Death and the Maiden

I'm making some progress on a small panel, part of the BDSM skeleton series, portraying a beautiful woman with a skeleton lover. I got the underpainting on the figure and skeleton done, and started doing some finishing work on the figure's head. The arms of the skeleton will be put in last - he will be holding her hand, and with his left hand, caressing her face.

Had a bit of trouble with the model's left leg. It got distorted when I did the transfer of the drawing to the panel, plus, I think the drawing had some flaw in it to begin with. So I spent yesterday making corrections.

This is one of the most fair complexioned figures I've ever done. The subtle differences in the tone make it a good exercise in seeing and tonality. She has the most beautiful skin tones.

The real challenge of this painting is making all the elements work together in a believable way. I do not have an antique sofa - I had to extrapolate it. The model was actually seated on a black futon. Additionally, I had to extrapolate the relationship between the skeleton and the model. I had her pose with the skeleton, but we could not get it into exactly the right position.

Open Studios

After several years of opting out, I decided to try and participate in San Francisco Open Studios. Oftentimes, at my old studio, the Open Studios weekend was just too stressful, and since I was working a day job, trying to maintain enough work to support a gallery and solo show plus put in time for Open Studios was too much.

However, I think now that I have more time to devote to painting, I can handle the extra workload.

Above are 3 of the BDSM skeleton paintings that I finished. Today, I started background layers on two more panels. So for the series, I have three paintings done, two panels that are about 75% complete, and two rather incomplete panels with just backgrounds blocked in.

SFMOMA Sketch Friday

SF Museum of Modern Art invited artists (or anyone who loves to draw) to attend Sketch Friday. They even provided sketchbooks which are returned at the end of the session. These books end up being a record of all these sessions, with different artists' works. We all went in to draw what we wanted to from the Avedon exhibit (a wonderful and fun exhibit, by the way!)

Here are the drawings I completed in around 2-1/2 hours. Fortunately, was able to find a bench in front of the Warhol Factory photo with the grouped nude human figures.

It was a lot of fun. And sketching makes you slow down and really see the artwork instead of just glancing at it and walking away. I'll probably do this again in a couple of weeks.

After the event, I went back to the studio to work late, until 10 p.m. I just installed some new lights. The studio is a wonderful place to work after dark.

Repair

It's one of those things that I put off and put off.... a painting is scheduled to be in a show this fall at Columbia College in Chicago, but it has a small ding. Very strange, the upper layer of gesso of a factory prepped panel chipped off. A tiny piece, but noticable. So I patched it with wood putty afew months ago. Then a little layer of gesso. Finally, today, I forced myself to sand out that tiny spot, and overlay a little green on it. Now it looks as good as new. Why did I wait so long?

Slow Going

The second painting above is in the process of getting the final layers and highlights laid in.

I'm real happy with how the first painting is going (the one with the skeleton in leather). Got the fleshtones just right.

figures and skeletons

Here are images of several paintings (works in process), with the first layer of paint applied for the figures and skeletons. These won't be finished until I add one more layer of paint. I still have one more painting that needs under coat for the figure, and then I'll begin the final phase for the five paintings. And then I have to start the whole process again for the remaining 7.

I haven't decided if I should put leather gear on the first skeleton (riding horsey).

Workaholic

I've been doing 6 days a week at the studio. I've got five paintings in fairly advanced states. Skeletons have been blocked in, backgrounds almost completed, and three of the five human figures blocked in. The backgrounds are in some cases very involved. One includes a Persian rug, several include curtains. I added a cage to one of the paintings. These backgrounds all added quite a bit of time but I think the work was worth it. The paintings have a rich, perhaps baroque look.

I'm a little worried because I got a jury notice, for August 3rd. I've already served on juries for two cases, so I feel like I've already done my civic duty.

As the days get shorter, I'll need to get my lights installed. Right now, I only need one halogen light to paint because the natural light in the studio is so good. I bought some track lights that mount sideways on a wall, so that I don't need a 10 foot ladder to adjust the lights (the ceilings in my studio are quite high)

I'll have pictures of the paintings in progress posted later this week.

Freidrich Goes back to the Studio

It was time to take Friedrich, my full sized model skeleton back to the studio. He stayed at home during my move from the old studio to the new one.

I took him off his stand and put him in the back seat of the car, and it looked like a coverup to a crime scene.

Life Drawing

We had a great model for life drawing at the Mission Cultural Center. It had been a couple of weeks since I last went to life drawing, so I was afraid I was already getting rusty, but I managed to get a couple of decent drawings done.

Above is the male model we had a couple of weeks ago. He is a former dancer, so he held some amazing poses.

Involved Backgrounds

I working on a series of 12 skeleton paintings, and currently have 6 of the 12 in various stages of background development. When I first started I thought these would have just a dark plain background, but as I looked at them, they seemed to need more elements to make an interesting background.

Several of them will have curtains in the background to provide color and compositional effect. Here is an example. The reds on this one turned out really nice. I've been looking at lots of pictures of theater curtains, and a friend of mine has red velvet curtains. I took some reference photos to get a better understanding of the color, flow of the fabric, and shadows.

I'm going to add elements such as cages, staircase, tiled floor, etc. to make the other paintings work compositionally.

Guns 'N Roses album

Axl Rose had purchased three of my paintings late last year, of which two pieces were to be included in a limited edition album release. To my knowledge, it was never widely released, though I received a copy from the band. I was looking at some stats for my website, and noticed a big spike in views and it appears that there is a big discussion among the GNR fans about the unreleased album, and in particular the images. Here is a link to a blog that discusses it, and they even included my painting "Lizard Part of my Brain."

http://chinese-democracy.blogspot.com/

I finally finished all the final drawings for the skeleton BDSM series and have started transferring these to panel.  

I got frustrated with one of them - I transferred the piece to panel, and realized on looking at it fresh again that the spanking horse was not in correct perspective.  It's probably going to be a struggle from beginning to end to get that one right - I was unable to locate an actual spanking horse at Mr. S so I had to use references on the net.  The horses in the reference photos were not in the exact positioning as the horse in my drawing, so I had to extrapolate.    I should be used to this by now, as I am always making these sorts of adjustments in my work.

Videography for Omnicircus Performance

I had the opportunity to videotape a performance of Omnicircus on Saturday night. Their founder/director is Frank Garvey, a multimedia artist who composes, designs art robots, and other multimedia visual arts (as well as performs electronic and acoustic music). Garvey asked me to video the whole performance. The piece, Thousand Faces Ball, was a macabre apocalyptic performance piece. The performance space itself is wonderful and interesting, with little light machines with brilliant colors, weird metal sculptures, and paintings by Garvey on the walls painted black.

Above are a couple of stills that I extracted from the video. I had a bit of a hard time navigating around with my ankle in a cast/boot, but I was able to get some interesting footage of the performance.

Doggie

Another drawing

Skeleton Dominaitrix

I'm settling into my new digs.  It is so pleasant at my new studio, it makes it easy to work there.  For now, I'm limited to drawing.  I sprained my ankle, so I can't paint (I do alot of pacing around and stand when I paint).  I'm working through all the preparatory drawings of the BDSM skeletons.  

Usable Studio

I sprained my ankle a week ago, just after I got all the boxes and furniture moved into the new studio.  I had slipped and fallen on the last step at our apartment building.  I ended up hobbling around on a swollen left ankle all day, and by the end of Saturday it hurt quite a bit.  It took all week to finish unpacking because I was so slow in getting around.

Finally, the studio is organized and usable.  Late yesterday, I got to sit down and actually do some art.  I worked a bit yesterday, and all day today, on detailed BDSM skeleton preparatory drawings.  

New Studio

On Monday, I received a notice that I had to vacate my studio.  Apparently the new owner changed his mind and wants to use all the space himself rather than lease out afew spaces.  I was told earlier in the year to look for a year long lease, but it never showed up.  I knew I was on borrowed time.  

 

Fortunately, I had been keeping  close tabs on Craigs list over the last 6 months.  Very quickly, I found a beautiful space in SOMA, near the Ballpark and near the waterfront.  It’s a bit smaller, but it has wonderful light, wifi, kitchen.  Plus, I think there will be much greater stability, as the owners do not appear to want to change the usage of the building, and in fact, one of them even exhibits in Open Studios.  This helped tip the decision to take this particular studio. The other option was a bigger studio at 7th and Market.   Not a bad space, but this new one better fits my needs and has wonderful ambiance.

 

As the new  space is a little smaller, so I rented out a small self storage space.  

 

I’m hectically trying to finish the Diomedes painting (final details), and then over the next few days will begin packing and moving.  I hired a moving company to come on Friday to take the big things over.  

 

The sad thing is that Belcher Studios was the last artistic outpost in the Castro.  The neighborhood has lost its last bit of culture, and is now wholly a restaurant and party neighborhood.  As a resident of the neighborhood, I find this very sad indeed.

 

But I’m glad to be moving on to a new adventure.  The new space isn’t quite as convenient (I’ll be taking Muni six days a week now) but I can’t wait to start working there.  

Leather and Latex

With the help and courtesy of Mr. S. Leather, I have been able to set up the skeleton model with actual leather and latex clothing.  This will help greatly when I execute the paintings - the reference photo will allow me to accurately render the leather gear.

For the first round, I borrowed a leather harness, and military cap.  In some poses, it didn’t look quite right on the skeleton, and distracted from the composition.  But in others, the leather works quite nicely with the concept and composition I have in mind.  

Today, I went and borrowed dominaitrix type leather gear.  Linda at Mr. S. was very helpful, and assisted me by suggesting coordinating pieces.  

As usual, dressing up a female BDSM skeleton was way harder than dressing up a male BDSM skeleton.  The latex appears to be way more delicate than leather, so I wrapped the joints on the skeleton to ensure that the screws and other hardware didn’t accidentally snag the latex when I put on the apparel.  

I was up and down on the ladder a zillion times today, and my legs knees and hip are killing me.  Must be my age.

The boots and gloves proved to be too difficult to put on the skeleton - rather than risk damaging the gloves, I’m going to just put them on my own arm and photograph my arm in the position I’ve set up in the study sketch, so that I can capture the folds and lighting.  Same with the boots. 

Over the weekend, I got four of the drawings transferred to panel and did the first underpainting of acrylic.  And on two of the paintings, I got the first oil layer into the background.

More Drawings

The drawings are coming along.  I think I’ll have the first four transferred to panel to begin painting sometime this week.