This commissioned nesting doll set proved to be much more difficult than i thought it would be. The Election 08 set i did was a much smoother process. Because the characters were celebrities and the pieces werent for them, i had a lot more freedom in my interpretations of their likeness. Because this was a present for the woman's sister, i really had to try and make them look accurate and somewhat cute. By the time you wrap anyone's features around the bowling pin shape of the dolls, they always look distorted and kinda weird. Its hard to nail a likeness when you cant change the shape of the face...but its still fun to try!

Grandma on the Farm 2

"Grandma on the Farm" 30x40in Oils on Canvas

I think its all done now...but still need to sign!

Grandma on the Farm

Here she (my grandmother) is after round three. Its really coming along and i especially like the depth in her eyes, i feel like her soul is really in there. She's truly an amazing woman and I'm glad the painting is of equal caliber. I'm going to add refine her hair and repaint her left ear lower to balance with the other side...but we're almost done!

I started a companion piece for the old man. This one is based of my Grandma. Here are the first two nights of painting

Old Man with Deep Eyes

I just got painting on a real piece again. The image is inspired from a photo i took of an old man on a subway train in Berlin last Christmas time. I felt bad for my wife who had to ask the guy if i could take his picture (my German is horrible). The canvas was a lot larger than most of the single portraits i do, and i was much looser in my initial drawing than usual. This will definitely be the direction my next series takes, less representational and a little more emotional. I love that he could either be a homeless man or God.



After the first round of painting



Here is the piece after about 30 min of painting, there was a light sketch underneith i freehanded in about 7 min while looking at his image on my computer screen

I few months ago i ordered some blank Russian sets to paint as various characters. With the buildup and excitement of this years presidential election, i found myself painting these the night before i voted. It took me a while to figure out how to depict them on the curved surface and still get the likeness down. They all pop open and swallow the smaller until they are all in Obama. The dolls are high quality woodwork, ordered from a manufacturer in Russia. They are hand painted by me and one of a kind and highly detailed...down to McCains short arms.
GO OBAMA!

I has started this portrait of my buddy Ricky for the Grace Ellay show but had never finished it until now. His birthday was last week so...Happy Birthday!

HANDS.01

Now that I'm finally finished with those commissioned portraits i can move onto doing something personal. Nathan Lumm (see links) is putting together a group show for the Pink Ghost in Fort Lauderdale, Fl. The only restriction is the piece has to be 8x8 inches. I'm going do a few hand studies to go along with some portraits. I think they will provide a good balance and i'm hoping to capture the same emotion and character that the head shots had.

HANDS 01

here is a wedding portrait i'm doing for a neighbor. It should be all finished tonight...yay! Then i can go back to working on my own crap. I've got a upcoming show in Berlin later this year and haven't done a thing.

Commissions

Its been a while! I got 2 commission portraits a while back and it took me forever to knock them out. The first was of a friends nephew for her parents. Kids can be quite troublesome, its difficult to make them look cute...they tend to look like some weird old fucked up dude. This kid in particular was a bitch. i had both hands in the original design but it gave him a weird creepy quality....and i have to admit, in retrospect he still looks a little creepy! I removed one of them which helped quite a bit. I didn't get a good photo of the final but here are some images of the major stages.

Untitled Playlist

Here was a big piece I did for the Grace Ellay show. After doing all the portraits it was hard to do a painting with a background, quite frustrating actually. I ended up removing the back window along the way and adding my cat to balance it out. I was quite happy with the end result. Here are a few images of the process.

Sorry for the delay, not that anyone was waiting on the edge of their seats. I had a great show at Grace Ellay, a cute boutique and gallery in Silverlake. I sold quite a bit of art but to be honest it was just nice to get all my paintings out of my apartment and in the publics view. This friday i pick up what's left to redistribute along my apartments walls. The opening was packed and it was great to see my friends and family all together. Along with my portraits I did a whole series of characters on cigarette packs called "Pack of Insurgents" which seemed to be a big hit. Ron Livingston (the lead actor in Office Space) bought 2 of them! Here are some pictures from the show.

We painted last night at Jeremy's for the 1st night in a while. I did a self portrait while Jeremy did 2 paintings of me painting. Here is the sketch and the nights fruition.

Yaaaay, I think its all finished. I lightened up the background and added a few more details to the faces and eyes. Now the piece feels well balanced and every ones faces seem sincere and believable.

Its really coming along, everything is laid in and now I just have to make some finishing tweaks. I'm not sold on the background and have to decide on where to take it, but the forms are all there and I'm happy with the likenesses.

I started a new commissioned piece for my buddy Phil. It's a Christmas present so I have to knock it out on a pretty tight deadline but so far I'm making good progress. I started with a base drawing to layout all the forms but didn't get too crazy with the details or shading, I'll save that for the actual painting.



After the drawing I did a brown rub on top to unify everything all the paint that will follow. The portrait is of 3 people who have passed away so I thought the brown sepia tone would help give the piece a aged quality . The next day once the wash was dry I did my 1st pass with paint. I tried to get a good base on all the skin tones, and blocked in the eyes and the clothing.

delivered

I finally turned it over and said goodbye. Dalia was even a little teary eyed. Awe

We'll I hate to say it but it took me a long time to get back to this. I was afraid to touch it, because it was looking pretty good and I thoughgt I might fuck it up. Every time I tried to adjust somethign it felt like it was getting worse and worse. Last week we got together at Jeremy's for our FNPC and was determined to finish it...




I added some more detail to Dalias hair and flowers, I also too some of the dark blue out of the dress. It was tempting to try and change the background color because the green is so bold and overpowering but it grew on me and although its abrasive when you 1st look at it I think it will work for something you look at everyday. It won't get boring and it really helps the people pop. I could keep working on this thing forever. Paintings rarely feel finished when you are working on them because you can always do more... but more isn't always better. It feels solid so I'm happily moving on to the next piece.

We had our usual Friday Night Painting Club at Jeremy's house last night and the painting is really looking about finished now. The background color was way to distracting and even with the tone of the skin, so I darkened it to pop the lighter toned warm colors in their faces. Now their the focus again. I also did another pass on Dallia and smoothed out the skin tones. I also added some more paint to the dress and flowers but am keeping things towards the bottom pretty abstract still. Jeremy was nice enough to point out that Darrens back hand only had 3 fingers so I added a pinki!