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I am done blocking in the light color family. So now I will mix up my dark color family. I will actually only mix up on more color for this. I will use this as a base and modify it with my existing mixes for the different areas of the shadow side of the body. Pus I already have my darkest dark, the black mix form the stripes. If you look at my pallete you can see that I now have five color piles.

I added a pile of Portlasnd grey to use for my dark family colors. this mixed with Ultramarine blue, Alizarin Crimson and a touch of Yellow will be used for the shadow side of the body and as the base for the background.



Next I start to block-in the shadow areas on the right side of Sampson's body. Using the mix I made I aded a little of the red color for the outside of the back leg and blocked in the rest by adding a little white to lighten, or my black mixture to darked.



To finish the block-in I covered the rest of the surface with the cool grey and then wiped it out with a paper towel.

The finshed Block-In:

Here paint in the midtone body color and start a little blending. I also added the white of the face, neck and shoulder. This is still just the block in stage so I have to resist fussing with it to much.

Sampson WIP (work in progress)

I had a few projects a work that kept me over the past few days. As a result Sampson has been sitting on my easel waiting. That work thing sure is inconvenient. I was finally able to get back at it last night.

It is time to start working on the body of the tiger. I start by mixing up all of my "light family" colors. I mixed up a pile of warm orange/red color using Cadnium Orange as the base, adding Alizarin Crimson to deepen the red, Ultramarine Blue and a touch of Cadmium Yellow. Next I mixed the middle tone of the body using Titanium White as a base. I added Cadnium Yellow and a little of the red/orange mixture. For the white of the face and body I used titanium white and a touch of the "black" mix I used for the stripes. My black mix is a cool black that leans towards blue. This will help the white be in harmony with background color which I will mix later.

Here I have painted in what I call the "darkest" of the light family colors. The red/orange mix.

Sampson WIP (work in progress)

This is tonights efforts so far. I blocked in all of the "darkest darks' which in the case of Sampson is the stripes and facial markings. I mix all of my colors basically using a primary pallete ( I think anyway, I'm still learning all of this). I am using Ultramarine Blue, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red, Cadmium Orange, Cadmium Yellow Lemon and Titanium White. To mix the black color note for the stripes I mixed Ultramarine Blue and Alizarin Crimson (60/40) and a touch of Yellow.

Starting to look like a tiger!

Sampson WIP (work in progress)


Normally I premix my major color notes and then begin by covering the entire surface with the different color shapes. For this I am going to apply a ground color and work the painting up from there. I worked the tone on in thin passes to allow the underdrawing to show through. This tone ended up being a mix of Titanium White, Cadnium Yellow Light and a small touch of Ultramarine blue.

Being a graphic designer I use Photoshop a lot. So instead of mixing my best guess as to what color note I should start with, I isolated the color in Photoshop. I opened my image up in Photoshop and using the eyedropper tool, I selected the lightest "yellow" note in Sampson's fur. In a new layer I selected a square with the selection tool and filled it with that color. This made it easy to see the color without the influence of neighboring colors in the fur. This is the first time I have doing this. I was surprised at the result. Had I mixed this color as I normally would, it would have been warmer, leaning more towards red. Although, in the end this would have been fine, I just want to try something new and see how it works.

Seeing the yellow tone in the images above is a good example of how color can be so different on computer monitors. In person my mix is pretty much on with the selected color. You can see how different it is between the digital photo, computer monitor screen capture, actual paint, reference photo and even your computer monitor.


After applying the undertone I went in and "wiped out" the lighter areas of Sampson's head and front leg. Normally this works great as it exposes the white of the canvas and gives you a nice tonal map of the major value changes. Unfortunatly I wasn't thinking. The panel I am working on is one that I made my self. When I primed these I mixed some color into the gesso to help give the panel a neutral tone. So when I wiped out the yellow instead of getting a whiter surface I got the ground exposed, which is almost the same value as the yellow note I applied. Ooops.

Being that the gesso ground and the yellow are about the same value, the exposed underdrawing actually ended up being darker than the surrounding area. Not what I want. So making things up as I go along, I went in and painted a thin passage of Titanium White in those areas to help with value. I dont normally apply white this early on. It can make a big mess blending in further passages of paint. That being the case I will leave this for the night and let the whole thing dry.

Sampson WIP (work in progress)

I decided to post a WIP of this painting of Sampson. Sampson is from a local (about 40 minutes away) big cat santuary. The Western Pennsylvania National Wild Animal Orphanage cares for wounded and rescued big cats. I pulled this image from their website. I hope to contact Dr. Sheperd to see if he would grant me access to the orphanage to paint/sketch the cats. I am fortunate to have a facility like this so close to home. Well, if you consider 40 minute away close. Which I do considering my commute to work is 60 minutes each way.

I would like to find a way to create a mutually beneficial releationship with the orphanage. Being that I am broke most of the time I don't have much money to offer in exchange for excess to the cats. Perhaps I could offer my time/labor or even proceeds from sales of paintings. I would prefer to offer proceeds, but I would feel a bit of a fraud if we agreed to that and I didn't sale many, if any, paintings. This is a topic I will have to pose to the members of Wetcanvas. I am sure I could get some feedback regarding this. Certainly someone out there has dealt with this kind of situation.

Anyway, I am getting off topic.. on with the painting. I am posting this WIP to help with my thought process. THe daily paintings are created on instinct more than anything and I want to have a developed conscious plan for my larger works. By posting and talking myself through the process I hope to learn a bit about my approach and learn what does/doesn't work.

This is 9"x16" and will be painted in oil on hardboard panel. This is my underdrawing which will be my roadmap. I used a grid method to scale up my drawing so that the marking on Sampson are as accurate as possible. I sketched this out using a mechanical pencil and then sprayed it with fixative to keep the drawing from smearing when I begin to apply the paint.

This is a shot showing my reference image with the panel. I print out reference images to have at my easel, but mostly I will use the image displayed on my computer, which is across the room to my right, to work from. I do this in the beginning stages because it helps me to see the larger shapes and keeps me from getting into the details right away.

Crow and Waits, 9"x16" oil on panel



Portraiture is something I fear but have benn wanting to tackle for some time now. This was done as a gift for a freind of mine who is a huge Tom Waits fan. He introduced to Tom Waits and I have been a fan of his(Waits) ever since.
The crow is on of Jay's favorite animals and he collects crow stuff. Blending the too into a paintings was an idea I had for awhile and I finally decided to tackle it.
I am pleased with the final result and it gives me courage to do some more figure/porttraiture woerk in the future. I already some references for my next attempt.

Another Year Past.

It has been almost two years since I made my first blog entry. Having been a member of the Wetcanvas community for a short while, I noticed that alot of artists kept blogs and I found them to be educational, inspiring, and sometimes down right entertaining. At the time when I started my blog it was simply a means of keeping me inspired as I began to sketch and draw again. A way to help keep me motivated to do so(sketch). I had no idea what a catalyst it would be in propelling me forward with my art. By the fall of 2006 my desire to paint again was growing and I enrolled in a workshop at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. It was a "plein air" workshop with Ron Donogue that turned everything around for me. I have not stopped painting since.

2007 was a good year for painting. I continued the plain air work through the summer, entered my first juried art show(and placed third!), plus started doing daily paintings that have helped my skill and color theory tremendously, and I have streamlined my pallete and studio setup. It has been a good year of study.

Looking forward to 2008

This year I have few goals and plans in place.

1)First I hope to continue my daily paintings. They have really helped me to "stretch" my painting muscle and have been a good source of practice, and a great way to warm up before tackling larger projects.

2) Enter some more competitions/shows.

3) Make my art worth something good. Being that wildlife is the avenue I will be pursuing I want to get involved with a charitible organization that helps wildlife and donate work as a means to help raise money.

4) Start working on larger works. The time has come to take everything I have learned thus far and put it all together. I need to produce some paintings that not only depict animals, but thier enviroments as well.

5) Set aside more time to dedicate to painting.

6) Let it flow. I need to just let it go sometimes and begin to explore the more abstract ideas I have.

7)Make money. I need to make some money through sales of my art. For me, that would be an indicator of success as an artist.

Another question I am tackling is the option of moving my studio to the basement. We are quickly running out of space in the house and as Chaise's toys multiple he is in need of a dedicated playroom. One option we are considering is to fix up the basement. The other is to move my studio to the basement and use that room as a playroom. I would have more space in the basement which would be good. However it would also be out of the way. Now I have to walk past my easel every time I use the bathroom. This has kept me thinking and mindful of my progress. I worry that out of sight, could be out of mind. That is not likely, but a fear I have. Light isn't an issue. In fact I may have more natural light in the basement than I do now. Plus I would be able to open the back door which would let in some north light and provide fresh air. So something I must consider early this year.

The Cougar, Raven, Bull, Buffalo and Hawk are my totem animals for the year. These have been coming to me in thoughts and visions of paintings as of late. There is power in these animals and they will be the focus of my work this year.

I just learned that wildlife artist Bob Kuhn passed away in October. He was an incredible and influencial artist. He will leave a mark forever upon the landscape of fine art and particuliarly in the wildlife art community. Scratchboard artist Tania has a nice post about Bob Kuhn, which is where I learned of his passing:http://www.tanianault.ca/thescratchboard/2007/10/18/bob-kuhn-master-wildlife-artist-dies/

I am a big fan of Bob Kuhn's work and sad to say that we will no longer be able to see new work by this legandary artist.

A Painting A Day

I haven't posted here in a while. I have been busy getting my blog set up and running. I decided to join the ranks of artists who are doing daily painting blogs.
My new blog, "A Critter A Day" will show my daily efforts to create small works that will be available for sale.

When I first started this blog it was for the sole purpose of keeping me motivated and to keep me sketching and drawing as a means of being in constant communon with my art and to help me begin to express myself creativly. I didn't think I would have much time to dedicate to art so it was simply a sketching blog to show work I would do either in my free time or while away on vacation or camping. It take long for me to begin to muse about picking up a brush agian and begin painting. And I did. Now I cant stop. I have produced more paintings over this past year than I have my entire life previously. I have no intention of stopping. It is becoming a part of me. Something I NEED to do. Like breathing. I have no intention of quitting this blog although I will not be posting as often. I will be focusing my efforts on creating daily paintings and posting them on A Critter A Day. This effort will be a great excerise for me not only in disipline but a way to hone my craft and become a better painter. Until I post agin, visit my new blog "A Critter A Day" and check out what my daily efforts will yield.

Blue Heron Experiment: Finished

The final painting. I am pretty happy with the final result. The brush work is a little sloppy, but I don't have much time to work so I need to paint quickly as possible. I hope that as I continue painting this style I will begin to tighten up and develop a more controlled and precise painting.

"Blue Heron" 9x16, oil on panel

Blue Heon Experiment: Part 4

At this point I feel pretty good about the body of the Heron and decide to begin adding the beach. I need to have this color note on the panel to help me decide if the Heron is looking complete or if it will need more work. Because the heron is mostly blues and grey, I wanted the sand to be warm. In the reference the sand is cool: white with a touch of blue and grey. This lacks contrast, plus I know the sky and water are going to be cool, so I decied to push the color and really go for a warm yellow.

Blue Heron Experiment: Part 3

Next I mix up the colors for the body of the Heron. I fill in the area with a cool gray and then lighten and add color on the panel. I then paint in the legs and start to add more detail.

Blue Heron Experiment: Part 2

Next I mix up a pile of paint for the dark areas. I fill in the shadow on the ground and the shdow areas of the Heron. Mxing up a warm orange I paint in the beak and add a little detail.

The Blue Heron Experiment: Part 1

I have been wanting to try a new stylized approach to painting some wildlife. Sort of a loose abstract but still maintaining some detail. A source of inspiration for this would be silk baltic paintings or even the "factal" effect of a stained glass window. This is a style I have been thinking of approaching for some time now and just decided to give it a go and see how it works out. I recorded each step along the way in a sort of tutorial of the process. More for my own benefit, to be able to look back and see how I created it. But, I thought it also be an interesting process for everyone else to see as well. So here it goes.

First I sketch out the design of the Heron using a Tuscany Red colored pencil. My ground for this is a 1/8" thick hardwood panel that I made myself. I usually only use my own panels cut from hardboard, sealed and primed.

Over the sketch I outlined the basic figure using Burnt Sienna, breaking the composition up into large shapes. I am working in oil, so I will let this dry overnight so that I can work on top of it without disturbing the original markings.
To the right of the panel you can see the photo reference I am using.

Here is another small one for the holiday show. Below is the initial sketch



A close up of the sketch:



And finally the finished painting:

"Black Bellied Whistling Duck" 3.5x5 oil on panel


Actually I am not happy with the water. I wanted a touch of Thalo Green in the shadows of the water, but the Thalo Green got completely out of control and dominated that mixture. When this is dry I will probably go back in and repaint the water a higher key to help the contrast between it and the duck.

Back to the easel

Getting the paintings finishes and framed for the two shows got me off track with any steady painting. I need to get back to it though as I am trying to get work together for a holiday show at The Creative Center. I need 20 painting to exhibit for sale and I am trying to pound out a bunch of small painting that I can frame and sale for a lower price, to help encourage sales. I am also trying to keep the subject material "broad" so as to attract buyers. By broad I mean birds, flowers, fruit, etc. I am not sure how long I can maintain that being that it won't be long before I begin to come up with creative ideas and want to experiment. This show will purely be about making some sales and making some extra money for the holidays.

Below are the first few for this show. I dont have a lot of time this days to dedicate to painting so I have squeeze as much productivity as I can out of a few hours a day. And usually not in one sitting. An hour after work and maybe an hour later in the evening. With my 21 month boy wanting to be a part of everyhing I do, It can be tough to focus and get things done. I did find a solution that helps keep him occupied while I am painting. I set up a smaller easel I have, at his height, and put a canvas on it for him. He colors it with crayon, then to be like his old man, I gave him some old brushes and a cup of water. He loves it! He colors with the crayons then smears them around with a wet brush. He even demands that he has a papertowel to wipe his brush in.

This one is a quick apple study, about 30-40 minutes. I used a #8 filbert for the whole thing to help cover it and get it recorded quickly. 5x7, oil on panel.



This is my easel setup. You can see my homemade pallete that I bolted to the frame of the easel. Having it between me and the easel helps to remind me to keep my distance and get up close with the brush. I still lean over it to get closer but it is the thought that counts right? On the easel is my progress, about halfway complete, of an American Goldfinch.



Close up the completed painting.
"American Goldfinch" 3.5x5 oil on panel

Nature & Wildlife show

The Nature & Wildlife show had a great opening. The atmosphere was energized and a lot of people were coming and going through out the evening. They had a good band playing popular rock songs a live barn owl and donkey. There was some really great work featured in the show, the most dramatic of which were the iron sculptures by Bill Secunda. My painting simply titled "Falcon" won third place in the oil/acrylic category. Being that this was my first show I am pretty excited that I placed!
It was a good moral boost to see my work featured among other artists. For years I have been staring at my work without any real comparison to help gauge the quality of the paintings I was producing. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my paintings ranked up there with the better works featured. Even the plein air paintings I had in the "Carnegie Painted" show surprised me. The quality of work at that show was fantastic with some really beautiful paintings. My work wasn't as good as the other artists, but they could definitely hang (literally) with the rest. It gave me great encouragement to see I am on the right track.

Below are some picts from the Wildlife opening reception.

This is my second show. Just happens to be the same night as the wildlife show. I have twp paintings that will be showing in this on. Both painting were done "plein air" in the town of Carnegie.

Opening Reception is Friday September 7, 2207 6-9:00
Click this link for more details: http://www.3rdstreetgallery.net/CPVII.html



"Standard Ceramic" oil on panel 12x10


"Pa Pa J's" Oil on panel 12x14