A Week in Seabrook Island

My family and I just got back from a much needed week at the beach in Seabrook Island, SC. This was our first time to stay on the island and it was a blast. This was also our daughter's first trip to the beach so it was a lot of fun watching her experience everything for the first time. We had a lot of time to relax and play with the kids.

In my downtime I put the new camera through it's paces capturing tons of reference material for potential paintings. The shot above was taken just after sunrise on the morning we left. It was hard to leave after such a great week.

I also got a chance to break away one afternoon for a few hours and visited the M Gallery of Fine Art and the Robert Lange Studios in Charleston. I was able to see some amazing work on display by Sadie Valeri, David Gluck, Robert Liberace, Amy Lind, Ali Cavanaugh, Robert Lange, and tons more. Truly inspiring.

New Camera

I just got a new camera (Nikon D90) that has HD video capabilities. So I decided to record a little bit of video and test it out. I threw this together in iMovie pretty quickly. This was my first time using the program so it's pretty rough.

In Progress Still Life

I just finished painting the first layer of the corkscrew this morning. Above is a detail shot of where I finished up. There are a few spots that have sunk in since I haven't oiled this out yet, but I wanted to go ahead and post up a shot of the progress. I will move on to painting the cork tomorrow.

In Progress Still Life

Untitled
9"x12" Oil on panel

It seems more often than not I start my posts off with "It's been awhile" or "Progress has been slow". I'm sorry to say that is the case once again. Work has been in full swing recently, requiring me to often work nights, weekends and even a holiday recently.

In hopes of gaining more studio time I recently started waking up early to paint before I leave for work. So far this has worked out well. I get about two hours in and on a good day I can also paint in the evening for a few hours. I hope this will help boost my production time a bit.

Now on to the painting. I'm currently working on the screw pull. The first pass should be done after another morning session or two. Since my last post I've painted in the first layer of the table. Right now it's flat and monochromatic. But once I have added in the details (reflections, scratches, wood grain, etc...) it should have a good bit of character. I've also left the bottom of the glass unfinished so I could have painted table around it to paint into. I'll move back into that section once the screw pull is done.

The Artist’s Magazine‘s 2011 All-Media Art Competition

I am happy to announce that my painting "Glass Jar with Rag" received an honorable mention in the Artist's Magazine's 2011 All-Media art competition.

Click here to view the winners and honorable mentions.

In Progress Still Life

Untitled
9"x12" Oil on panel

Progress has been slow recently, but I hope to increase my studio time and complete this soon. I have been working on the wine glass which is proving harder than I initial thought. There are lots of thin subtle highlights along the edges of the glass and rim (the contrast in this photo is much darker than the actual painting which is hiding some of the details.) that have been testing the steadiness of my hand to paint properly. But I'm happy with how it is coming out so far.

In Progress Still Life

Untitled
9"x12" Oil on panel

Just finished the first pass on the bottle with the exception of the label. I'm going to come back to that a little later in the process. To be honest I'm a little nervous about painting the type on the label. I need to psych myself up for it. I've gone ahead and started painting in the wine glass. I'll post some pics of that as soon as I get it finished.