>> New York, New York (Black & White!)

Here is four more images from my trip last week to New York City/Long Island-- only these are in black & white!

Two are from inside my grandparents house,

Two are from walking around the City.

>> New York, New York!

The first post in a series-- images from New York City, on my way to my grandparents this past week.

In Honor of Martin Luther King day: I have a Dream

I've had this secret dream for some time now, to... paint murals.

AH! Even just writing about it just gets me excited.

This semester I realized I really like working outside the studio--where the people are: in a park, on the street-- all of it. So... how freaking rad would it be to paint, in the same place, for at least a month--on the side of the street. Think about all the conversations you could have with people! Day after day-- people asking you what you're doing, you explaining your vision and then allowing your conversation to stray off to something new and exciting.

Another thing that gets me excited about murals is the absolute enormous size of them---gah, I just love it---it's like a thirty foot tall canvas! It's art outside of the gallery, in front of the people, interacting with the people: becoming a part of their landscape and their community.

I have absolutely no clue what I would paint, if I was in fact actually ever able to make a mural--but, it's fun to dream. And dream big. Literally.

The photographs are of two murals in downtown LA-- the top one is my favorite, just gets me good.

Extended Still-Life

This is an extended still-life we worked on (well, on & off again) over the course of about a month and a half. We started it in class and then after two weeks of that our professor just told us to hand it in a month from then. We still had other stuff to work on in class and out of class--but this was always, always something that was on mind-- that when I had a night free I always thought "oh man, I should go try & work on that big 'ol thing". The canvas was 30" x 30".

Self-Portrait

This was our second/last portraiture exercise--

but... it got me so freaking excited to take Life Painting over the summer, and to get back to doing more figure studies. Drawing/Painting people = much, much more exciting than still-life's.

p.s. the coloring on these is a little off-- just a little washed out

first stab at portraiture

This semester we didn't study portraiture for long. Our professor did a 3 hour demonstration, then we spent the next class session doing one ourselves, and then did a self-portrait for an out of class assignment. All in all, we probably spent about a week doing portraits--so not much time at all.

During our in-class painting session we were told to just paint and try to get as much done as possible in the 2 1/2 hours we had. AHH!

I was so nervous doing it and kept feeling so pressed for time--but I think that actually helped me.

I not only had to see quicker but also was forced to make more instinctual decisions about what colors to use, what marks to make, etc.

In the end, the painting didn't quite look like the model...

but, it got me excited--excited to paint more people, & excited to try to quicken the pace I work at.

So, here it is: my half-done painting