HOME | DD

Description
After reading 'Imaginative Realism' by James Gurney, I wanted to take some time to do a color/light study. I took a photo of my house in the morning and spent about 15 hours on this painting. It was a struggle to mix the muted colors and values on the front of the house. I ended up painting over it multiple times.

I've chosen to use gouache for my paintings was because it dried fast and opaque. As I have worked with it more, I have realized it probably dries too fast. Its difficult to mix large batches of a needed color, because the whole thing will dry on my palette before I have a chance to use it. It also makes it harder to mix other values or related colors. The opaque quality of the paint makes it easy to paint over, but it also dries extremely flat. As I worked on this painting, I didn't feel like I was capturing the texture.

As I considered these problems, I thought about the Andrew Wyeth's paintings. Wyeth is among my favorite artists. I was lucky enough to grow up near a museum that had a large collection of his work. Nearly all his paintings have muted palettes and incredibly rich sense of light and texture. If you have never done it, take a close look at the grass in a painting like "Christina's World" or "Winter 1946." Look at "Master Bedroom" and you'll see how much he can get out of a flat wall or bed sheet. Despite the initial appearance of carefully articulated detail, his paintings are shockingly loose and abstract. If you look at a painting like "Lime Banks" you can immediately see why he, despite being a 'realist', would sometimes compare his work to the abstract expressionist Franz Kline.

He did most of his work in watercolor or egg tempera. Based on what I've read, his tempera paintings were an extremely slow process akin to renaissance painters. This means lots of sketches and layers and layers of thin paint applied over an initial value study. In "Andrew Wyeth: A spoken self-portrait", he mentions he may work on a painting for 5 months. I don't know if I am patient enough to do that (I am actually trying figure how to speed up), but there definitely qualities of his paintings I would to bring into my own. I tried to replicating his brushwork in the grass and pinestraw for this painting.

I am not planning on becoming a 'realist' painter, but you may see more work like this in the near future. I want to start taking some commissions. I am putting together a portfolio for a website, and I want some more traditional pieces in there. I should have that going soon. When it's ready I'll make a journal post here.

(In the meantime, if you are interested in comissioning me, please feel free to send me a DM)

Description
After reading 'Imaginative Realism' by James Gurney, I wanted to take some time to do a color/light study. I took a photo of my house in the morning and spent about 15 hours on this painting. It was a struggle to mix the muted colors and values on the front of the house. I ended up painting over it multiple times.

I've chosen to use gouache for my paintings was because it dried fast and opaque. As I have worked with it more, I have realized it probably dries too fast. Its difficult to mix large batches of a needed color, because the whole thing will dry on my palette before I have a chance to use it. It also makes it harder to mix other values or related colors. The opaque quality of the paint makes it easy to paint over, but it also dries extremely flat. As I worked on this painting, I didn't feel like I was capturing the texture.

As I considered these problems, I thought about the Andrew Wyeth's paintings. Wyeth is among my favorite artists. I was lucky enough to grow up near a museum that had a large collection of his work. Nearly all his paintings have muted palettes and incredibly rich sense of light and texture. If you have never done it, take a close look at the grass in a painting like "Christina's World" or "Winter 1946." Look at "Master Bedroom" and you'll see how much he can get out of a flat wall or bed sheet. Despite the initial appearance of carefully articulated detail, his paintings are shockingly loose and abstract. If you look at a painting like "Lime Banks" you can immediately see why he, despite being a 'realist', would sometimes compare his work to the abstract expressionist Franz Kline.

He did most of his work in watercolor or egg tempera. Based on what I've read, his tempera paintings were an extremely slow process akin to renaissance painters. This means lots of sketches and layers and layers of thin paint applied over an initial value study. In "Andrew Wyeth: A spoken self-portrait", he mentions he may work on a painting for 5 months. I don't know if I am patient enough to do that (I am actually trying figure how to speed up), but there definitely qualities of his paintings I would to bring into my own. I tried to replicating his brushwork in the grass and pinestraw for this painting.

I am not planning on becoming a 'realist' painter, but you may see more work like this in the near future. I want to start taking some commissions. I am putting together a portfolio for a website, and I want some more traditional pieces in there. I should have that going soon. When it's ready I'll make a journal post here.

(In the meantime, if you are interested in comissioning me, please feel free to send me a DM)