Sauvie Island

There's an island nearby, that's apparently all the rage. It's called Sauvie Island. All I've heard about it since moving to Portland is that it is the place to go pick some amazing berries. Which, reading between the lines, tells me that it's a great place to hang out in nature. Which means a great place to do some painting. I was intrigued.

Last week I received an order of casein. I aim to expand my experiments in that medium, and as it turns out, my friends were planning a berry picking excursion. I hitched along to get my paint on! All of my casein setup fits nicely in a little shoulder bag I carry (which is a nice change from lugging a french easel and a backpack full of gear), so I figured it would make for a fine recon mission - so to speak.

It was a hot, dry day, so I had to fight the paint a little (I was constantly reminded of why I love oils) to keep it from drying up too fast, but I think I was still victorious. All in all I think casein is slowly winning my heart over.

Kruger's Farm. Casein on paper. 8" x 5"

Ugly Mug Mondays! #14

I am King Cheez-It. I am not amused.

I was digging through files on my computer and I came across a handful from my last trip to New York. I became overly addicted to Cheez-Its and, well, you've got to do something with the empty boxes, don't you? And sometimes you've just got to wear a box on your head.

Casein on canvas paper. 2.5" x 3.5"

Banskine!

A friend of mine decided to learn how to make his very own little Moleskine journals, and was gracious enough to ask if I wanted one and if I had any special requests for it. Well, it was just too good to pass up to have a custom little Moleskine; my only request was that it have a medium-dark grey paper. A few weeks after having made the request (and having forgotten about it entirely) it arrived in the mail and it was everything I could have hoped for and more. As I was in love with doing casein studies at the time I decided to start painting in the book right away. The paper that he found performed marvelously! It's heavy enough not to want to warp as I slathered water and paint over it, and toothy enough to just grab the paint right odd the brush. I've only done three little paintings in it so far (I've been distracted by other things, mainly Star Craft II), but it's such a joy to work in - especially for warm-ups before settling in for more serious work.

Each of them is casein on paper and done with a larger-than-necessary brush so that I could ignore pesky little details; though that didn't stop me from trying... There are passages in each of the little paintings that I rather enjoy, and leaving as much of the paper showing through as possible has been a fun challenge. At any rate, enjoy. And as always, thanks for reading!




Casein on paper. Roughly 4" x 5".

Ugly Mug Mondays! #10 and #12

My lady has been on vacation for the past couple of days, which has made getting artwork done a lot more difficult than I had imagined. All of a sudden there are three furballs brawling it out for my undivided attention. Needless to say my concentration has been shot. Between that and struggling with my recent painting (which I'll post in a day or so) I've been off track on painting my ugly mug. I did this one earlier in the week, from life. The last few I've done have all been black and white over the white of the page, but I thought this time around I'd try it over a red ground. It's interesting, I think. We'll see where it leads.

Casein on canvas paper. 2.5" x 3.5"



This week's offering I kind of phoned in. I've been sketching a bit more again, so I wasn't really feeling sitting down with paints; and then there was the fuzzy coalition protesting in my apartment - one of whom is a really inquisitive cat that likes to get into everything. On more than one occasion he's jumped onto where my palette is kept and I have no desire to clean up a painted kitty. So I deferred to a quick pencil sketch.

Pencil on bristol. 2.5" x 3.5"

Ugly Mug Mondays! #9 and #10

I kind of skipped last week's Ugly Mug Monday!. It was completely accidental, I swear. I was up late duking it out with the final drawing for my latest full scale illustration and by the time it occurred to me it was something like eight in the morning. Then I spent the past week wrestling said drawing into submission and before I knew it - POW! - it was time for a new week. So I did two portraits for this week, as a way to play catch up. This time 'round I tried working from photo reference instead of sitting in front of a mirror. I kind of felt it was cheating, as I usually (read: always) work from photos, but I stumbled across my senior portrait and couldn't resist.

Once upon a time I had an afro. I thought it was cool. What can I say? Also I have a gap in my teeth. It isn't nearly this bad, but i thought it was hilarious and just couldn't help but leave it. It was originally the center-line in the face and wound up being one of those happy accidents that end up making a picture just that much more whimsical and quirky.

I realized that with the exception of my first week's offering, all of the self-portraits in the Ugly Mug series have been in black and white. There are two reasons for this;

1. I look at things in terms of tone. The simplest way to do this is in black and white.

2. I only have three tubes of casein paint. Black. White. And red. As it would happen I've fallen in love with casein and I sort of naturally reach for them whenever it's time to paint my ugly mug.

That being said, someone once told me I was afraid of color. She was basing this on the fact that everything in my sketchbook was in black and white. Either pencil or pen and ink. I was taught fairly early on that "if it doesn't work in black and white, it isn't going to work in color" and "you choose a color for it's value". These are the two things I hear in the back of my mind whenever I'm painting. So a lot of the time yes, I do work in black and white, but I think it's ridiculous to say that I'm afraid of color. To prove it, I put some red in this one. Hope you like it.

As an aside I really like these two paintings. I think the economic use of brush strokes is pretty cool, and I'm quite fond of the purely implied expression - especially in the second one. I'm liking the direction these are heading in, I hope you good folks do too.

Ugly Mug Mondays! #4

It isn't much of a likeness this time around. I just didn't have it in me, I guess. I've discovered that I'm enjoying the casein but I don't know. My head was elsewhere. I'll make it up to you next week.

Casein on watercolor paper.

Ugly Mug Mondays! #3

It's that time of week again! I found some casein while cleaning up some stuff in my studio so I thought I'd play with it a little. I tried to keep it loose and quick, so I used a single #4 flat brush, just so that I wouldn't get caught up in any of the detail. There are some pretty tasty passages that I really enjoy and some things I wish I spent more time on - but that's how the cookie crumbles.

Casein on canvas paper. 30 minutes.