Category Archives: News

One more session and I think this will be done.

This took about two hours. The shadows change rapidly on all the intricate details so I had to work rather fast and decide on a fixed shadow area. However, the beauty of it often emerges as the light hits it at different angles.

I spotted this house while cycling up the west side highway. The lingering reminder of a time when this part of Manhattan was a small waterside village.
I am often drawn to the these remaining bits of ‘old new york’. St. Pauls, near Wall Street, which looks like it belongs in a small colonial village, which is exactly what was there when it was built.
These bits of the past keep the city from becoming too sterile, too crass too commercialized. I find this building far more interesting, human and beautiful than the temples of narcissim and cult of ugliness reflected in so many ‘modern’ buildings.

I did this in about 20 minutes with a pencil, water color pencils and a waterbrush, inking in later.

Mary Magdalene

I stumbled on this row of angels in Green-Wood Cemetery last fall. I am still finishing up the background.

  … and a new appreciation for Rembrandt.

I had about 20 minutes in-between appointments, so rather than twiddle my thumbs, I started this sketch of the exterior of Grace church on 12th and Broadway. As long as you have a sketchbook, (or notebook if you’re a writer) handy there’s never such thing as wasted time.

Two more sessions with this. The earth pigments (raw and burnt umber) are sucking up and flattening a lot of color, so this will require a heavy oiling in.

Like mankind itself, this work is unfinished. Peace on Earth, Good Will Towards Men.

I started the fourth sitting of this painting today. Rembrandt  paintings look like they  were executed with little effort – spontaneous, alive, expressive.. there is no sense of ‘labor’ like a great ballet dancer or athlete – he made it look easy.

Trying to copy him is much harder, in my opinion than the more mechanical methods of academics and even the earl Renaissance painters I enjoy. With Rembrandt there is not a process, a secret varnish, a ‘trick’ color – it is simply masterful execution done with confidence. That is the hardest of all things to try to copy.

Sketched in the Medieval hall at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I have done several sketches of this statue. I find high gothic sculpture far more expressive an interesting than classical.

I started a master copy of Rembrandt’s Herman Doomer, a popular choice for copyists at the Met. I took this photo after the 3rd sitting, which means about nine hour’s work (not including prepping the canvas).
In al the time I have spent copying at the Met I have never done a Rembrandt, which is usually the first choice of artist. I am more drawn to the techniques and aesthetics of the early Renaissance, but in the physical act of copying this, I appreciate it more. I do think there is ‘something’ to using the hand and not just ‘contemplating’ -contemplating brings a different sort of understanding about a painting.

A two hour head study.

I am working primary from life. I have always wanted to do a painting of ballet dancer, but escape falling into the cliches of Degas. The model is an actual dancer with ballet training, and that has helped I think, get some level of authenticity.
The white around the model will be painted over.

I started this painting a few weeks ago, with the intention of painting from imagination and my own conceptual drawings rather than a model and photographs. There will be many glazing layers applied. I have applied the first two, and there are about 10-20 more to go on areas like the blouse and robe. The final colors will be deeper and more muted.

It’s been awhile since I have posted. I have been working on some other paintings, but finally took a day off and went to the Met and sketched.
This statue is in the medieval hall, and is northern French, dating from about 1375.

This is a preliminary drawing for a Virgin and Child painting. For the painting, I will be using techniques that I acquired copying  Grannaci’s Virgin and Child. They  are a departure from most contemporary academic  and direct techniques.