A new drawing (in progress)...

2014 is nearing its end, and (as longtime readers of this blog know) I am always struggling to finish a few projects before NewYear's, each year.

This year is no different.

I'm hoping to get much further (although I'm hoping to finish it, I'm also a realist) with The Presentation of Spiders, and a couple other in-progress paintings, but I've also started a drawing, which will be among the first pieces I start in 2015.  I'm pretty pleased with this so far... (At this point, it's about half done.)

(If nudity offends you, don't look...)

Circling Back Around...

I was asked today to be Artist Guest of Honour at a local science fiction convention next February. It's a bit ironic that (or, at least, coincidental); I've been thinking lately about creating some new "sci-fi"-ish art (I even drew a UFO in my sketchbook last week' and found an old robot character I want to re-work into a new painting) and I'll be using the airbrush for lsrge sections of my next few paintings.

I've also picked up another freelance client, very possibly a more steady source of income than most of my previous clients have been. And, theyre hiring me to make some paintings, as well as woodworking!

So, things are looking...better.

I spent today drawing a new figure/character, one of twelve or so I hope to discipline myself to draw between now and the end of the year. As with the figures I was drawing years ago, and then painting in airbrush, this figure was drawn using references (and a plastic ecorche model) not from live models.

(This figure "replaces" the one I posted in a blog entry from early April--which, for various reasons, didn't "speak" to me. This new pose is "stronger" somehow, bolder, and those are qualities I want in this painting...)
I remember A couple of figure drawings I made in college (2006) which one student criticized during critique, saying that I couldn't use "Classical figure drawings" to convey "conceptual" themes.

Well, that's actually a large part of what I want to do next; have the figures start to interact with the spiders.

I've been planning this for a long time...

More Drawing!

A couple of new "spider drawings". I have written lately about wanting to draw more, and more frequently--and (I'm pleased to report) I have been! I've been struggling--lately and always!--with the temptation to clean the studio, build more panels, read something, update my computer, catch up on emails, organize my bills, make more lists--basically, anything to waste time that could (should) should be spent actually getting artwork made...moved forward...finished.

My free time keeps getting filled, so I really don't have much time to waste. (Just tonight, a friend who has helped me move on several occasions needs my help moving this Saturday. I had hoped to spend the day in the studio (we are going out with friends Saturday evening), but I can't really say no about helping this particular friend move.

So, I have a choice--and a few free hours tonight. I can spend tonight cleaning the studio, building panels in the garage, playing games on the iPad--or creating in the studio.

So, I'm headed to the studio, to make art.

Right now.

I need to work on some new figure drawings; tonight is as good a night for that, as any.

I'll post them when they're far enough along to be interesting.

Confronting Beauty...!

I've spent the better part of three (non-consecutive) days, recently (including today) working on White Widow. It's coming along nicely (if I can be forgiven for saying so, myself) and I've been thinking quite a bit about what this painting means.

I've never intended the spider paintings to be scary (any more than actual spiders intend to be frightening...hmmm), and Liora has remarked several times that this painting looks more and more "beautiful", the longer I work on it. So, I'm beginning to seriously consider what it might mean, to depict spiders as "beautiful".

Further, White Widow represents only one approach to painting "beautiful spiders". I have another, different idea in mind, which I plan to explore in still other, future paintings.

And, those paintings might lead to still other ideas (and I certainly hope they do!) other ways to explore "beauty", and what it--and it's opposite--mean, and can mean.

I spent many hours during the second semester of my juniour year at KCAI (Spring 2006) discussing "meaning" in art with my instructor, Marcus Cain. Specifically, we talked about what my art meant (at the time), and Marcus gave me a great deal to think about with regards to what my work might come to mean.

It was with Marcus' encouragement (and guidance) that I first began "exploring" spiders, in both sculpture and in painting. I felt then that I was only beginning to understand, in the smallest way, what my work might possibly be able to "mean".

I am starting to feel, now, that I'm finally "back" to where I was at the end of my juniour year at KCAI (Spring, 2006).

And ready to move forward...

Another new drawing/painting

I spent the weekend drawing; working on White Widow. I'm trying to use the time I have now to get the drawings done for several new paintings. Honestly, I expect the drawings to take longer (we'll see...!), so I am going to work on the drawings now, so I can concentrate on painting, as it gets closer to the show.

I'm going to make the homepage on my site a sequence of views of this painting as it progresses, so keep checking back at:

www.syntheticskystudios.com

The larger drawing (in charcoal pencil) is the actual painting: a 24x36 inch aluminum panel, primed with Gamblin's "Traditional Gesso". The smaller drawing was my reference drawing. No computers or projectors were used to enlarge the drawing; I used a 24" ruler to measure bits of the smaller drawing, then make some proportional marks on the aluminum panel, then the spider was redrawn, 2x, freehand.

Stay tuned. Thanks.

Nothing to see here, move along (well, not really...)

...but, sometimes it really seems that way!)

I feel that I might have used this title before (but, I really don't care.)

It's been a strange week, and today is stranger, still. It's not been a bad day--straightened the studio, worked on a painting, worked out, sat in the hot tub with Linda for a while--but I had a "free" hour (or so) tonight, and I didn't feel like doing...anything.

I have a couple freelance projects due soon, and a painting for work, and (of course) several of my own in progress pieces, as well as a couple drawings I'm polishing--and I simply was not motivated to work on any of it.

I did work on the piece for work this afternoon, and (it's due Thursday) it will be done on time. But, it would have been nice to have worked on it a bit more this evening.

Oh, well.

The drawing for the 24 x 36 aluminum panel is coming along nicely. I (still) think it's going to be an amazing painting. AND, I plan to purchase some porcelain this week; hopefully, there will be at least a couple new sculptures in the show next month!

I bought another box of the Gamblin Traditional Gesso last week, and hope to get at least one more 24x36 inch panel this week, so I can prep a couple panels with the next "batch" I cook up. (I don't want to waste the stuff!)

I need to draw a lot more often than I have been, lately.

The photo is of some "practice" sketches I've been doing. They're more like "warm-ups", actually, than "real" drawings. (I mean, they're real, but...)

And, yes, the spider in the lower left is a real preserved female garden spider, freeze-dried. (If anyone knows where I could obtain more specimens like this--of various species--please let me know! And, thanks!)

Another New (Nude) Drawing...

This is from a couple weeks ago, the weekly life-drawing session that I attend every couple weeks (or so). I'm hoping to get to another one of these a week from tonight (and, I'm also hoping to attend a different drawing group this coming Sunday. More on that, if I actually do attend...)

The pose lasted about an hour and twenty minutes (not including breaks).

Approx. 16 x 20, charcoal on toned paper...

Another older drawing...

This was drawn directly from a bust of "Lucius Veros" (Marcus Aurelius' son, in real life--not in the movie Gladiator).

This image is the drawing about 2/3 complete. I went back to the museum at least one more time, and completed the hair, shadows in the neck area, etc. I'll try to take a photo of the finished piece, and post that, soon.

I really should get this framed. (It would help to find it, first, though I'm sure it's around here, somewhere...)

Charcoal pencil on Canson paper, 12 x 16 inches.