American Juried Art Salon

The American Juried Art Salon 2008 Fall-Winter Show opens online today. My piece Coming Clean, shown above was accepted into this exhibition, which is juried by gallery owners, directors and well known college and university art professors in North America. Because this is my third consecutive exhibition with American Juried Art Salon, I have also been accepted into the Master Class Plus Gallery, which can be viewed here: http://artjury.com/MCPlus.html

To read more about the American Juried Art Salon, visit their website: http://artjury.com/

Artwork Scan

Today I brought "Solitude" along with another portrait to be professionally scanned. I went to Image-Tec, located nearby in Methuen, MA, and I am so pleased with how they both turned out. Solitude was kind of an experiment because I ended up using paint thinner on most of the background, and then sprayed a ton of fixative and varnish on it leaving it very shiny. Despite the shine, I think the scan came out really nicely. I am especially pleased with how my other portrait came out, which I had sprayed with a matte fixative, but no varnish. The subtle colors and detail are perfect! I am so happy with the service and results at Image-Tec, and I am highly recommending them to any local artists who are looking for a place to photograph/scan their work. They even make giclee prints, cards, etc, and will make slides from the digital images. The best part? The prices are SO reasonable. Check out their website: http://www.imagetecphoto.com/Image-Tec_Home.html

Back to Solitude...

I hadn’t done any more work on Solitude in this photo, but it does show the piece in its entirety. I stopped working on it because I was growing tired of dramatic colors, lighting and poses, and it was feeling a bit contrived. Luckily I had another piece to work on, a straight forward head and shoulders portrait with subtle lighting coming from multiple directions and a simple background. Despite its simplicity (or perhaps because of its simplicity), this other portrait has become one of my favorites so far. I won’t be posting it for a couple of weeks though; sorry for the teaser!

Back to Solitude… since I took the photo above, I have made changes to the background as a whole, as well as to the shirt, hands, and the bench. As I mentioned before, I drew the trees mostly out of my imagination, as the reference photo showed a lot of vines and shrubs with some leaves remaining. By the time I went back to this piece, the trees I had drawn looked very similar to those outside – bare and gray! The curved stone bench is pretty much like the one I was sitting on.

Tomorrow I am bringing this and the other portrait I mentioned to a photography studio to have them scanned. This will be the first time I’ve tried scanning, so I will write about how it goes later on this week.

People's Choice Award

I just found out that "Coming Clean", above, won the People's Choice Award at the CPSA Chapter 112 "H2O" Exhibition. I'm so honored that people chose my piece as their favorite!

This piece will also be in the upcoming American Juried Art Salon Fall-Winter Exhibition, which is scheduled to open online at www.artjury.com on December 12th.

It Turned on Me!

My "Solitude" piece has somehow turned on me - I am about 95% finished, and I can't seem to bring myself to finish it! This happens to me sometimes (though never for commissions when I am determined to create a successful piece for the client), and I think that the best solution is to put it away for the time being. So I am starting a different piece this week, a traditional head and shoulders portrait. I am looking forward to starting because this portrait will have a simple background and be mostly about the face. I'm hoping my motivation to finish "Solitude" returns by the end of the week...

Solitude with Reference

Today I am posting my reference photo along with my drawing to show how I'm using it to create the portrait. The photo is just printed on a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 white paper, and you can see how I've folded it to bring certain portions of the photo close to the drawing as I work.

I noticed that the photo was washed out (I'm pale, but not that pale!), so I used a mirror in addition to the photo to get the skin tones right, keeping in mind that light filtered through a window is slightly different from being outside in the shade. I also decided to add some much-needed lipstick and blush, and to have the eyes looking slightly less to the side. I haven't done too much more on this today, and I'm not sure how much more I will get done with Thanksgiving fast approaching. I'll try to post a progress photo again this week, but at the latest will have a new post next Monday.

Solitude Update

I've done a little more work on the face, but here's where I slow down considerably. Drawing the trees was so much fun, but now I get to work on a face, which is my favorite, and I don't mind taking my time. Here you can see the scale, as I've placed my hand directly onto the paper.

I'm working from a very washed out photograph, and I need to add a lot of color and shadowing to make it look more real. Next week I'll post the reference along with the drawing in progress, so you can see the changes that I've made.