Daily Painting Practice - 30 Self Portraits - Day 29 1/2

I wanted to do something special and fun with the last painting in this series. I had this idea of including a few of my art heroes in the painting with me.

The first step was to get the thought transferred to paper. This sounds easy, but I always have a difficult time with this step. I get the idea in my head picture perfect ( at least I think it is) until I go to sketch.... then reality takes over and the sketches barely make sense to anyone but me. It's good practice to do these anyway because it helps you visualize problems with the idea.

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The Last Self Portrait and a Few Friends
Day 29 1/2
work in progress
11"x14"
oil on masonite

Quite an improvement from the sketches right? If you don't recognize the boys they are, from left to right, Rembrandt, Rockwell,Homer and Whistler. And of course me and the tea cup.

You really need to break down the process into small steps to get the idea to this point. Here's a few of the steps :
1. First, I start taking lots and lots of photos of just me in different poses. This triggers a few ideas for the composition and lighting.

2. Decide which artists to include from the dozens of favorites. Don't worry about hurting their feelings if they don't make the final four. A few I selected but ended up not using included Van Gogh, Edwin Tarbell, Andrew Wyeth and Cecilia Beaux. It would have been nice to include a woman artist. But time and effort and space knocked them all out of the picture.

3. I sketched myself and the studio pieces first on tracing paper then sketched each figure on separate pieces of tracing paper so I could move them around. It would be easier in Photoshop but I am not fluent in photo editing.

4.Once the figures are placed transfer them all to the final surface and start painting. I am starting with a burnt umber under painting.

I'll post the final stages at some later point. Now I'm ready to paint something other than me. I hoped you enjoyed the series.

Daily Painting Practice - 30 Self Portraits - Day 29

Face the Music
Self Portrait Day 29
10"x10"
pencil on paper

It's almost over! Having only two more self portraits to do in this series, I thought, that I had not tried in the previous 28 attempts to do a profile. After completing this one I realized I might be wrong. Day 3 or 8 or day 16 could actually be considered profiles... But this one was the only one I did on purpose. I hope you like it.

I have one more self portrait left in me. After that, I don't think I will look in the mirror for a long time.

Daily Painting Practice - self portrait day 28

This past fourth of July weekend we went on a mini vacation with my son and daughter-in-law to the wine country of Eastern Missouri. The landscape there is just beautiful. Since I was the designated driver, I hung outside the tasting rooms of the vineyards a lot and took photos or painted. Here's one scene I couldn't pass up. The bee hives caught my eye so I parked my self safely to the side ( or so I thought) and started painting.
These were very active hives and I was fine until.... You see that car approaching just over my shoulder? Bees don't like cars. Specifically the exhaust trail which lead them straight to me. Just after the car went by, out came a rather upset little bee who either was an art critic or was just angry because the car interrupted her fly way. Anyway, two seconds after this photo was taken Ms. Bee came after me and stung me right on the tip of my nose! Ouch!
I did the ritual get me out of here dance. High stepping and swinging my arms like a crazy person, trying to swat the darn thing away. I frantically threw everything into my backpack and jumped in the car. Luckily for me, my always be prepared for any situation/wife had her pair of tweezers and got the stinger out. She also happened to have baking soda ( don't ask) which takes the pain of the sting away.

This is as far as I got with the painting. You can still see the grass stuck in the paint.

Artist's Hands
Self portrait No.28
8"x10"
oil on canvas board

I received some great news just prior to the weekend. I have a new gallery representing my work. I am so happy to say that the( desChamps Gallery) in Lambertville , New Jersey is now showing my paintings. This is exciting because I grew up in N.J. and lived in Hunterdon County for a while as well.

Daily Painting Practice - 30 Self Portraits - Day 27

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The Artist's Hands
Self Portrait - Day 27
8"x10"
oil on masonite

My director of new ideas/wife suggested I paint my hands as a self portrait. She says, and I agree, that a person's hands can tell as much about a person as their face.

Posing just the hands for a painting requires a bit of trial and error. The trick is to not make it look like the arms were chopped off the body like a piece of butchered meat. I wanted to experiment with the idea before actually doing a painting but as I played around , this composition stuck with me.

It is in a very rough stage. Not close to being finished. But I like the pose. I started on a dark pre-toned board. So I was painting the lights out of the darks. This was a lot of fun. I may explore this idea a lot more in the future.

Daily Painting Practice - 30 Self Portraits - Day 26

The Emerging Artist at Work
Self Portrait Day 26
9"x14"
oil on gessoed cardboard

I have this wonderful chair in the back of my studio that I use to sit back and review the progress of my paintings. It is a magic chair. It has the power to cast a sleeping spell on me anytime night or day. Of course if the stereo is playing something sweet and the tea has just been made. I'm gone.

Daily Painting Practice - 30 Self Portraits - Day 25

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Picking Strawberries with Grandpa
Self Portrait - day 25
9"x12"
oil on canvas board

Does this count as a self portrait? I think it does. Besides, I couldn't resist painting him helping me pick the strawberries. He was a very selective harvester, only selecting the largest berries... and of course he had to have one in each hand. He ate them like they were apples. Soon after these few strawberries were devoured his shirt was redesigned with berry juice.

Daily Painting Practice- 30 self Portraits - Day 24

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Studio Chores
Self Portrait Day 24
5"x7" oil on canvas board

Sorry about the small size of the image but my photo editor has decided to quit working...either that or it is punishing me for not posting as much as I should. This is what I do in the studio when not posting.... not really, but I needed to paint something. I have a few ideas left to get me through to the goal of 30. However, as you can see, I am running out of gas....

Daily Painting Practice - 30 self portraits in 47 days and counting

Just another rainy day in the studio. I made my semi annual trek to the art store to re-supply. I usually take two big shopping days per year re-supplying the studio, with occasional side trips for special purchases. This August in addition to teaching a daily painting workshop at the Joslyn Art Museum, I will be doing a once a week, for 4weeks, plein air pastel class at the Lauritzen Gardens in Omaha for the Joslyn.
As you are well aware, I am not a natural plein air painter... add pastel into the equation and I am really out of the comfort zone. However, nothing is gained by not trying new things.

The photo above is me sitting in the studio trying to come up with a way to make my own sanded panels for pastel. I found a recipe for Marble dust and gesso ( here). I'm trying it out on everything. Canvas boards, mat boards and watercolor paper. I'll let you know how it works.
You can tell I'm faking it because there's no paint on the brush. This was going to be my self portrait today but I decided against it. I placed this old...unfinished... painting of a dog out on the easel because it matched my shirt.
I have a bad habit of mixing paint on top of previous mixed paint on my palette. This can make the colors all start to look the same gray color or like mud. Instead of progress photos of random stages of the painting, I thought I would show you stages where I made myself stop and clean the palette. The practice of cleaning off your palette and getting new fresh color is one I learned (again) at a painting demo at the OPA show last month.

This was stage one. Underpainting blocked in. Wipe off the palette, get up wash your hands, put on another music CD.
This is stage two. Half-tones developed ready to think and add details.... wipe of palette, put out fresh paint if needed, get up wash hands, make some tea.

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Sitting Back
Self Portrait - Day 23
9"x12"
oil on canvas board

Stage 3- sit back and enjoy!
Doing so many self portraits gives you an opportunity to examine yourself and to see yourself in new ways. Here's one view I would never see of myself.... "Where did that bald spot on the back of my head come from?"

Sometimes I get discouraged and need to sit back from a painting. That's just the time my director of studio morale /wife always manages to plant a kiss in that spot.

Daily Painting Practice - 30 Self Portraits in more than 30 Days

Here I am, staring at myself again. That's not a mirror that's my computer screen. I like drawing from the computer because I can edit the photos, enlarge them and turn the color off and keep it black and white. I am doing this one with an old quill pen and some india ink.
Rembrandt did more self portraits than any artist I know of. He didn't use a computer or photographs, just a mirror. . He was all about practice and experimentation. I wonder if this was before or after washing his hair?
Another favorite artist and superb draftsman, Albrecht Durer. I wonder if he was thinking, " Nothing to draw today, might as well try another self portrait...". He did this at about age 23.

I often think of the conditions they painted under. No camera, no Blick Art supply store down the road, no computer, no Borders Book stores to sit in for hours to look at all the art magazines. They just had pen and paper and a mirror.

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Here's Looking at You Kid
Self Portrait - Day 22
pen and really old India Ink on paper

I haven't used a quill pen and india ink for 30 years.... Wait a minute! I think I was using this same bottle of ink back in art school.

Daily Painting Practice - 30 Self portraits in roughly 30 Days - Day 21

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Keep Your Chin Up
Self Portrait - Day 21
5"x7"
oil on canvas board

Can you tell I am getting rather tired of painting myself.... "Who thought of this exercise anyway?" I'm getting near the end and boy am I ready to try other subjects. Only 9 more...I don't think I can make it....I'll have to keep my chin up and get through it otherwise the last nine will look like this one.