Another version of Self Portrait

Just want to be more painterly. When I paint on paper, it seems to free me from tightness. It is all psychological. When I am not as serious, I am freer.

Improved?

Did not like what I did. Here is the rework. When can I get close to Lucian Freud?

Self Portrait

Many artist did their self portrait. Partly because it is the most available model. Many artists also record their "maturing" process in their lives. Rembrandt is the most noticeable example in art history from his playful youthfulness to the melancholic old age portrait. In the modern time, Lucian Freud is absolutely my favorite. His bare it all portraits, sometime in literary sense, are both courageous and admirable, in addition to his trademark artistry in figure painting.

The weather is cold around here at upper F30s and low F40s. It is hard to go out and do things. So, I spend 2-3 hours a day in the past two days to some drawing. I am quite surprised how little I know about my face. I do try to be honest as Freud. I will do an oil painting once I understand my face well enough. I hope I can get a bit closer to Lucian Freud's artistry. One can dream, can't we?

After some drawing, I felt comfortably familiar with my face. So, I painted myself in oil. This is the first time I am using wax medium. It seems to give a softer look.

For those who know me, please hit the figure to enlarge. You will see it IS me. LOL.

Color Field Portrait?

I had an interesting discussion with a local artist on Glenn Brown's work, particularly his use of flat color background. She thought that supports the subject of the painting (see the first figure. I thought his more successful ones using this approach is when the "background" occupies less area on the canvas. To prove to myself that this is the case, I painted the portrait of Madam X shown here in the second figure. I intend to make the "background" competes successfully with the figure itself. Yellow is usually a difficult color to deal with - its intensity depends very much on the neighboring colors. I chose it as "background" on purpose, and see whether I can make it very intense. You may need to click on the figure to enlarge it in order to see the intensity of the yellow.

Rusty's and Snacktime

When I finished "Rusty's Jazz Bar" today, I cannot believe that I worked on it on and off for 7 years!! The original figure was done in 2002 when this native American posed lying down to fit my horizontal canvas. It was a barren naked figure to be a good painting. But, I liked the pose to discard it as a failed painting. I left it in the garage not knowing what to do with it. Then, last year, I looked at it and got some images from internet and started to compose a more complex picture. I worked on it, but did not like the color and some compositional element. Last week, I was working on the "snack time". I thought these two are similar in genre. So, I took it out and continue working on it. Well here are the results of "best effort".

Old family album

Found these pictures in my file. Aside from the last one, I took them when we got the family's first camera in 1957. Most of them are very small 1.5inch. Printing was very expensive then. The price grew exponentially with size.
I was cool, trying to make "art pictures". You can see the staging of a pretentious angle of myself reading. I like the pictures of my mother. They show her making soy sauce in our yard, and arranging flowers. I like very much the school master's awkwardness in the last picture of my mother's elementary school graduation. It will be fun to make a painting out of this. I need to rearrange the pattern of the shirts girls were wearing to make a good composition. I may change the body language of some school girls to expand the feeling of awkwardness. Hmm... Will be a challenging task. My mother is at the left corner of the last row.

Snack Time - A Study using Computer Graphics

I did a drawing last week of a man in a hat standing and hunching over a pedestal. I thought the pose is interesting and can be a basis for a painting.
I tried a few compositions using Artrage in my computer. Struggled quite a bit as usual. Finally settled down to these. Still don't know which version I like better. I learned a few things. For this kind of painting, the detail modeling is not as important as the gesture. The design element takes over. I just wish when I paint on canvas, I can be a little painterly as Edward Hopper. I will respond to what's on the canvas.