January Red Paper Pastel

 

Keeping warm by the fire in color. A recent pastel on red paper—working within the figure style from previous work done last summer. 

Pastel returns...again

⁣⁣These are some recent experiments with color and pastel. There is something incredibly arresting and radiant about pastel—it's brilliance. And in a season that seems so incredibly dark at times; a little color and brilliance feels like an unarticulated necessity.⁣⁣

Daily Figure 2-26-2020

There is something so striking about an untouched solo mark. Pure. Unfussed. To the point. Efficient. Using a massive chunk of charcoal here on those large peripheral strokes.   

Daily Figure 1-27-2020

Using a multitude of various charcoals and tools here. Of particular usefulness as of late: Prismacolor Art Stix for upper-tier halftones and incredibly light values. It doesn't play with other media so well due to the strong wax content and a heavy application really puts this into high relief; but strategically used—it's perfect for gentle, light, and subtle gradations of value. Especially on really light or bright white surfaces where subtle slight value shifts can be difficult to keep tamed.   

Figure Study 6-19-2015

Figure Study 6-19-2015

Photoshop CS6

It's been waaay too long since I've done a painting in Photoshop so I figured it was time to dust off the Wacom (literally). It was fun and challenging to go back and do something rather academic with a digital tool. Especially after using traditional mediums for painting in my personal work for so long. 

For me, traditional tools are so much harder to deal with. Which is why I feel so much more compelled to use them oftentimes. No pain, no gain. It's a funny thing; sometime in the last ten years I think digital painting tools became so much more versatile, but for a long time it was the other way around by about a mile.