This portrait of a handsome man conveys what fascinates me...the physical sense of a person and also the expression of an inner life. There's a feeling of energy in the contours of his muscular upper body and a palpable warmth in the glow of his skin. I like the turn of his head in opposition to his body as he stands in a honey colored light casting a cool blue shadow on the wall behind him.
I focused on loose brushwork, keeping the edges soft and I used impasto in the highlights. I'm happy that my strokes here convey the energy of painting.
This painting is a classic figure painting of a nude man standing at a window. His musculature is sharply defined by natural light. There is a quality of yearning to this figure as he gazes out at the world beyond the window and a great deal of atmosphere in the interior around him.
This small painting has wonderful texture and impasto highlights with impressionistic glimpses of light and greenery in the window. While this is essentially a figure study I am always interested in conveying a sense of the human being and a mood, not just a body.
This is a classic nude study of a man sitting in bed reading while bathed in natural light from an unseen window. There's a poetic quality to the scene, as though he just woke up, reached for this book and was transfixed by what he read. I love the luminosity of his body against the darkness of the room, the way the light bounces off the sheets and envelopes him. I had fun with the varying hues and impasto texture in the sheets and especially enjoyed the glow of the brilliant light hitting his inner thigh.
This painting is a study of a handsome man lounging on a sofa, enjoying a nap. I love painting sleeping figures and this one was especially fun and challenging because the hand is central. Hands are actually rather difficult to paint well and they can be quite expressive. Whenever a hand is part of a composition I have to take care that it doesn't become a portrait of the hand because I love painting them. I kept the brushwork vigorous and sketchy to contrast with the languor of the figure.
This painting is a study in serenity and light movement. I wanted to explore cool flesh tones with soft light and edges. There's something very calming about a sleeping figure and this is highlighted by the quiet shades of blue throughout. I've seen many paintings with sleeping female nudes but I wanted to feature a man instead. It's an unusual context that gives a vulnerable and tender aspect to the masculine form.
Upon reflection I think that's what I wanted to capture. That moment of peace. There is no guile or malice in a man asleep. He is free of his conscious torments, childlike and pure. Sleep is a wonderful thing that I rarely get enough of and I like to celebrate these simple, precious things in life.
Fine quality prints from this painting are now available here.
This is a portrait study of a dark haired man with dramatic features and an intense expression. I focused on loose brushwork and keeping the edges soft. While I often do paintings of my friends, this guy is based on various sources that I mashed up with my imagination. So he's entirely my creation, and just as with the women I paint, I enjoy a vintage look in men. Therefore, I wanted to concoct a man who looked like he could have posed for a painter a hundred years ago. I like inventing people and I think I got him pretty lifelike.
As I have mentioned before a few times, I love painting faces. Actually, I love painting the entire figure but a whole figure can become a big project for me so I often to stick to faces as that seems to be where I focus even when painting a figure. I'm not sure what it is about the face that gets me so involved. I guess because it's amazingly intricate. The eyes alone have such a delicate architecture. While it can be aggravating, I enjoy painting flesh so a shirtless man is a good compromise between painting a face and a whole figure. Getting the skin tones believable is difficult, it's so easy to veer off into a chalky mess if you add white too heavily. Even a very pale person has far less white in their skin tone than you'd think. Women's faces are easier for me to paint than men because the look of makeup can go a long way to highlight features and inject color and visual interest that would look odd on the average man. All this effort is required simply to produce a passable looking human being, to convey something of the human spirit and emotion is an even higher mountain to scale but one I never tire of tackling.
Portrait study of a beautiful young man with dreamy eyes. He has a renaissance look about him which I thoroughly enjoyed painting. I love Caravaggio so I might persuade this model to pose for me as Bacchus one day.
This painting is a combination of figure study and portrait with a water element...several things I really enjoy. The movement of the water was a great challenge to paint, as was the wet skin and hair. There's something calming yet lively about this painting.
