Oil Painting Study of a White Bag

Our Wednesday night art class assignment was to paint a shopping bag and a box, using only three colors red , blue ,yellow and white of course.


I’ve painted bags in class a few times and they can be frustrating with all the crinkles and folds, but it really is a good practice to develop an eye for seeing values.

Tango Oil Painting, in Progress

This is part two in my Tango Series. I’m still working on it, but I thought I’d throw it out there for the heck of it.

The color palette for this series goes with my new furniture so I may frame them and hang them in my living room. Well see.

Japan, Expression of Hope Oil Painting

Our Wednesday night art class assignment was to paint a modern art piece.

Well...... modern art is not really my thing but I thought to myself, “hey I was just at the Dali Museum about a month ago...so that should help.

As the instructor laid out some random objects in a pile on the table, our directive was not necessarily to render what was there but to use our imagination and work from the shapes of the objects .....I’ll admit I was perplexed ....what do you do with a few odd looking boxes, some plastic flowers, apples and a plastic eggplant on top of it all ?......strange !

After some thought and a few thumb nail sketches in my pad, all I kept seeing was a heap of junk on a table, it was a mess.

So I drew my thoughts inward for a moment and all I could think of was the horror in Japan.

With the earthquake damage and Sunimi devastation weighing heavy on my mind, I started to wonder if I could express that emotion on canvas.

I looked hard at the set up and the boxes became homes, the flowers trees, the apples people and the eggplant on top of it all was a black surge of water.

With a modernistic, minimalist approach. I drew from only the most powerful shape, the black surge of water....A.K.A. eggplant.

Using the colors of the Japanese sun disc flag I twisted the shapes to represent a surge of turbulent sea.

To the right is the Japanese word for hope, as this is the only word I can comprehend for the tragedy cast upon the Japanese people.

Assassination Tango, Inspired Oil Painting

Every thing is fair game when your trying to be creative, even late night movies !

This oil painting was inspired by the 2002 romantic thriller "Assassination Tango"  staring Robert Duvall and his wife Luciann.

I now have a new appreciation for the tango, unfortunately my two left feet restrict me to painting rather then performing it.

Water Pitcher with Pears, oil on canvas

Before I ate these pears I wanted to paint them, so I set up a little still life with an old water pitcher and a kitchen towel.

Motivated by my last art class painting of the trees, I broke out the palette knives and used lots of paint.

Florida House, Oil Painting

Me and my dad drove past this gorgeous house while on our way to the beach in Florida.

I thought it would make for a nice little painting, So he took a few quick pic’s for me from the car.

Free art history lessons on WNYC

I like to multi task and get free art history lessons while I paint, with the Leonard Lopate show on WNYC .


WNYC offers many great pod casts on art history and the current art scene. It’s definitely worth checking out .

http://culture.wnyc.org/tags/visual_arts/

Art Notes

Art Beat

Guitar Heros at the Met

Guitar Heros

In the late eighteenth century, Naples was the largest city on the Italian peninsula and one of the largest cities in all of Europe. It had a vibrant musical culture, including a thriving operatic tradition, and had been a center for the production of harpsichords for two hundred years. By mid-century, Neapolitan luthiers were also gaining prominence; families such as the Gaglianos were among the most important in the manufacture of violins, while the Vinaccia and Fabricatore families introduced innovations to the construction of guitars and mandolins. Naples remained the most important center in Italy for the production of stringed instruments through the nineteenth century.


Around the turn of the twentieth century, millions of Italians immigrated to the United States. This mass migration was triggered by the economic situation in Italy, following the political and social turmoil of unification. These immigrants, the majority of whom were from agricultural regions, settled in metropolitan areas such as New York in enclaves known as Little Italys. Metropolitan New York became the major Italian American center, home to a large number of immigrants from southern Italy who brought with them their culture, including their music and musical instruments. In 1880 an ensemble of folk musicians from Spain called The Spanish Students toured the United States playing the bandurria, a small plucked instrument. The group caused a sensation, but their bandurrias were misidentified by the public and the press as mandolins. Italian musicians soon capitalized on this situation by forming their own ensembles and touring the country imitating the Spanish troupe, and a craze for mandolins soon swept America. Between 1880 and 1920 thousands of mandolins were imported from Italy and many luthiers moved to New York and began manufacturing the instruments locally.

New York City and nearby New Jersey, Long Island, and Westchester County have been home to a vibrant Italian American population since the late nineteenth century. Within this community, a remarkable tradition of lutherie (stringed-instrument making) has flourished. Italian American craftsmen have produced an enormous variety of musical instruments, from traditional European-style violins, mandolins, and guitars to newer American instruments such as archtop guitars and mandolins and even electric guitars. Since the 1930s, makers from this tradition in the New York region have become especially well known for their extraordinary archtop guitars. This exhibition examines the work of three remarkable craftsmen from this heritage—John D'Angelico, James D'Aquisto, and John Monteleone—their place in the extended context of Italian and Italian American instrument making, and the inspiration of the sights and sounds of New York City.

Happy Trees

This weeks assignment was a landscape, which I decided to put down quickly and aggressively to capture the movement of the trees and sky.


I started by washing the whole canvas with a thin layer of burnt sienna, then I pulled out the drawing with a rag

Once satisfied with the composition I put in the trees with heavy paint using a palette knife.

With a mixed blue and a big hogs hair brush I put in the sky, the cloud is titanium white blended into the blue sky on the ends.

I washed a thin layer of paint in the foreground, then whipped it with a rag and the back of a brush.

Golden Palette of colors, no tube greens here.

This weeks class assignment was to do a landscape study from a photograph.

I used a calendar picture of a hiking trail. To liven up all that green I added the woman from another reference picture.

I mixed all the greens from the Golden Palette of colors, no tube greens here.

I wasn’t interested in rendering an exact copy of the photo, I liked the color and composition of it but I wanted to put my own twist on it. Thick and sloppy palette knife paint in the foreground, with thin washes of Liquin diluted paint added in to get a water color affect.

After it dries I’m going to try to get more detail in the woman’s face.

     

Art Class Portrait Study

We were fortunate to have a student in class bring in her brother-in-law ( Ray ) to model for the class. One long 2 hour pose, he was great...didn’t move an inch..... best model I ever had ! Lol ! Unfortunately I forgot my camera and this was all I could get down in 2 hours.