“Anticipation” and the Return of Crewed Space Flight to the U.S.
SpaceX and NASA are officially targeting May 27, 2020 for the first manned flight of SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft. This will be the first crewed rocket launch from U.S. soil since the Space Shuttle retired [...]
Prometheus: Completing a Large, Complex Commission Painting
Way back on June 26th of 2019, nearly 11 months prior to writing this, I posted on the beginning of a large commission painting depicting Prometheus stealing the ‘fire of the gods’. At that point, [...]
Framing 101 – Part 2 (The Reveal)
Okay, so "Blank Canvas" has been at Tanner Frames for a couple of weeks. It was really fun to pick it up and chat with Travis about the finished product. Whenever you can, shop local, [...]
Framing 101 – Part I
As an artist, every so often I get questions about what happens to a painting after it leaves the easel. Shipping is an important piece of the puzzle. Having the client ecstatic about their [...]
American Art Collector Debut!
TRAC 2019? A curated art show? American Art Collector!? Sweet! As an ancillary event to this past spring’s The Representational Art Conference (TRAC) - 2019, artist Michael Pierce curated a wonderful collection for “The Illusionists,” [...]
Prometheus: Beginning a New Commission Painting
This is an exciting day for me. Today I’m starting actual easel work on a new, large format, commission painting that has been in the works for nearly a year. Last summer, I submitted a [...]
Painting Color Over a Monochrome Under-painting Part 2: Hair
When making the color pass over a monochrome underpainting of hair, I use a slightly different approach. Rather than using straight, opaque tube colors as I would for the flesh-tones where I need complete control [...]
Painting Color Over a Monochrome Underpainting – Part 1: A Face
As promised, here is a brief overview of how I approach painting flesh tones over a completed monochrome underpainting. This approach uses straight tube colors applied opaquely, as opposed to my approach to painting hair [...]
My Current Flesh Tones Palette
I've had quite a few people ask about my flesh tones palette. There are probably nearly as many ways to mix flesh tones as there are artists to mix them, and none is necessarily better [...]
Ad Astra! A finished Painting.
The painting is finished! When last we saw our astronaut, she was painted in full color with the exception of her flight suit. I took two different approaches for the shirt and pants. I painted [...]
Now for the Fun Part…
As much fun as the Earth, the Milky Way, The moon, and the space stations were to paint, and as lovely as they are on in their own right, in this painting their real value [...]
Stars Above, Blue Skies Below
I did finally finish the underpainting, and after a few days the paint had dried sufficiently that the effect of the reflective glare off the brushstrokes was reduced enough for me to get a pretty [...]
A Quick ‘How Far We Can Go’ Progress Report…
Well, it’s been ‘another few days’, and the underpainting is still not finished. My attention for the past week or so has been split between work on this painting and various other projects, not the [...]
Time For Some Under-painting….In Spaaaaaace!
Once I have a final to-scale drawing for the composition finished, the next step in my process is to transfer that drawing to the surface I will be painting on. These days I paint on [...]
Brainstorming a Project
I was asked whether or not I do sketches for a composition before I hire a model or go looking for additional reference material. The answer is, yes. Lots of sketches. Usually, in the process, [...]