Busy day. The festival was a blast – less of a turnout than last year, but still a total treat to celebrate Samhain by putting on an event like this. We ate a crazy amount of pumpkin pie and enjoyed ballet from Caitlyn Carradine and incredible music from my friend Jim Connolly who is one [...]
Working fast, I added a layer of burnt sienna and a touch of ultramarine blue into the leather overcoat, a bit of grey onto the pants and shirt. Raw Sienna is the perfect base for blond hair, so I glazed a layer on then scraped it with the knife to reveal the whites and greys [...]
Much of the weekend went to installing Sean Sobczak’s Light sculpture installation in my gallery at CLU. I met Sean on Halloween at a party in Hollywood at Luca’s studio about eight years ago. He was dressed as Jesus, and was so convincing that I asked him to model for me for the Crucifixion painting. [...]
I worked late and produced this drawing for the new piece. I’m not sure quite where this interest in Amelia Earhart has come from, perhaps it started with my friend Fred Tonsing, who’s her nephew or something. I’ve been thinking about her mythical status, of course, for “The Aviator’s Dream” painting (here’s a photo), and [...]
Tagged air, Alchemical work, earth, fireThis is going well – Here’s Justice with a quickly painted en grisaille setting the tone for the later layers. I really enjoyed the luxury of knifing down thick flake white paint so that there’s some rich texture in the body of the cloth. When I’m doing knife work I’m careful not to allow ridges [...]
Tagged Angel, Tarot-related paintingsI’m interested in finding space in the paintings. I tend to fill my canvases with figures, and I think I’d like to find some tension in the composition by leaving large areas of space. I took that 48″ x 72″ canvas and divided it up using the geometry of diagonal and rectangular lines. I shot [...]
Tagged airI sealed the two canvases with some burnt sienna and medium over the drawings, wiping much of the paint of with a rag. The drawings drop back into the rich oxide and become harder to see, but the marks are clear enough for painting the next layer, the en grisaille, which will be the foundation [...]
Tagged oils, painting, Tarot-related paintingsThis Thursday evening at 7.00 pm (TOMORROW!) is the closing of the Principle exhibit. Please come to the Kwan Fong Gallery at CLU and join me for drinks and snacks. I’ve been completely delighted by the way the show has been received – it seems that each time I’m in the gallery someone has something [...]
I’ve drawn Temperance and Justice and I’m pleased with both. This evening I’ll seal them both with some burnt sienna so that they’re ready to go. These look really good as first passes into the painting foray, so I’m full of optimism or them. Temperance needs some wings and pigs, while justice is short of [...]
Tagged Tarot-related paintingsHere she is! I’m happy with the composition, laid down the centre line of the panel, with the figure centred on the navel. She’s looking good. I put a blindfold over her eyes, as is traditional for blind justice, and sketched in the scales quite loosely for now. I’m going to need to find snake [...]
