Thursday, January 26, 2012

Good enough for government work

This week I am busy taking an oil painting portrait workshop with artist Letty Nowak http://www.lettynowak.com at The Studios of Key West. I have painted portraits before, but never with any instruction. And I really wanted to know how a serious portrait painter approaches it. In the photo above I have roughed in a sketch. I thought it was fine while I was doing it, then I saw fatal flaws, the nose was too long and the face wasn't wide enough. In the above photo I have made corrections and started to block in the color. There are still flaws, but I feel I can make some corrections and it will be passable. I'd like you all to know that the brave soul who said he'd be my test subject is my brother Bill Rogers, http://www.jenandtonicband.com , who besides being a wonderful musican, is very good looking so I don't want to screw this up. As you can see this workshop is about painting from a photo and one really interesting thing that Letty said is that portraits painted from photos where the subject is not smiling end up looking more like paintings then ones where the subject is smiling. And I can notice in the class that this is true. For the most part the smiling portraits look more like photos and just a little cheesy.




And here is the pottery I made last week. There a some cute new flip flops designs and lots of bright colors, as always.








Sunday, January 15, 2012

Shore Leave

When I first came to Key West you would occasionaly see a sailor in his whites. I can't tell you the last time I saw them. I wonder if they even wear whites anymore? So this is a nostalgia kind of painting. For people familiar with Key West there is a dead giveaway as to which old town Key West street he is traveling.

"Shore Leave'
acrylic on canvas
20" x 16"
$475.00 unframed
giclee prints available
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