Figure painting

Every now and then I join a group of other artists at a local art store to work with a model. Everyone else is drawing in charcoal, but I thought this time I'd play around with working in acrylics directly from life. Here's a quick study from a couple of 20-minute poses...gotta work quickly!

Next in Series

Here's another 30 x 30 in this abstract experimental style I've been working in lately. This one is not quite done, but wanted to show where I was heading...

Back to work

Finally back in the studio this week after a busy holiday season. On Sunday I went to see the exhibit of the Bloomsbury artists at the Nasher Museum at Duke University. Really enjoyed it. Inspired me to loosen up and push the abstraction a bit more - something I've been wanting to do but not quite doing. Here's the best of several tries - this one's really appealing to me...

More fun with oils

Here's a 30 x 40 palette knife painting I've been working on with the new Blue Ridge handmade oil paints. Such fun! They are so rich and creamy.

This is a little (12" x 12") study I worked on yesterday to try out some lovely new oil paints I ordered last week. They were recommended by an artist friend of mine, Joyce Cambon. The paints are hand made in small batches by Blue Ridge Artists Materials here in NC. They are a joy to use - creamy and very rich pigment.

Work in Progress

I've been working on this for several weeks, alongside working on some commissions that are due for the holidays.... not sure where this is going, just wanted to experiment with different angles of faces and from that this interesting group of characters is emerging. I'm trying to let my intuitive side pull out the images it sees with less directions from my controlling left brain! We'll see where it goes... thinking I need to see something through that window too.

At work

One of my friends took this snapshot when we were working outside last week. I decided to go back in to the piece I was working on in the last blog and use more of the leaf - you can see one of the sheets of gold leaf in my hand.