Me, again

From pencil sketch To fleshtones To greens Ta-Dah!   My Gal Ga-Doll!

Gal Gadot. 12"x 16" Acrylic on canvas. July 26. Still Life WC on Moleskine. July 22. HE Godfather. 7"x 9" Acrylic. July 17. 9"x 12" Acrylic of TIME Kickball. July 16. Godfather Gouache on paper. Unearthed July 16. Man in Mirror 5B Pencil Sketch. July 13.  Cezanne-inspired Fruits. WC on Moleskine. July 13. A Cezanne Still Life WC. On Moleskine. July 12. Sunflowers & Delphiniums WC on Moleskine. July 2. Duterte and Trump WC on Moleskine. July 1. Two of the most vilified statesmen in recent history. One actually gets his job done!

Watercolor is both hard and easy. It's a fairly easy medium to use yet takes a lot of mastery to make it worth your while. I admire the watercolor artists I see on Facebook, especially those who make landscape/urban art, maybe because I don't know how to do those. Anyway, as I want to learn doing portraits first, I'll stick with this genre for today. My art journal offering is of Sylvester Stallone (an artist/expressionist himself) as Rocky. I slaved over the skin-tone for an hour from 5 in the morning to 6 am...or was it earlier? I didn't want to treat it loose and transparent afraid I wasn't going to capture his likeness at all.  As usual, there's room for improvement but I'm learning. I must say Holbein WC is good even when used thickly and opaque. Not to self: I noticed I choose my reference pictures carefully. Otherwise, how do I keep my inspiration while I attain likeness? I have to keep this in mind though for my future projects. P.S. RIP John Av...

It's hard to do portraits for sure but I feel challenged to do it every time I see a face worth painting.  I think I have done my entire family in oil in the 1990's.  Problem is, I haven't done many in my art career and I haven't really practiced doing it recently and with a little shoulder discomfort, I'm afraid I'm not as accurate as before.  So, how do you capture a beautiful, inspiring face on paper or canvas?  I'm referring to my dilemma of translating current worldwide sensation Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) first into watercolor. Answer:  Just do it and enjoy your work I guess.  This particular WC does not capture the full gorgeousness of Gadot especially if I put my reference side by side with my artwork but I can say I'm happy with the similarity or my particular version of her and I really enjoyed doing another face using my newly-rediscovered medium of choice.  I used high-quality Holbein watercolor tubes and they turned out pretty well on my ...

A world of oranges Cyan Blue, Black and White Kois are fun and done! 10"x 14" Double Kois 8"x 10" Single Koi

There are typically two types of art students from a teacher's empirical observation. The talented/lazy one and the diligent/untalented one.  I'm what they call a "lazy artist".  I have the talent for doing art, sure!  Problem with that is I leave things to chance when I can be the master of my own fate, in other words...be diligent in one's work and have absolute control with its outcome, whatever that may be.  For e.g. I paint as quickly as I can and be happy or unhappy with it without being mindful of fine tuning my work.  I can do an  acrylic painting on canvas in just one day and get done with it!  In other words, forget about it!  Sometimes, I even scare myself out of my Roof Studio cutting my painting time!  Silly me :-) Now, I have decided to embark on a daily art journal where I have to do at least one artwork a day, and not spend the afternoons sleeping.  Yes, I sleep most afternoons which is why I probably have trouble sl...

Harry Potter. WC on Moleskine. June 30. Lucky 9 Kois. 16"x 20" Acrylic. June 18. Stallone aka Rocky. WC on Moleskine. June 16. A Gabrielle Munter in WC. Moleskine. June 14. Gal Gadot WC on Moleskine. June 9. Puffin WC3 on Moleskine. June 9.  Commissioned Kois. 10"x 14" Acrylic. June 8. 8"x 10" Single Koi. Acrylic. June 8. Kois WC2 on Moleskine. June 7. Kois WC1 on Moleskine. June 6. Puffin WC1 on Moleskine. June 6. 2nd Pose from Yesterday's Session. Soft Pastel. June 4. Afternoon Live Nude Session in Soft Pastel. June 3. Cezanne Countryside Landscape. WC on Moleskine. June 3. 2 Colorful Birds. WC in Moleskine. June 2. Nude Study 1 in Pastel and Charcoal. June 1. Nude Study 2 in Charcoal and black pastel for BG. June 1.