Painting - Monument In White

I don't have too much to say about this painting other than I love it.  You can draw your own conclusions about it's meanings.  I will say however that I like the simultaneous depth and lack of depth depending on where you're looking.  Also it started out as a painting of a man frozen dead in a blizzard, but I reworked it, because it wasn't working and because if you read my last post, you'll see I have a kind of epiphany about my process.  Anyway if you wanna see the old painting check it out below.

Lastly I wanted to post this painting I saw Sam Kieth, my art God posted recently

I know he's had the biggest influence on my views on art, but I just wanted to post this because I saw this painting and saw it very distinctly.  The flat basic blocky composition.  The playing with space.  The mixture of unabashedly bold colors with bland and gray colors.  The way he plays with just one color in many ways within a space.  The large black outlines.  The way things fade in and out from one section to another.  The mixed media aspect of it.  Jesus Christ I love him.  Maybe I'm the only one who sees the connection, but trust me it's there. 

Painting - This Is Where I Was

Since I started painting again a few months ago I've been avoiding using a technique I used in college, but for this one I decided to stop being so prideful and paint the way I used to.  That thing was to sit on the ground and hold the painting in my hands while I painted it.  And to put it on the ground and crawl around it like a maniac.  I would also crush up charcoal and rub it into the painting to gray out sections and create weird lines and add some chaos and finally to make some of the paint dry more quickly.  There was something inside me saying "Don't do it.  You should be able to make the same stuff you used to all while standing up at the easel like a dignified artist."  Well that was a stupid fucking thought because as soon as I did it the way I felt most comfortable creating, things clicked.  This painting could beat the shit out of all my other paintings, then fuck their girlfriends.  It's interesting to look at the progression too, because the first photo is from when I was still standing at and easel, and it sucks balls.  There's a dramatic swing upward immediately after.  The painting I just finished that I'll be posting about probably tomorrow, I made the same way and it too is just on a different level.  Sorry about the slight glare.  I'm good at painting... not photography.

I find it interesting to see what compositional elements remained after the first session.  Clearly that horizon line, the green on the bottom and the orange/red on top.  Plus a big black splotch in the center.

I had one final session where I cleaned it up from what it was before and just defined some stuff.  But over all there were very few final changes.

Painting - Sarah Mucciolli

HOLY SHIT!  Would you look at that!  I really couldn't be happier.  This painting took me months to finish (I actually finished it about a month and a half ago but haven't found the time to post it until tonight.  You'll see in other photos that that's gold paint so it shines a bunch more in person, but it's tough to photograph without a glare so I'm going with this one for my main presentation.  Anyway I need to start putting more depth into the images but other than that I really do feel back to my old self as an artist though going in a very different direction than I was ten years ago.

Anyway this is a painting of my friend Sarah who's been bugging me for years to paint her.  And eventually she wore me down.  Below are some photos I used as references while working on finishing it.   

Isn't she lovely.

Anyway I liked using these photos as reference because they weren't from when we sat down together to paint so it added some life to the painting I feel and kept the feeling that I was painting from life in it even when she left and I had to use photos.  Anyway below are some progression images.  There were WAY more sessions than are suggested but these are the only photos I have any more.  I wish I still had the original painting from the first time we sat down.  I was having the hardest time and the looked horrible and I remember referring to her as a mongoloid bitch I was so angry.  But that's the joy in pushing through and making it work.

I remember getting it to this point and there were things I liked about it but the painting and repainting of that skin color was so thick and craggy compared to the rest of it that it looked like she was wearing a ton of make up to hide some hideous scars or something.

Obviously I loosened up eventually and started just going for it.  I remember liking her neck specifically and the weird swirl at the bottom right and thinking "I'm going to do everything I can to maintain those things."

Ok I got a little too loose at a certain point.  She just looks like some horrible terrifying kabuki monster here. 

Eventually I found my way though.

Right here is an interesting example of how lighting and how adjacent colors affect one another.  After this session I said to myself "I'm done... perfect."  But then I moved it into natural lighting to take a photo and...  

Do you see it?

Look how dramatically the splotches of color on top of her hair on the left said of the painting change.  In my room lit with a lightbulb the splotches looked orange and fit in well.  But in natural lighting it just looks like someone fucking diarrhea-ed all over Sarah's head.  Fuck that that's not allowed.  So I had to go back to the art store and buy my fifth tube of gold paint to fix it.

MUCH BETTER!  Now it works in any light.

FUCKING A!  anyway I'm so excited about this that I've started a series of paintings of women I know.  I think it will be very interesting for personal reasons I don't think I'll disclose... at least not yet.  Anyway hope you love it as much as I do.  And if you don't, then delete me off your face book.