New Personal Work.

This is another image in the series of paintings that I have been exploring lately (see my Art Battle post for the first image in this series…). I have been somewhat obsessed with Marie Antoinette, I don’t know why, except for maybe it has something to do with how she is a symbol of excess. I really just wanted to play with the huge, bouffant-like hairdo she has, and it is an excuse for me to mess around with line.

A few months back I had a great conversation with Mark Murphy. Mark told me something to the effect that you learn a lot when you get a large surface to work on, and try to “paint the hell” out of it. I left that conversation with the determination to work larger, because I typically work in a very small size in order to easily scan my work, and to meet tight deadlines. I am not going to start only working in a super large scale, but It is nice to take some extra time with an image, and have it in the room as a reminder when I am working on other things.

I have also found that I really enjoy working on wood panels. It is such a durable surface to paint onto, especially when the panel is framed.

Along with all of this I have really enjoyed the past couple of jobs I have received lately. They were in response to a lot of the sketchbook work I have been posting here and at Illoz lately, the stuff I have been doing with watercolor over ink. I have dug out the pen nibs, and have bought up a bunch more to keep exploring this direction.

This painting is based off of a sketch that I have posted here earlier, it measures 2’ x 4’, and is on birch panel. I will re-shoot it and post a better shot of it in the next few days.