The Lammer

My last painting for my Junior Painting class. Working in conjunction with the previous one, the two comprise an exploration into the idea that portraiture can be about more than just the depiction of an individual. The people that we choose to paint and draw inadvertently map out who and where we are at specific moments of our lives.

Consider that the subject of these paintings - my housemate for the past four months - is a person from the opposite side of the globe that I happened to meet by chance in this small town in upstate New York. Very soon our paths will diverge once more. But for this short period we existed in such close proximity.

Guitar Hero, 90 x 60 cm
Oil paint on canvas
Painted November 2009

Painting this felt about a million times better than the last piece. It was just nice to loosen up and go for a much more relaxed and casually intimate aesthetic. My source image was a grainy little photo on my phone and I think that gave me the leeway to play with the colour and composition. I do have some issues with the nondescript background (something that I think carried over from the last painting) but overall I'm happy with how it all turned out.

Here are a few more pictures of the painting in various stages of utero:



The area that I'm probably happiest with is the pthalo blue shirt design. I originally thought it would prove to be the stiffest challenge but I think (hope?) it turned out quite well.

Spanish Armada

Here's my latest painting, the first of two portraits for my final project. A while ago I promised my housemate that I'd make a painting for him before we left. And with our semester about to end I figured I better hurry up and make good on it. So here it is, from the preliminary paint sketch ...


... to the final thing.

Gitano, 120 x 60 cm
Oil paint on canvas
Painted November 2009

I wanted to go for a softer, more painterly look and while I am generally pleased with the result I also feel like I've lost a lot of what made the way I've been painting recently so interesting. It just looks so ... average, I guess. Maybe that's because I'm not technically proficient enough to blow anyone away with this kind of classical approach. I think that my next painting will be a bit more gestural; hopefully a happy balance between the painterly styles I've been playing with. Below is a rough sketch that I just did on the canvas:


Not sure how "realistic" I want it to end up looking. But the image is a phone photo of my housemate rocking it out on Guitar Hero.