Still life with pears

This painting is still in the works.. there are a couple of areas that need touching up on but I thought I'd share what I am working on at home! I am gearing up to do an especially intimidating painting of Michael Jackson for a friend of mine.

Grigor

I met Grigor ("Gree-gore") Eftimov at a convention several years ago. He's been doing some serious (and seriously good) oil work. I'd like to link you to his most recent blog post at http://existentialdreams.blogspot.com/ .


It's a figure painting (nude), and some may consider it Not Safe For Work, but if you're able to navigate over there, I highly recommend it. The piece is right up top (edit: it is no longer the most recent post, so it's no longer on top). It's called Seated Figure and it's worth clicking on it to view the full size. Pay attention to the careful brushwork. If I weren't a starving artist, I'd ask to buy it. Ha!

WIP Celebration painting

Closeup of the trees:
This painting is taking an incredible amount of time.. and that's one of my weak spots. One of my goals is to improve my speed, reduce mistakes and paint it right the first time. These things will help me build a body of work and enable me to show more in a single show.

Some plein aire painting

I'm gonna head over to the fountain at Celebration.. see if I can get some plein aire painting in. Might be hot so if I'm not actually there you know what happened to me! I'm going to try and capture a scene similar to this photo I took of the area:

Portrait of a homeless man

This painting is part of a series of portraits of a homeless man that I interviewed on the street.

Medium

I've been looking for a good painting medium for a long time! I like the look of Liquin, however, many people are against using it due to its properties. It is very permanent and makes it hard to clean a painting later when an artist uses Liquin. There's the Stand Oil/Turpentine/Damar Varnish combo, but my studio is my apartment, and I don't want to be breathing all those vapors in my sleep (this combo is the harshest for humans and animals).

I think I am going to try a Galkyd/Linseed combo or Galkyd Lite or, if I can afford it, Galkyd Slow Dry to see if I can unify the paint surface (make it all equally lustrous) and we'll see if I like the consistency to keep using it.