Sushi Still Life

I have been working on this new still life. I have always wanted to do a sushi still life and have finally gotten around to it. This painting (16x20) is larger than what I have done over that past could years. Sorry for the photo quality its from my phone.
Last night I worked on light strips and a little bit with the thick edge of the salmon. I was struggling to get texture and brush strokes on the salmon while trying to make it look smooth. I think I will have to rely on the wet highlights for the texture factor.
I am a little nervous about the rice. Sometimes I get stuck on detail to early and want to keep the painting kind of loose.

I hope to have this one done by christmas so I can start on another one. Even though I would like to do a series of sushi paintings, I would like to do a building painting for a business that I frequently visit.

My day time job is closed the week of christmas, so I plan on working on an official website during that time.

Snow Birch Trees

I finally got back to my easel after a busy spring and summer of travel.
Like I had said in the previous post back in March this one was supposed to be a warm up and was actually very enjoyable to do.
My pre new years resolution is to try to paint at least once every week. I have already started on a new still life. I am trying a little larger canvas with a close up view of the actual still life subject, which is something I haven't done before.

Thanks to everyone that follows & views my blog. Keep coming back to see my progress.

Back to Painting

I am back to painting after a month and a half hiatus. It had been a busy end of February and March, but I have taken some reference photos of things I want to paint. One of the reasons why I have not gotten to painting is the fact that I had a pool tournament at the beginning of March and I have also not been very ambitious.

This painting is based off a free reference photo that was provided by the folks at wetcanvas.com. After my last painting I had grabbed this photo and primed this canvas for it. This one is ment for a warm up since I had taken a month off I wanted something that I didn't have to think about. This painting shouldn't take too long.

Once this painting is finished I have a plan for the next two, which will be much more personal to me and ones I will spend more time focusing on composition and quality that this one.
Its been difficult getting down in to this cold basement with the weather being cold and the fact that it feels like I have something going on everyday. I am hoping after April things will calm down so I can spend more time in my "studio".

Abstract Finish

I think I am going to call this one done. I had adjusted the colors of the wine glass base to try and make it not so heavy. I had added some vertical "lines" that i created with a palette knife to give it some texture. Before I tried the palette knife I think I went through 4 different style, techniques to try and add more to the painting with out it distracting to the rest of the piece.
At the end of this would I say its perfect, no but I had learned a lot about texture, style and dramatic color combinations. I am happy with the result and I hope the person I plan on giving this to will be happy with it too. If not I can always paint over it with something I am more comfortable with like landscapes or still lifes.

Abstract Progress

I finally got around to working on this abstract again. Part of the reason I have not made progress on this piece is because I didnt really know what I was going to do with it. Although this was the original idea, I was stuck trying to think of something better. Since I normally paint pretty literally this was a challenge to decide what to put there and what colors would go with the rest of it.
I started off with a orange tan color for the glass which didnt look awful but it didnt look good in the blue area, so I slowly started adding light blue accents to try and liven it up and just kept going.
The concept I had in my mind was for the "wine" in the glass to be flowing and swirling, with that in mind I wanted to give the entire glass the strong brush strokes and painterly feeling. One thing I wish I would have done was used the same size brush as I used for the background so the texture would stay consistent but I am not the stem of the glass would have look as good with larger brush work.

I want to add some more things to this to give it some depth but I have no idea what I want to do with the rest of the area. I quickly tried doing some light colored drips but they looked like an after thought so I wiped them off. Since this is my first abstract and I am not quite sure what I am doing if anyone has any thoughts leave a comment.

Abstract Exploration -WIP

I have always wanted to try doing an abstract painting. This abstract is not one of those free flowing paintings that you see people doing as they fling paint all over. Although I like a lot of those kind of styles, the way my mind works I have to plan out what I am going to do.
I think this is half way done, I want to add a couple of objects to this in the vein of wine drinking. I am pretty happy with the textures I have achieved with what I have so far. I was surprised at how much you have to plan out each brush stroke to get the look your going for. I now understand why abstract paintings can be expensive, to get all that texture you have to use a lot of paint. I am not use to mixing that much paint at one time, so knowing how much paint I needed was a good learning experience which is what this entire blog and journey of painting is about.

Scotch & Baseball Final

I added some shadowing to the ball and the glass. I also added some light on the baseball.
 I am happy with how this came out and its signed and ready for varnish.

If you like it let me know and leave a comment. I hope for future paintings and posts I will elaborate more on my process and thoughts.