Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Forever Forward

As I prepare to leave for Cali tomorrow I am pretty sad that it means packing up the oil paints for another 6 months. I suppose I could take them with me but its not going to happen. There is just too much baggage with oils. It would be overwhelming. I feel pretty good though, I improved with every brush stroke this month and was able to crank out a satisfiable amount of paintings of respectable quality. When I think back to six months prior and the paintings I did just before I left for Florida, I have only improved. I am trying to approach painting the way I do with drawing. As long as I continue to draw I don't feel like I will lose anything, in fact time has shown that I can only improve. Besides that I am bringing my computer and wacom pad so I will definitely continue with my digital work.

As for this particular piece, I started it wanting to do another pirate self portrait but kind of felt there wasn't anything there for me. The portrait was enough. Any more and I would just be beating a dead horse (to use a terrible metaphor). Once I got over the pirate theme I started thinking about myself and how I wanted to portry myself. What came out was an explorer/adventurer confidently setting off for a point unknown. I know its a little melodramatic but maybe thats all part of it too. I approached it as I did the last two portraits, same prepatory steps and the same pallette. Some painters I was looking at while working on this one were NC Wyeth and Justin Sweet. One classic and the other a modern day illustrator.
















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