there and paint away and have fun.

This was my first go at painting a figure from life in a little bit since I have been doing landscapes a lot lately, but I always feel you have to change it up, and since I have also been working a lot with photography its good to go back to life. the paintings is in oil on museum board and roughly 24 x 36. The sessions run 12-4 and everybody chips in for the model so it only costs about $5 each. You can't beat that!

Peter decided to use this older paining as the canvas to paint over for today's session. He claimed that there were a few paintings underneath this one. He has a very casual way about doing these paintings and recommended a lot of use use museum board which is like mat board and throw a coat of gesso over it, its cheaper than canvas and I think he also feels this makes things less expensive but also less precious. Its interesting to watch peter paint and he seems to build his work up in sometimes a very loose and informal way, and then POW! Suddenly he pulls it all together. Peter will also use very odd or unique or "evocative colors" as Scott Noel world call them. In other words they don't seek to match exactly the colors as they see them in a literal way, but to interpret them in a more poetic way. It took me a while to understand this and then to work this idea into my own work in a natural way.

Here is Peter's painting after I would say and hour or so, I was pretty wrapped up in my own painting so I did not follow what he was doing as much this week.

Here is Peter's final painting and you can see how after a very loose beginning he had some "meat" on the canvas and then really started to build in a lot denser paint and work the cool warm to turn the form. Another thing that both Peter and Scott do is keep the value range very close. I tend to like a great value range in my work, and under the natural lighting we paint under the range will never be that great anyway. It was a great start to the semester and I really look forward to doing this every week if I can.

Judge Parker

As they say, "the plot thickens".

Final Semester Week 2

Week two of the semester rushed by but I feel was a solid hit on the bat. I got two paintings finished, the painting above of the westbound train to 69th street was finished last night. I have a month left until my show at the Rodger LaPelle Gallery so I will be stoking as much fire in the boiler as I can to keep at the easel every moment I can. In the meantime a spot opened in Scott Noel's portrait painting class so I will end up taking one class this semester, and in a big way it's fitting my last class will be with Scott who was my biggest influence as a teacher while in school and discovering his work was one of the reasons I choose the school.

Last night was also the opening to the Tanner exhibit at the school. It was a big opening with the mayor and lots of luminaries in attendance --in fact it was so crowded I only stayed a few minutes, snapped this pic and left. I'll go back and see it next week after the crowds are gone so I'll really be able to look at the work.

here is the fourth floor studio on Friday where Scott Noel's has his portrait painting class. You can see my friend Alina in the center there painting.

here is a shot of my easel and the studio with my painting The Squirrel hunter in progress. next week will be busy week and my brother graduates from temple so my parents will be in town to visit, so between that and painting and First Friday and the strip I will be jammed. But it's all good as they say.

Powerline

These are two pages from a fill-in issue of Powerline I did around 1988-89 and I was sharing Al Williamson's studio along with Bret Blevins at the time. I think my issue was between issues by Grey Morrow. I was so pumped because Al inked this job and because of that I drew it at the old large size 12 x 18 which Marvel was doing for that line of books. that was a great time for me in my career and getting to work with Al was the best. he really slung that Hunt 108 pen at the time which was his pen of choice then. I learned a lot about how he worked by watching him ink these pages.

A Blast From The Past

While going through the archives here in order to load up a bunch of work for sale on my Ebay Store I came across this cover I drew for a small press comic in the 90's called Retro 50's. It was a lot of fun to do and I even colored it. I don't know where the colored version is, probably on some old Syquest drive! I love drawing things from this time, old cars are a lot more fun to draw than new ones!

Final Semester Week 1

This week was the beginning of my final semester at PAFA in the certificate program and like all things an ending must come. This spring will be very busy for me in my last run down to graduation and the ASE in may. In March in will have my first one-man show at the Rodger Lapelle Gallery, I'll be applying for grad school and I'll be attending two workshops out west. I will miss the school and hope to return as a grad student next fall, but if not I have to say that going back to school at 45 was the best decision I think I've made for myself in my adult life. In many respects I have rebuilt myself and my life and the course has been set and I'm well on my way to making some changes permanent. I've grown a lot as an artist, sometimes in surprising ways and I have made many new friends who are like family to me. In the short term I'll be painting my arse off in the studio to have a fresh batch of paintings ready for the show.

Luckily I have completed all of my undergrad requirements so I have no classes this spring, only four meetings with my critics and just one class to teach Mondays, the Illustration class in the High School program at PAFA. I'm sure the spring will shoot past fast but I plan on wringing out as much enjoyment as I can!

These are two of the paintings that will be in the show at LaPelle.

Judge Parker

Things are not looking good for April...

Judge Parker

The shooters on the loose...or are they?

Judge Parker

Judge Parker--Happy New Year!