Competitions

Submitted work to two competitions today and two more coming soon.

I submitted EVY, the subject of a previous post, to Watercolor Wisconsin at the Racine Art Museum's Wustum Museum in Racine, WI. I also entered BOCCE ON THE BEACH and MEDIUM RARE, two more previous posts, to the Anderson Art Center's Annual Winter Juried Exhibition in Kenosha, WI. I have two more competitions I'll be entering soon... I will be submitting an acrylic named RAFFY - SAN FRANCISCO to the Museum of Wisconsin Art's annual member exhibition and I'll be submitting LOOKING TO THE FUTURE, a previous post, and WALTER2 (Squared) to the Wisconsin Visual Artists' exhibition to be held in the Reuss Federal Building in downtown Milwaukee, WI.

Evy - Watercolor

Evy is my newest watercolor. The image is 12 x 16 inches. The painting is double matted in neutral tones to a final size of 18 x 24. The frame is a espresso colored wood frame which goes well with the tones in the painting. This painting is the result of a challenge I gave myself. As can be seen in my other posts, my paintings tend to be quite realistic and can take a while to paint. I challenged myself to complete the painting from blank paper to signature in two hours. I'm happy to say I succeeded with the challenge. I wanted a loose watercolor that still had bold color, strong light/dark contrast and which was still realistic and captured the character and the look of the model. I feel I achieved all of the goals. This is my first watercolor after a hiatus where I have been painting acrylic on canvas for quite a while. I'm happy with the painting. I particularly like the play with lost and found edges. The right side of the face and the white of the background are the same. There is no shading and no line to distinguish the two yet the mind makes you see the distinction.

This painting is being submitted into the Watercolor Wisconsin competition next weekend. If accepted, the painting will be on display at the Wustum Museum in Racine, WI through mid-August, 2010.

Enjoy. As always, comments are always appreciated.

Looking To The Future

Walter, the subject of this painting, is an AMAZING model. He understands his body and, being a dancer, understands movement. I love working with models who need very little direction. With Walter, I only needed to explain my concepts and a general impression of the feeling I wanted conveyed and he took it from there.

The title of this piece is appropriate not only because of the image but because, a week after the photo shoot, Walter left Wisconsin and moved to Arizona to start a new life. This painting symbolizes the start of that journey and, as a result, is quite special to me. My life has taken many unexpected turns over the years due mainly to my impulsive and adventurous nature and I can honestly say that every decision took me so far along my path and made me such a better person I regret no decisions along the way. Live every day as if it's your last.

This painting is a large (30 x 40 inch) acrylic on canvas. I intentionally wanted the painting to be as photographic as possible, capturing the day and the moment as accurately as possible. In the painting you can actually see the sunlight hitting Walter's beard stubble! This painting has been in several gallery exhibitions and has been well received. I enjoyed creating the painting because I rather recently fell back in love with doing figurative work and Walter has an incredibly toned body that captures sunlight and shadow beautifully. The painting also gave me a chance to revisit two challenges, drapery and the many variations to the "color" white. The white shirt has so much color in it when seen up close. I hope you enjoy the painting. Comments, as usual, are always appreciated. Thanks for visiting my art blog.

Bocce on the Beach

"Bocce on the Beach" is one of my recent acrylic on canvas paintings. It is currently in my group exhibition at Lemon Street Gallery in Kenosha, WI (http://www.lemonstreetgallery.org/). The painting is of a scene I saw last summer on Long Sands Beach in York, ME. I compose with my camera typically and I loved this off balance composition with the lone figure on the left and the group on the right. I love the feeling of the late afternoon sunlight as well. This painting, while realistic and photographic-appearing from a distance, is actually quite loosely painted with very little blending of colors. The technique is a departure for me but I am really pleased with the result. The painting is 24 x 48 inches.

As usual, comments are greatly appreciated.

Toledo Area Artists' Exhibition

My painting "Market and Powell - San Francisco," a photographic acrylic on canvas, has been selected for exhibition in the 91st Annual Toledo Area Artists Exhibition at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio (http://www.toledomuseum.org/taa.htm). This is my third year being selected. This juried exhibition is presented by the Toledo Federation of Art Societies, Inc. I'm eligible for this show because of my prior residence in Lucas County, Ohio. Previously at one of these exhibitions, I won a Toledo Federation of Art Societies Purchase Award (that collection is housed at the Toledo Museum of Art) and a Third-place Judges Award, both for the same painting. The painting which will be in this year's exhibition previously won first place in the Wisconsin Visual Artists Southeast Chapter Exhibition at the Reuss Federal Building in Milwaukee in December 2007. The painting was also included in the Racine and Vicinity Exhibition at the Wustum Museum in Racine this past Summer and the recent “Go Figure” juried exhibition at Artworks in Kenosha.

PEOPLE Exhibition

My newest exhibition opened at Lemon Street Gallery in Kenosha, WI this past Wednesday (5/27) (http://www.lemonstreetgallery.org/) My paintings are on display with silver gelatin prints by Kevin Lyons and sculpture by DeeDee Dumont. Our work compliments nicely. The show looks great. The opening for the show is on Saturday, June 13 from 6 to 9 PM. My portion of the show is comprised of 7 new paintings done for the show and 1 older painting that fits the theme of my portion of the show. All of the new paintings are acrylic on canvas. Three are 24 x 48, 1 is 30 x 40, 2 are 12 x 24 and 1 is 10 x 20. The older piece is a 22 x 30 watercolor framed to 28 x 36. The new paintings are a collection of figuratuve scenes of people on the beach in York, ME and clothed figure studies of two models from San Francisco. The painting you see here is titled "Daddy's Girl". It's 24 x 48 inches.

"Half Baked" or "Medium Rare"

This is my newest painting. It is the newest in a series titled "Beaches". Last summer, I rented a beautiful home on the coast of Southern Maine. While there, I drove to York Beach to shoot photos for paintings. The series is based on those photos. Currently, there are six painting planned for the series. This is the first completed. There are currently three more in various stages of production. All are acrylic on canvas. The paintings are either 30 x 40 inches or 24 x 48 inches. This one is 24 x 48 inches. The painting are for a group show coming up in June at Lemon Street Gallery in Kenosha, WI. (http://www.lemonstreetgallery.org/
The painting is of a group of tourists sunning themselves. There are three people in the painting though you really only notice two. The man on the right is blocking the view of his wife, lying on the chair behind him. You can see the tie to her bikini top above his chest. The other person is his daughter. While still realistic, I moved away from painting photographically as I have in the past. While the image may still appear photographic I painted with little blending and more blocks of color. I also decided to leave the beach very simple as a graded tone with only simple strokes indicating clumps of sand on the beach. I love the color in this painting and the sense of light. The subject of the blog has two possible titles for the painting. Which do you prefer? Please leave your suggestion in the comments.

Enjoy and I hope you like the painting.

Dan