I would like to thank those of you who have been leaving messages on the blog. They have been brilliant and I will get to respond to those of you, now that I am getting settled.
Illustration is my first love. Last fall I was teaching a gouache painting techniques class for the illustration department at PNCA (Pacific Northwest College of Art) in Portland. I have always liked gouache and have posted numerous examples on the blog. I tend to treat the medium much like I treat oils. It's good for going on location or working from a model where I am looking for shapes and color relationships. I don't necessarily ever come to a "finish" with these things, or they are just so quick that I never spend more than a couple of hours on them.
I recently read an article about Van Gogh and his famous ear, or lack of one. Although, he was mentally unstable and did untold number of weird things, like eating cigarette butts while out painting on location, there is a new theory on what happened to his ear. Gaugin did it! He lopped it off in a scuffle over a prostitute, that they both apparently were courting. The two were roommates above a brothel and Gaugin was well known for carrying a little saber with him at all times. If you want to read more I have included a link below:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/may/04/vincent-van-gogh-ear
I thought it was good subject matter to explore and I felt I could provide some foreshadowing to the article with my treatment of the image. A final would have to be done in oils but this got me mostly to my initial idea. As with all preliminary work it has a few small things to iron out.
The following two image are simply two ten minute color studies. Where I have pushed some more brilliant, pure color is where I noticed reflected light really influencing the flesh tones.
Again I'll get this blog thing rolling more regularly now and thanks for showing up.
