Four Paintings

Hey everyone! Got lots of new stuff just in time for Christmas! Spent a lot of time this semester painting people and things around our dairy farm. I had a great time doing these and learned a great deal more about color and value. Special thanks to my drawing and painting instructor Ray Bonilla who offered and demonstrated some great pointers and inspiration.

























I also did a painting of my grandfather. This was a difficult image to do based on the lighting, and I still think I could go back and fix this up a little (perhaps digitally). But I like a challenge and I really wanted to paint this photo I had taken last summer. I'm not much of a traditional painter, but the same techniques and rules still apply, so I spent a lot of my time trying to find the right values and reworking the way I thought about light and color.

Wall Art

Last weekend I got together with a few friends to pay tribute to the first caveman who ever drew on a wall. The Emmitt Christian Gallery in the Rockafeller Arts Center at SUNY Fredonia is reserved for students to display their own work(s) for one week as a mini gallery.












We decided we would each paint something that best defined our styles and artistic character. As you might have already guessed, I drew a giant robot, Tyrannosaurus, and lots of action!
















It took 24 hours for me to finish the painting, but it was well worth the time! The transparencies and projectors helped out a lot with the sketchbook to wall transition.
















Featured in the gallery were myself, Mike Hernandez, Lindsay Holmes, Fred Duchow, and Jason Rappold. You can check out everyone's awesome progress and final work in the video below...

Back to Painting

Started off the semester with some oils and acrylics. My challenge this year is to master my oil materials while still maintaining proper color composition and lighting. I started by sketching a photo I took of our barn last fall...


















I changed from a horizontal to a vertical piece because I believed it emphasized the height of the silo much better. I began the first part of the final work with my under-painting using white charcoal pencil, drawing pencils, and later black and white acrylic paint.

















From there I began painting. My greatest challenge for this painting was going to be keeping the sky as realistic to the rest of the painting as possible.


















This painting turned out alright. I'm happy with the way the sky turned out and the warm tone on the light side of the silo. I could go back later and fix those cooler ground colors. Overall, I think it was a good first step. Next time I will be working on a portrait of my grandfather...

Paintings

Well, this self-portrait turned out better than I anticipated! I'm starting to miss my long hair. The painting of the limp arm is a copy of an Alex Kanevsky (of whom I had the pleasure of displaying to when he visited my college!). You can check out more of his work here. I'm still digging around for the sketches to my still life studies.

Pop Art, Fauvism, and Neo-Expressionism

These paintings are from a project for 2D Design, featuring three genres: Pop, Fauvism, and Neo-Expressionism. The pop art reminds me of a Beatles album cover. Fauvism was fun painting. Didn't care too much for the Neo-Expressionism, I guess because it left me a little too open to interpretation.

2D Design Paintings

This first painting is a little reminiscent of Hans Hoffman. You can check out his work here.