Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Why do redheads make wonderful sirens?



Here are a couple of my latest figurative works, of a model posing on a jade rock. The photos are not great, mainly because I took them. I love painting human skin, with all of it's transparency and challenges.
The first one, as soon as it dries really well, will be gold leafed with 23K gold. Gold Leafing, or guilding,  is a process that dates back at least 7,000 years, Egyptians being some of the first known  to use gold leaf. They washed the sand from the Nile for gold, then melted it in a sealed kettle to get pure gold, then they and hammered out flat gold sheets. 
Today the process is for making it is slightly different, but the result is the same: you take sheets of pure gold and burnish them into the areas where you have applied adhesive. The effect is resonant and beautiful, and the gold will never tarnish, unlike other metals.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

First Blog






Hi all,

Thanks for looking at my blog. Here I will be posting my latest paintings; some finished and some unfinished. I'd love to hear your feedback on them as I go!

The first piece is called "The Beast at Velzyland." It's painted from a black and white photograph, and I couldn't find the name of the photographer who snapped it back in 1961. Does anybody know?
With the vintage treatment of colors, it captures the essence of what the surfing lifestyle was back then.