"The Undergrad"

This painting is a 3'x4' self portrait on canvas from life.  I painted it in the studio at the school in a very large mirror on the wall.  This painting took over 3 weeks to complete because I had to wait each night until the studio was completely empty to be able to have the lighting where I needed it to be.  All in all I am pretty happy with how it turned out.  I approached it differently than most paintings I do, first because of the size, second because I couldn't work the entire painting while it was still wet.  This ended up being a pretty big challenge and a lot of swear words were directed towards this painting but in the end it came together.  I liked the idea of painting myself doing a painting of myself. You learn quite a bit about yourself as when you stare in a mirror at all the details for hours and hours on end.  It was an awesome experience that I plan on repeating.

Figure Study

This one was another of my figure studies but was quite a bit bigger than the other one.  This one is about 16x20 charcoal on gray toned paper.  I really loved this pose.  The photo is a little misleading too because there is quite a bit of space above the figure that creates a nice sense of atmosphere.

This is one of many figure studies I have done over the last year.  I particularly like the foreshortened angle on this one.  I used to struggle with foreshortening but I have done it so many times now that I actually prefer to do foreshortened poses.

This was my favorite painting I did over the Summer.  It is a plein air study of Manzanita beach in Oregon.  Danielle and I went on a trip with my family and stayed in a beach house in this little cove for a week and I absolutely fell in love with the area.  This painting was done with me standing barefoot in the sand in the warm sun with the sound of the waves crashing and the smell of the sea in the air.  It was a surreal experience and probably the funnest plein air painting I've done so far and I was extremely happy with how it turned out. 




Doug, if you read this, I'm not gonna lie.  I freaking nailed the color and value in this painting.  Just putting your wisdom to use!

Golden Fields

This was another plein air study that I did at the beginning of Fall.  I really wanted to capture one of the many wheat fields when they were at there peak and looking like a field of gold.  As I was driving in to town I noticed this old barn that is out completely by itself in the middle of what looked to me like a sea of gold and I absolutely HAD to paint it. 

Summer Downpour

So I decided I've been a complete slacker with this blog and I haven't posted anything since the Summer so here goes nothing.

This painting was done for the Midway Plein Air competition and then later submitted in to the Peach Days Art Competition where it took 1st place in the oil painting category.  This particular painting was a lot of fun for me because I was painting with my friend Matt Larson.  I was painting this scene while Matt was painting me painting this scene(put that in your pipe and smoke it).  Oh yeah, and we were both getting completely drenched in rain the entire time.  It was a pretty crazy experience.