Continued Movie Portraits

 

 

In the mid-2000s I started painting again after a hiatus that began around 1998. One of the first projects I created was a series of larger format acrylic paintings based on portraits of actors from the past.

The style of these paintings was a chance to experiment with a more colorful, graphic, and stylized execution from my usual style. I worked with bolder colors, blocky shapes, and thin outlines.

The first three were female actors: Gloria Grahame, Tamara Dobson, and Veronica Lake. I decided to shift to a set of male actors next. The first one up was Robert Conrad and then Oliver Reed.

The Robert Conrad piece was started way back in 2009 as a more traditionally rendered portrait in oil. At some point in the early under-painting phase, I brushed in some colored shapes following the planes of his face and then... I stopped painting again.

Cut to this year. I returned to my art in a chapter of life. Finishing up the Robert Conrad portrait had long been on my list of lingering projects. I got back to it.

The learned lesson here is that acrylic paint is a much better choice to work with rather than oil.

Buster Keaton - Portrait Study

'Buster' 8" x 8" - oil paint on canvas, 2021. At the beginning of the year, I decided to refocus my efforts on my art practice. This began with a daily block of sketches in my sketchbook and an initial oil painting portrait study... the one you see here. 

I've long been fascinated by the atmospheric beauty, the play of light and dark and clean formalism of the aesthetic of old portraits. For this study, I first pulled a range of reference images of faces I found intriguing. This ended up being a selection of old portraits and some images of monster faces from creature feature films.

After taking some time to sketch each of the reference images to see how each felt through my lens, I landed on this head-shot of Buster Keaton. So far, I have not been able to find details on the image and who took it. Mr. Keaton has a fascinating face.

For the study, I worked with a limited palette of ivory black and titanium white except for his eyes which I painted in color. The tint of color was introduced at the end with a series of glazes of yellow and purple to give it some depth. 

I enjoyed the limited palette and will be using it again for future portraits.

The Sketchbook Project - Final

I haven't posted here in some time. I fell out of the habit of focusing on my art which led to sad neglect on the blog. There have been many life changes since fall of 2013 when I last posted which makes it a bit difficult to know where to restart. 

My initial thought to restart is to close the thread on the slow to finish "Nightmare" themed sketchbook project for The Sketchbook organization which I have previously written about. In earlier posts I had projected wrapping it up by the end of 2011. 2011 closed and I had not finished. 

The closing work on the sketchbook came at the end of 2018 so I was dramatically off in my initial finish line projections.

Well, the sketchbook is done, submitted and available to view online here. If you find yourself in Brooklyn you can check the book out in person. There are numerous other sketchbooks to peruse on the site so dig in and enjoy!

Pen Pal Painting Exchange 2013 Photos...

Unfortunately I was not able to attend the Pen Pal Painting Exchange in person. The Art House Co-op posted a set of pictures from the opening.

It would have been great to see this at the venue to see how the full set felt together as well as the pairings of imagery.

The photos give a bit of the view.

Pen Pal Painting Exchange 2013

'Pen Pal Painting Exchange - Portrait' 4" x 4" - oil paint on canvas, 2013. Finished up this small piece as part of the Pen Pal Painting Exchange project for the Art House Co-op. 

For this project, the participating artists were sent a 4" x 4" canvas to create a piece to swap and connect with one of the other participating artists.

I decided to create a dark portrait for this piece since I have been working mainly on human portraits with my recent work. This was also inspired by the amazing work of Javier Marin. His beautiful sculptures have an amazing human yet otherworldly feel.

My piece will be a part of a one day show in Brooklyn later this month on Saturday, September 28. After this it will be sent along to another artist in the show as part of the exchange.

Cover by Cover Art Auction...

You're invited to a silent art auction curated by The Brigade & Deweywood to raise funds to bring interactive learning to James John Elementary. Artists were asked to pay homage to their favorite album covers and will have over 20 works up for auction.

LIVE PERFORMANCES BY:
Eric D. Johnson (Fruit Bats)
Pall Jenkins (Black Heart Procession)
Nate Lacy (Mimicking Birds)

Suggested cover donation: $10-$20

RSVP: http://bit.ly/coverbycoverfb

The Cleaners at Ace Hotel
403 Southwest 10th Avenue
Portland, OR 97205

BLOG: http://bit.ly/coverbycover
INSTAGRAM: http://instagram.com/coverxcover

Album Art Auction for James John: KISS - KISS 1974

The detail above is my most recent painting...an homage to the self titled debut album of KISS. The piece has now been shipped off to Portland in preparation for the upcoming show for the Album Art Auction for James John. Artists were provided a 12" x 12" piece of bamboo to create a piece based on a classic album that inspired them.

When I was in grade school my uncle Brian gave me a stack of records which included a set of albums by KISS. Being a monster nerd, the theatrical Halloween style makeups on the covers were amazing. Pair that with their TV movie KISS meets the Phantom of the Park and I was an instant fan. 

It had been some time since I had really listened to KISS. Old and new music moves on and off of my iPod with no real organization. Detroit Rock City and Beth are the staple tracks I still find myself playing. Revisiting the self titled record was a nice dose of nostalgia.

Binski Portrait - Color Study...

Finding some renewed focus in recent months. I have been able to just about finish two paintings. Being asked to participate in another Portland based group show kick-started me back to painting.

Working on sealing up the Portland show piece and I have one more sitting with Binski portrait color study which is pictured here.

Feels good to get back to the paint after all the months of just sketching. I have missed it.

Next up I will be back on the Robert Conrad piece and jumping on the actual Binski portrait.

Sketches, etcetera...

Sketches...sketches...and more sketches - graphite, ink, acrylic washes and chalk, 2012.

Lower Polk Art Walk...

Three of my 'Movie Portraits" series will be showing at the Lower Polk Art Walk this Thursday.  My friend Christie was instrumental in getting this display set up. 

It will be great to have some work up in the neighborhood where I have been visiting galleries for the last several years.

Stammered Sketching...

Moving forward on the sketchbook.  Realizing it takes me about 1.5 hours to do one page.  My process is to quickly draft out a gesture of an idea to get the basic image down.  Once this is done I will go back and revisit the sketch and refine the drawing.  At that point I have been laying in some color keeping to a limited palette to add some consistency to the book.