Mckenna

This is the 1st of many portrait studies I'm going to do to try and get a better handle on portrait painting.  My awesome sisters Mckenna and Chloe modeled for me to give me a bunch of different poses to work from.  This one is of my sister Mckenna and it's 16x20 oil on canvas.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  I've been studying Jeremy Lipkings paintings and trying to incorporate some of what he does so well in my own work.  Also studying my friend Zachary Proctor's work as well (as always).  More to come!

Snowed In

This is another painting for the gallery in Logan.  I really enjoy "snowscapes".  I wanted to focus on the texture of the snow and it was fun trying to capture that.  This one is 20x24 oil on panel.

Autumn's End

This painting is one of the paintings I will hopefully be showing at the Logan Fine Art Gallery.  They asked to represent my work for me which was a surprise and asked me to get 20 framed and ready paintings together to take to them as soon as possible.  This is one of the paintings I will be taking to them.  It's 16x20 oil on panel.  This painting is a mostly made up landscape with the exception of the shape of the barn and the trees.  The rest I changed to make it a more early winter/late fall kind of scene.

"Grandpa"

This painting is 24x24 oil on canvas.  It's a painting of my grandpa who passed away about 2 weeks ago.  It was pretty unexpected and I've had  a hard time dealing with it.  My grandpa and I were very, very close.  He is the greatest man I've ever known aside from my own father, who is the man he is because of my grandpa.  I decided to do this painting for my family and for myself to have at the viewing and funeral.  My grandpa passed away on a Saturday and the viewing was Wednesday so I really only had Monday and Tuesday to finish the painting.  I don't know why but it helped me cope to be sitting in the studio painting.  I wanted to give this to my family and have it depict my grandpa as we all remember him.  My grandpa loved life and was an active and hard working man who loved to play.  I wanted to paint him with a smile on his face and capture the life that he lived in one painting.  I feel like I succeeded and the response I received from family and friends at the viewing who saw the painting was pretty awesome.  My grandma immediately claimed the painting and I think it will help us all to get through things each time we go to her house and see it on the wall.  I love and miss ya grandpa!

The Radiant Child

This is an under painting that I did this week.  It if my first attempt at a portrait in over a year and half almost, so with that being said, I am pretty stoked with how it is turning out.  I have obviously figured some things out over the last year and half as far as how to handle my brush, and I feel like I have pretty good grasp on value at this point.  This is the first of many paintings that I am doing more or less to serve as practice for portrait painting in the future.  I am going to paint portraits of all those whom I feel are "artists" in some way.  They are not all going to be fine artists but will include actors, singers, songwriters, directors, writers, musicians, etc.  Pretty much anyone whom I deem a true artist who has influenced me in some way will be included in this series.  I don't have any particular number in mind as far as the series goes.  Like I said, it's more for practice than anything else.

The person in the painting is Jean Michel Basquiat.  He was a prominent figure in the art scene in New York in the 70's made famous by his unique graffiti art and clever tagging that he signed under the name SAMO.  It's pretty amazing what he was able to accomplish for the art world and the way his work challenged what was accepted as "art" at the time.  He was befriended by Warhol and rose to fame at a lightning pace for someone so young.  I think he was an insanely gifted individual who was definitely in the right place at the right time to make a splash with his work.  He definitely counts under my description of an "artist" and add to the fact that he was extremely unique in appearance as well, I chose him to be first in my series.  More to come!

Old White Barn

I did this painting in Midway for the Plein Air Paradise competition.  I'm surprised with how much I enjoy this painting.  It was painted over the top of a failed painting from the day before and I only had about 2 hours to do the whole thing before I had to turn all my paintings for the competition in.  I did this one completely with a knife and it kind of ended up with a gritty and loose quality which I love.  Probably my favorite from that week for sure.

"Copycat"

This was my favorite painting for Summerfest.  I did some improvising with this painting that really brought it to life.  I put the storm clouds in mimicking the shape of the trees, hence the title "Copycat" and then added the cows and the fence and the mountains as well.  The real image I was looking at to paint it was just the trees and the trees in the background with a pitch black storm that randomly decided to change direction and attack me in the middle of the painting.  This is probably my favorite painting to date just because I figured certain little things out and was able to add them to really make it pop.  I will probably do a big painting using this smaller one as a study in my studio in the near future.  Unless this one sells this weekend!  All in all this was a good week.  Better I think than last week in the Ogden Arts festival(I will post those paintings on here next).  Next week I have Art on the Lawn in Logan and then the Midway Plein Air Competition is the following week so it's a pretty crazy month.  Hopefully something either sells or places in one of these competitions to make it worth all the gas money I'm forking out driving all over the state!