Enchanted Rock #2

This is kind of a breakthrough piece for me. It's a sizeable painting that went start to finish in under two days. I limited the palette and used large brushes. I made a fairly careful drawing followed by a burnt sienna underpainting in four values. For each of the values, I premixed about three colors and loaded separate brushes with each color. This way I can rapidly shape, or even sculpt each value band. Working dark to light it goes remarkably fast. My inspiration for this technique is Belgian artist Jan DeVliegher. However, I would need a personality transplant to work like this!

Jan De Vliegher paint pots

Also, now I am working on a firmly mounted, rigid panel. Heretofor this year, I have been working on unmounted, floppy plastic panels. In retrospect, I don't know what I was thinking! 32" x 27".

at the Garden Cafe

I was showing someone how my Scene Sketcher app worked and I needed a photo. I turned around and by chance saw that the folks at the next table made an interesting composition. It was tricky to try to maintain a consistent level of abstraction because the image spans a lot of depth. 32" x 21"

patio at Brain Dead Brewing

This was developed from a pretty detailed underpainting. I was happy from the start with the composition, which seemed amenable to working the image in sections. I tried to be  pretty careful about putting in a touch of detail here and there, while leaving some areas completely abstract. 

21.5" x 30"

last biker bar in Deep Ellum

Kind of silly painting from a snapshot. I thought the graffiti would be enough focus to overcome the lack of composition, but the layout is just too awkward. Oh well, a painting of a wall of green cyclopes can't be all bad..

watertower at Continental Gin

Gantry and watertower by the entrance to my studio. I think I'm starting to get the hang of uing my Scene Sketcher app to paint a simplified image with a clear value structure. This was a pretty quick painting with no big problems.  71 cm x 40 cm.

Enchanted Rock

I learned quite a bit doing this. For one thing, I didn't realize that a painting of mostly saturated color was going to be so visually fatiguing. Also simple shapes and decisive paint handling helps with strong color. I ended up using larger brushes as I got further along, which is a sign I misjudged how this was going to develop. 30" x 40"

sliced apples

Small, easy painting I made while preparing a big panel for a landscape. 14 " x 17.5"