Abend Gallery Annual Holiday Miniatures Show, Nov. 3 - Dec. 1, 2018

"Pomegranate at 10:00"

Oil, 8" x 10"

Click here for purchase information

Every year, Abend Gallery in Denver, CO has an eagerly anticipated miniatures show and sale. I'm really happy to have this little piece included in this 2018 show.

My favorite way to paint outside is to return to the same spot over and over, at the same time of the day. It's fascinating to watch the changes that take place within a small space in a time frame before the light changes, especially when I'm painting living things. One year I had a morning painting in one location, a noontime still life painting in my studio, and a late afternoon painting going on, too. 

There's also the experience of being The Quiet Watcher. Artists often tell me how they are visited by deer and birds when they paint this way. In the case of this painting, I was greeted by at least three species of lizards as well as a few hummingbirds.

The Abend show starts on November 3 with a 6:00 opening party, please come if you can make it!

"Claire in Gray and White" at the Lore Degenstein Gallery's 10th Annual Figurative Competition,Oct. 20 - Dec. 9, 2018

Claire in Gray and White

oil, 16"x20"

I'm honored and excited to say that this painting has been accepted into the upcoming annual Figurative Competition and Exhibition at the Lore Degenstein Gallery of Susquehanna University, in Selinsgrove, PA. Many thanks to juror Lance Esplund, art critic for the Wall Street Journal, for including me in this prestigious show.

There aren't too many shows or venues in the United States that are devoted to exhibiting figurative work. Ten years is a long time to be holding this kind of event, so kudos to the Lore Degenstein Gallery and - I hope - a growing national interest in figurative art generally. This is the third time I've had a piece accepted to this annual exhibit and I'm always delighted to have a painting on the wall there.  One of these days I will get to see the show! 

This painting is for sale and you can see it at the show which opens on October 20th, 2018 and ends December 9th, 2018. For more information contact the Gallery.

Customs House Museum Show, Clarksville, TN - September 6th to November 20. 2018

 "The End of the Beginning" oil, 30"x24"

I'm really excited to say that I was invited to participate in a group show opening this week at the Customs House Museum in Clarksville, TN.  I'll be exhibiting four of my paintings at this Women Painting Women show and all will be for sale at the show.

The invited artists are:

Linda Tracey Brandon
Elena Burykina
Alia El-Bermani
Gaela Erwin
Ann Piper
Tonja Sell
Pamela Wilson 

Thank you so much, curator Terri Jordan, for all your hard work and for inviting me to take part in this wonderful show!

There will be a reception for the exhibit on October 25th. For more information click here.

"Up", oil, 12.25" x 12.25"

"Compline", oil, 64"x48"

"Read to Me", oil, 20" tondo

"Visions of Venus/ Venus' Visions" - Exhibition at Zhou B Art Center, Chicago

"Myth and Reality"

Oil,14"x8"

I have some really exciting news to share. My painting of the goddess Venus with some of her children has been accepted into the "Visions of Venus/ Venus' Visions" show at the Zhou B Haus der Kunst Art Center in Chicago, IL.

The show is presented by Poets and Artists, an online site for creative people which is the brainchild of poet and champion of visual artists Didi Mendendez. It was curated by Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt. 

About "Myth and Reality":

Artists were invited to consider the Venus myth and interpret her in our own individual ways. I grew up reading D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths and was interested in how mythology can speak to the modern mind. Behind the flashy magnetism of Venus there is a mother who is married to the god Vulcan who has had children from a variety of lovers. Who takes the kids to day care in the morning? I'm betting it's Venus. 

I've also been spending some time in the Prado over the past few years and at some point during my visits I go into the room that holds Goya's Black Paintings. You can't help but be shocked by his "Saturn Devouring his Son" and I think I was influenced by his gray/red color palette. I wanted to contradict that image of cannibalism and horrendous parenting (that's putting it mildly) with a rather whimsical image of a mother goddess trying to collect and manage her brood.  Again, inspired by these black paintings, I purposely populated my little painting with not particularly realistic looking figures. 

The show opens on April 20th and runs until June 8th, 2018. 

For a link to the Artsy site that tells you more about the work and the show, click here.

For a slideshow which showcases the work featured at the show click on this link to Poets and Artists.

"Ian and the Empty Chair" at the Lore Degenstein Gallery, 9th Annual Figurative Competition and Exhibition

"Ian and the Empty Chair"

Oil, 28" x 30"

This painting will be featured in the Ninth Annual National Figurative Drawing and Painting Competition and Exhibition at the Lore Degenstein Gallery of Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, PA.  It is a great honor to be in this show and I'm doubly grateful to have this particular piece accepted into it.

In purely technical terms, this painting inspired me to layer paint and glaze and scumble, working warm and cool colors into the background using a fairly limited color palette and value range.  I really enjoyed introducing elements of abstraction, mark-making and paint textures into a realistic narrative framework. 

I had started working on this painting with another concept in mind, but, as often happens when I have a visual scheme, the work at some point seemed to say another thing altogether, a more melancholy theme. It now seems to me that this painting is about loss. The empty chair used to be occupied by someone you used to be close to and who treasured you, who you thought would be there forever and who is gone.  

The young man is waiting patiently and doesn't yet realize that the person will never return.

The Lore Degenstein Figurative show is juried by the internationally acclaimed contemporary realist painter Alia El-Bermani. The show opens on October 28th with the awards ceremony at 7:00pm. The exhibition runs until December 10th, 2017. For more information, click here.

"Portrait of My Brother, Jim" - "Familia/La Familia", Poets and Artists Publication

"Portrait of My Brother, Jim"

Oil, 30" x 24"

I'm really proud and excited that my painting of my brother, Jim, was accepted into the recent Poets and Artists' publication, "The Family Edition: Family/La Familia". You can purchase a copy (print issue or a download) of the publication by clicking here.

Poets and Artists is a platform that features artists painting figurative work from all over the world as well as contributing poets and writers. The "Family" issue is especially interesting because figurative artists were asked to provide work featuring their family. 

In a politicized art world of slick, trendy, edgy and/or commercially sensationalized images it is pretty refreshing to see some sincerity and tenderness. The jurors for the publication were noted realists David Kassan and Shana Levinson and they did a wonderful job selecting beautiful and moving work.

My brother Jim is an amazingly gifted person, highly creative, intelligent and one of the most compassionate people I know. I wanted to paint his portrait emphasizing his musical talents as well as an oblique reference to the falling leaves of a Midwestern childhood autumn. 

"Read to Me" - 'A Sense of Dialogue'

I travelled a lot during the last year and was out of town when this article "A Sense of Dialogue" appeared in last June's American Art Collector Magazine. I completely forgot to put this on my blog and so here it is.

"Read to Me" is one of my favorite paintings I've made and I like to write about it. It has so many of the themes that I like to put into my work - a person with headgear; striped fabric; a book and of course my dog. I also love to work in round formats like this one. All of these seem to be part of my artist universe since I return to certain themes over and over again.

Many thanks to Christine Egnoski and the magazine for this article.

Here's another photo of the painting, available at TH Brennen Fine Art in Scottsdale.

"Paracosm with an Injured Bird" showing at The University Club, Phoenix

"Paracosm With an Injured Bird"

Oil, 15" x 24"

I'm happy to say that this painting (which I have already written about on this blog) recently was awarded Second Place at the Portrait Artists of Arizona 7th Annual Members' Juried Portrait Exhibition and Sale. The show is at the University Club in Phoenix, Arizona until August 30th, 2017. Congratulations to all the artists who entered the show!

"Introduction to Drawing and Painting the Dog" - workshop, July 18th and 19th, 2017

"Tierra Dulce", oil (detail)

I've drawn and painted animals for years and have been putting them in my paintings more and more frequently. I'm delighted to have been asked to teach a two day workshop on drawing and painting dogs this summer.

I'm told we have a dog model who is very good at "stay" and "lie down so we can draw and paint you". This would not be my own dog, though (see painting above). We'll also be studying dog anatomy and talking about taking and using photography.

The workshop is on Monday, July 18th and Tuesday, July 19th. It's open for registration at Scottsdale Artists School and you can enroll and find out more about it at this link.

National Weather Service Biennale 2017 - "Dust Devil" Drawing

"Dust Devil in a Pick-Your-Own-Field"

40" x 32"

Charcoal and Carbon Pencil on Canson Board

I just shipped off my big drawing to the upcoming National Weather Service Biennale in Norman, Oklahoma.  I'm excited to be in this show for a lot of reasons. I've been experimenting with large drawings for several months and it's exciting to see one get accepted into a national show. Plus, it's a big departure from my usual subject matter (figurative oil paintings).

I had to write an Artist's Statement about this drawing for the show. This is what I wrote:

• I was in a pick-your-own pumpkin field in Arizona with my three young children on a late October day. We were startled by a sudden narrow spiral of dirt that began to whirl in the rows of withered stalks, climbing higher and growing stronger as we watched it float and churn toward us. There was nowhere to go and it happened very fast. We huddled together and covered our faces as it passed through us, blowing dirt through our hair and blasting our skin and clothes with little stones and leaves. Our visitor left as quickly as it came, leaving us energized, as if we had tobogganed down a snowy hill together, breathless and grateful for a safe landing.
  
  

It's a little embarrassing to be sending a drawing of a small dust devil and writing about my experience with it to an exhibition in one of the world's capitals of tornados. People from Oklahoma really, really know the horror of tornados. I think tornados are some of the scariest things on the planet, although tsunamis are right up there as well. I strongly suspect that the brave people from Oklahoma would scorn a little dust devil.

A dust devil seems mercurial,  unexpectedly sudden and random, no long scary music buildup, no watching the heavy sky darken and churn while you beat on the storm cellar door hoping Auntie Em will let you and your little dog, too, inside. It just zips cheerfully through the bright sky, throws some dust and debris around and then dissipates, a little message sent via air mail that anything can happen to shake you up, even in the middle of a warm, boring day.

The show opens on April 23, 2017 at the National Weather Service at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. For more information click here.

"Sight Unseen", Abend Gallery show, opens Feb. 24th, 2017

I'm excited to be in a new group show at Abend Gallery in Denver that promises to be an exciting event. "Sight Unseen" is a collaboration between noted artist and curator Alia El Bermani and Poets and Artists Magazine, an online creative exploration of contemporary art and artists hosted by artist, writer and curator Didi Menendez.

My painting "Here and Now" will be featured in the show, which opens February 24th.

"Here and Now", 20" x 16", oil

Around 80 of the country's most notable figurative artists will be showing work as part of the show. The common thread is an attempt to look beyond the surface of things to find hidden meanings and explore new concepts.

Personally, I've been experimenting more and more with a looser paint application and layering. For me, it is a much more tactile and meditative process which has frequent surprises.  

There's a beautiful catalog of the show available from the Poets and Artists website:  

You can order a copy of the show catalog at this link.

For more information about the show or to purchase my painting please email Abend at david@abendgallery.com

26th Annual Holiday Miniatures Show, Abend Gallery, Denver CO

"Lucy is Thinking" 

Oil, 5" x 5"
SOLD

"

"Small but Still Life"

Oil, 8"x 10"

I'll have two small paintings for sale at the upcoming Annual Holiday Miniatures Show at Abend Gallery in Denver. The show opens December 2, 2016 and runs until the end of the year. 

Abend has distinguished itself by developing an energetic stable of imaginative, gifted artists, both nationally and internationally renowned, at various stages of their careers. This would be a terrific opportunity to take a look at what's going on there and take home a small work (or two). 

Lucy is one of our dogs, a young and very graceful pointer. I'm not sure she is actually "thinking" but I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt, as she has tons of other skills that far surpass mine.

The baby rabbit is one that I rescued from Lucy. Rabbits are shockingly vulnerable creatures. This one kept its eyes squeezed shut so it would be invisible and I would go away. I put some fencing around the rabbit nest to keep it away from the dogs. This rabbit eventually managed to grow up to live under the barbecue, which gave me an excuse not to have to use the barbecue all summer, a win-win situation because I don't like to barbecue. 

Although I'm doing a lot of figurative work these days, I really enjoy painting animals as well as putting them in my paintings.  Somehow, seeing an image of an animal on the wall lifts my spirits in a way that's hard for me to describe. Maybe it's their beauty, or maybe it's the reminder that we are not alone on this planet. Thanks for looking at these.

The Need for Speed: Oil Portrait Sketches, Part Two

"Hasan" oil on panel, 9.5" x 9.5"

A few months ago I wrote Part One about alla prima oil portrait sketches. I'd just like to repeat: this isn't necessarily my favorite way to paint somebody. In an ideal world, I'd have lots of time, time to get to know a sitter, time to go slowly and get the likeness exactly accurate. I also really like painting a subject over the course of many days but I don't get to do this as often as I would like to. This is the real reason so many artists paint self portraits. ... they've run out of money for model fees, their family has grown resentful and their friends are sick of them. 

Thus, an artist may find herself in front of a model for a limited time period. I painted the portrait above at an open studio, seated in the front row and looking up at the model, which changes the facial proportions a little bit from what you'd see at a distance while standing. I've grown to like this angle because it tends to lengthen the neck and add some drama. But I don't always choose this angle. I like to mix it up and keep myself on my toes.

I suppose that's my first point I'm trying to make in this mini-series about alla prima portrait sketches. You can do a decent job from pretty much anywhere you place yourself, as long as you're not directly in front of a light pole, say, or directly behind another artist. You should challenge yourself if you're "just practicing". I've seen artists set up at spots where they're essentially painting the back of the model's head and they still manage to paint amazing paintings. 

One key consideration is getting enough light on your easel and your palette so that you can see what you're doing as you work. This is often a huge problem that only becomes apparent when you're in, say, near-total darkness and guessing at what the puddles are on your palette. (If this happens, try to clamp your palette so that it's parallel to your work so it's all in the same light. Or go over to David Kassan's website (see the links on the side of this blog) and get yourself a Parallel Palette!)

On the other hand, if you're painting in front of a group of people, demonstrating, or painting a portrait you'll sell to the sitter, you're going to hope to be in the best possible set of conditions that will ensure that the painting will be a success.

1. Make sure your equipment is to your liking and make a list to make sure you don't forget anything if you're traveling. This includes having your paints set out in the order you're used to so that when you're under time pressure, you know exactly where that yellow ochre should be. I'm guilty of violating this advice since I'm a compulsive experimenter and tinkerer, adding and subtracting new colors and moving them around, so it never really becomes automatic for more than a couple of years at a time. But I'm working on it.

2. If you get a chance to select a model in advance you might consider doing that. The best case scenario is where you've painted the person before and you've had a success with him/her. Not only do you get an idea what the person looks like and what face tones will be there, you'll know whether he or she can sit still and - this is important - whether the sitter can get back into the same place after a break.

Some of the best work I've done is where I've happened upon an exceptionally calm sitter who sits for an hour or so without actually taking a break.

By the way, the ability to know where you are in space is called proprioception. Dancers and many athletes have this ability to place themselves and remember exactly where they were when they get back to the pose after a break. If you ask them to tilt a quarter of an inch to the left they can actually do that. (But I don't think you should unduly stress out a model, I think some flexibility and going with the flow is a good thing.) I like dancers as models because they also don't mind being looked at, it's their job, as a matter of fact, and they can"give" you a lot, a certain attitude or feel that you can pick up on if you're sensitive.

Worst case scenario - for a fast sketch under time pressure - is probably a person who is fidgety, awkward and self-conscious about being looked at. If you add "sullen and reluctant" to the list that probably will describe most of the teens or young adult relatives of yours. Good luck with that. Lots of people just don't react well to holding still, so it's also a good idea to get used to people moving around. The artist James Gurney is one of the best people out there in terms of painting people who aren't holding still (see the link to his site on the right to find his videos and tips on doing this).


3. Many artists seem to work under the same lighting setup over and over again. I think this is a really good idea if you can manage it.  Personally, I don't do this - I always think it's a better idea to keep yourself on your toes by practicing a lot of different ways and putting people in different lighting conditions.

I think this is my personality type, too, to keep experimenting, change things up, try things out. I'm not sure this is always a terrific characteristic.

4. Finally, keep in mind that children have different head proportions than do adults and if you haven't worked with children much, a child model will be markedly different, plus they tend to move around much more than adults.

The Need For Speed: Oil Portrait Sketches, Part One

"Gordon", oil, 12" x 12"

A quick oil sketch of the wonderful Gordon from a few months ago. "Quick" in this case means one hour. I think that is super-fast, at least for me. They don't always turn out well but I liked this one. He was a calm, patient sitter.

One thing you should know about painting fast like this is that nobody cares how fast you paint anything. Except your sitter, who probably wants to take a nap or have lunch. (If you're painting in front of an audience, they will also care, and maybe start to fall asleep too.) Sure, somebody might ask you, "How long did it take you to do that?" You should answer as Picasso did: "It took all my life".  But the answer doesn't really matter when you see a painting on the wall. You either like it, or you don't, right?

I'm going to be giving a short demo next week for a local art group, the Scottsdale Artists League, in Scottsdale, Arizona, so painting alla prima oil sketches has been on my mind.

Many times you run into sitters who simply can't hold still, or don't have much time for the sitting, for one reason or another. If you have ever sat as a model you'll know that it isn't easy, isn't all that much fun and artists can really be annoying. You could draw or sketch people with drawing media, of course, which could be faster, but the real reason to paint a person in a limited amount of time is because of the joy of the process of doing it and it gets addictive, I think.

"Whitney", oil, 12" x 9"

Whitney has a wonderfully animated, lively face. She talked as I painted, something I don't usually let models do, but it was so interesting to watch her expressions change as I painted. We were by ourselves in my studio so it all was relaxed and fun.

If you have only a limited amount of time to paint something and you want to do a decent job, there are some things you can do to make things go a little bit easier.

First, a few thoughts.

1. You can do a bad painting quickly. You can also do a bad painting while taking a long time. I've done bad paintings both ways. (You can do a big bad painting or a small bad painting, by the way; the small ones are a little less painful.) Nobody really cares how long it takes to do a painting, it just matters if it's good. Having said that: I believe that process matters. It matters! Artists discuss this from time to time and by that I mean they argue about it. This deserves its own blogpost, one of these days.

2. It takes a long time to learn how to paint a good portrait quickly. You need to know how to draw well before you can learn to paint well. A lot of mistakes are drawing and value errors, not color mistakes. There are also paint-mixing considerations which can be overwhelming.

3. Practice on a lot of still life setups at the same time you're painting heads from life. The still life paintings will improve your head studies, and vice versa. Work on accuracy.

4. It can be hard to get models, especially those who don't move around and fidget. Friends and relatives can be tricky.  Paint yourself over and over again if you have to. If you've done this for a while, as I have, you'll get to enjoy watching yourself age over the years. Oh, great. I like painting other artists because then you take turns sitting for each other and learn a lot about the other artist's working methods, too.

By the way, this alla prima method isn't necessarily my own preferred way to paint a person - I like  to take my time and paint directly over a series of days, which is I think technically not alla prima (which means, one shot) but is still considered "direct painting". I guess I'll blog about that sometime also.

So: in addition to the above advice, are there other things an artist can do to stand a better chance of painting a good, fast alla prima portrait? More to come in Part Two.

"Gardenias in Her Braided Hair": First Prize at Portrait Artists of Arizona 6th Annual Exhibition, Phoenix

"Gardenias in Her Braided Hair", oil 20" x 16"

Currently at the University Club, Phoenix, AZ

6th Annual Exhibition and Sale, Portrait Artists of Arizona

I went to the opening of the PAOA's Exhibition in Phoenix on Friday night and saw that I'd received a First Prize ribbon for my painting. I've been experimenting with different ideas and techniques lately and I'm so happy and flattered that it received a ribbon. Thanks so much to the amazing artist Romel de la Torre who judged the show. There are a lot of good paintings there!

I've been trying to include many layers and textures in my work. It's one of the things that pulls you in closer to a painting, it's not the only thing (detail is also a big pull) but it's one of the things.

I've also been doing a lot of thinking about something my teacher Max Ginsberg said to me, which is that you're not just painting your subject, you're painting the atmosphere between you and your subject.  He may have just been saying this in a scientific sense, i.e., dust, smoke, humidity factors (and whatever), but I think that emotional factors are at play as well.  What is the nature of the atmosphere?

You know how some people suck the air right out of the room? A beautiful woman - plus flowers, plus vegetation - is supposed to inject the air back into the room at the same time she takes your breath away, I guess.   If you have ever smelled a gardenia you'll know they're exotic and primal. It's all supposed to lure you in, of course. Maybe that is the purpose of beauty and the nature of attraction, that paradoxical sharpening and stupefying quality actually creates more of what we need to survive.

Anyway, here's the painting when it's not at an angle:

The multi-layered background was tremendous fun. I used a variety of tools to make the marks in the background, including a rubber squeegee, a wine cork and the cap from a bottle of some chia drink. The drink was a wildly overpriced impulse purchase. I recommend you make it yourself from a tablespoon of chia seeds and whatever fruity sludge you have in your refrigerator.  The metallic gold tube oil paint is made by Gamblin. I took the purple/green vine cutting (with permission from the intrepid and remarkable Sheila at the front desk) from the outdoor planter at Scottsdale Artists' School. I held the stem up in my left hand while I painted it and I decided to stylize it to some degree, rather than model it.

Here's a detail below of some of the flowers. I've painted the petals thickly and with a lot of attention to the edges, which are soft in comparison to the leaves. Then I glazed over the petals with an oil gel medium to help lose them into the shadow. I placed a darker glaze over the white and let bits of the dark glaze nestle in the ridges.  The pattern of the petals, flowers and spaces between them is a lyrical, dancing arabesque. I tried to keep the fugitive, frail quality of gardenia blooms in this painting, how they keep changing and fading.

As usual, I tried not to use a single hard line to separate the lips. Here I used at least three different shades of red and reddish-brown, trying to pay attention to subtle plane changes, with blurred and lost edges and glazed-over sections.

My model is the smart and beautiful Emily Wilson, a photographer based in Phoenix. I predict that she has a brilliant career ahead of her.

"Animalia" at Abend Gallery, opening Fri. Jan. 29th at 5:30

"I'm the King of the Castle" oil, 19.5" tondo

This painting and a couple of others of mine are in a show titled "Animalia" which opens tonight at Abend Gallery in Denver. I'm excited about this show because it features subjects dear (deer?) to my heart   - animals, frequently shown in their relationship to humans and our shared habitat.

It's an imaginative show, at times thoughtful, passionate, whimsical and sorrowful.

You can read a review of the show and see some of the work in it on the Hi-Fructose Magazine site here.

Two Pieces for Abend Gallery Miniatures Show, opening Dec. 4th 2015

Quince Study, oil on metal leaf, 5" x 5"

Puppy Left out in the Rain, oil on panel, 7"x 5" [sold]

I have two small pieces in the upcoming Annual Miniatures Show at Abend Gallery in Denver, CO. The Quince piece is part of a wall of small square silver-ish paintings by gallery artists celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the show. It can be hard for galleries to stay in business in today's art climate and big congratulations to Abend for not only thriving but for being a huge supporter of artists and their artwork. The show opens on Dec. 4th from 6:00 - 9:00, try to be there if you can make it.

Meanwhile, I've been keeping busy with commissions and travel, including visiting museums. A museum visit gives me an excuse to write about paintings that I love and seeing masterworks in person often jolts me into insights about painting that I'm not sure I would experience by seeing them online or in my art books. Also, I always discover artists that I haven't heard of before my visit. It's exciting to learn about new artists who deserve more attention. I'll write about some of them in upcoming posts.

Semifinalist in the Outwin Boochiever 2016 Competition, Natl. Portrait Gallery

Several months ago I found out that my painting "Daniel Jabari" was selected as a Semifinalist (top 100) in the National Portrait Gallery's Outwin Boochiever Portrait Competition. The names of the Finalists were announced last week and I'm sorry to report that my painting didn't make the final cut and won't be in the upcoming exhibition.

Best wishes to all the artists who submitted paintings to this competition and of course big congratulations to all the Finalists (which include artists from a variety of media, paintings, photography, sculpture, video, etc.) who will show their work when the exhibit opens next year in Washington, DC! I'm sure the opening will be an exciting event. It's a fantastic achievement to be able to have your work seen in person by so many eyes - and the show will travel, also.

Here's my painting and thanks to all the people who have told me they like it, I really appreciate your support.

"Daniel Jabari", oil 24" x 24"

"Paracosm with an Injured Bird" at Haynes Gallery Show, "Celebrating Art of Women by Women"

Paracosm with an Injured Bird, oil, 15" x 24"

This new painting is part of the show "Celebrating Art of Women by Women" at Haynes Gallery in Thomaston, Maine, which opened on August 14th, 2015. (I've got one or two other paintings in the exhibition, including the "Pelican Squadron" painting I wrote about a little while ago on this blog.)

As I explained earlier on this blog, a paracosm is a fantasy world that you create for yourself, often involving characters with powers that often extend far beyond anything the real world provides for us.

I've been very interested in fantasy worlds lately and how they form us as children and shape our expectations, hopes and fears. I think they can be a two edged sword in that they contribute to a private, personal mythology, actively fostering creativity and possibly a deeper spirituality and reverence for nature; but they can also be a retreat and a trap to avoid reality, restrict the interaction with and compassion for other people and strangle the experience of the fullness of life, with all its stresses and heartbreak.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my own childhood fantasy worlds (I had quite a few) usually revolved around me being able to speak with animals and having them obey me.  (I now have an unruly Corgi mixed breed rescue dog and I still have a fantasy that I will someday have him obey me.)

This painting touches upon a couple of themes I find very compelling. The woman is reading a book while resting her head against a reclining bird. I was halfway through this painting before I realized that I've painted something a little like this before, only instead of a bird, I painted a St. Bernard (see this). I wanted to incorporate a sense of caring and protection of beings which are more vulnerable than ourselves, although if I were to actually run into a flicker as big as myself I'm sure I would find it immensely powerful.

I've been interested in the interface between the animal world and the human race. I like the concept that there is knowledge being shared between the book, the woman and the bird. Somehow, touch unites them all.

"Drawing the Portrait Head in Charcoal," Scottsdale Artists School, October 2015

I would love to have you join me in drawing portrait heads in charcoal this fall, a weekly class at Scottsdale Artists School in Scottsdale, Arizona. Working from the live model, we'll work on line, value, measuring, lighting, anatomy (including specifics of the features), planes, edges and all the other qualities that result in drawing a believable head.

The drawing on the bottom is charcoal and Conte pencil; the one on top is vine charcoal and charcoal pencil. Both sketches are short-pose and from life. (This is being taught as a charcoal class but if you want to try some conte, I will let you bring it in.)

The class goes for four weeks, starting on October 6th, Tuesdays from 6:30 - 9:30pm. Meanwhile, I have an oil painting class coming up in January of 2016.

For more information and to sign up, please call SAS at 480.990.1422 or go to the link here.