New Beginnings

I've spent the last month moving from Raleigh to Columbus to start teaching full-time as an assistant professor at CCAD. So far Columbus has been great - lots of good food, good people, cool stores (can you believe there is a stationery store just blocks from my apartment?!) After four weeks, my belongings still haven't been delivered to me thanks to those bastards at American Van Lines, but that hasn't stopped me from buying all new art supplies and making some paintings to adorn the many many walls in my apartment. Feels great to use traditional media. It's been such a long long time. These were modeled from vintage photos of Catherine Deneuve and Alain Delon that I googled.

Paul Poiret

This summer I wanted to do a project in acrylic to use up some of the remaining boards I had lying around before I moved to Raleigh. I ended up with 3 paintings based on vintage illustrations from fashion house Poiret. The illustrations date from around 1910 and are done by Paul Iribe & George LePape, who were commissioned over many years to create drawings of the Poiret fashions. This is a topic I touched back in 2006 when I was working on my senior thesis for my BFA in illustration. Similarly, I created 3 illustrations based on the fashion of Poiret. This time, however, it was far more homage because I used the existing compositions & color palettes from the Iribe/LePape images. While I made quite a few changes, the similarities are uncanny. The image below shows my paintings on the right next to their inspirations.

Gaston

Here's a little painting I did for fun over the past week. It's what I imagine the puppy that I had last summer might look like today. I gave him back to my mother, who is a dog breeder, which hopefully doesn't sound too heartless. He really was the love of my life for the week I had him, but the idea of leaving him in a cage in my apartment during my 9-5 was too much to bear. (how boring!) He ended up going with his puppy brother to a home with two little old ladies that probably give him a whole lot of love. And plenty of cigarettes?

...Anyway I had finished the clothing part and then almost scrapped the painting because I was running out of time (more on that below) but really his face and arms wasn't so hard. I also have been wanting to spray a matte finish on something and then put a high gloss varnish in certain areas on a painting for a while, so this was a good opportunity to test it out. Although you can't see in this digital image AT ALL, I glossed the "smoke" and his eyes and nose. It's a cool effect that I'll use again.

Now the other part is that I'm moving to Raleigh tomorrow to embark on a new adventure: the graduate animation program at North Carolina State University. Wish me luck!

White

Here are some fashion studies I did a week ago. First time I've painted traditionally in several months... felt good!

Saint Scholastica

I have finally finished, after more than a year sitting on the shelf, my painting of Saint Scholastica. It feels so good to have this little weight off my shoulders, I must say. It's also interesting to look at this and see a couple stylistic approaches that I was veering towards last year and have now moved away from.

Here is the original post.

Missoni Spring 2009

Here's a companion piece I started back in December to the Prada Cats. I might finish the set with some Lanvin or Vuitton. We'll see. It's acrylic on wood panel with black ink. I'm also considering putting some gold on the jewelry areas, but we'll see about that! The second image is the color study.

The dresses are from Missoni's Spring 2009 line. I thought that this was a gorgeous collection that paired a few different ideas about texture & textiles with some fantastic solid colors on some fresh silhouettes. I picked three ensembles that showed the full story of the collection. My favorite part is the cubist pattern of grays, pinks, yellows and turquoise that I got to paint underneath the linework on the second bird lady. Below are the actual dresses (photos from Style.com used without permission)

Francis

Here's a portrait I did of my nana for an event at the Milwaukee Art Museum, "Jan Lievens on a Jet Plane". The assignment was to take a Lievens piece and reinterpret it in my own style with my own subject. I chose his portrait of Rembrant's mother.

Prada's Spring 2008 looks on some Pretty Kitties

Acrylic and Ink on 12x16 panel. Also, have a look at the color study. The scan unfortunately doesn't do the piece justice, as this panel really glows in life.

Beyonce & Sean Penn

Here are the first two in a series of 8x10 celebrity portraits I'm working on. I've included photos on the full progress, because I think half the fun of art is the process. As you can see, I changed Beyonce's hair in the last minute. Mr. Penn went exactly according to plan, though!

Scholastica Landcut & Redman

Scholastica Landcut is not quite finished - there's a couple little things I've been meaning to do to this one.

And here's a crop-in on a canvas I started this morning. I love how much natural media glows. These are both so much more stunning in real life.

You'll notice all the unfinished projects that I've shown in the last month or so: I've actually never had so many open projects going at once in my life. I'm the type of person that's very quick to resolve something, so it's feeling very fresh and invigorating to start and end things as I'm inspired to.

Two Portraits - In progress

Sean Penn & Beyonce! I've been playing a lot with traditional medias lately. I'm so taken with the luminence that genuine paintings have. The way the pigments sparkle in the light is so incredible.

Pioneer Tiger!

Here's a shaky cam shot of a painting that I'm working on. It's inspired by Neko Case.