The Show Last Night

Last night's show went well. For the first time, I actually hung around the Upstate Artists Guild longer than usual. Below is a picture of my "muse" and friend Rebecca and the painting of her. I cannot express enough gratitude for her patience in the process. For a first piece of a posed model, I think it went well. As we had limited time, I used photographs instead of sketching or painting directly, which was fortunate, because I changed pictures in the middle of the process.

What is neat about this painting is that I do not think I have seen a photo where the subject is NOT smiling. So, I intentionally had her not smile for this. And we got the sword in the picture.



Below is a picture of yours truly, back to the goatee look after 8 months of full beard. Best to get some sun on my face before the fall.

Completed Works

This is called "Breakfast," and could conceivably be an exterior scene from the American Primitive script.



This piece is called, "Hung Over," for hopefully obvious reasons. And yes, the black and white thing on the table, with his paw over his face, is a cat in a contorted sleeping position. The other day, I simply sketched my cat, Dr. Strangelove, while he napped and then created a setting around him. It's one of my favorites.

Work In Progress: "Hung Over."

Note: No animals were fed wine, bourbon or any other alcoholic substance, nor were they actually hung over during the making of this painting.

New Paintings

Yesterday (July 26) was quite a productive day, in terms of paintings. Below are three completed ones.

This first one is an 80th birthday tribute to my favorite director, Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick was also a chess master, who used to play in Washington Square in his youth. It is called, "Beyond the Infinite."



This one is titled, "The Return of Don Quixote," and alludes to the idea that his dulcinea will pick up the sword, don the golden helmet and become the new knight errant.



Lastly, this is to be included in a show that begins next Friday (August 1) and is my first attempt of a painting taken from a live model. Our time was limited, so I used photography and selected a shot from which to paint. Originally, the subject was to be used for "The Return of Don Quixote," but I was not happy that it looked much like my subject, so I started from scratch and did this one. It is nowhere near perfect, but closer than above.