Alley 2

Here is the completed second painting for the Mississippi Alley series.
I had a hell of a time with the green and ended up throwing out a quarter cup of paint.
You may notice that I highlighted some of the leaf edges.  I did this because it need to pop a little more.  I don't usually like to do that, but I think that it helps this painting a lot.
This is a 36" x36" painting.
It will be interesting to see how the subject matter goes over with people.
This is really just a weed, but I like the complementary colors and think there is a kind of determined beauty here.

Alley Series

This is the first of four paintings inspired by an alley just West of Mississippi Ave.

Till Death

Introducing the happy couple.

Dressed to Kill 2

I don't think this guy is coming back.
I discovered that blue painters tape will stick to 110 lb.
cold press, so I won't be doing that anymore.
I purchased some spray fixative to protect the charcoal.  This one is especially susceptible to smudging.

Dressed to Kill

Some Craigslist post was requesting artists to draw zombies.  I never submitted this, but I was intrigued with the idea.  I then thought it would be fun to take images of good looking men in suits and make them zombies.  This guy is obviously not too far into the zombie thing and he still looks pretty good.  Maybe he is a zombie who can be saved...
I used a 3H pencil for the layout and then a hard HB charcoal pencil for the final line work.  No smudging on this.  The idea is to come up with a drawing style that I can use for a graphic novel.

After looking at this sketch for a few days, I am thinking that this is how I have been feeling as of late.  I can't convince my kids that he is a zombie.  They think that it looks like a guy who has been beat up pretty bad.  Indeed.

Alley Painting Starts

I was wandering around an alley just West of Mississippi Ave and got some ideas for pieces.
Here are the starts.  I used iron oxide and yellow ochre for the rusty base color (it looks like I spilled spaghetti  sauce on them, but whatever).  Then I used my usual dark mix for the sketch and added white in some spots to identify highlights.
Painting big is much more exciting for me, allowing for bigger gestures and less small brush work.
The paintings at the right and left are of interest to me.  My gut tells me that there is potential in these somewhat ambiguous images but we will see if anyone wants to buy them.
Not shown here is a 48" x 48" monster canvas that will have a big alley street scape!

Small Paintings

I have to admit that doing these small paintings is not my favorite thing.  They seem to take more time than I want and I find that I don't like working small as much as I like working big.  I also can't sell them for as much as the big paintings.

I really procrastinated working on these, but managed to get myself motivated enough to finish these four little guys.

This first 6" x 6" is on a wood panel and is my favorite.  I was working from a photo and had to take liberties to get the scene right.  I removed some blue mats (not sure what they were) and a few of the tomato plants at the right to show more of the tree and have less clutter.  The focus flows between the yard debris container, the bucket and the tree, which is good.  The sense of the late afternoon light is what I wanted it to be.

This next one is an 8" x 8" on canvas.  This is one where the photo is perhaps better that the original.  It verges on being too dark, but works.

 You see these blue bins all over the place.  This 6" x 6" is my second favorite or is tied with the first one above.  The balance of light and dark is just right I think.  I almost removed the white waste basket at the lower left, but like that it seems to be having a dialogue with the recycling bid.

 The last one is an 8" x 8" on canvas and my daughter said that it would be funny if there was a dog peeing on the fire hydrant.