Sunday, September 14, 2014

Fall 14 Woot!


... And So It Begins...

Starting on my thesis work. 
Woot!


"2008" - Oil on Panel - 7"x10"


"This Means Something. This Is Important" - Oil on Panel - 16" x 24" 

The title is from Richard Dreyfus in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" 

Almost finished with this painting. It's been kicking my ass to say the least. In addition my colors keep sinking. I think I'll invest in some retouch varnish to be able to effectively judge the work. 


Some color studies for upcoming larger paintings. These were produced with the aide of photographs


Finished this little painting. Fun experiment, but wish I could have resolved it a bit more. 

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Howdy


Paintings


I have a new website www.aaronpickens.com! Woot! 

It finally contains work from my graduate studies but I will post more progress shots on here in the near future. 

Candidacy Show





Spring 2014










Summer 2014




Some Plein Airs - More to come



Taking a class on a flemish glazing technique. Woot!

Golden Planet




The long awaited album has finally arrived. Check it out. For more information go to www.phantazmusic.com


Friday, October 11, 2013

More Art Stuff!




Two three hour sessions. 

The still life wilted considerably, otherwise I would have invested more time into it. 


Three session study of my bedroom / basement. 




A duck painting... Still a work in progress, based out of my imagination. As a note this photograph is a little too saturated. 


Meh... 3 hour study. Plein air is so difficult on a partly cloudy day, since the light changes so drastically .


I had a lot of fun with this painting. About two hours. My biggest complaint is the grass in the foreground is off. 


Meh... When I painted this outside, it was so insanely bright (I was not in the shade but had my canvas an easel against the sun) that once I brought it inside the colors did not reflect what I had seen. 




Twenty minute Poses...


Two hours. 


Two hours. 


Three one minute gestures and an hour pose from anatomy class. 


Assignment from human anatomy in which we had to take a pose from class and construct an accurate skeleton into the position. This was fun but very challenging mentally. 






Two hour study... mainly focusing on large areas of color. 



Block in


Final... Three hour painting. 



Two hour painting... I need to simply the background and create definition between, foreground, mid ground, and background. I also received the critique that the shadows are too dark. 




Hour and a half study. The drawing is way off, and I ended up adding a little bit of blue in the tree shadow on the house to distinguish it from the trees in the background. 




Hafe... Written on the bathroom wall. 


Three hour study. I may return to this location and spend more time on it. 


Forty-five minutes: Photoshop 


Forty-five minutes: Photoshop


Thanks! 

Friday, September 27, 2013

Art Dump - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly


Digital Tutorials


A digital study of a rock as a tutorial to help assist with a digital painting course. 


A master study of a Rembrandt Self Portrait. First time really using artrage. 

I unfortunately did not block the color shapes in, and instead went for individual color notes. This is a bad habit I'm trying to get away from with digital. 


A digital self portrait. Roughly an 1.75 hour study from life. This time in photoshop. 


A branch dangling in the water near dusk. This was probably a 40 minute painting in oil. 


A large concrete block used for parking. Graphite - 1.75 hours. 


This painting was probably 5.5 hour painting with the intention of really focusing on accurate color and trying to be very efficient with my marks. Although this painting does not convey anything of significance, I was pretty happy with this, which doesn't happen often. 


The Bad... This painting was unfortunately rushed... as are most plein airs as of late. Maybe an 1.5 study when I was relatively distracted with a piece of criticism from a professor. 

I've been having difficulty with covering the entire picture plane with a short period of time with accurate marks. I feel like I would rather put down the right strokes and leave the canvas half way finished as opposed to quickly covering the surface with poor decisions. 

I am going to go smaller in size since 9x12 are a little too cumbersome at the moment. 


An impromptu painting demo... Yes it's simply a mug. Nothing fancy or enjoyable really. I need to figure out ways to make simple objects into compositions. 


The drawings lined up. 


A two hour figure study. This one is a little stiff and the drawing is off. 


Today's figure session! Roughly an 1.5 hour study. Some proportional issues but, I think this is heading in the right direction. 


A drinking fountain. Not the most glamorous subject matter but it was a nice evening to join a fellow graduate student painting in the hallway. The perspective is way off in this, which I did not really realize until it was pointed out by my brilliant professor. 


A 2 hour study... I need to simplify... always simplify. I had fun with this area however. 


A lemon... which is incomplete. 


1.5 Hour - Fleeting light is killing me at the moment. 

I tried to implement a professors suggestion to work off of a white ground... and man do I hate it. It throws things off for such a long time.  I usually use a wash of burnt umber, a little ultramarine blue, and burnt sienna to tone the canvas and to establish the drawing with the brush. My professor believes that this is muddying my paintings and wasting time. I think bull hockey, but I figured I would give his suggestion a try. I still don't know how I feel about this though. 


The values on the brick shed are of on the shadow side. I simply need to finish painting the surface. This was mainly a focus on color. 


A road. Graphite 


So, what do you do when you get out onto a location and prepare all of your mixtures for the scene and the light completely changes? Not sure. It was completely overcast all day, and after I was about to put the paint down, clear blue sky came. I still attempted to paint what I had remembered. I ended up scraping this painting off. 


A self portrait - 5 hours. I accidentally got paint on my face and it through me off on the temperature shift I was seeing on the left cheek. The drawing is also a little weird. 


Bah! 


The ugly... Not a fan of this painting. 


And last but not least a shop vac that was in the studio. 

I wanted to occupy most of the first month of the semester with alla prima studies, and then I would decide I what I will produce for the remainder of the semester. As much as I love plein air painting, it's getting difficult with less and less daylight. I think I will pursue a few other interior based paintings that will be long term projects. 

More updates to follow. As for the Phantasmagoria album, it is still being mixed, but it will be done in that regard shortly. 

Thanks!