I love when clients send me pictures of my art hanging in their new homes. My painting arrived in San Fransico and it looks great. Be well, big boy. I’ll miss you,
portrait painting
How Quickly They Grow
I completed these two portraits of my nephew 9 months apart. Two completely different people from the one I painted in Dec. 2020 and the one I just completed This month.
Before I know it, he’ll be getting married!
The 1% Principle
in WIP, portrait painting
It’s been tough trying to get motivated to paint after coming home from work. But I always remind myself of the 1% principle. It can be illustrated by this: 1 raised to the power of 365 (days) will equal 1. However, 1.01 raised to the same power (365) will equal 37.8.
All I need everyday is that .01 effort to start the blood flowing when I’m in front of my easel. Just a bit of effort will get me somewhere.
I’ve been chipping away at this small commission for the last two weeks. It’s been a little frustrating trying to portray the bubble bath to my liking. But all I have to do is add one bubble at a time.
Now it’s time to hit the easel.
A Ben A Day
My familiarity with painting my nephew is slim. So I decided to produce a painting of him over my holidays everyday. A challenge to produce a daily portrait because I have a tendency to overwork things and get into detail even if it’s a daily portrait exercise.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
This one got away from me. I find painting him head on to be a difficult angle.
Day 6
My favourite of all of the portraits. I really like how I didn’t adhere to realistic skin tones.
Day 6 detail
Day 8
(I did a virtual sitting with my niece on day 7. It’s the previous post)
Day 9
Day 9 detail
The Go To
Christmas holidays means more time to paint. If I’m stuck I usually call up my niece to do a virtual sitting with me and she usually obliges. This was the last painting of 2020. Hopefully 2021 is a much better year for all of us.
The Young and The Old
My go to sitter and this old mug.
WIP...
I always look forward to this stage where I just sit back and stare at my painting. Is it done? Do I need to add anything else? Do I need to take anything away? All questions I take way too much time on. Maybe I just need an hour to contemplate these questions and move onto the next painting.
WIP
in WIP, sumo, portrait painting, oil painting
Every time I’m faced with a blank canvas the words of my mom come back to me: Just put down something so you have something to work with. Those words were said to me while I was in high school struggling with paper writing, but I think they apply to my painting practice as well. So I’m just putting something down. Thanks, mom.
Isolation Self Portrait
Isolation Self portrait, summer 2020
oil on canvas
24x30in.
When I look back at this painting in times to come, it'll always remind me that this was the last major painting I did in the old apartment. It's also the first self portrait that encapsulated the environment I was painting in and the bulk of the painting was done when we hit a heat wave. Hence the shirtless pose.
There's a lot of lessons I learned from painting this. The first being that I really enjoy painting myself in an environment. I also know that I had a vision of what this would look like but came up a bit short. However, that's why I'll probably be painting more portraits of myself to close that gap between reality and the vision I have in my mind.
The painting can be seen here.
Varnishing…
This commission I finished in March, is finally dry enough to be varnished!
Tokushoryu
I finally finished this portrait of Tokushoryu.
Tokushoryu was the lowest rank rikishi in the January 2020 sumo tournament...and he won it all. With all the craziness going on in the world, I've been making a conscious effort to look for positive things in my life. I've often returned to watching Tokushoryu's Cinderella victory in the January basho for a bit of light in all this gloominess. Here's my ode to his January victory.
Here's his final match when he won it all. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slDe-99-Kr8&t=436s
Virtual Sittings
Rick
Rui
Felipe
Rick
Amy
Heather
Dave
Pauline
Virtual Sittings
Me. Whenever I do a self portrait, I always get finicky and get sucked into the minutia of the painting. And it usually exceeds the short time limit I usually place on myself to paint it. Anyways…
I’ve sketched my niece the most during these isolation sketches and I find I am gaining more confidence in asking her for more intentional poses. I’m getting more ambitious when I paint her.
Akshay.
i’m really happy with how this one turned out. A little exaggerated, but I like how I laid the paid down.
Virtual Sittings
Rick
Sister
Michele
Thip
Machiko
Niece
Fuzo
Flo
Virtual Sittings
I realized one of the objectives as I did more of these virtual sittings was to improve my portraiture skills using oil paints. So for this batch, aside from the first one, I transitioned to using oils. These virtual sittings are sequential. There are a few goals I want to achieve painting these portraits: 1. Get really comfortable painting portraits with oil paints. 2. Not to be precious about these portraits, meaning that I have to let go of making these portraits look like the sitters. They don’t have to. These are oil sketches. It’s a space where I could practice my colour sensitivity abilty to finish a portrait in one sitting.
Ren. My second sitting with her.
Mother and daughter.
Jim. The first sitting in oils with a person who wasn’t a family member.
Yvonne.
Yvonne detail. I love the amount of paint applied on this one.
Marc
Ayumi
Esteban and Anna. Trying to conserve paper in my sketchbook.
Anna
Jim. My second sitting.
Verena
I like this spread.
Robyn, my go to sitter.
Sister
oil on masonite.
10x12 inches.
A Self Portrait and Everything But the Kitchen Sink....
I finally finished my latest self portrait. It was a fun painting to work on and opened up some potential avenues I could explore in future paintings. It also allowed me to paint things in groups. A little unsettling at times but I have to remember that I’m allowed to make mistakes and every painting doesn’t have to be a “masterpiece”!
The final piece can be seen here.
Scrooge
Alistair Sim, THE best Scrooge portrayal ever.
Christmas sale.
8x10 inches.
oil on board
$350.00
SOLD
New home…
The varnished piece being sent to its new home.
Update: mailed it 5 days ago via express delivery, thinking that it would arrive the next day. Apparently its still in transit. Gotta love the Christmas rush.
Winter sale!
I’ve been working on these mini sumo portraits lately and they’re ready just in time for Christmas! Get one for the sumo lover in your family.
Here are the specs:
Black and white portraits are 8x10 inches, oil on board. The colour portrait is 8x12 inches and all of them are $350.00.
If you live in Toronto, I could deliver it to you in person. However, with out of town purchases, shipping and handling charges apply.
Merry festivus to you all.
SOLD.
