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.