Monday, February 27, 2012

Twinkle Twinkle


Emily T in a "sparkly" blue dress and pointe shoes. Very nice poses. This one may turn into a painting later on. The sparkles cover the dress and did not lend themselves to a 15 minute conte sketch but should be fun to experiment with in paint.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

They Blew Up Yuchitown



Years ago, I did a painting of a prehistoric Creek Indian village called Yuchitown. The site is located near Columbus, GA. Recently, I was asked if I would allow a copy of the painting to be part of a permanent display at the Atlanta Airport(Hartsfield). "A Walk Through Atlanta History" is located between concourses B and C. You'll have to skip the train and walk it but you'll get a little exercise and maybe learn something along the way. Many of my paintings for the National Park Service find other uses beyond their original purpose. Some have ended up in textbooks while others are displayed in museums to show general themes in history. In this case, they cropped it at the top and bottom and blew it up to what appears to be 10-12 feet. I have not been able to go see it yet as it is in an area that is not accessible by any one that is not flying. The close up photo was taken by my daughter recently.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Love


This painting started out as a larger horizontal painting a couple of years ago. It showed a dancer in a small meadow or field near a live oak tree. The dancer was off center to the left. After working on it for quite some time, I finally decided to crop the tree out and darken the background. I always liked the figure but just could not get the background to work. I finished it today, Valentines Day and titled the work, "Love". 18x24. Model is Robin V.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

New Scale


Depending on where you look, Kong was somewhere between 25' to 150' tall. 25-50 seems to be the most common. I like the idea of a 20-25 foot beast. That's still pretty gigantic but maybe a little more believable?? Here's a photoshopped version of the first sketch with a larger Kong.

Frazetta's Kong


One of my early influences and a continual source of inspiration, Frank Frazetta was deeply influenced by the original King Kong movie. If you've seen the movie, you can see it in his paintings. This is one of several of his versions of the story in paint. I love the atmosphere in this and my go for something similar in my final version.

Beauty and the Beast


I've always enjoyed the King Kong story. Even the 80's Jeff Bridges version was fun to watch. This is a study for a larger painting. I'm working on scale...should Kong be larger? Let me know what you think. Charcoal, chalk and oil on heavy paper. The study is approx 13"x13".

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Black and White Study


I did this charcoal, chalk and gesso piece from photos taken at Monday's class. Model, Laura H. Might do a larger work from this later. The filigree detail on the bodice is done with gesso and a fine brush. Love the hands too.