So here I am, you know, updating my blog for the first time this year. Fortunately it’s only June so it’s only a tad late. The one line summary is that life is great and I’m married.

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14. October 2007 · Comments Off on “Lilies” · Categories: Art · Tags: , , , ,

Lilies This is another one of Christy’s special “sketches” made by putting oil pastels on top of india ink and then scratching down with a razer.

This is the first one she’s done that wasn’t about people. Instead, she took pictures of the lilies around our apartment complex through the winter, and then based the sketch on those. It’s pretty fun, and she knocked it out from scratch to finish this afternoon!

This piece is also titled, “Self Portrait As A Zombie.” It’s the last in this series of three sketches (“Sick” was the first and “Everything Hurts” the second) all using layers of India ink and pastels, then scraped off with a razor blade.

Why Do My Hands Hurt So Much?

Zombie Hands! Otherwise known as: one of many reasons joint pain sucks.
Why Do My Hands Hurt So Much? - Detail

“Everything Hurts” is another sketch by Christy done in two sessions over a weekend. For a while, every joint in her body was causing her pain.

Everything Hurts

A detail shot:
Everything Hurts - Detail
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22. April 2007 · Comments Off on Sick · Categories: Art · Tags: , , , ,

Christy has had a rough few months, and a couple of weekends ago she took a break from the portrait to do a quick “sketch” about that period. She titled it “Sick” and created it by adding pastels on top of India ink, and then used a razor blade to draw by scraping the pastel off.

Sick

A zoomed in shot, showing some of the detail:
Sick - Detail

I added another version, taken in the sun, after the jump.
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The main reason we took pictures as Christy was working on her portrait of me was so I could try and give setting up time lapse a shot. We had some difficulties since the aisle floating around a lot during painting, and the camera was also in use between paintings. We rigged up some masking tape to mark where the aisle should go, and how things were positioned, and this helped a lot. Unfortunately, things still shifted from shot to shot, especially when one of us would forget to set everything up right before snapping that set of photos. Even worse than these was the lighting. With our sliding glass door in back of the aisle, the painting would look totally different during the day or night. We could usually get away without a flash, but we never had enough light sources to really show the depth of color without it. Unfortunately, the flash almost always added glare (using a tiny hand-held camera with fixed flash), so I tried to use mostly ones without the flash.

All that being said, I hacked together what kind of time lapse I could. This shows the process from poorly assembled, stock canvas, through disassembly, rebuilding and painting. We hope you enjoy it.

15. April 2007 · Comments Off on Weekly painting by Christy #9 · Categories: Art · Tags: , , , , ,

It’s done, and a heck of a thing it is, too. Here we are in the home stretch:
Almost Done

and then she finished it up, added a signature, and the thing is finished. In reality this took her maybe ten sessions total, which seems like working at light speed to me. I’ll have a time lapse version of all of these posted in the near future. For now, enjoy the finished product:

Final Painting

There’s more art to come (she did another piece the other weekend), but for now we hope you’ve enjoyed watching it come together!

This is the second-to-last week for this series as it’s almost done! The finished product isn’t much different than these photos, and this week I’m actually posting the same painting twice. Once without any flash and once with a soft flash on. The flash distorts the colors, but brings out a ton more detail which indicates I really need to set up a different lighting situation for the final shot. Something to do this week…

Without a flash:
Without Flash

With a soft flash:
With Flash