New Studies

I have been working a little bit in the studio and to get back in the groove and loosen up the arm, I started doing these conte sketches from an old photo album.

A friend of mine loaned me this album, I need to get it back to him, but I just fall in love with these images every time I open it up. I need to do some scans so he can get some prints done.


These pictures are like 100 years old, it is just amazing.

Looking at old pictures is so much fun, there is a world in each image.

I have some old pictures I bought on Queen East, at Gadabout and I just love how when you don't know anyone in the picture, you can look at the picture more objectively and just appreciate them for their beauty.

Finally organized a shoot at the Studio

Took some time in the studio for this little portrait of Scotty. I have had this seamless around for awhile and I tend to use it more in lengths for painting more stark white paintings on black. For the purpose of painting, its fine, i staple it to the wall and it goes flat. But damn, it needs a ton of help as a backdrop. For these quick prints I did not bother, but I have to blur the background in Photoshop to get the cellulite texture out of the thing. Argh.

Anyways, Scotty came in with this ochre coloured zip up and this seemed like just the right colour mix, the blacks, ochres and browns of coffee on his jeans.

I was trying out these Kino flo knock off constant lights and I have to say I was really happy with the quality of the light, they are neat, 4 independently operated lights in each unit with barn yard doors, not to be a geek but they were cool, and not too heavy.

The fall off of light here is pretty dramatic and I like that a lot. It reminds me of 16th century full length Spanish paintings, not to draw any parallels between this hastily shot image of Scotty and the meticulous work of Diego Velazquez.

Nor am I trying to compare the actor Montgomery Clift like handsomeness of Scotty with famous the deformed lipped royalty of the Hapsburgs, whose portraits by Velazquez and others, now after 300+ years are just a testament to their mad money, vanity and mostly their weird looks.

This Hapsburg ain't the weirdest looker that is for sure but they got 'em.

But seriously, they looked crazy. I remember walking through the Art History Museum in Vienna and being just amused at the heroic portraits of the most inbred and fantastically ugly (and wealthy) people ever. I looked it up online but could not find anything, I have the catalogue for the Kunsthistoriches Museum so I'll put something up when I have a chance to scan the book.