Cross Carving

Months have passed since my last post on this blog but that doesn't mean I have not been busy creating art. Much of my time has been working with my students who are now finished with school. It has been a good year working with them and seeing all of the wonderful talent these young people produce. Lots of good kids and of course lots of challenging kids but I love both groups. 

This carving was done from a solid chunk of maple, the grain going every which way making it difficult to cut correctly. It was definitely a piece of perseverance! Near the beginning of the project I almost gave it up. The rough look of the tooling was left which fits the theme of the crucifixion. The crucifixition was real, brutal and took place in human history. To Christians the crucifixition is Christ defeating death and sin. Evil threw its worst at Jesus resulting in a humiliating death only to be absorbed and transformed into salvation for mankind. What a story! 

I wanted the work to have an abstract and symbolic quality so people could see the scene with a fresh eye. The construction was methodical with a plan of approach for each carving session much of it being done at school with my students. It was a pleasure to have my students watch and ask questions as I worked, sparking many good conversations, questions about life and meaning. 

I plan on doing more work such as.

Ipad Jesus Icon

This particular ipad painting painting was inspired by icon painting. I choose an icon image from the internet to use as a guide. I trace the main outlines of the face from this image and then proceeded to paint in the colors in my own fashion. Bold dark lines frame the face and break up the value areas. I used some of Procreate's texture brushes to give the back ground a wood grain quality. The second image was created by using Pic Grunger and some of its texture filters. 

Creating art is hard to do lately.

Teaching art at the high school level is both fulfilling and a little exhausting. One of the more difficult aspects to teaching any subject to teenagers is dealing with the lack of motivation. That is my job, the job of motivating students to put forth there best effort, to create quality works of art. But many times that just does not happen. 

During the school year I find it difficult to be an artist myself and neglect my own creative drive because I am frankly tired. But I do like where technology and art meet. Here I am posting two manipulated photographs. One verges on the edge of
total abstraction the other seems to have a poetic quality to it. Anyhow if any readers would be so kind to comment and let me know what you think, I would appreciate it. 

Carving of Woman's Head

I've been working on this carving for a little over a month. It has been a slow and cautious approach towards completion. That is one of the aspects of carving that I like, it is very methodical and in a sense therapeutic. I go to my garage and think about my next move, my next "attack" on the sculpture. Anyways I owe some of my progress on this to the sculptor Ian Norbury whose book I purchased on carving the female form and face. He is a very talented wood sculptor whom I learned much from by using the book. I also used my beautiful wife as a model. I took several pictures of her face to use as reference. I then sculpted a clay model which I further used as a reference. In the end the sculpture came out alright but there are plenty of mistakes that stand out. Looking back I would have done the hair differently, not in a bun. The ears especially bother me as I made them too small and too forward. But I am learning. Mistakes sharpen the artist for the next challenge, the only necessity is that you always keep your eyes out for those mistakes and not dismiss them. 

My next step is to mount the bust on a darker species of wood. I'm thinking coco bolo or dark walnut to contrast the light wood. I will then finish it off with a good oil of some sort. 

A New Commission Completed

I've had this commission to compete for some time now, an oil painting of a fruit still-life. I set the "models" up under an interesting light source and took some reference photos. Then I created some painting sketches on Corel Painter to get the feel and composition I might want to use for the painting. When working in acrylic or oil I usually begin by starting with a quick pencil sketch followed up by an oil sketch, usually with burnt umber and mineral spirits. Then I start blocking in the forms. I like to keep it very loose in the beginning and then work into the details. For this particular painting I wanted the the composition to be loose, quick, and full of brush strokes and energy. The texture of the paint is important for this style as well. Please feel free to comment and critique the work.

Finally Finished!

I have finally finished the ipad painting of my oldest daughter. I have probably spent the last three or so months working on it off and on. It was completed on the app, Inspire Pro, done totally freehand, with the exception of drawing some of the initial line work. It is not a "paintover." A paint over is when someone imports a photo into a computer app or program and just uses various smudge brushes to give the appearance of a painting. A lot of digital paintings on the Internet are done this way. The person pulling the stunt off wishes to receive all of the accolades of completing such a masterpiece but they never took the time to draw it, create the correct shadows,lighting or color. It really is a complete cheat. I'm not saying this type of workflow doesn't have a place in the arts, just be honest about it. What makes for a good painting are those small mistakes and flaws. These give it a human touch while at the same time mastery over the form and media brings credibility. When you can place the painting over the photo and it exactly matches, something is not quite right, it is a copy. Artists need to take the time to do their own research, spend the countless hours learning to draw and paint and then claim masterpiece status. Anyways that is my take on the excesses of computer art. I myself use technology to aid in my artistic endeavors but it needs to be used in such a way to expand creativity and uniqueness not create a plastic and lifeless art. 

The Final Painting, I think.

Painted Carving

I decided to paint a thin oil coat on the sculpture and then rub back a little to the previous color. I'm not sure if I like it. I'm still a little unsure about the overall sculpture, the small chin, the fact the left cheek bone is smaller than the right etc.  Well just as I tell my students, "you have to be willing to make mistakes to learn." And I will chalk this one up to the learning process. I'm in the planning stages of my next carving, which will be in Brazilian Cherry, a very dense hard wood but beautiful.