Students Excel in Oil Class

Stacey Myers has been such a joy to have in class, she brings a lot of great energy to the class. She's never painted in oils before but has taken to it like a fish to water. Heres a closeup of her piece. Sunanda is doing a stellar job, with a little of my help toward completing a portrait. Way to go Sunanda.
Gary Bragg the ever self effacing humorist has the right steadfast attitude and continues to learn and progress even though he tackles rather complex landscape themes.

A Poet Among Us

I am blessed to have very interesting and talented students, but one of particular note is Vinod Deshmukh MD who brought as a present for me one day after class, a book of his photographs and poetry. I just wanted to highlight his work here and comment once again on the fine collection of original works he's assembled.

Oil Painting progress

Here are a couple of my oil painting students hard at work. Stacey is painting for the first time and loving it!

When realism crosses over to abstraction

These paintings called Ensemble in Golds and Silvers, crosses the boundary of abstraction and contemporary realism. In this my goal was to utilize the techniques of sumi-e and other contemporary artists such as Helen Frankenthaler of the Color Field movement. The area around Ft George and Talbot Island are my favorite haunts for marshes and driftwood subject matter. I enjoy exploring the effects of primordial forces of time on the earth and its subjects.

When Abstract Crosses Over

I have always enjoyed doing abstracts that are crossover from realism. I suppose this isn't the official definition of an abstract, but I am working on a painting now that does that, where it seems to be somewhat abstract but is clearly what it is, a piece of driftwood on the beach. I use a combination of sumi techniques, Color Field Theory similar to what you might encounter in a Helen Frankenthaler piece. I pre mix 20 colors for this so that they are ready to go dripping and pulling the paint through the wet previous layer. The interior designer Alissa Bennett, loved two earlier pieces I had done in my formative years and had a master bedroom available, so I let her hang the early ones Aqua and Silver 1 & 2, and offered to do a new triptych set for the master based on these two.
I took my reference from Talbot Island State Park, one of my favorite haunts. It is in process so I will post again when it is finished but here it is so far. I started on Sunday, and it is now Wednesday afternoon. I am supposed to deliver this no later than Friday to a show house in south Palm Coast.
Here are some shots of the original two ("Aqua & Silver 1 &2) that inspired the Ensemble series.