Female Nude

Last night at Fleisher Art Memorial I completed this painting in 2 and a half hours. I had missed the 2 previous nights for this pose so I had only one sitting to work on it. I think it turned out nicely for such a short amount of time.

Painting an Artist

This portrait of Michael Cole is the most photo realistic painting I have done in my most recent series of paintings. Though Photo Realism was not my intension, with this painting it just seemed to happen. I think that it is attributed to the environment around the figure rather than the figure itself. The 2 paintings previous to this painting, patterns and pure hues flattened the space and distracted the eye. In this painting (with the exception of the checker board floor), the figure is surrounded by a limited palette of neutral grays. This painting depicts the artist, Michael, painting a portrait from life of me.

Drawing Emma

Emma came to visit me in Philadelphia this past weekend and since she is so wonderful, she is always willing to pose for me. This was a 3 hour drawing done with pencil on bristol board.

Classes at Fleisher Art Memorial

These two painting studies were done during a still-life and figure painting class held at Fleisher Art Memorial. Every Thursday evening I go to this class to relax and get more practice painting from life. The painting above was completed in one 3 hour session and the painting below was completed in two 3 hour sessions, if you can't tell it is the same model. The below painting was a great set up, because almost everything on the figure and surrounding the figure was either black or red, it created an interesting challenge. I would have enjoyed spending more time on this painting.

Joco

Joco looks sad eventhough he is surrounded by green....

Aeriel and Rebecca in progress

My most recent painting project is a portrait of Aeriel, her dog Joco, and her sister Rebecca. My favorite part of this painting so far is the couch, lots of intricate patterns and freedom to play with color. The color is exaggerated mainly because it is mid way through February and I miss the color green. All the green reminds me of Sullivan County where I spent my childhood.

gladiator

While I was doing freelance production work for The Theme Factory of Philadelphia; this large gladiator and chariot sculpture was under construction. I did not work on this project but my good friend Atom Gunn (http://atomgunn.com) sculpted the entire gladiator as well as doing some of the detail work on the horses and chariot. It really was quite impressive and was created to sit outside of a hotel chain in Michigan; it stood at least 13 feet tall.

Emma in progress

The painting of Emma is coming along nicely and will probably be finished this week.

The Mako Tree

One of the talented muralists I worked with this past summer, Jaime Pearlstien, handed me this small illustration job for a children's book. It is a clever little book about a grandfather planting a tree and naming it after his grandchildren. It is a nice metaphor for passing love on for many generations to come. I used gouache for these small paintings.

Emma

In my mission to complete several paintings this winter, I started this portrait of my best friend Emma. She is a very willing model and it is easy to get something beautiful from her poses. My plan for this piece is to have an even more dramatic contrast from light to dark than the previous painting of Amanda.

Adventure Kitty

This is a painting I did of my cat Adventure Kitty; unfortunately she passed away this week. I will miss her very much. She was my best friend and a perfect pet companion in every way.

Almost done with Amanda

I am almost done with this portrait of Amanda, just a few more details...

Painting Amanda

I have plans to do several paintings this month of family and friends. This portrait is of my dear friend Amanda, at the time I took the reference photos for this painting she was about 8 months pregnant. The focus for this series of paintings is light. I prefer to challenge myself to create complicated lighting situation and make these paintings look authentic.

Thanksgiving Day Parade

When the mural projects I had worked on ended in November, I had prepared myself for a slim slow winter, since muralists do not work outside in the colder months. Luckily, this has not been the case. Employment keeps coming in. Through a company I freelance for, Faust Design Arts, I got a job working for the set designer of ABC. This freelance job involved working on the Thanksgiving Day Parade floats that ABC had purchased from Disney. The floats needed parts repainted and just a general overhaul.


These are the 2 floats I worked on. It was so exciting being at the parade, even though the weather was miserable. I was also hired to help the set designer on location for set changes, florals, etc. That is how a got to meet celebrities like Kelly Ripa.

Wheel of Fortune guy, Kelly Ripa, and the guy from Extreme Home Makeover....

8th and Ranstead

From start to finish, I worked with Jared Bader along with several other very well established Mural Artists at 8th and Ranstead. This mural was painted directly on the wall, which meant griding the entire 83 foot high wall. This, I can gurantee you, was not fun. Gridding a wall takes forever and is incredibly tedious, but was a necessity on a wall with this much geometry in the design. After getting through those first few weeks, I was very glad that I was there from beginning to end on this project.

As you can see the scale of this wall is amazing, but the scaffolding was built like a cage all the way around. I felt surprisingly comfortable climbing around the wall.

A close up of one of the figures I worked on: of the 25 figures on the mural I painted 12, which I felt very privledged to do.

The finished product....

The crew from left to right: me!, Karl Yoder, Jared Bader, David Guinn, Jamie. Great people, talented artists and I hope to work with all of them again.

58th and Kingsessing

After assisting Eric Okdeh, I must have impressed someone in Mural Arts enough to get hired as an assistant muralist for 2 separate jobs: one at 58th and Kingsessing with Eric Okdeh and one at 8th and Ranstead with Jared Bader. The 58th and Kingsessing mural, for the Francis Myers Recreation Center, was mostly completed on painted panels before I started. So, I helped with the cut glass mosiac tree that was quite impressive in size. It was my first time working with glass and, yet again, a wonderful experience and I hope to do it again.

The mosiac tree....

The back wall of the Recreation Center.
Unfornately these walls frequently got hit with graffiti.

Spring garden

Here are some more pictures of the finished mural. A great experience and oh so much fun.

Mural Arts Internship

In my mission to work for The Mural Arts Program and have my own wall one day, I took part in the Internship Program this summer. I was lucky enough to intern with Eric Okdeh, who has become a tireless advocate, helping me to achieve my goal. My fellow intern and I would arrive every morning, Monday through Friday, to help Eric work on the mural at 5th and Spring Garden. In the morning, we would help the Mural Corps students paint different sections of the mural or lay tiles using the "Tile Pile" program. It was my first attempt at teaching and it was incredibly difficult, but it was worth it, because the students were great. They were filled with energy and, luckily, entusiasm is contagious.


Pictured are a few members of the crew who worked on the mural: Eric Okdeh (lead artist), Dan (fellow intern), Wilson (student). This mural was painted on 5ft by 5ft pieces of parachute cloth, which is similar to interfacing, then glued to the wall with Nova Gel. This process saves some time by not having to grid the entire wall, but you do have to touch up the work where the panels meet.

Here, the students are working on the panels. Since students are not allowed to work on scaffolding, it is great that they get the chance to work on these panels so they can be more involved in the project.

We worked with a program called "Tile Pile" to create the mosaic tile images which accent a few sections of the wall. You put an image into the program and it is broken down into detailed map of specific colored tiles, which can then be ordered from the manufacturer.

The Restaurant

There are a lot of different photographs of the restaurant at varying angles. I thought I would pass them along so you can get an idea of how lovely the space is on the inside.

This is the upstairs balcony, you can see the bay from here.

Proud to introduce Lucy, the famous elephant on Margate, NJ. Its only a few blocks away from Sofia.

Here I am working on the entranceway. The entrance went through many changes and ended up not having an olive tree painting at all, just rough stone. In the middle is a fountain. Every part of this restaurant was designed down to every little detail and it shows.

I also designed a logo for the company, it is on their matches and menus, etc. This is not the actual one they decided on but I like this one better.

First post - Sofia Restaurant

Ok, I will start at the beginning..... It will be easier to catch everyone up on what I have been doing for the past year. I think I will start with Sofia's restaurant. It is a Greek restaurant named Sofia located in Margate, NJ. The project started with 3 panels 4 ft by 8 ft and grew to include the ceiling of the bar, the entranceway and the bathroom. It was a great experience and a whole lot of fun which you can probably tell by the following pictures.





These are pictures of the workers putting the panels up. As you can see from the pictures, there is a huge chandelier hanging right in the center of the room.