Black Eye

Michelle’s shiner (detail)

It’s not often you get a model showing up with a black eye, and that’s irresistible to paint. (Before you get worried that she’s the victim of domestic abuse, she’s a dancer and occasionally her face gets in someone else’s way.)

A flesh tone matrix, a little more complex than what I usually use, but you get the drift

During the interregnum between open painting and figure, I usually set up my palette in a flesh-tone matrix. This is how I’m able to do a credible figure painting in three hours. Today, a number of interruptions stopped me from doing that, and I ended up doing the first hour of painting using pigments scarfed from a student’s palette. On top of that, I’m working huge for a sketch—this canvas is 48X36. So most of this is a rough underpainting, and I’ll be finishing it next week.

Michelle’s shiner, in draft form

A note about this model: she’s a wonderful, adventurous nut, who allows me to wrap her up in Saran Wrap.

Michelle as a shrink wrapped vegetable, 18X24, oil on canvas

Figure Sketch


(Michelle reading, 24X36″ oil sketch on canvas.)

I have been doing fewer 3 hour figure studies, because my pal Marilyn has blown down to Florida. This is from Saturday’s session. I love the pose.

Three hours for the figure, about another half hour for the background.

Excuse the reflections; at this time of year, paint dries really slowly.

Painting on a dock on the bay…

I spent a few hours on Irondequoit Bay this morning, painting Mayer’s Marina, across the swing bridge in Webster (a hundred feet by water, miles away by car until the bay closes to marine traffic and the swing bridge is moved back into place). Nothing brilliant, just an exploratory oil sketch. A more finished picture would have more room to the right, but it’s the road behind the old building that interests me most.
Mayer’s Marine from the Swing Bridge, oil on canvas, 16X20

And I did this fast (five minute) oil sketch of a fisherman for Zoe Clark. Took a photo and gave it to him… he wasn’t catching anything, so at least he came away with a ‘snapshot’ of his day!

Fisherman at Irondequoit Bay, oil on canvas, 6X8