Triplets

I'm trying to achieve a few things with this portrait and shying away from others.
1. It's a technical exercise in portraiture. How close can I come to getting a semblance to the model? In this case it's me and i think I'm pretty close in some parts and off on others.
The other part about painting a self portrait specifically is that I find that I could be a bit looser with it. I'm not so precious about get the semblance down and have room to experiment... (yeah, I just contradicted myself). I find when I paint friends, I'm a lot more uptight about getting them to look like them and get a bit upset when it doesn't turn out.
2. The other objective with the triple heads was to bring it closer to my sketchbook layouts. I like the look of my SB spreads where one form flows into another and it's just a mess. I like that look and I'm trying to bring that "messiness" into my paintings.
3. As for the black and white rendering. I suck at colour. I look at other portrait artists and they have a knack for skin colour but also harmonizing the entire painting. I find my colour works are a bit too plastic/artificial. But I guess one way to overcome that is to keep on painting in colour.
4. Lastly, this is my diary. I don't a have written one so these images will remind me of the circumstances surrounding the painting of it.

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.

30 Faces, 30 days April 1-7, 2020

I’m trying to look at the positive of this COvid-19 induced self isolation. I’m trying to draw and paint more everyday since I was laid off 2 weeks ago. It’s easy to slip into a funk without the daily routine of work and extracurricular activities to keep me busy. I read somewhere busy is no longer an excuse for the lack of art making. Very true.

So there’s been a 30 faces, 30 day challenge floating around the interweb and I thought I’d throw my hat into the ring. I’m on a draw from life binge lately, and since self isolation has cancelled the sessions I had arranged with a few friends, you’ll be seeing your’s truly for the next month! PArt of my personal objective is not to be too precious with these drawings. Just bang them out… or at least that’s the plan.

Here are the first 7 self portraits.

April 1, 2020

April 2, 2020

April 3, 2020

April 4, 2020

April 5, 2020

April 6, 2020

April 7, 2020

Easter weekend productivity

Productivity is something that either is top most on my mind or underlies everything else I do. It comes from pursuing this art track later in my life and thinking I have to get all the bad paintings out of my system before I get to the good ones. So this long Easter holiday weekend, I’m two paintings closer in getting to the good stuff. I also felt I needed to be a bit faster and looser with these two paintings since I spent so much time on my commission. It felt good just to produce and have a bit of fun (especially with my self portrait).

The weekend’s not over, so there’s more time to pump stuff out! Back to work!