self portrait

Self Portrait.
Acrylic on canvas board 9x12 I haven't done one of these in years. A friend of mine Mike Murphy took a photo of me in the kitchen after our weekly Saturday morning breakfast. Since I had just finished 2 other portraits of both Mike aka Merf, I thought it would be a good time to do a self portrait. Aside from the technical issues the whole concept of a self portrait is just weird to me.
I had to completely separate myself from any emotional contact, or so I thought.
It came off a little more intense than my original ide of what would happen.

Here are the three of us together.

Two bearded men

Two bearded men on the same canvas but different techniques yielding different visual feelings altogether.

Above is an experiment from 2 yrs ago it is the left half of a larger canvas. Kind of a made up head.
I was more interested in the process than an actual person. Acrylics on canvas.

The Beard Man above is the right half of the canvas. Both were experiments and have different painting approaches except for the direct charcoal drawing under the paint.

A lifetime in the monastery.

36x24 Acrylic on Canvas.

Zen Monk Sitting in Meditation Painting

He sits like a Mountain

8x10 acrylic on canvas.

Current Work 20011 - 13

Listed below is a series of paintings I have been able to do in the last couple of years.
Some are experiments to get to other pieces.

My camera doesn't even get close to the real images but some pics are better than others.

Kieth Richards, acrylic on canvas

The Shroud, acrylic on gessoed masonite

 

Percius Slaying the Minotaur Acrylic on gessoed masonite

Old Philosopher, acrylic on canvas. 11x14

Mick Jagger Painting

How could I resist this face. It shows everything.

16x20 acrylics on stretched canvas with a limited pallet.

Portrait of My Friend Merf

Second in a series of portraits of friends and family. I have been working on volume and lighting.
Getting closer to the look I am trying to achieve. I think I want more texture in the grisaille layer.
9x12 acrylics on canvas panel.

Portrait of My Friend Mike.

This is a portrait of my friend Mike. He is a very interesting man. A hard working traveling man with a long history written in his face.
9x12 on gessoed canvas on panel. Acrylic, using an old classic technique. Many call it the Flemish technique or the 7 layer technique.
I used an umber layer for the drawing and lights and darks. Then a sort of modified grisaille layer. Thin layers of white paint to build up a gray value painting in the light areas. Then the color layer and some going back and forth. Some strengthening of the darkest parts and then the highlights.

There always seems to be some experimentation all along the process.