What is talent?
“Bras,” oil on canvas, Kamillah Ramos, 2012. This was painted after five months of study. Every year I seem to get one kid who draws wonderfully. Sometimes, this kid has managed to decode the rules of drawing on his own. More typically, he has studied outside of school. But however he does it, to the …
Sketchy
In church This is the second year I’ve bought into the Sketchbook Project and then felt my muse desert me as soon as the package arrived in the mail. It’s ironic, because I carry a sketchbook everywhere I go, a habit that started in elementary school. My school notekeeping was a total fail from an …
Urban painting/Queensboro Bridge
Usually, when we say “field sketch,” people think of pastorals, but the term can apply equally to urban landscapes. I went on a tear painting the Queensboro (or 59th Street) Bridge with my friend Kristin. Here are a few examples. Construction on the Queensboro Bridge, oil on board, 12X9 Just as urban plein air painters …
Black Eye
Michelle’s shiner (detail) It’s not often you get a model showing up with a black eye, and that’s irresistible to paint. (Before you get worried that she’s the victim of domestic abuse, she’s a dancer and occasionally her face gets in someone else’s way.) A flesh tone matrix, a little more complex than what I …
A more formal figure painting
Nude, oil on canvas, 40X30 This commissioned work is a formal portrait of a mature woman who desired a nude painting reflecting her Central American heritage. The client wanted an impression of the beauty of a woman not matching the clichĂ© of the commercialized American ideal of willowy, leggy and fair female imagery. The composition …