More oil studies on Thunderbolt cardstock...

 8"x 6" Emma...granddaughter AP

8"x 6" Addie...granddaughter AP

I enjoy painting portraits, have done many over the years.  I have always found it interesting and even amusing people thinking of the artist as one thing, say a wildlife artist...are then surprised and will say something like, "OOOoohhh, didn't know you could paint portraits TOO!!"

As an artist, well aware we operate with a visual language of shape, color, values, line, texture, space, form...I make it my point when painting to concern myself with the color of light, the shape I need to pay attention to an put down, and the proper values (light and dark) and then let the viewer recognize the what of what I am painting.  I have often been asked because of my experience painting water scenes, "how do you paint water?" and tongue in cheek, yet quite serious, I respond, "the same way I paint someone's nose"

Think about it...what is it we see that is not a shape, does not have color and value?  Armed with such simplistic philosophy, I paint without fear that because I am unfamiliar with a subject I ought not be able to paint it.  Because I AM FABULOUSLY EQUIPPED as an artist to see, and recognize the visual language of what I am seeing.


I have often painted myself over the years, which is a habit of many artists.  Sometimes more flattering, sometime not so much.  Without my beard now at 63yrs of age...I appear about ten years younger.  My hair is still relatively dark, though is streaked now with gray hair.  With a cap on...the white beard or gotee seen only advances my appearance of age.  I am prone to become bored with my appearance.  My hair grows uncharacteristically fast. I can have my hair short for the golf season (as I did coaching), and then not cutting it til the next golf Spring season...grow enough hair to put it up in a ponytail.  I am not stretching the truth by any at all.


The artist intensely studying...looks intense, sometimes appears angry, eyebrows furled, low...and in this quick cardstock study...I appear even tired and overall older.  But, such studies are about being truthful and putting down what you see.  I come off here I think...looking like a grumpy old man! hahaha...

10-1/2"x 8" self-portrait AP

6-1/2" x 9"  Ken  AP

I have a proven past...where labored many hour works endlessly rendered and detail turned out hyper realistic paintings, but starting to paint plein air in the mid 90s more or less began my change.  Nature is not mindful, doesn't care that you are painting...and the light is often very fickle here in northern Wisconsin...not like the long days of endless summer Alaska light, or hot days of Arizona and the Southwest.  We have a saying in Wisconsin that if you don't like the weather, wait around for fifteen minutes.


Thus, the power and efficiency of each brushstroke became critical...no paint a stroke...go back and fix.  I have put out videos and taught workshops on brushwork alone.  My creed when I determine it...which is most often, is how I view "alla prima" which means to "start and finish in one sitting"...is that a "brushstroke laid is a brushstroke stayed"...thus, getting mileage out of the intended brushstroke to suggest, with the precise color and value you intend.


With "studies"...I have no agenda to prove myself, only to gather and put down.  With "Ken"...I could have striven for a more perfect likeness...but such was not my goal.  It was to put down shapes, color and value squinting the eyes with immediacy and a sense of urgency.  Were I to opt...photo references as well as studies depicting color, light, the moment in a study could reproduce a larger in-studio more labored and rendered work.


As it turns out...as I have found, many have put it to me that my attempts to get things down urgently and efficiently in a study are an art in and of themselves.  I do enjoy them...

6"x 4-1/2"  Another Study of Addie  AP


This study of Addie...was self-assigned to use the largest brush to hold control and efficiency, a flat...and with a towel to wipe the brush quickly put down the color of light.  A fun effort...

6"x 4-1/2"  Kicking Bird  AP


This is another quick small study from Dances With Wolves, which is one of my favorite movies depicting the West...


Since I posted Kevin Costner earlier, I will add a closeup of this small work...and again aiming for a strick perfect likeness is not the point of such a study, but the color of light...and the shape those colors take to create form...

 6"x 4"  Study of Costner in DWWs  AP

7-1/2"x 6"  study of my father  AP

From this study, I did a larger studio painting on linen of my father to give to my mother at her 80th birthday.  My father passed away in 1991 from cancer, that was initiated by his presence as a sailor on board a ship with many others exposed to the atomic tests at the Bikini Atolls of the Marshall Islands.  It was quite an emotional effort...so you can appreciate how a study then translates to a larger studio effort, I will include that work now here...

My portraits extend to include dogs, such as my Sook' (short from her Finnish name Suklaa Kahvi- meaning, "Chocolate Coffee")...here are a number of studio studies that led to a more serious larger studio oil on a self-made linen panel...

very young pup, my first study  AP

 

7"x 5" Lil' Sook'  AP

This last study here was used to create a 6"x 6" work that was accepted in last year's Randy Higbee national exhibition.

6-1/2"x 9"  Sleeping Sookie  AP

This study then led to a much larger linen work that was entered as one of several works in the 2017 AIS (American Impressionist Society) exhibition.  Another work was chosen, and I may yet enter this in some other competition as I really like it...

18"x 24"  "A Hard Day's Play"  AP 

  

 10"x 8" Study of Sook' at One Year of Age AP



As always, clicking on an image will bring up larger view, thank you