Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Lady Arwen


Oil on 12x16 on canvas. Lady Arwen, played by Liv Tyler in the movie,"Lord of the Ring", is the daughter of Elrond, possesses a flawless porcelain skin and beguiling eyes, and a deep love for Aragorn, one of the lead warrior/protector of Frodor. The artwork is not much of a likeness of Liv, but then I thought, Liv herself doesn't always look like Liv Tyler in the morning, anyway. Hmmm...mahright?

Monday, March 24, 2008

The Wizard


Oil on 12x16 canvas. I am big fan of the "The Lord of the Ring" and it's sequels ,and I thought painting Gandalf, played by Ian Mckellen, would be interesting. I painted this one from a photo in an official movie guide book. It's interesting and challenging to experiment a dim lit subject like this. This got inspired by an artwork by Nathan Fowkes' that is hanging in one of the walls at LAAFA and thought of doing something similar to that. I tried hard to lessen blending tones and make the brushstrokes more define and mostly leave as it is to get that painterly effect. I did this for about 5 hrs. I'm quite happy of the outcome. Just a wishfull thinking: Old and Wise Wizard, cast a spell on me that I may paint great portraits and that these "little precious" paintings may be adored all through the ages.
 Just trying to get attention of people in Google+ for an old post in  Blogger. I don't know how new this feature is, but it is for me. My apologies. +xavier gonzalez +Gustavo Partal +Patsy Priebe +Kevin Harris +Tony Diavolo 

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Trick of the day


Oil on 8x9 board canvas. Some tips from Ric Morris that's worth noting: i) shadow of the figure also looked better when it is scraped by a palette knife; it gives an atmospheric effect. ii)White skin complexion reflects a light to the background like luminous. It is always practical to diffuse darker background for a better space effect. iii) To make a transition from light to dark, every gradiation of tone must be applied by a brushstroke with such care; never push a paint around to blend the tone with a brush. A dry brush technique might be a good idea but it is only done sparingly. iv) each brushstrokes must be decisively "hitting the target" , not a guessing game, so as not to waste time finishing the job. This process undeniably requires a lot of conscious effort. It never happens overnight. Believe me, this is easier said than done. This work was done in 3 hours.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Mother



Oil on 12x16 canvas. It has been always difficult for me to draw Mom's picture, lest that I may not give justice to her likeness. She herself paints, too, so she knows what's good artwork and what's not. Years back, I made studies of her in pencil and those works never got me to anything. Perhaps, I didn't know what I was doing. Now with the little knowledge acquired, I thought of doing it once again, and with a bit of boldness, I chose oil. I copied this from an old pic when she was 16. Looking at it carefully and closely, it looked more like an old picture than a portrait in oil. I realized brushstrokes and tones are finely and delicately done, when it should be painterly. It lacked life. The face looked flat and there's not much partitions of anatomy. It took me approximately 8 hours to finish this.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008



Oil on 12x16 canvas. This is another artwork that I copied from a pencil rendition of an unknown artist that I printed out from my collection. I like the play of light I did on this one--simple and direct. I was able to give a soft edge on the left side of the subject, which is another thing that I like. It seemed that I am giving a lot of time painting in my three days off than other important things that I ought to be doing: like doing my finances and taking care of my application for a bone densitometry class. I am just going by what I feel like doing and not thinking rational at all. If I could have it my way, I don't want to go back to my routine work in the hospital; I'll just weild my brush on the canvas all day long. I'm on a roll!


Oil on 12x16 canvas. Ric Morris, my mentor, once told me that another way to learn art is by emulating a master's work, that is, learn their styles, and discover how they see light in their paintings. The work above is a painting copied from a charcoal done by Jacob Collins, one of the young prominent classicists of our time. His gallery of figures are just amazing that will blow your mind.

Monday, March 10, 2008

The 9 Tone Value Scale


Oil on 9x12 canvas. Another artwork I copied from Marshall Vandruff' collection. I had so much fun doing this artwork ,perhaps because of its comical character and the exagerated features; it got me smiling most of the time I was painting it. It's a limited pallete of nine tones of black and white and mixed. I make it a habit before starting my painting by carefully mixing piles of nine tone value scale on my palette. That way, it makes my life easier on deciding which tone to assign each area and simply work it up by filling it in with paint. Makes sense? I didn't come up with that on my own; I learned it from John Sanden. He added that, as an aid to remember the tones he created a numerical equivalent of each, starting with pure white as #1 and pure black as #9, #5 as the middle tone between 2 extremes. One thing he stressed in his book is to aquaint our eyes on these 9 tones (make your own strip of these values on a white board) by placing these tones against a painting and comparing it as to how the artist used his values. If the painting you're comparing is colored, then think black and white and you'll eventually find its equivalent. It's a work, but, I think, it's truly rewarding.

The Bishop


Charcoal on 14x17 vellum bristol. This is copied from a painting work of one of my fav portraitists John Sandem. His style is impeccable, direct, and truthful. His books are worthy of indulgence.

Charcoal on 14x17 vellum bristol. I copied this from a certain artist's work whom I browsed online.