Daughter sketch

Here's a quick 12" x 9" charcoal sketch I did this morning before going to work. It's on a toned linen panel, in the hopes of adding paint to it later today.

Field and Church

Okay. Here's the finished product of the one I started last night. I'm pretty happy with the results. You can see, by scrolling down, the backward progression, or is that regression, of the painting.

24" x 30", oil on gallery wrapped canvas

Low Tide Update...

I thought I would let this sit for a day or two, and think about what I wanted to accomplish with it, but I just couldn't. As you can see from the detail shots I got the palette knife out and think it helped (maybe). I'm getting happier with it at this point, but I'm not sure about the area below the stranded little dock. I have part of the dry land jutting out under the dock, but also have a slight shadow cast from the dock onto the water. To me this is confusing, as it could be seen as two shadows.

Any thoughts?

Self Portrait - Work in Progress

Is this it? I'm tired of messing with it, so yeah, probably.


I think this one is done. It is signed, but that won't stop me from correcting anything that needs to be. ;) Learned so much from this one. It will definitely carry over to my paintings that follow.


Adding color and fine tuning shapes, values, etc. Looks like I've got a fat lip, have to take care of that.


Here's another update after about 2 more hours work. You'll notice the color seems a bit different, but is much more accurate as to what the sketch really looks like than the last, much warmer looking, post. The whole idea is to get the drawing correct, while not worrying about the color, which will be added soon. Total of around 11 hours so far.

Any thoughts, comments, or suggestions are appreciated.



The above is after the second evening of work. About 8 1/2 to 9 hours into it so far. Will look for glaring measuring and shape problems. If none are found I'll continue with color at the next session.

After measuring yet again this morning I can see where I still need to go wider on my left side (viewers right). I used photoshop, overlaid my sketch onto the ref pic, drew some lines on a transparent layer over the ref, then hid it to see where it matches up on the sketch. As you can see, the nose needs to come up, and a shift to the viewers right on almost everything else. The height of most is correct though.

Interesting to use this method to see where things line up.

By the way, this is oil on 16" x 12" canvas (for a change).




This is a work in progress that I hope will turn out well. I'm gonna slow down for this one, and try to take the necessary steps to end up with a painting I like. My ref photo was taken tonight. Also you'll find the initial block-in that's taken about 4 1/2 hours so far. I thought I had a relatively good one until I re-measured and had to move my eyes down and widen the head. I'm going to try and work on this initial stage another 4 to 6 hours to see if I can get the drawing right before moving to the next step. I know it looks rough now, but hopefully something will emerge with the next session.