Art In A Busy World

In Need Of Inspiration

2012-02-24T08:40:00.001-08:00

Rembrandt

When at an impasse, look at the work of masters. (Irwin Greenberg)

Velazquez

At a loss for what to do next. You know that point where you have little to no inspiration but you still want to paint and you keep starting stuff only to walk away from it and throw it in the pile of things you'll get to one day. Yeah, that's where I'm at.

I wish I had the time to go to a museum. As a student I would visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City at least twice a month. There were rooms dedicated to certain masters that I always returned to. Rembrandt, Rubens, Tiepolo, Sargent, Homer and then I would spend time looking here and there until my legs were tired from all the walking and I would then go to browse their bookstore. I bought a lot of books over the years and that's usually where I go to for inspiration now. I would spend time flipping the pages and looking through the reproductions in the books. Its not better than seeing the actual work but it helps a lot to remind me of the types of images that I enjoy, the works of artists that inspire me. I like paintings, I love art, looking at it makes me want to be creative too. However smaller, much meeker, my efforts are at least I get to share in this fellowship with artist past and present. Through art, mysterious bonds of understanding and of knowledge are established among men. They are the bonds of a great Brotherhood. Those who are of the Brotherhood know each other, and time and space cannot separate them. (Robert Henri)

Sargent

Sorolla

Getting Ready To Paint

2012-02-14T02:53:00.000-08:00

At left is a watercolor study for a painting I've been wanting to do for a while but had been putting it off. I don't know why I waited so long to start on it. I took several photos of my wife as reference for this work and used them before to sketch or make head studies from but I've never gotten around to painting the image.I suppose if I think about it I could come up with a list of reasons or excuses or maybe I just wasn't feeling like working on this particular painting till now.

Once I decided that now would be a good time to start this painting I began to work on the watercolor and a pencil drawing before I went on to the painting in oil. The paper for the drawing was too grainy but I went ahead and struggled with it, don't think that was such a good idea in the end.

Neither the watercolor or the drawing were particularly successful but doing both helped me to understand what I was going to have difficulty with in the final painting and what exactly do I want to come across with this image.The tilt of the head, the hands and the length of the shoulders were going to present problems. The expression on her face changes in these studies. The watercolor shows her smiling and the drawing shows a more moody expression. I want to see if I can paint her with an outward smile and an expression on her face of her thoughts turned inward.

On the right is the initial laying in of paint for the final painting in oil.

A Batch Of Recently Published Illustrations

2012-02-07T17:39:00.000-08:00

Luckily I had another batch of illustrations recently published. Its great when I can get work although it doesn't come often enough as of yet.

I posted about my process for the illustration at left in Oct. 2011, You can read that here .

The next illustration was done using more traditional means, just straight gouache paints. My sons posed for the two kids in the illustration although I changed their features to reflect the characters in the story.

No Excuses, Just Shut Up And Paint

2012-01-27T10:49:00.000-08:00

Don't say, 'I haven't the time.' You have as much time everyday as the great masters. (Irwin Greenberg)

It’s funny, but now that I can use my right hand again, having almost fully healed from the surgery, I’m still stuck with the problem of finding the time to paint. It seemed as if I spent time staring at my hand and longing for the time when I can paint with it again and now that that time is here -I guess I just need to manage my time better.

It could be that I feel more like I’m fumbling with the paint, trying to get back into a groove, but that would just be an excuse. I keep remembering Greeny, art instructor from my days at the High School of Art and Design, and how he taught about the discipline of painting everyday- anything that you want to do to the best of your ability is going to take discipline and as long as you’re doing your best it will be the hardest thing you can do. Greeny told the class one day that Michelangelo once said that if people saw how much work he put into his art they would not think it so amazing. Painting requires a lot of discipline and takes a life time to evolve.

Today is Friday so I’m looking forward to a weekend of painting, I just need to have the discipline to get it done.

The images that I uploaded on this post are what I have painted since the splint had come off my right hand, (I also posted about couple of drawings and paintings on my previous post).

I Begin to Paint Again ,Thank God

2012-01-19T02:32:00.000-08:00

Had not posted in a while, been waiting for my hand to heal. Finally got the splint off my hand a little while back and although my thumb is not 100% I am able to draw and paint although not with out a little discomfort, (its still a bit swollen and numb). Still it's better than trying to paint left handed.
At left is not my first watercolor since getting back the use of my hand, it was the first one I didn't toss in the trash. All I can say is - back to the struggle of learning how to paint everyday and loving every moment of it.

Another sketch done while riding the train to work. Done in water soluble graphite pencil and a Niji Water Brush. Again, this is not the first sketch Ive done only the better one since getting the splint off my right hand.

Painting Left Handed Continued

2011-12-27T08:16:00.000-08:00

Still trying to continue painting left handed while my right is in a splint healing. Been relying on gouache since I can make changes more easily. The hardest thing about painting left handed is that my brain and hand seem to have difficulty communicating. I try to put down a line or a brush stroke one way and my left hand seems to want to go in the opposite direction.It's easy to get frustrated because I'm never putting down exactly what I want when I draw or paint, but then again I was always critical of the work I did right handed but at least I had better control then.

I have another visit with the Doctor in two days. Hopefully they will change the splint so that it no longer covers my hand entirely and then I will be able to get some use out of it.

I think I did better on this painting of my Mother but there are areas in the painting that I just gave up on because they were to difficult to do left handed.

I Continue To work left Handed Waiting For My Right Hand To Heal

2011-12-19T11:40:00.000-08:00

This is turning out to be a really difficult time trying to continue working with my left hand while my right hand is healing. There are so many things I can do a lot easier and automatically with my right hand. At the same time I have to focus and concentrate a lot more and it takes me longer to put down a line because I am using my left hand and I guess that’s a good thing.

I’m trying not to think of this as

lost time though I can’t paint or draw anything of quality right now it is still a lesson in discipline. It is a matter of continuing to draw and paint daily and to solve problems and right now the problem is training my left hand to do what my right hand did. The great thing is that I find myself relying on my sight more. I was so quick to draw what I thought I saw depending on my hand to give a close translation of the image in front of or in my mind. Now I have to rely less on my hands and double check that it works according to what I’m looking or thinking about. It’s a lot more work and for right now I’m not thinking of doing any ambitious painting but I am dreaming about it.

The drawing on the left is a start I made in line because its hard for me to put down values with the same control I had with my right hand. I'll re-post when I finish it.

Relearning To Paint And Draw With My Left Hand

2011-12-10T13:54:00.000-08:00

Draw lines, young man, many lines; from memory or from nature-it is in this way you will become a good artist. (said to Edgar Degas)-Jean Dominique Ingres

With my right hand still in a splint I continue to try to sketch left handed. I keep Ingres words to a young Degas in mind and I try to fill pages of lines- letters, numbers, shapes, etc. Anything in order to practice making marks with my left hand. At first I couldn’t even draw a circle, now I’ve gotten a bit better at being able to control my lines and shapes.

One of the practice pages of letters and numbers
written left handed.

The biggest challenge seems to be how to hold the pencil, pen or brush comfortably in my hand and to be able to move that hand in a way that would leave the type of mark needed. I see improvement in being able to control my hand. I’m learning that the painting is created in my mind, the hands can be trained to translate the image from my mind to the paper or canvas. There is another quote from Ingres that points to this:
One must keep right on drawing; draw with your eyes when you cannot draw with a pencil. -Jean Dominique Ingres

I had this dour look on my face on purpose- just wanted to paint an expression on my face.

Resolve/ Learn To Paint With My Left Hand

2011-12-04T13:28:00.000-08:00

I have had a miserable week just pushing myself to try and sketch. My right hand was operated on last week. The ligament and nerve damage was repaired and now I have to wear my splint for six weeks.

I can’t move my thumb or use my right hand. I am trying to sketch with my left hand but it takes a great deal of patience since I don’t have the same control I would have using my right hand. Still, since I have to wait six weeks I’m going to have to fight through the frustration and try to paint with my left hand. The computer software helps but I would much rather use traditional media. I find that if I can tape down the paper or prop it on an easel it’s easier to work and the more I generalize and not try to get into details I can come up with something that looks okay. I still want to get the image to look as though I would’ve done it with my right hand.

I think these next six weeks can teach me a lot if I have the patience and discipline to continue working, I can’t sleep the time away.

The top painting was done in Photoshop, the drawing bellow it was done in pen from memory. The bottom was done in transparent watercolor, all were done left handed.

Sitting On My Hands and Thinking About Painting

2011-11-26T16:53:00.000-08:00

Although my right hand is still in a splint I took it off long enough to make the sketch at left. My hand got numb about three times before I put it back in the splint.

It's hard to not do anything.

The only other thing I managed to do is the brush drawings I am posting bellow. I made a little hole in the splint large enough to stick a pencil or brush through it. I can hold the pencil better this way but it's still difficult to write or draw.

I remember when I was in Irwin Greenberg's class he would tell us to sit on our hands and think about what we are going to paint before we start attacking the canvas. Maybe the best thing to do right now is to think and doodle about what I'm going to work on when my hand gets better.

Colored in Photosop.

Never Giving Up / Sketching through Injury

2011-11-22T08:21:00.000-08:00


The head in profile was drawn with my left hand in sketchbook Pro.

Life has a way of bringing unexpected surprises at your door. Not all of them good.

About two weeks ago I sustained some serious injuries which included my right thumb nearly being severed. There was ligament damage to the thumb and my right hand remains in a splint. My four fingers are also covered by the splint even though they are intact and uninjured. All this makes it very hard to paint.

I started drawing during my stay in the hospital using what fingers were free at the time and when they put the splint on my right hand I tried drawing left handed. Because trying to retrain myself to use my left hand is difficult and frustrating I switch the pencil, brush or pen from hand to hand. I can still use my right hand though I can’t use my thumb yet.

I can’t begin to express how much I long to be outdoors with a set of watercolors and paint what’s in front of me or to be able to take my French easel outside and paint in oils. Art has always been important to me and now I realize how much it is a part of who I am. It’s like a conversation I’ve been having all these years with a very close friend, (myself?). A conversation that is never finished and I long to return to again and again.

This was done in Photoshop holding the stylus as best I can in my right hand.

For now I’ve been relying mostly on my Cintiq, using Photoshop and Sketchbook Pro to work out some digital sketches but I would love to be able to grip a paint brush. That should happen hopefully in another week, God willing. Still, I don’t want to lose a single day so I use what I can to sketch.

There are other injuries but I don’t care to re-live them here, I only want to say that I thank God that I’m still here. Also want to thank all my friends and extended family that has helped me and my Family, especially the Pastor and his Wife and the members of the Bronx Christian Church.

More Digital Sketches In Sketchbook Pro and Corel Painter Essentials

2011-11-12T09:16:00.000-08:00

There are a few things that keep me coming back to digital work, (1) Its new to me and I like learning new mediums. (2) Its super convenient, no set up or clean up. (3) I don't want to fall behind. I see a lot of older people who are afraid of the computer, (I had a coworker who was a supervisor and was afraid to send emails. He would always ask his assistant to send them until his boss demanded he do it himself). I want to stay current and at the same still work in the traditional media that I enjoy. All media present a life long challenge, not just to master the technical aspect of the tools but to use them expressively. Its the image not the medium that is important.

The first two images on this post were done in Sketchbook Pro. This program is inexpensive and easy to learn. Although I know I haven't learned all this program can do. I can't afford to take classes so I look for videos and tutorials on how people use these programs to learn as much as I can.

The third piece was done in Corel Painter Essentials. I think this program came free with my Cintiq. I wish I could afford the pro version but this version is a lot of fun to use. I really wish I can take a class on this one because it has a lot more tools than the Sketchbook Pro. The good thing is what I don't know doesn't stop this sketching from being fun to do.

Sketching In Tradirional And Digital Media

2011-11-09T06:09:00.000-08:00

The two sketches included in this post are done from photo's I took at Zuccotti Park. The one at left was done in oils. Although I wasn't happy with the sketch I much prefer to work in traditional media. That's not to say I don't like digital paintings. I have seen a lot of really wonderful paintings done digitally. However I also see that the quality of their work is due to their knowledge of art and traditional drawing and painting skills. In other words the computer is just another medium and not the artist.

There are advantages to working either way. For one thing with traditional media you have a tangible piece of art that can be framed and hung or sold. With digital media you have a much more portable piece of work that is easier to reproduce.

The painting on the lower left was done in Photoshop. I had a much easier time with this one I think mostly because of having done the previous sketch and also I liked the photo I used for this painting better. I tried to imitate the same look and feel I get in traditional media. I used mostly dry media brushes in Photoshop and the layers were at varying degrees of transparency.

I included a video bellow In which I captured what was on my screen as I worked on the digital painting.

From Battery Park to Zuccotti Park

2011-11-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

A little while ago I took a trip to Zuccotti Park on my lunch hour. Normally I would be doing my water color sketches at Battery Park but I wanted to take a look at what was happening and I took my digital camera with me to take reference shots to use for future watercolors.

I told myself that this was history and I should go there to take a look and maybe have some record of what was going on, but actually I agree with their stance and wanted to get a closer look at what they were doing and saying. A closer look than the evening news would give.

I wound up staying a little bit beyond my lunch hour, talking to some of the occupiers who were willing to give an earful to anyone who would listen and thumbing through the books at the makeshift “Peoples Library”.

I took plenty of pictures, printed them and filed them away. Life had been so busy these past few weeks it took me a while before I could get back to them. I started to thumb through them early one morning and started the watercolor sketch on the upper left. Wish I had time to do more. I woke up at 3 in the morning and painted till it was time for me to get ready to go to work.

The sketches below are from the last time I was at Battery Park. The leaves were only just starting to change into their fall colors, another thing I need to find the time to paint.

This graphite and wash sketch was painted at the park on my lunch hour. I made the color sketch below using this drawing and some photos I took at the park that day.

Another Sketchbook Finished.

2011-10-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

I finally got to the last page of my sketchbook. This one took a little longer to complete with all the distractions I had recently. I like being able to look back at it and see where I have grown. I think this sketchbook has changed some of the ways I approach watercolor. I'm not as afraid to mess one up by playing with the paint a bit, working into wet areas as well as glazing one color over another. I think I need to look for a heavier paper though. these sketchbooks are 80 lb, something heavier would stand up better to corrections and lifting paint up.

The subway sketch on the left was quickly sketched in pencil and the paint was added latter when I got home.
The watercolor I did of battery park bellow was done the same way.

Another Illustration Assignment

2011-10-18T01:49:00.000-07:00

Working on an illustration assignment, a new picture book and a new website has kept me busy for sometime, Unfortunately I haven’t been able to post anything lately because I’ve been so busy.

I will post the new illustration assignment after it is printed. For now I will post an illustration I did a while back for Guide Magazine. I tried something new with this assignment. I created all the elements of the illustration separately and then put them together in Photoshop by cutting and pasting them in the program. I wanted to see if this could be a faster way of working. It allowed me to work quickly and to easily make changes in the artwork. I was able to move the images around, resize them or change color and value right in the program. Since each element was on a different layer I could change one area without affecting the others.

The first two images show the artwork done in pen and ink and watercolor on paper then scaned into Photoshop. I used the lasso tool to select the image then copied and pasted it onto a new page with a transparent background, cleaned it up by removing the white around the image so that the image is floating on the page.

Here I put all the elements together in separate layers and moved them around and resized them till I'm satisfied with the arrangement. I will still move them around as the illustration develops.

Here I start to work on the background unifying the picture and working any rough or unwanted edges into the background.

This close up shows how I worked in the smoke from the explosion into the background.

On the left the picture is nearly finished. having done all the different parts as separate drawings on 8.5 X 11 sheets of paper allowed me to work quickly on the final image in Photoshop, at least for this illustration in which the background was uncomplicated.
I first save the image as a Photoshop document, preserving all the layers just in case I need to make anymore changes I then save it as a jpeg image.

I bring back the jpeg into a separate Photoshop document and tweak the contrast and the levels till I get what I want. Like everything I do I have to live with it for a while before I decide how I feel about the final image, to decide whether or not this way of working was a success and if I will use it again.

Here is the final illustration.

Creating Picture Books/ Adventures In Self Publishing In The Digital Age

2011-10-08T01:35:00.000-07:00

I love telling stories. When my oldest son was 5 years old I started creating picture books for him about these cartoon dinosaur characters I made up. I would put the books together using the copiers on my job and give them to him. I was very happy to see that he liked them enough to take them to school with him. I made two more stories about the same characters, though I never got to finish all the illustrations for the last story.

I got lots of compliments from people who saw the books so I printed out a few more, even sold some.

When my son grew older I wrote another story that matched his age. He loved that one too and I went all out on the illustrations on that one. I liked the idea, it was about a kid who tried to imagine what it would be like to have a dinosaur as a pet. I thought the story had a sense of humor and I worked hard on the illustrations, working and reworking them till I got what I thought was the very best I could do.

The printed book was done on quality paper. The first version was in black and white pen and ink drawings with some gray tones. Later I colored the drawings in photoshop. Friends who are illustrators and writers encouraged me to take the book around to publishers but I never found a publisher for the book, ( although I probably just gave up to easy). I tried self publishing but the final price of the book was to high to expect for anyone to purchase it. After a time I pretty much gave up on the idea of publishing. I had a few other ideas that I wanted to also publish but those were dashed as well.

Recently I decided to try and create an e book out of the pet dinosaur idea. At first I did it for myself but then I considered how much has changed in the publishing world. Electronic editions of books are selling very well and cost nothing to make. If you have the right software, you cut out the printer and the distributor so that the creator only split’s the cost with the bookstore. How wonderful. It makes it hard to understand why some e books are priced so high, although at $1.99 I think I priced my first book to low but what’s done is done.

The e picture book can be purchased at the Barnes and Noble website, (I have plans for putting it on i Tunes and Amazon as well).

I also decided to rework the first ideas I had and sell them as e books as well. The illustration bellow is the first one for the next story, "Catch the Moon".

Painting Through A Busy Week

2011-09-30T05:21:00.000-07:00

The past couple of weeks have been a busy one creatively. Finished an illustration assignment, completed and uploaded an e-book on Barnes & Noble website- (A children’s picture book I will feature in my next post), got a request for another illustration assignment and all the while I continued to paint and draw.

It’s important to me to continue to paint, to do work that is personally important because that is where I find who I am, how I see things and how I will grow as an artist.

The two watercolors are opposite’s in their approaches. One,(top left), is done in higher contrast and brighter colors. I wanted it to look fresh and spontaneous. I actually had a tough time figuring how to balance working wet in wet and then waiting for the paper to dry to continue to layer washes over it. The 80lb sketchbook paper was to light for painting this way so I had to use some opaque white to make corrections, however I don’t think anyone would notice it unless I point it out.

The other,(at bottom left), is more subtle in the modeling. Still working in the same way (wet in wet) and allowing the paint to dry I continued applying wet washes over dry paint. I carefully applied daubs of paint to make the transition from one value to the next as subtle as possible.

The following weeks look promisingly busy. I will have to keep in mind that I need to make time to paint every day, (even though I’m working on illustrations and technically still drawing and painting).

Fighting My Way Through A Painting

2011-09-20T05:46:00.000-07:00

There are times when painting is difficult and there are times where it’s near impossible. Either way it would not seem right if it did not challenge me. The watercolor at left was done in my sketchbook during a weekday. I worked from several photos I took at Battery Park. When the weekend came I started a larger painting based on the same photos.

I started the painting on a 22.5” X 15” sheet of 300 lbs. cold pressed watercolor paper. I began with a very careful light pencil drawing which took me most of the day to do. After I completed the drawing I decided to try masking fluid, something I rarely do. I applied it to the areas that I wanted to leave white. It turned out to be a very bad, near disastrous mistake. The bottle of masking fluid was very old so when the gummy liquid dried it stained the paper a bit and proved difficult to lift off.

I first tried to scrub areas clean. When that didn’t work I began to use an exacto knife to scratch out areas and then I painted over those areas with casein white paint. I also used the casein white to cover the stains that where left behind by the masking fluid.

A lot of work and a lot of fight went into this painting and I’m not sure how I feel about the finished painting. I like some passages in the painting but I hope the whole painting works and not just a nice bit of painting here and there. I think I have to live with it for a while to decide if I really like it but there is honestly nothing more I want to do with it at this point. It either works or it doesn’t.

The detail on the right shows signs of the fight I had with this painting. Scratching out the bearded area actually left a nice texture to the beard. Still I would have rather painted in the texture than to show the signs of struggle.

The Discipline Of Art

2011-09-13T20:55:00.000-07:00

Self-discipline without talent can often achieve astounding results, whereas talent without self-discipline inevitably dooms itself to failure. (Sidney Harris)

When I wake up every morning, I do so realizing that I have to commit myself to the discipline of continuing in the decision I made to paint / draw everyday. I have been taught that discipline matters more than talent and I believe it. I don’t believe in waiting for inspiration, inspiration comes while doing the work. In the process of being creative inspiration comes as a point of discovery. It comes either as I’m working or after.

Being disciplined in my work habits helps to keep my mind active, exploring ideas and it helps me think about being expressive.

Above all it makes art alive for me. It gives me direction, gives me something to pursue and allows me to constantly grow.

I have, in the past, went through long periods of inactivity and my work has suffered for it. It’s been over two years now that I made the commitment to paint everyday and though I’m still striving to go beyond what I know and I’m critical of the work I’ve done it has gotten better since I made the commitment to be disciplined.

I’m thinking about discipline because the past couple of weeks there have been days that I did not want to paint, and it showed in the work I did that day. Those were the days I had to go on discipline, the work itself didn’t matter as much as just doing it. The result is when I find the inspiration, when I discover something I really want to paint I can approach it with unbroken confidence.

I felt better about these last two sketches I did. I want to develop them further and that makes toughing out those difficult days worth while.

Discipline is admired in opera singers, engineers, dancers, pianists or brain surgeons but, for some peculiar reason, when a painter is undisciplined, it is considered creative, new and innovative, or even genius. Usually, it is just bad painting. (Patricia Moran)

Warming Up To Paint

2011-09-07T16:40:00.000-07:00


Self Portrait Oil on Board 10 X1 4"

My weekend was filled up with an illustration assignment, (I will post after it is printed), and helping my son with a summer homework assignment. He had to make a movie poster as part of a book report for a book he read, (Inkheart). I had taken a couple of days off ahead of the Labor Day weekend and after finishing the illustration, helping my son and doing a self-portrait I only had one more day left to paint before I head back to work.

I wanted to paint but I was at a lost as to what I wanted to work on. There are things I want to do but it would require more than one day to do it so I would rather wait till the weekend to start on a long project. Working from Friday evening till Sunday evening would allow me to get well enough into the work so when I come home during the week starting where I left off would be automatic- I would have already been thinking and plotting about what to do next all day long.

Still, I needed to do something with my day. I spent the day warming up, that is doing a bunch of sketches hoping it would lead to something. First I did a sketch page straight from imagination, just having fun and not taking myself seriously. I had a lot of fun doing those sketches.

On the left is my "fun sketch" which is really just a page of doodles from my imagination.

Then I grabbed a couple of photos I took and began to sketch something I eventually want to do a watercolor of. Both were photos I took by Battery Park a short while ago.

I really wanted to make a painting of the sketch on the right and will probably do so this coming week. It will be one of those things that keep my hand moving while I wait for the weekend to start more ambitious projects.

I did the drawing on the right because I wanted to try out my brush pen.

Limited Time to Paint Yields New Possibilities

2011-08-29T08:02:00.000-07:00

The past week was pretty much a wash out as far as the weather was concerned. I think there were only two afternoons where I was able to paint on my lunch hour. I painted indoors of course, (I’m able to close the door of the room I work in so I won’t be disturbed), and at home as well. Then there was Hurricane Irene over the weekend. It was actually downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it made landfall in New York City. I spent a lot of time painting indoors.

The watercolor above was painted at work from a photo I took of my wife some time ago. Having only just under 60 minutes to paint this I worked mostly wet in wet, something I haven't done. Usually I wait for an area to dry so that I can either add another wash of color on top or dislodge and wipe out some of the paint with water in order to make corrections. Since I was working in an air conditioned environment it took longer for the paint to dry and my time was restricted so it forced me to work into wet areas. I liked the results and it's something that I'm going to do again.

The painting of my son on the left was painted in the way I usually do in watercolor. Building up the areas slowly with wash after wash trying to make smooth transitions in the values. This was painted at home where I have more time to do this. I painted this at night and woke up early the next morning to finish it before leaving for work.

I actually use a little bit of both methods in any painting I do. Being forced to paint more rapidly because of time and environment opened me up to seeing more uses for the wet in wet technique. So I added another weapon to my arsenal.

As an aside, I was mailed a copy of Guide Magazine where one of my illustrations appeared. I posted the illustration before, I post the printed version here. Was surprised to see it as a double page spread.

Persistence Pays Off (Eventually)

2011-08-21T03:38:00.000-07:00

"No matter what you do for a living, nurture your art". (Irwin Greenberg)

I spent most of this week resenting my job, wishing I could stay home and continue to paint, (as well as spend more time with the family). I'm thankful for the paycheck and whenever there is overtime I put in for it because we just need that money, but I dream of being paid to paint and having the space to work comfortably.

The reality is that I need to continue what I do so that I can pay the rent, so I continue to use my lunch hour to paint and when I come home I try to get some work done before I turn in. There are times when I wake up early in the morning, anywhere between 3 and 5 A.M., and get some painting done before I leave for work. I do my best to follow that advice Greenberg gave about nurturing my art no matter what I do.

Persistence and tenacity pays off eventually. For one thing I think the work, (in watercolor), is beginning to look better and my ambition is growing. I purchased three large boards today so that I can paint something larger and more challenging than the work I have been doing.

There was a time a few years back where I just about gave up and went in to what seemed to be just living. I had a job, I took care of my family but I still needed something to define me. I've been drawing since I can remember, it was something I did before I ever realized that some people did it for a living or that there were great masters who were remembered because of their art. Drawing was just what I did and what I became known for. "Do you still draw?"- that's the first question friends and family who I haven't seen for years ask me. I really couldn't give it up. So it’s a matter of how best to use the time that I have to be me while holding on to the job and taking care of my family. So far so good, like I said the work seem to show some improvement and my ambition is growing

My Painting Accepted At A Show

2011-08-14T09:17:00.000-07:00

I have avoided submitting work to competitions for so many years for no better reason than I'm a chicken. Its so easy for me to think about everything that is wrong with the piece and either the corrections I need to make or all the learning I still need to do.
So I had to ignore the things I kept telling myself and just submit give it a try.

I submitted one piece to the Salmangundi Club's annual non-member show and I was happily surprised to have the piece accepted. It doesn't matter that it didn't win anything, I was happy to see it up on the wall alongside a lot of really wonderful art.

Having the work accepted encouraged me to look around at where else I can submit my work, so my chicken attitude is beginning to disappear. Hopefully.

The experience is also helping me to reconsider what I would send to a competition next time around. For one thing the painting was so small it was dwarfed by the other works around it. Next time I will send something that will have a better chance of being noticed. I also think I need to consider painting something that involves a bit more than a portrait, (although there were other portraits in the show), this is more of a growing decision than a showing decision. I need to push myself to make more ambitious paintings that challenge me in areas I haven't really touched yet like a painting with multiple figures or more involving perspective.

In the photo on the left you can see how my little painting was dwarfed by the pieces around it.

The challenge for me right now is to do something more than that quick thing like these two piece on the right and below. Both were done because of the necessity I feel to make time to paint daily. I do this in the hopes that at some point a great idea would come to me and then the challenge would be carrying the enthusiasm to the end.

Drawing The Head From Imagination

2011-08-10T20:12:00.000-07:00

One of the things I love to do is to doodle as many different faces as I can imagine. It's a habit I've had since high school when my first lessons came from the pages of comic books. My favorite artist was John Buscema and I learned a lot from looking at his art.
I remember buying a piece of original comic art by Buscema and on the back page it had a few doodles that he had done for his own amusement. I learned that he had a habit of making these drawings on the back of his comic pages, some were even better than what he had on the front.

There have been a couple of books put out on these sketches and a bunch of articles in magazines like Rough Stuff and Alter Ego I have them all as well as some originals. I poured over these to learn what I can and from this I developed a little exercise that I use to doodle. In Buscema's drawing you can trace the skull underneath. I found the following Buscema drawings on the internet and am using them here as an example.

On the right I traced the shape of the skull over the drawing to show the structure of the drawing. The more I looked as his drawings the more I kept seeing the skull underneath.

Bellow are two more examples of John Buscema's sketches.

These are some sketches I came up with based on the outline of the skull underneath.

Sometimes I would trace over a drawing I made of these outline's to see how many different face's I can come up with, other times I would just lightly indicate the skull and add the features on top of that.

I might ink them or color them or apply washes of gray.

Keeping My Hand Moving/ Trying To Sketch Everyday

2011-08-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

Every now and then I sift through the photos I've taken. I may select one that's not all that clear, a little blurry maybe. I 'm just looking for something to paint in the early morning when I've just gotten up or late at night before I turn in. At other times I've taken photos more deliberately, intending to use them latter.

The painting on the left was from a very blurry photo I had taken in the park. The woman actually walked into the shot I was taking so she was a small part of the over all photo. The trees and shadows were an afterthought. I used a combination of photos and imagination.

The painting bellow it is of my wife. It was done from a photo I took when we were at City Island in the Bronx. I was painting something else at the time but I used the camera when I saw something that I felt would be interesting to do later.

At home when there is some time to paint and no one is available to pose for me these photos come in handy.

The other two sketches are from my time at battery park .I prefer to work this way, from direct observation but I'm grateful for the photos when there is no one available to pose.

All of these were done in my sketch book and all have the same purpose, to keep my hand moving so that when I have the time to do something I really want to paint I can approach it with a bit more confidence than I would've had If I had not taken the time to practice my craft daily.

Caricature Mugs

2011-07-31T13:22:00.000-07:00

Searching for a way to make an extra buck I was discussing with my wife an idea for a mug poking fun at Sarah Palins now famous retelling of Paul Reveres ride.I had the idea of doing what is a little comic strip on a coffee mug. She liked the idea and I thought it would be fun to do so I set aside the weekend to draw the three panels, color and paste them together in photoshop.

After I did the artwork it was a matter of finding how to get this on a mug and sell it. My wife and I looked at a number of websites and decided to go with Zazzle.

make custom gifts at Zazzle

Last Page In My Old Sketchbook/ First Page In My New One

2011-07-24T03:57:00.000-07:00

I rarely get to the last page in my sketchbook for some reason. Once I see that I have just a few pages left I put it down and begin a new sketchbook. It maybe that I was disappointed with my efforts and wanted to close that book and move on. The sketchbook I have been carrying for Spring- Summer 2011 has been a lot of fun to work in since I made a commitment to somehow everyday draw or paint in it.
I actually had three going at the same time- a smaller one in which I sketched on the train and a larger pad of watercolor paper. The one I had just finished I mostly used to paint in Battery Park on my lunch breaks at work.The last page is on the left. It was based on a drawing I did in the smaller pad which I use to sketch on the train.The page before it was my last, (for this sketchbook), of Battery Park.

A hot day with temperatures in the triple digits I had to tear myself from an air conditioned room to sit out in the heat. Luckily I found a good shaded spot. It was still hot but once I started sketching I didn't feel the heat as much till I stopped and had to head back to work.

The first page in a sketchbook always intimidates me. I want to keep at a certain pace where I try to out do what I did last, to keep getting better, so I want to start strong. I decided on doing a self portrait. I used a photo I took of my self for an illustration assignment. I posed as a sinister character in a short story which explains the strong, dramatic lighting and the evil look on my face. I remember that Rembrandt would draw these self portraits with different facial expressions so I didn't think it so odd. I think Rembrandt did those drawings to practice how he would do people's expressions in his crowd scenes.

Painting Watercolor On Plate Finished Bristol Board

2011-07-17T20:48:00.000-07:00

When I attended the High School of Art and Design in New York City I learned to paint in watercolor on plate finished bristol board. The instructor, Irwin Greenberg taught how to paint on this non traditional surface after examining the works of David Levine and Burton Silverman. I believe there were also some students who had taken a class with Burton Silverman and had begun to paint on this paper in Greenberg's class.

The slick surface allows for paint to be lifted up with a brush and clean water so that its easier to push the paint around and make corrections that would otherwise be impossible on traditional watercolor paper.

Its been a long time since I painted on this surface. I had wanted to explore the watercolor medium and make personal choices about the equipment I used. I spent money and time on different brushes, paint surfaces and paints, as well as continuing to learn about the other artist who use the medium. I decided to start from scratch and learn to paint on traditional watercolor surfaces. This gave me a chance to better understand the medium from the place Greenberg, Levine and Silverman would have started from.

There are so many kinds of brushes that behave differently according to the surfaces you use. I like using squirrel hair brushes because they hold so much paint and water and they can make very broad washes as well as fine lines, but they are too soft for rougher surfaces. I began to build up a collection of brushes; sable, squirrel, synthetic. I also tried different surfaces; rough, cold pressed, hot pressed.

Recently I purchased a pad of smooth bristol board, ( I realized later I should have purchased some Strathmore plate finish 5 ply bristol board), and got to play around with the surface again. The result was the painting on the upper left and the self portrait below. I did them so I could get reacquainted with the paint surface.

On the left is the start done with a large squirrel hair mop brush made by Isabey. The right is a detail of the initial lay in.

On the left there is a point in the painting where I began to push the paint around and lift the paint up (not too much lifting because the paper surface wasn't exactly the same as the Strathmore plate finished bristol); below is the finished painting.

From Sketch To Finished Painting

2011-07-12T03:56:00.000-07:00

Sketching outdoors is fun and challenging. Eventually I want to put these bits of information I’ve been collecting together. I actually dream about it. I remember my favorite teacher, Irwin Greenberg, used to tell his students "go to bed thinking about what you’re going to paint the next day". In my mind I want to somehow take the sketches I’ve done and put them together on a large canvas. I began thinking about what I wanted to paint this past weekend. I started on a little watercolor trying to gather up the information from sketches I’ve made on my lunch hour.

I’ve done several sketches of Bowling Green Station. I like it because it’s a great backdrop to arrange figures-coming in and out and walking around the station. Using this sketch as a starting point; references from my digital camera; as well as the quick sketches of people I've been doing the past couple of weeks, I can put together what I hope would be a decent painting.

The sketches on the right were made today. I had made the preliminary sketch below over the past weekend. I will add more figures to the final painting. More importantly, for right now is working out the perspective. I’m going to have to do a lot of straightening out with drawing the structure and the building's but at least I have an idea of what I would like to paint.

Sketching People In The Park/ Developing A Shorthand

2011-07-07T17:05:00.000-07:00

On my last outing in Battery Park I decided to spend that lunch hour sketching the people in the park. This is not an easy thing to do since no one is standing still for me for a great length of time. I’m sketching part from observation and part from memory. This was something I used to do a lot of and felt a little out of practice to start, but it’s a lot of fun to do and I couldn’t get enough of it. It’s a great way of developing a short hand in watercolor, trying to put things down quickly with just a few washes of paint over a quick gesture sketch in pencil.

These first two pages on the left, I sketched in the park; the other two pages I used photos I had taken for reference for other work. Painting out in the park was more fun, however, using the photos still remained a fun exercise. I tried to not get into rendering any details so that the sketches would have the same freshness and spontaneity as the ones I did in the park.

The Quick Watercolor Sketch

2011-07-04T21:01:00.000-07:00

Detail of sketch page

I think I’m going to get a sketchbook just for sketching in City Island, it’s such a great place. It really feels as if I left the Bronx and arrived in some other state- it feels like I’m on vacation. In my previous post I said I planned to make more trips there.

These sketches are very satisfying because I’m not trying to do too much, or trying to be too careful. I take more chances with them since I’m not worried about messing them up. This is something I haven’t done a lot of lately, mostly because I’m just now settling in to the good habits of painting daily and pursuing the things I had let go. These sketches are not only serving in arranging the elements in the picture, but I would also like to bring into a finished piece the same energy and spontaneity that these sketches have. More often something that’s meant to be a finished piece would fall flat because it becomes too controlled and stiff. I like both extremes, a well rendered painting or drawing as well as a confident and loosely rendered image. I have yet to strike a balance, my pictures could be one or the other. I think doing more of these quick sketches would help strike that balance.

Painting From Photos / How To Use Photo Reference

2011-07-02T08:24:00.000-07:00

I started these watercolors at the park. Sometimes it’s hard to pack up and head back to work since I only have my lunch hour to do these. The only reason I was able to carry these park sketches a little further was because I took a few photos with my digital camera and finished these watercolors when I got home. I have nothing against using photo reference, especially photos I’ve taken myself, but it’s not as much fun as having what you are painting in front of you.

Painting from nature you are interpreting your subject in your own shorthand. You are making decisions in what to leave in and what to take out, what emphasize and what to subordinate, how you make your marks on paper, what colors you chose, the things that makes your point of view unique.

When you work from a photo you are actually working with less information because the electronic eye of the camera has already made those decisions, so you are reinterpreting the cameras interpretation. It is better to rely both on memory as well as the photo to get at what you want- using the photo as a reference and not trying to be a copy machine.

The photo references couldn't save this sketch at left because I initially tried to finish it off in that short lunch break. I tried to do to much and I paid for it. But at least I have both the sketch and the photos to use as reference if I want to develop this into another painting.

One Year of Sketching in the Park - More or Less

2011-06-29T18:37:00.000-07:00

'The sketch hunter has delightful days of drifting about among people, in and out of the city, going anywhere, everywhere, stopping as long as he likes- no need to reach any point, moving in any direction following the call of interests. He moves through life as he finds it, not passing negligently the things he loves, but stopping to know them, and to note them down in the shorthand of his sketchbook, a box of oils with a few panels, the fit of his pocket, or on his drawing pad. Like any hunter he hits or misses. He is looking for what he loves, he tries to capture it. It's found anywhere, everywhere. Those who are not hunters do not see these things. The hunter is learning to see and to understand- to enjoy.'

Robert Henri, (The Art Spirit, pg. 17)

It’s been about a year now that I started sketching in Battery Park on my lunch hour. It started off as a few days out of the week and turned into an everyday thing, (weather permitting and an occasional errand as well). There is not a lot I can do in under an hour but it has become the best part of my day. I look back and see that the sketches have gotten better and more ambitious.

It’s hard to notice that there has been much progress because every sketch presents a challenge, especially since I’m trying to do more than I really have time to do. Besides simply trying to improve on my drawing and painting I hope that the sketching will lead to even more ambitious work by way of finished paintings, but I have to make the time for that.

The watercolor at left is a recent sketch the wash drawing on the right is one of the first sketches I made at Battery Park.

RIP Peter Falk / Gene Colan

2011-06-25T08:57:00.000-07:00

Actor Peter Falk and cartoonist Gene Colan both passed away this week. I was only a kid when Columbo aired in the 70's. It was probably about the third season that I began watching it. I remember that I really liked this character that always appeared lost in thought, forgetful, a little sloppy and not to bright, but he fooled everyone. It was like he always pretended to be less than the clever and intelligent police detective that he was. He was so likable. Peter Falk was also an artist, his work can be seen on his website .
Funny thing was that two weeks ago I had picked up the first season of Columbo. I haven't had time to watch it since, this morning I made the time to do so and it was every bit as fun to watch as I remembered.
Gene Colan drew some of the best comics I have in my collection. I especially liked his work when he was paired with Tom Palmer as his inker. I remember when I was a kid visiting my cousin's house, his mother, my aunt, used to get rid of stacks of his comic books by giving it to my brother and I, (I'm sure that's a sore spot for him to this day). When we got home we would pour over the books, I remember the Daredevils he did with Tom Palmer. Latter when I payed for my own books I would pick up Dr Strange, Dracula and, yes, Howard the Duck. I also liked seeing his un-inked pencil work in books like Ragamuffin's and the Nathaniel Dusk series.
Its fun just to think about and remember those days and a great satisfaction to be able to open the pages of a comic drawn by Gene or watch Columbo and still feel the same way.
Thanks for the gifts you gave us Mr Falk and Mr Colan.
I did the drawing at left as a tribute to both. Columbo in Colan's style and I colored it in photoshop on top.

The Sketching Habit / Lifeline

2011-06-22T14:36:00.000-07:00

“Draw everywhere and all the time. An artist is a sketchbook with a person attached.”
Irwin Greenberg

Sometimes I have to remember to tell myself not to try and do to much. I’ve gone through a couple of weeks where sketching is all I can really get done because there’s not enough time to do anything beyond that.

Some day’s that hour lunch break was the only time I had to get anything done. Its important for me to do something everyday, to learn something, to continually strive to be better. Some weeks are easier
than others to find the time, some nights I stay up late and pay for it the next day and because of fatigue I wind up not doing my best work anyway.
I made up my mind a long time ago to hoard my time, to decide what I absolutely must give away and to who and the remaining time belongs to painting, drawing and reading, doing whatever I can to advance what I know. For that reason I do very little visiting or spending time with friends, (I’m not antisocial. I make friends and maintain relationships within a set time but what

time I set aside for painting I don’t give away- except, of course as my family has need of me).

This weekend looks to be a busy one, there are two draws on my time.
1- my son has his little league picnic on Saturday, (my son Jason participated in the challengers little league which was formed for children with special needs, mostly autism. This is his third year participating in the league and I’m very proud of him), and 2- on Sunday it’s off to church in the morning. Both events leave the evening open, so God willing I can get some work done then, but what I’m really looking forward to is the fourth of July weekend where I’m looking forward to more time then. Until then I need to be content with making more entries in my sketch book.

This one I painted based on the sketch above left.

Watercolor Sketches and Video Demos

2011-06-19T03:19:00.000-07:00

Here is the sketch I did at Battery Park

Decided to use my imagination a bit hear. I took one of the sketches I made in Battery Park and used a tree as reference for the exercise on the left. Felt a little more relax doing this since it was mostly playing with the brush. I used an Isabey squirrel hair brush. The brush holds a lot of paint and water and makes beautiful broad washes, lines and marks. I did a video recording of the sketch in progress.

I had so much fun doing that one I couldn't stop there so I did another. I think I should have given a little more care to how I painted the house and fence on this one, but I was happy with the Broad washes of paint on this one and the marks made with a loaded brush.

Painting Outdoors

2011-06-14T20:04:00.000-07:00

I purchased a french folding easel a couple of weeks ago and put to use recently at City Island in the Bronx. Best thing to do with my free time is to paint outdoors. I use my lunch hour to go to the park near work, on my return trip home I stop at the parkway near home and spend sometime painting, and then on the weekend I can take the french easel and paint in oils like in the picture at left.
Now the thing that I have to challenge my self to do is use this data I collected from painting outdoors and transfer that to making finished paintings.

The painting on the upper left is the one that I painted recently. The one on the right is from a trip to City Island I made last year. They are from the same spot the boats are either different or in a different order. I can't wait to go back and pick a different spot. These were fun to do but I guess I'm still looking for something in that area to do that would be less of a sketch, more of a finished piece.

The other two are watercolors done in Battery Park. I only had about 45 minutes on each. I think that these paintings I've been doing also need to be turned into something more finished. So my well spent time outdoors is beginning to lead into more ambitious painting. Now the hardest part about this is making the time and having the discipline to carry it through.

Here is one I put together from some of the other sketches

I made on my lunch hour. Not entirely happy with it but

I will paint some more using the sketches I've made as reference.

Painting Loose or Tight

2011-06-10T02:18:00.000-07:00

Two of these paintings were done outdoors the other one at home, (I don't have a studio, just a little corner in my living room where I keep a drawing table and supplies).
The one I did at home, (left), is a lot tighter, I had the time to render the painting and as a result learn how to handle the medium a little better, (I hope). I also learned about the paper I was using which was Saunders cold press 140lbs. The painting was a lot of fun to do but took a few days to complete because I could only work on it in the mornings before going to work and sometimes in the evening as well.

The other paintings were done more quickly the one on the left middle being done in my sketchbook and took less than an hour. It was done on my lunch hour as I sat in Battery Park. That one is of course a lot loser. I actually spent a few more minutes on that one as I added some touches after I came home, but most of it was painted on the spot. This was a lot of fun too, maybe more fun because of the experience of working outdoors. I like both extremes, the looseness in the one and the tight rendering in the other.

The last one is a tiny little sketch I did while waiting for a bus. I had just got off the train and was transferring to a bus, I don't remember but maybe I was disappointed that I didn't sketch on the train and wanted to do something before I got home. It was done on a small watercolor block that fit in my pocket.

The Habit Of Great Painters /John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer

2011-06-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

“Habit is stronger than will.”.(Irwin Greenberg)

I like to read accounts of how certain artist worked. I like to get an idea of their intensity and their habits when they paint.

On Watercolor:

The following are some observations that were made of the painter John Singer Sargent.

His only piece of painting equipment was a folding tin box of colors. “I find box color very useful and I use a great many different brushes, keeping my fist full when I work.’
(Richard Ormond, Sargent, Harper and Row 1970)

To see one of Sargent's water colours in the making always reminded me of the first chapter of Genesis, when the evening and the morning were the first day, order developed from chaos, and one thing after another was created of its kind. Having chosen his subject and settled himself with the sunshade, hat and paraphernalia all to his liking, he would make moan over the difficulty of the subject and say, "I can't do it," or "It's unpaintable," and finally, "Well, let's have a whack at it."
Perfect absorption would follow, and after what looked like a shorthand formula in pencil was on the block, the most risky and adventurous

technique would come into play, great washes of colour would go on the paper with huge brushes or sponges, and muttering of "Demons! Demons!" or "The devils own!" would be heard at intervals. All the time the picture was growing surely, swiftly; he worked through to the end, only stopping when it was a subject where light and tide changed before he could get it all in, and two "goes" were necessary. (Mary Newbold Patterson Hale)

Adrian Stokes, who was with him in Austria in 1914, described him painting rocks:

His hands seemed to move with the same agility as when playing over the keys of a piano. That is a minor matter; what was really marvelous was the rightness of every touch. I knew those rocks- I have been struggling with them for days… All was rendered, or suggested, with the utmost fidelity. Parts were loaded, parts were painted clear and smooth, every touch was individual and conveyed a quick unerring message from the brain. It was- if you will- a kind of shorthand, but it was magical!

(Richard Ormond, Sargent, Harper and Row 1970)

The following is an observation on Winslow Homer:

"Once into his forties, Homer rarely went anywhere without rag paper, sable brushes and little pans of color. He took his working vacations in places he knew would give him subjects-the New England coast, the Adirondacks, the tumultuous rivers of Quebec, the Florida Keys and the dark palmetto-fringed pools of Homosassa, the bays and whitewashed coral walls of the Bermudas.

Unfortunately Homer was not as sociable as Sargent, a loner, he never entertained company as he worked. Consequently it is harder to find observations of him as he worked

On Being Self Critical

2011-06-02T22:41:00.000-07:00

As a student a t the High School of Art and Design, in Irwin (Greeny) Greenberg’s class, I was introduced to a lot of artist from the past and the present. Inbetween the model posing in Greeny’s paint class he would give a short lecture on some artist using a book of that artist work for illustration. At the time Burt Silverman and Harvey Dinnerstein had books out on their methods of work . I remember Greeny talking about how one of the most important things to note about Silverman’s commentary on his work method was how he critiqued and evaluated his work as he went a long, or as Greeny would put it, “be your own toughest critic”.In Robert Henri’s “The Art Spirit” he tells his students,
“ Get up and walk back and judge your drawing. Put the drawing over near the model, or on the wall, return to your place and judge it. Take it out in the next room, or put it along side something you know is good. If it is a painting put it in a frame on the wall. See how it looks. Judge it. Keep doing these things and you will have as you go along some idea of what you are doing.”This is the attitude that I strive for as I’m working. Someone had suggested that I hate my work, I don’t even know if that would matter, I love doing it and I want to get better at it. There are going to be things that I do that would show progress and that is pleasing, but the climb is still before me. Another favorite quote, this one from Hokusai on his death bed,
“If heaven could only grant me ten more years! Only five and I would have become a real painter.” Also from Greeny,
“The secret ingredient in development is just plain guts - the courage to continue despite disappointments, to grit your teeth and begin again, to examine a failure until it yields its flaws, and then swing back into battle. That's how we develop the confidence that tells us we can work out any answer.”These works that I post here are my continuing struggle with paint, both in technique and expression.

Struggling With Watercolor

2011-05-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

One of the things that is bothering me about my outdoors watercolor is that there doesn't seem to be any place to rest ones eyes. They seem to be about to many things and I think I need to see about toning down all that green. I need to really look at the shapes and values and make them more simple.
In one way I look at these and say to myself I tried all I knew and it doesn't look good, that can be disheartening. On the other hand I'm glad that I have an idea of what I need to change.
I have not visited the museum for some time. It would be a good idea to spend some time looking at some paintings at the Met.

Both these paintings were done from the same spot. Both were fun to do but the resulting paintings were a bit of a let down. Well, if anything I look forward to going out to paint again being conscious of the changes I need to make to my picture making approach.

Small sketch I did today during my lunch hour. I'll be back to
visit this spot looking to see how I can paint this keeping things
simple. Hopefully the weather will be nice again tomorrow.

More Subway Drawings

2011-05-22T18:47:00.000-07:00

Another batch of subway sketches. I have been riding the New York City subways for so long and like any one that has ridden the subways for any length of time have seen many things. I've seen a man get tackled by a passenger because he snatched a woman's chain off her neck, (I latter found out that the man who did the tackling was a friend of mine. He held the man there till the police arrived to arrest the chain snatcher). A man walked up to me very early one morning angrily complaining that while he fell a sleep on the train someone had stolen one show from him. He couldn't understand why only one show was taken. When he finished telling me his story he turned around and limped away.
Another time I was coming home late from work, having done overtime. I sat in a fairly crowded car. At some point four to five young men walked in from one of the other cars, they wore hoods and their lower face's were covered with handkerchiefs. They stood at the front middle and end of the car blocking the doors. Everyone in that car understood that something was about to happen, but before anything could the train pulled in to the next station, the doors open up and everyone exited the car. The train pulled away with only those four or five masked young men in the car.

Those are some of the lighter stories I have. I have seen arguments, fist fights, and people crying openly.
When I sketch the people on these trains I hope that the drawing doesn't just look like a man reading a newspaper or listening to his Ipod, or a woman reading a book. I hope that some individual character comes out to give a sense of life beyond the drawing.

Sketching On Rainy Days.

2011-05-17T18:03:00.000-07:00

Been a rainy week so far, and I'm looking foward to painting more outdoors. I want to do more than spend my lunch hour sketching in the park, but that kind of time is going to have to wait for the weekend and some scheduled days off in the second week of June, (City Island in the Bronx is calling me, look foward to painting there).

Till then I'm going to have to satisfy my self with those lunch brakes and these sketches I've made from a combination of old sketches, (top left), and photo refrence I took at the scene. The result being the painting at left.

Because of the rain I was not able to go out to the park for my lunch break, so again I relied on some photorefrence I had of my Mom, (I'm able to close the door of the printroom I run and have my lunch undisturbed).

There are other paintings I need to get back to but I confess that my enthusiasim tappered off a bit. I'm hoping that as I keep on painting I'll be able to wake up that entusiasim again.

Painting Through A Tuff Week

2011-05-13T21:42:00.000-07:00

There were so many distractions this week it was difficult to keep up with some of the projects I started the week before. Family came first so what work I could complete were a couple of sketches in the park and the self portrait in gouache at left which I stayed up late into the night to do. I'm thankful for that lunch break I spend in the park almost everyday, weather permitting.
No matter whats going on I try to continue to work on something. To take the time to do what is a big part of who I am. I don't know why but painting outdoors always makes me feel better for the experience. whether what I do turns out good or bad the experience of painting outdoors is always is a calming experience. The only difficulty being that I need to avoid calling attention to myself, it really is a private time for me, a chance to get away and be me.

Sketching / Keeping Busy

2011-05-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

I have one hour to sketch during my lunch brake. I run to Battery park and try to find a quiet spot with something interesting to paint. There's a building there that is being renovated that I think has a lot of character. The first day I went to sketch it, (left), I forgot to bring my pencil so I sketched it in watercolor with no preliminary drawing. One hour was not enough time so I thought I would come back again, (with a pencil). The next day it was a lot cooler and very windy. The wind nearly blew my sketch book out of my hand. I had to fight to get something on paper. I did as best I could and I touched it up latter with opaque water color. I was not satisfied. The next day it rained, the day after that I was out there again. The resulting painting was better but I'm still not happy. I'll be back.

This was the second sketch I did. I took some photos so that I can add to it when I got back home but I didn't want to try not to lose the feeling that this was sketched out doors. I wasn't happy with it.

I went back again. I feel better about this one but I'm still not satisfied. I don't think its the subject but the way I'm using the medium. I'm looking at this as a way to define what I want my watercolors to look like. As a result I come home to my books I've purchased over the years to look at the watercolors of David Levine, John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, Dean Mitchell, Joseph Zbukvic to see what I can learn from the painters I admire.

I'm sure I can blame my dissatisfaction at the drawing of the subject as well or maybe just not thinking out ahead of time how the subject sits on the page. Either way, more reason to continue to try and solve this, there is so much for me to learn from the experience and I still find the subject interesting.

I also had time this week to keep busy either sketching myself or people on the train or from my imagination. It was really about trying to do something everyday till I can get back to the painting of my son I was working on last week. The only real time I have for those oils is the weekend- so that's what I'm going to do after I finish here.

One Painting Finished Another One Started

2011-05-02T16:20:00.000-07:00

I was able to finish this portrait of my wife over the weekend. The kids have grown up enough that I feel its safe to lay out my oils. Bellow is a map of the painting in progress. I've never really made a drawing of a painting before I started painting, other than a quick thumbnail sketch of what I intended to paint. I always use to go directly to the painting. I think having done the drawing helped me a lot with this painting, having solved the drawing problems to the best of my ability before hand I had a plan as to how I was going to paint the portrait.

The top left and bottom right were copied from a scanner the other two shots were taken with a digital camera since the paint surface was still wet. Since I did the careful drawing the painting problems were more about color and paint application.
The drawing is graphite on paper and is larger than the finished painting which was done on a small panel.

Here's another painting I started in between the drying time of the other portrait. This was after one day and it is a portrait of my son in his little league uniform.

Springing Forward!!!

2011-04-29T08:20:00.000-07:00

Start of the spring and my son (left) is ready for baseball. A drawing I struggled with and intend to turn into a portrait of my son in his little league uniform. I'm still working on the small portrait of my wife as well and will post that shortly.

In the mean time with the warm weather coming in I can go outdoors again to paint and sketch. This week I've made trips to a park near my job on my lunch break. I really look forward to plan trips to City Island in the Bronx to paint near the water. Last year I've used my vacation days and off days at work for this, I'll probably do the same this year.

These two sketches were made at Battery Park with a Pentel Brush pen.

These sketches were also made with the brush pen. I didn't try using

a pencil to rough in the drawing first because I felt going straight to the

black ink would force me to work harder at being accurate, (could use a lot more

work on that, but it was fun).

A Recent Illustration Assignment

2011-04-26T04:17:00.000-07:00

The finished Illustration minus the beards.

Recently I completed an illustration for Guide Magazine. A christian magazine for children . The story they wanted me to illustrate took place in the old testament, I thought this would be fun because of all those years of collecting Savage Sword of Conan magazine I could draw upon that and make a fun illustration.
Here is the description of the what the Art Director wanted me to illustrate:

"Through the keyhole" closeup of the two men, Balak king of Moab and Balaam, looking slyly at each other. Faces only-
mainly their eyes and mouths are visible, with a sinister/devious look. Dramatic lighting from underneath. The view doesn't have to be through an actual keyhole, but should give the idea that you are looking in on their plotting. The faces should be appropriate to Bible times (Semitic/Middle Eastern look), but it doesn't need to be obvious that they are in Bible times attire.

The comp left was done after I was asked to take the beards off the the characters to make it less obvious that they were biblical characters. Looking back at the description I realized I totally missed the dramatic light from underneath part, which I wish I didn't because that would have added to the illustration. No harm seeing that the Art Director didn't mind.

In the earlier comps I was trying to recapture some of the flavor of the type of drawings done for the Conan magazines by John Buscema ,(like the ones done for Savage Sword issues 16-19). I don't know if those turbans looked right though, or that anyone in that region wore them at that time. You see them so much in old master biblical paintings but I left them out eventually.

Here I was asked to do a close up of the two characters. They still had beards which I was asked to remove as explained above.

This is the final Illustration. I got an email
asking me to but the beards back,
which I was happy to do because
I thought the illustration looked
better with it

Pen and Ink and Digital Color

2011-04-19T04:58:00.000-07:00

A while back I wrote and Illustrated a story for my son when he began to develope a love for dinosaurs. That love has since then disappearded but it awoke the kid in me and I continued to draw and learn about those ancient animals. The learning part is hardest because there are a lot of knowledgable people out there who are ready to pounce when they see a badly drawn dinosaur, (and I have a lot to learn),but I do the best that I can with what I know and continue to add to that.

These illustrations for that book were essentialy pen and ink drawing that were digitaly colored, I think that they work either way.

More From My Sketchbook

2011-04-16T07:19:00.000-07:00

Another crop of drawings from a few of my sketchbooks. Sometimes I try to recall someone I saw on my train ride to and from work or someone or something I saw during the day and try to draw them. Of course I am also totally making it up. I make a lot of pencil drawings this way and come back to it a day or two latter and ink them with a brush pen or pitt pen.

These are self caricatures

Art Student Days

2011-04-13T07:07:00.000-07:00

I watched a film recently called Local Color. Its the true story of a young man struggling to learn about how to paint like the great artists he admired. He wanted to learn how to paint as a representational artist in a time where it was considered old fashioned. He met an old man who was a great Russian impressionist who, although initially he was reluctant, became his mentor.
So much of this movie reminded me of my school days. In high school, (the High School of Art & Design), I was extremely lucky to come across the instructors I did- Irwin Greenberg, Max Ginsberg and Irv Docktor. I learned about painting in oils, watercolor, gouache, pastel and drawing in graphite, charcoal, pen and ink. I learned about the history of art and about classical illustrators. It was the best art school I've ever been in. Then I went on to college, Parsons School of Design at a time, as in the movie, where pursuing representational work was frowned upon, (as a matter of fact another film comes to mind, Art School Confidential. It was supposed to be a comedy but a lot of that was so true to life). I remember I would always buy books on artist and I especially liked the work of John Singer Sargent. When one of the instructors saw me constantly looking at the book on Sargent she came to me and said something like, "I see you really like Sargent". I said yes and then the next class session she handed me a xerox copy of an article on Sargent that was very negative and compared him to a modern artist who the writer felt was the superior artist. She gave me about three more such articles at the start of three separate sessions. I think at some point I said no thank you. Then I switched my major from illustration to fine art hoping things would get better but actually they got worse. Not all the instructors were bad, some were very good, but if you wanted to learn classical painting it just wasn't being taught back then or it was very hard to find and not in the colleges. Nowadays I see that there are a lot of places that teach classical painting and that's great for a lot of young artist and leaves me a little envious wishing I had that when I didn't have the responsibility of a family, (though I'm very happy to have my wife and two kids thank you).
The works that I post here are things that I did around this time, (the time I was in college). I like looking at the stuff I did back then because it was a time when I dreamed about doing great things, It's easy to get discouraged and think that I'm knocking on 50 and I'm not where I wanted to be. It somehow helps me to think to give it one more day, or to give it another try. I can still dream.

How I Paint A Caricature

2011-04-09T17:13:00.000-07:00

Got to get back to the oil painting I started last weekend. I was side tracked by an illustration assignment and an interview I watched with Donald Trump. In it he all but declared that he would run for president. The interview gave me the idea for this caricature and I spent the day working on it. While I worked on it I took some screen shots to show the progression. The painting was done in Photosop but I scanned in and used the mixed media drawing on the left as an under drawing.

The drawing was scanned at 600dpi

I created a layer that worked as a palette where i placed some color that I would use on the painting. I would simply select the color with the dropper. I might modify it by making it grayer, (cooler), lighter, darker, etc. I also created another layer at about 45% opacity where I would build the painting slowly.

I try not to have too many layers. I usually work on one and when I 'm satisfied with it I merge the layer with the one underneath and create another, reduce the opacity,(45-60%), and add color like I would add glazes in an oil painting.

I continue to work down refining and correcting as I go along, also adding a background color.

The finished piece.

Digital Freedom

2011-04-06T05:55:00.000-07:00

A few years back I made a terrific investment and purchased a Cintiq tablet. Since then my computer has become a sketchbook. It made it easier for me to get into digital work because I draw directly on to the monitor with a pressure sensitive pen. Touch screens are nice but we don't write with our fingers, I wish they would make affordable PC tablets that use a stylus.Anyway, I already knew a bit about photoshop but having this tablet freed me to really get comfortable and creative with the program. First I got into comic book type coloring then I just started painting in photoshop.

I have to admit that I would much rather work with traditional materials and have something other than a virtual piece of work in the end, but this ain't bad either. Especially since I spend a lot of time in front of a computer, its nice to be be able to start drawing or painting any time I want.

This series of screen captures show the progression from
line art to color typical of how one would color a comic book.
I bring into photoshop as 600dpi on a transparent layer and palce
layers underneath where I color the different elements.

Here is the color underneath the main figures.

The line and the color combined.

The background is on a different layer.

The video bellow is a sketch I did on a sleepless night. I used one of the many subway sketches I've made over the years and colored it using Photoshop on my Cintiq.

The Worst Thing About Weekends

2011-04-02T23:35:00.000-07:00

The worst thing about the weekend is that it's over to soon. There is so much that I want to do, somethings I never get around to, and there is just not enough time. This particular weekend I wanted to work on a painting I started as well as complete an illustration job that is due Monday. I got the illustration assignment done spent a great deal of time painting today but I didn't give enough time to my family this weekend so I'm going to have to use tomorrow to make up for that, then its back to my 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. That's why my weekends mean so much to me, I try to cram a whole weeks worth of art in two days. Wish I had more time.
The painting of my son on the upper left was done because I refused to go to sleep. I stayed up late into the night to continue painting

The other two pieces here are the beginning stages of a painting I was doing of my wife. The first one was after the first day of painting.

I finally felt safe working in oils again since my kids are now 9 and 11.

This one was photo graphed as it sat on my easel today, still wet. I've got a way to go yet with this one, but its going to have to wait for next weekend.

Inspiration - Getting An Idea

2011-03-27T04:16:00.000-07:00

I hate it when I don't have an idea as to what to work on. Most times I continue to sketch daily until an idea comes to me. Other times I would pick up a book and sketch out images from the story.
The surest way I know to get an idea is to keep drawing and keep observing and life will reveal something that will inspire me. On one particular day my wife came home from having her hair done and upon seeing her I wanted to do a number of portraits of her, one in profile, another a three quarter view and the last I would paint head on. These drawings I started as warm ups. The problem I have to solve now is (1) to find the time,(even worse than not having an idea is having one and not having the time to turn it into a painting before the inspiration goes away), and (2) not let my interest wane.

The drawing on the left is obviously the same pose as the one above it. Initially I was dissatisfied with the drawing and began the one above, but after finishing that one I returned to the first drawing and began to make corrections and felt better about the drawing.

This last drawing I did on toned paper I included touches of gouache so I can indicate the difference in the light on the right and left of her.

Digital Dinosaur Paintings

2011-03-19T05:02:00.000-07:00

I was so used to drawing and painting with traditional media that its hard for me to believe I had taken up digital media as well. But when some new media is presented to me I almost always give it a try. I bought a couple of tablets before and started getting used to digital work but when I got a Cintiq I really began to enjoy working digitally. Like any media there are positives and negatives The biggest positive for me is that I'm in front of a computer everyday, I can always make time to do something, there's no set up or clean up..
This past week I started working on some dinosaur paintings in Photoshop. Just doing a little every day got me through two paintings.

The first painting I did was based on this sketch I had done a while ago. I had scanned the drawing from my sketch book and brought it into Photoshop to paint over.

This is the finished painting, which while I think there were some things I could have done better, I was pretty happy with. I was encouraged enough to try another painting...

For the next one, bellow, I started with a sketch I made in Sketch book Pro which I again brought into Photoshop.

My Muse

2011-03-16T03:20:00.000-07:00

My wife looks over my shoulder from time to time when I am painting or on the computer. One time I was looking through a folder on my computer where I save my work, looking at the thumbnails my wife jokingly remarked,"I guess I'm your muse".
There were at least 15-20 images of paintings I've done of her.
The next easiest model other than my self has been my wife. She is almost always ready and willing to sit for a painting or strike a pose. Unlike our kids I don't always need to rely on a photograph because she has the patience to sit still and I never get tired of painting her.

It helps to have someone who is supportive, (even though she’s not crazy about my dinosaur stuff), and understands that this, (art), is something I do because it’s a part of me I can’t ignore.

A Few Illustration's I've Done

2011-03-12T05:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I got a packet from the Review and Herald. In it were two issues of Guide Magazine which contain several illustrations I had done for them. It was very nice to see the illustrations published.
I don’t get to do many illustrations, but every now and then I do get an assignment. Not enough to make a living off of yet, though I’m glad that I get repeat business.

This was the illustration used for the above cover of the
March 2011 issue of the magazine. It was also used as a
chapter illustration in the magazine.

Chapter Illustration for the same story above, 'Not Forgotten',
by Patti Emanuele.

This was one of my first illustration assignments.
Done for Bloomberg Market Magazine.

Another caricature for Bloomberg Market
Magazine

More Doodles, Pen and Ink

2011-03-10T03:45:00.000-08:00

More doodles because life has got me to busy to do anything else right now. Wish I had time to do something more than these sketches . At least it keeps me warmed up for when I do get the time to work.

Doodling and Sketching “Cause There’s not Enough Time To Do Anything Else.

2011-03-06T10:26:00.000-08:00

I don’t know if there’s a difference between doodling and sketching . If there is a difference I’m sure its what ever one chooses to apply to it. To me Its drawing what ever I can because I don’t have enough free time to do what I want, or maybe its having fun with the time that I have. Some doodles are more elaborate than others, some are made because I wanted to try out a new brush, pen or pencil, ink or watercolors. There are times where I take these doodles and continue to work them up, sometimes making a more finished work. Sometimes I do them on my lunch break, sometimes I do them when I should be working. Other times I take my sketchbook to bed and make a few doodles before I fall asleep. If I cant do anything else that day or even if I did manage to paint that day this is still what I do everyday.

This guy shows up a lot.
At one time I was thinking of doing a comic book
out of Henry V by Shakespeare. This is
the narrator, chorus.

Painting In Gouache 2

2011-02-27T18:47:00.000-08:00

A couple of posts ago I gave a very brief history about the history of gouache and also posted a few images showing a work in progress. I'll mention the materials use here for one reason. Although the use of the medium dates back to the middle ages and has been used in outstanding works of art by artist from the renaissance to the present, there are people who confuse it with poster colors or some cheap student grade paints.
There are many quality brands sold in art supply stores. It is either sold as Designers gouache or artist gouache, read the labels for information about light-fastness so that you do not purchase any fugitive colors. I use mostly Windsor and Newton Designers Gouache and Holbein Gouache, (not Acryla Gouache). I make it a habit of reading the label before I purchase the colors.
The brushes are the same brushes I use for watercolor. Another habit I have is to pick up some brushes every now and then from the art supply store. I have a bunch of sable, squirrel and synthetic brushes that I use for both gouache and transparent watercolor.
Paper has become very important. I use a heavy weight rag paper with a slight tooth. A lot of people like bristol board or illustration board, but for me the paint can lift off those surfaces as you continue to layer the colors. I prefer paper that holds the paint better like hot press watercolor paper or a rag drawing paper.

The painting on the left was done on a Canson Mix Media 98lb. paper. The surface seemed to absorb that first layer of paint and allow for the next layers to either lay on top or be mixed with the color underneath. This made it easy for me to smooth out the transitions by either mixing the paint on the surface or dry brushing over the previous layer. That is pretty much the way I like to work in this medium. The gentleman is a coworker of mine who wore the African outfit as a part of a Black History month celebration on my job.

This painting of my son was painted in the same
way as described above.

The following are some sites I have found on gouache.

http://www.virtualgouacheland.blogspot.com/
http://krobbins4art.tripod.com/id7.htm

Painting All Day Long

2011-02-23T17:05:00.000-08:00

Thanks to my son being home from school this week for mid winter recess, (though I do not remember ever getting a notice about it), and my wife needing to go to an appointment I took the day off from work. So I painted all day long stopping to put together the videos I include in this post, playing some video games with my son and fixing his lunch, (my son is 9).
The sketch on the left is of a co-worker. I had planed to make a gouache portrait of a photo I took of him. I used the time I had today to make this sketch in Photoshop. it is this first video I include here.

This dinosaur concept sketch, also done in photoshop, was based on a pencil sketch I had done on my lunch hour the previous day. I wanted to show the Trex as a pack hunter.It is in two parts.

Part 1

Part 2

Painting In Gouache

2011-02-21T05:30:00.000-08:00

I don’t see many tutorials on painting in gouache. As a matter of fact I see a lot of misunderstanding about the medium. The use of gouache dates back to the middle ages when artists added white to watercolors to make it opaque. In the renaissance it was used by Albrecht Durer, his famous watercolor “The Large Turf” was actually painting in gouache. It was also used by Rubens, Van Dyck , Poussin,Turner, Degas, Sargent, Sorolla, the Pre-Raphaelites and many other Masters. Yet, today it can be excluded from watercolor competitions. Some watercolorists consider using opaque white with watercolor a sin regardless of the fact that some of those great watercolorists they hold up are listed above.
The shame of this confusion is that what gets lost is that the art is in the image not the medium.
That being said, I see so few tutorials on painting in gouache and very few books on this medium even though its been used by many great artist and illustrators.

Here I offer some images which show the progression of a gouache portrait.

First I started out by making a
charcoal drawing of the subject.
I wasn't entirely happy with this
drawing, and as a matter of fact it
was my second attempt. How it did
help was in my coming up with a
plan as to how I would simplify the
image in the painting.

I drew this outline on the

paper I would paint on and

I also made a tracing of this
drawing in case I would need
to reestablish some information
I painted over.

Here in my initial lay in
I try to keep the forms simple
and cover the whole page
so I can begin to work in
opaque.

I work pretty much the same way
I would work in oils, trying to establish
the big shapes and let them lead me to
the more specific details, working from
dark to light.

I used both a loaded wet brush
and a dry brush as I layered the
paint and worked towards final image.

Here is the finished painting. I continued
to refine the image with a dry brush,
smoothing out transitions all over the face and
correcting the drawing. These are increasingly
subtle changes since all the big areas have
been planed and worked on from the beginning.

Most of what I’ve painted in the past few years has been in both opaque and transparent watercolor. I set aside oils 11 years ago because I did not want that medium around my children, (but I do miss painting in oils). Today my kids are older but I don’t have the space to work in oils, watercolors are faster to set up and put away. They are also more portable and gouache allows me to paint in a way similar to oils.

Painting and Drawing My Parents

2011-02-13T21:23:00.000-08:00

I try hard to be self critical when it comes to my work, but I try also not to fall in to the trap of comparing my work with someone else's because then I would easily become discouraged. Sometimes though I find myself liking some of the things I did not because I think it's great work but because of the experience of having done it. It was fun, or I painted someone I really care about and preserved a memory that I can look back at. That's the way I feel when I look at the paintings I've done of my parents. My father is gone now, he passed away at 91 years old. He was born in 1916. I only wish I had done more of him. I have some oil sketches and various drawings of him but the charcoal drawing I include here very much reminds me of him.
My mother is still going strong, she was born in 1923, this February 17th she will be 88. I painted and drew here often, she sat for me very patiently since my High School days when I started learning to draw from life. I never tire of painting her and each work is a memory, some done from life and others from photos, but I remember the experience of painting them. It would be nice to get that across in everything I do, the idea that It's not just paint but an experience, a memory. It may not be your own but maybe having had similar experience's it can trigger some of your own memories about your own experience.

This drawing was done in 1983, my senior year
in High School. I found the old sketchbook
a short time ago.

This drawing was also done when I was
in High School. I wanted to paint her
sewing near a window, ( I was
thinking of those Vermeer paintings
where the subject is posed near a
window)

Oil sketch of my Dad, also from
my High School days. He rarely
sat for me but he was always very
patient and accomidating on the
occasions when he did.