Anatomy and Art

Last week I made another tree painting.

I took a few cell phone shots along the way again.

I kept adding branches, and refining, until eventually I got this.

I finished the new painting today.

Introducing Grace…

As always, any of my work on canvas can be viewed at http://snapshotgenius.com/paint

Please allow me to present the new painting…

I’m calling it, “Bursting.”

I started working on something new recently.  I’m not sure exactly what I’m doing yet, but it’s the first time I’ve really felt like I’m getting somewhere with a piece since the move, so that’s exciting.

I often start with a photograph when I do these, and this time I’ve started with one of Keith Allen Phillips’ (aka Lucky’s) shots of Sylva.  I mentioned them before when I wrote about ayearwithoutclothes.com. Having seen so much work from those two this year, it only seemed fitting to play with something there, even if I don’t intend the final piece to actually be a likeness.  Fingers crossed that I can keep the momentum going throughout the work week now, and on however long it takes me finish it.

It occurs to me, that I should really highlight a few of my older works from time to time here, specifically the ones that are still available for purchase.  So, here are just such a few…

This is “Phoenix Rising.”  It was completed in the beginning of 2002.  I did this one after first moving to Los Angeles.  I had these nifty gold and copper metalic paints to try, and a nice new fan brush.   I was watching the coverage of the 9-11 attacks on my little tv, in my little new apartment.  I started out playing with flames on this one, but somewhere got swept up in the hopefulness a lot of us were feeling at that moment, plus I’ve always enjoyed the idea of the phoenix.  So I wound up making this.

It’s about 24 inches tall and 20 across.

In 2004, I painted this.

Something about this image just felt right in the making.  It’s one of those that people seem to see a lot of different things in, and that’s part of what works about it for me, so it has always been labeled “Untitled.”  It’s about one foot by one foot.

This one is from 2007.  It’s called “Swirl.”  And in some ways I have it to thank for getting me where I am today.

I struggled and struggled with this one, specifically with his hand in the foreground.  This painting, and specifically that struggle, is why Ian Coulter started teaching me to sculpt, starting with hands, and that door opening put me in a position to be ready to jump when I would later learn about the field of anaplastology, which is how I got into medical art.

And lastly I’d like to show “The Fall” from 2008, shortly before leaving Los Angeles for Chicago.

This one remains the largest piece that I have done to date.  Measuring 40 inches across by 30 down, this one felt like it took up my whole studio apartment back in LA.  I haven’t quite worked back up to that size again, but I would like to someday.

I’ve been working at getting back in to the swing of painting here in the new space, but so far that’s been slow going.  It’s been strange doing all of this art for work, but so little on my own.  It’ll come though.

Finally finished this last painting of 2011.  It’ll be glossed tomorrow, and I can start packing up my paints without that loose end hanging.  And I’m happy with how it turned out.

By the way, if anyone in Chicago ever wanted to buy any art from me, right before I have to pack things up is always the best time to get a deal!

I’ve been working on this painting for a couple of months now.  It’s not something that I’ve worked on every day or anything like that.  But it is something that I keep coming back to.  I was hoping to finish it before getting into holiday travels, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.  I’ve been taking the occasional cell phone picture as it’s come along though.  Sometimes I kind of like looking at the steps a piece takes on it’s way to becoming the finished work.

I just gave it a few more hours tonight.  It’s getting closer, but it’s not the kind of piece I can rush.  Anyway, that’s just something that I’ve been working on lately.

A couple weeks ago, I stumbled upon the work of Michael Reedy.  He’s really doing some incredible work.  This is an example from his anatomy series here.

His other work shows off his mastery of the human form in all of it’s levels just as well or even more effectively though.

I’m just so impressed.  This guy has figured out light and shadow, anatomy, and how the human form moves and bends.  Plus his overall compositions are just plain interesting.  I’m really pleased to have found his work.

The new painting has been scanned and posted at my gallery site.  This one is just a little 6″x6″ canvas.  I actually started her a long time ago, but had to set her aside and work on some other things in the meantime.  Well, recently in setting aside another piece I noticed her again and realized I needed to change the color structure entirely, and suddenly I had something that was working again.  So here she is.

So, this week I had a birthday.  And a friend of mine sent me one of those lists of other people born on the same day that you are.  Well, one of the names listed was Lucas Cranach the Younger.  He’s a German painter from the 1500s.  So I thought that sounded cool, and I looked him up.  He’s good!

And apparently he got the descriptor, the younger, by growing up in an art family and learning from his father who was known as Lucas Cranach the elder.  His brother Hans painted too, but it was the elder and the younger who’s style looks so much alike.  The younger was “known for portraits and simple versions of allegorical and mythical scenes” according to Wikipedia (see link above).

So that is something that I only just learned today.  And now you have too.