Snakes on a Plane

I'm currently working on a large 42" x 65" oil + acrylic painting for my Life Painting class with Professor Reed. It's an allegorical painting, one that has lots of messages, only to be revealed by long stares and pondering.

      The picture to the left is where this painting stood quite early in the process. Alongside the painting I am also working on a video of the different stages this painting has been through on its journey from blank canvas to layered colors.

    There has been a lot of exploration on this piece. I have overcome thinking of these paintings as being delicate and that has really helped me make bold decisions and not be so tentative about things. I've painted over things, sanded paint away, painted and repainted the same elements many times over. The canvas is much more hardy than paper and can take a great deal more abuse.

On the in-class side of Life Painting we are on day 5 of an 8 day pose that includes two models, standing next to each other. One of them holds an egg, the other a cube, and they share a string between their open hands. I've been working on a glazed painting of them and today at 2 I will be headed up to work on that some more. The in-class paintings, the 2 we've done and the 1 we are working on now,  are turning out pretty well. I am not too excited about their end result but I have learned an amazing amount about approaching the canvas to paint a model, the underlying structure, the importance of line, composition, and anatomy, and the reflectivity of color. I have been unable to make what I have learned really shine in the in-class paintings but all that experimenting is really paying off in the out-of-class Allegorical painting.

I'm also working on some small portraits of the people I'm surrounded by here in Savannah. I painted Kelsea's portrait yesterday, it was quite successful in terms of color mixing. I ended up bringing all the wrong colors down to the house yet I was still able to manage pulling of a nice skin tone that really suited her. I can feel my color mixing skills improve every time I start squeezing tubes of paint. 

It's getting easier to see the world as it is and not how I think it was or should be. And I'm not talking specifically about painting. Improve in one area, improve in all areas. I believe that to be very true. The skills I'm learning in painting that help me differentiate the rivers of shadow and temperature of the lights are seeping into the social qualities of my life. The ability to exaggerate small perceptual changes has been helpful not just for creating an illusion on a canvas but also for interacting with the variety and depth behind

The Dining Room

Yesterday Kelsea and I got quite productive and started hanging up pictures on the wall behind our dinner table. We put up all the paintings I've done that include people, and we were going for an old-fashioned wall full of family photos, but paintings instead. As I paint more I'll hang them up and soon this wall will be too stuffed to fit any more. But here is what it looks like now.

I got to say, it really pulls the room together. :)

Also, I added some photos of the newer paintings and their over in the "Artwork" section of this blog.

On a personal note, things are always interesting. Classes are going really well! I'm taking Life Painting (with my favorite professor, Sandra Reed), Computer Arts Class, and Art History II. Today we covered the 15th century and I'm quite excited for next class when we well be talking about Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael.

The spring heat is slowly eating away at the cold here, its a beautiful day, and I'm quite excited for the weekend. I have lots of fun to do this weekend. The awesome part about my fun is that at the end of the weekend it all gets graded! Whodathunkit! 

Art Art Art

This weekend was Open Studio at Alexander Hall. Alexander Hall was at one time an old supermarket that SCAD converted into classrooms for the undergraduates on the first floor and twenty-five or so 10x10 studio rooms for the graduate students on the second floor. On Saturday night all the doors were open and the art was on the walls and there were fancy refreshments going around and everyone got a good look at some really fantastic art. You weren't allowed to take photos but I snapped a few. I actually took allot of photos (shhh...) But I'm only going to post a very very very few select on here. The studios were lots of fun to see, almost as fun as the art itself. The terms are you can do whatever you like to your 10x10 cube as long as at the end you return it to white walls and account for all the outlets. Needless to say there some pretty interesting set ups and it was informative to see what tools they were using, and how they were managing the space. Allot of the studios mirrored the art that was displayed on their outside walls. The same color schemes from a painting could be found splattered on the wall or smeared on a palette.


I'm currently working on two pieces again. One for Painting, the other for Drawing III. I'm posting some photos of some of the recent pieces I have finished while they were still in progress. I photographed them finished in the studio yesterday but I have yet to put them up here.

Hope everyone to be well, and have fun preparing for Thanksgiving. I've been looking up different dishes to make for this Thanksgiving dinner and I think it's going to be pretty spectacular.

You may like to visit this website. He's a graduate student named Will Penny who does some really interesting, abstract, and aesthetically logical pieces. The marlin I photographed was done by him.

Bye!