Lucie and the Wind, Part 6

I'd totally apologize for not updating sooner, but I know you guys only drop by to read Dave's posts anyways.  It's because men are funnier than women.  I know this because when I say a joke, nobody laughs; but when Dave repeats my joke two seconds later to the exact same people, it's funny.  Ovaries are such a drag.

Here's Lucie's wig hat:

And here we put it on her head:

Smeared paint on the reverse of the paper and then used a stylus to trace the outlines, creating a transfer.  I usually use raw umber, but raw umber is transparent and would not show up well on the dark lay in of her hair.  Solution is to add just a little bit of titanium white to my raw umber.

And then I filled the outlines in with colour to get started:

Then I began to tease at the hair until it looked right.  Pushing darks, noodling some lights in.  Have to give just enough form to the hair to read well, but not so much that it slaps the viewer in the face.

A synthetic bright is nice to start with because it creates really decisive strokes and forces you to commit to specific locks of hair, instead of being kind of vague and doodling a bunch of scratchy squiggles.  However, I needed to move down to some very fine brushes to finish up.

And that explains the title of the piece, right?

Men Painting Manly Things Follow-Up

I forgot to include this little gem in the last posting. It is a portrait of perhaps one of the most manly men in history. A man who eats bacon and KFC gravy with every meal. A man who has fought a silver-back gorilla over a matter of 50 cents. A man who doesn't know the meaning of the word brunch and has never had tofu in his life. Thats right, its a portrait of me.

This work was recently completed by my friend Matthew Mancini, and to make a portrait this manly, one has to be ready for the task. Matthew Mancini was born in the woods and raised by Grizzly bears until the age of 10. One day he got hungry and devoured his surrogate bear family. He consumed their hearts first, washed down with a handle of Jack Daniels, in order to gain their power. Researchers believe this is where he first gained his painting superpowers. Since this time, Matt resides in the Muskoka area of Ontario, living off the land and teaching art workshops.

You can visit Matt's work and learn about his workshops at www.matthewmanciniart.com

Representation in Brennen Gallery

I just found out my wife and I will have representation in Brennen Gallery. We will get to show with some really great other realists such as Adrian Gottlieb and Michael Klein, whom we both respect quite a bit. So, um, yeah, go and buy our stuff so I can have beer money.

Snake Study

I found a dead garter snake on my driveway a couple of weeks ago. Unlike most snakes found under such circumstances, this one wasn't flattened and crimped with tire tread. I scooped it up and popped it in my fridge and began to take it out every other day to paint from it. Unfortunately, our fridge broke down in protest and we had to move all of our essentials to a minibar. I kept the snake in the big fridge not so much to keep it cool, but to keep the smell sealed in. Now the painting is done and it's time to take the snake in it's Frigidaire sarcophagus to the dump to make room for a new fridge. It will be nice to eat food again; but it's been educational living as primitive man did before the invention of the full-size refrigerator, back when we had to use minibars to keep our mammoth chops cool.

Now excuse me while I go rinse out my nose with a Neti Pot.

Men Painting Manly Things Part Deux

It's time for another edition of men painting manly things.

I have no idea what is going on in this piece but I know a piece is manly when it involves a naked caped super hero trampling half the animal kingdom. Notice the expression of the upside down cheetah. Classic.

Felix Louis Leullier was a French academic painting from the 19^th century. He studied under the renowned Antoine-Jean Gros. Very little else is know about the life of Leullier, but I assume he ate rusty nails for breakfast because he was so awesome.

Pfft. Bring it lion.

This painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder dates back to 1520. Cranach was a German Renaissance artist and court painter for the majority of his career. This work was done before the invention of chainsaws; when hunting was done bare handed.

Everyone knows that moment in a bar when they hear a stool kick out; Peasant fight ! (which is the actual title for this work). Grab your beer and some popcorn and get ready for the show.

Adriaen Brouwer was a student of Frans Hals and was an active painter in the Dutch Republic during the 17^th century. It was rumored that he spent much of his time in Dutch alehouses, which most likely resulted in his choice of subject matter. Both Rubens and Rembrandt had several of his works in their personal art collections.

This brings me to my manly doppleganger of a portrait by Adriaen Brouwers and, that's right, the lead singer from Metallica.