The email interview

Every so often I am contacted by an art student doing a report or review on my work. They usually have a set of questions that they are required to have answered for their end of semester report. To be honest I usually answer these questions pretty straight forward and reply quickly but today I'm in a somewhat reflective state of mind and thought I would answer these questions with a little bit more depth.

These questions come from a student attending Curtin University in Perth, Australia.

What is it about the artists you use for inspiration that intrigues you?
The artists that intrigue me are usually traditional artists that "get it". What I mean by this is that their work speaks to me with such emotion that I feel I am actually interacting with them. As an artist it is easy to appreciate another artist's talent but to truly be moved by their obvious dedication to that single idea or painting inspires me to have more dedication in my own work. If they can put that much of themselves into a single painting or sculpture than why can't I? The other aspect of their work that I love is the shear mastery of technique (not to be confused with an ability to produce realism). Looking through an artists eyes I can see the level of skill needed to reach that. I have studied these artist's work so much and have dug deep into every fold, corner, and shadow that their works have become a part of my own style and voice.

A brief rundown of your most favoured piece, in terms of where you began with the concept to the point of completion?
My favorite pieces are almost always the latest ones that I've completed. The two I just finished are certainly favorites of mine - "Time with the Sacrifice of Youth" and "Protecting Hope from the Nature of Man". I used a different technique with these two that I am very excited about! I am about to start a third painting utilizing this technique and am hoping to refine it over the next few pieces. Both concepts sprung into my head while viewing the works of artists I love. Since I am a self taught painter their work acts as almost a class room for learning. So much so that I try to avoid looking at work by contemporary artists of today. I do not want my style to be effected by the latest trends in painting or illustration. I feel this has helped me to develop my own style which these two pieces show. After that spark is there I begin working on very small sketches to help flush out the composition. No piece is successful unless it is based on a sound composition. It's like building a house on a poorly design frame - the house will fall. From these small sketches (which are usually around 2 inches) I start to collect reference material that I use to design a more refined composition. These reference materials can be existing images or photographs of live models that I have taken specifically for the idea. Then I produce a final line sketch which is transferred to the canvas and used as a kind of road map for laying down the paint. It is important that the composition and original idea stay with the painting until the end and this technique allows me to do this.

Where you see yourself heading in the near future in regards to your art?

I wish to focus much more on gallery work. I want people to see my work in person so that they can have the experience I want them to have. I have never been satisfied with the printing industry and it's lack of ability to truly portray the subtle colors of an original piece. And this is true with any artist's work. To see the original is to see what was truly intended. I'm hopeful that I become successful enough in my work to focus solely on gallery work. I also hope that my work will inspire other young artists to return to traditional materials and techniques. There is nothing quite like moving a pigment or medium around on a surface. It is exhilarating!

The Color Purple

For the past month or more I have been working towards finishing my latest painting. I thought it would be interesting for me to spell out the steps I have taken with this painting. For those of you who are artists you know what I mean when I say that once I stop work on a painting I sometimes forget the steps I took to reach that result. Oh sure, I remember the overall experience and the tricks I learned but I rarely recall the earlier stages of the painting. Therefore, I'm hoping that by making this a standard practice for each piece I will be more likely to develop more standardized methods for working.

Step one is preparing the canvas. Here I have applied a neutral grey to the canvas. This grey matches closely to the grey palette I have chosen for my paints. I find that working on white tends to skew my colors a great deal.
This canvas is 30" x 40". I enlarged my 8 x 10 line drawing and transfered this to the canvas so that I have a road map to work from. Then I apply a layer of clear gesso to seal the line drawing to the canvas (otherwise the line drawing would be removed with the first application of paint).

For my palette I tape a sheet of Grey Matters Paper to a card palette. Since this grey is similar to the grey used for priming my canvas it will help me keep my colors more accurate.

I have recently become intrigued by Whistler's monochromatic paintings so I decided to try a more limited palette that focuses on purple. Every color aspect of the piece will have an element of purple added to the color.

Working from my reference photos that I shot earlier I attempt to portray the model using the given palette. This stage is more difficult for me than other stages as I try to get as close to the model as I can.

Closer view of the profile. Once it dries I will apply thinner washes of color to bring out the contrast more. You can also see here how the line work still remains.

I tend to take more liberties with the arm since I want the main focus to be the face area. I have also laid in the eye and some of the background color for contrast. I still remain in the limited palette.

Now that the main figure's arm and face are complete I move on to the second portrait which is the severed head at the bottom. I keep these colors far more cool than in the first portrait. I also add more greens and yellows to the purple palette.

At this stage I have laid in the background as well as the rough tile work at the bottom left. I enjoyed the tile work very much due to the limited palette. Next I will address the robe and lighting issues.
Stay tuned!!!!

Update 3/12/2011 - I was finally able to take decent photo of the finished painting. I have found that the larger I work the more difficult it has become to take good photographs of the finished pieces. I guess I'll come out of this a photographer as well  ;-)

In review I think the limited palette assisted me in staying on target. With larger pieces such as these it is very easy to get lost in portions of the painting which end up looking slightly off in the overall finished piece. I believe I will attempt this technique again with my next painting but with a more earthy color palette.

To paint or not to paint...that is the blog

I feel as if I have been attempting to paint my entire life. Throughout High School and even College I would stumble through paintings which would inevitably leave me dissatisfied and frustrated. There were only a number of painting classes I could take due to my Graphic Design major so I had to turn to personal exploration. Once out of college my exposure to other painters ceased all together and I was left with an isolated study of the medium- which for anyone who has tried this knows it does not work very well when you are that young. Eventually I stopped painting and focused on colored pencil work (which ended up looking like paintings in a way) but I always felt defeated by oil paints - their slimy existence was, no doubt, intended to taunt me and my inability to master them. How they mocked me with their long historical tradition and countless examples of successful use by others.

But in 2004, after over a decade of using colored pencil almost exclusively, I decided to try my hand at oil painting again. Sure I had been using Oil paint and/or watercolor for years in my work but only as textures to backgrounds and never as they were intended to be used. The real meat of the work (the figures, the clothes, even the props) was always created using Prismacolor pencils (the best on the market in my opinion). This was my safe zone. This was were I had enjoyed some success. I still had oil paints tucked away in a box so I pulled out the tubes, cleaned off the brushes and jumped right in. I looked to what I found familiar in order to develop my new process - Colored Pencils. I first began to test the techniques in which I had developed over the years through pencils - the layering of color, the blending, the direction of strokes. I quickly realized why I was using colored pencil exclusively - I was horrible at painting! My first test was a nightmare. It looked like a twisted paint-by-numbers that was the result of a loss of ink at the printer or something. Horrible. I was devastated once again. My enemy had reveled in my inability once again!

I resolved myself to the idea that I was just not able to paint like those I admired. It was 4 years before I decided to revisit oil painting. I started asking questions to myself. Self, why can't you paint? What is it that your missing? I decided to start building a library of books to help teach myself how to paint. My instructors would be made of recyclable material that I could tap on the shoulder time and time again until I got it right. So I read book after book on the subject (many of which I will do reviews here in the near future). I purchased any art book I found on sale or was focused on an artist or movement that excited me. Eventually it became clear - I could not paint like a painter because I was not a painter! I was a draftsman (or illustrator in a looser sense). Before I could even attempt to paint again I would have to change the way I viewed the art I wanted to create. I would have to become a painter and be comfortable and confident wearing that hat. So I spent the rest of the year reading and contemplating. I'm sure there might have been easier ways to do this study but for me it was a problem solving exercise that I analyzed and dissected mentally before any paint hit the canvas. My time was precious and I did not want to waste it by wasting canvases.

The last colored pencil "painting" I ever produced was a piece called "666teen". It was a smaller piece so I explored penciling the entire piece (no paint) as well as using mixed media elements. Next I began to produce work utilizing Watercolor on Watercolor paper. I was finally able to get away from the pencil and use the brush. I felt somewhat more confident with painting an entire piece but I was still unsure about using oils. My comfort zone had expanded from Colored Pencils to Watercolors but would I be able to paint in traditional oils? So out of the comfort zone I went to my local art store Binders in Buckhead. There I purchased a "starter set" of Water Based Oil Paint. I was totally blown away that there was such a product! I was pretty comfortable with Watercolor so perhaps this new hybrid would be an easy gateway drug for this new journey! I purchased some smaller canvases and tested techniques that I had studied. Within a few weeks I was back at the art store buying professional brushes, water based oil paint mediums and "oils", full tubes of my standard paint colors and paint palettes. My first totally painted piece utilizing this water based oil paint was "Pandora" produced in early 2010. I was still very hesitant to go totally into oil painter mode so I produced the piece in a very "watercolorish" style. I even used watercolor paper for the surface (something I had been using for some time with my mixed media pieces). I was, however, a "painter" now. It felt good to win a small battle against my foe. Yes, I know - I was still using a watercolor technique rather than an oil but I'm getting to that...

Finally, in mid 2010 I decided to try painting on canvas again (it had been about 15 years). The week before I re-read my notes - I re-read the dog-eared pages of my favorite how-to books. I was ready to try it again and so I jumped in. Every step I took was the same as in previous pieces - concept sketch, references, layouts, etc. - accept that this time I would be totally out of my comfort zone! I would be "painting". The painting turned out horribly and I have never shown it - BUUUTT I did learn several valuable insights as I was working on it. Insights that I developed over the next few months and eventually I began to produce real "finished" pieces that I was proud to show. Now, at this point, I could not imagine returning to colored pencil. Don't mis-understand me - I loved colored pencil and I have a high respect for those that use it but for me colored pencil was my way of avoiding the medium I was intended to tackle. It was a safe zone that allowed me to play the role of the painter when I wasn't.

Now, tonight I am working on my next painting and it feels REALLY good to say that! I think that is why I decided to write this ridiculously long post - because as I sat at my table noodling with poses and ideas for the shoot tomorrow I realized that I am a painter now. The war is not over but - I can paint!

Now if I could just work on my color theory, my compositions, my values, my concepts, my....

How To Draw Comics the MARVEL Way

So I am reluctant to say this but I feel I must... this book helped make me an artist! I received this book for my 9th birthday because of my love for comics (Marvel especially) and I spent the next 10 years delving into the world of comics and the comics industry. When I entered into Art College I realized that many of the fundamental theories and techniques used by artists were already engrained in my brain. Elements such as perspective, composition, eye flow, story telling, volume, and facial structure had already been shown to me by the mighty John Buscema! Over the following 4 years I continued to see relations between what the professors were teaching and what the marvelous Stan the Man had been preaching to that nine year old kid. This is why I refer to this book as a "must have" and continue to suggest it to new artists that I critique at shows. If you don't have it GET IT!!

The Fantastic Art of Beksinski

Published in 1998 by Morpheus International, Inc., The Fantastic Art of Beksinski is a small but powerful collection of work by a true visionary in the modern art world. I particularly enjoyed pages 18, 27, and 47. It is currently available on Amazon.com.


I would highly recommend this book to any artist interested in the Surreal or Fantastic!