New stuff

I thought I would keep everyone updated with what's going on in my studio, aka living room.  I completed the meat still life and have started another Vanitas for an invitational at Principle Gallery.  I'll post some pics of it once it looks like something. Kate will also be participating with a much cooler still life than mine.

I am pretty burnt on still lifes so I wanted to focus on some figurative work for awhile.  I had to take a couple steps back on the fisherman piece as I decided that having a second figure really didn't add anything.  So after some swearing followed by crying followed by more swearing I went back to do more color studies.  I probably cried again somewhere in there.

Sneaky sneaky

What's better than a gallery that does everything they say they're going to do?  How about a gallery that does even more?  M Gallery has a sneaky habit of throwing together amazing shows and putting my work in magazines without even letting me know.  I tend to find out about it when an editor contacts me or when a magazine shows up in the mail.  They kind of remind me of the cobbler's elves who would come out at night and do all the work without asking for any credit.  It took great personal fortitude against temptation to resist photoshopping some elf ears onto a picture of Maggie and posting it here.

The Body

Painting.

 
 Deeeerp!

Meaty Meat Meat

So I am on the home stretch for this particular still life painting now that I have my new super ADD antidote.  Unfortunately I had to do some problem solving along the way, and by "I", I mean Kate solved all my problems.  I had to switch out the cooler temperature light that was illuminating my actual painting.  There was too much of a discrepancy in temperature between the bulbs lighting the setup and the actual painting.  As a result, I decided to dim some things down a bit, like the cleaver.  Being a stereotypical starving artist, the hardest part of the still life was deciding whether or not to discard the steak that was sitting under the lights on a dirty board for 4 hours, or to just eat it and risk food poisoning.  I need to paint something less delicious next time so I don't have to worry about this, like broccoli, or tofu dogs, or a dead cat.

You Be the Judge Contest

I usually don't plug a lot of stuff on the blog but I thought this was a pretty unique opportunity.  Portrait artist Brian Neher has created a FREE to enter art contest with a grand prize valued at over 10,000 clams. (see sponsors below) In addition, it is the public who will be judging the contest through their website. 

Meat is Art

Just like the title says, I am continuing on with a theme for my art that inspires me;  grinding up animals into delicious sausages and patties for my grilling pleasure.  Trying this same setup with Tofu simply wouldn't be the same. 

There are two primary differences in the execution of this still life over my others.  The first is that for the first time I am using colored gels over the light source in order to get a specific field color; in this case orange.  It gives quite a nice harmony to all the objects to have some amount of red orange in them.  The second difference for this still life is that I am doing it on Concerta, which has given me superpowers for the first time in my life.  If you don't know what its like to have ADD,  think of a 4 year old you just fed 100 pixie sticks to and set them loose in a toy store that also has free puppies.  It's pretty much that level of focus.  But now I feel like the guy from the movie "Limitless."   I have so much focus I can see things before they happen like a Jedi.  The still life below is only 2 days worth of painting.