Horsehead Nebula Underpainting

I am in a spacey mood. :) With the upcoming release of Star Trek Online, I have been inspired to look at some of the pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope...talk about beautiful. I can't believe I've never done a space painting before, and I suppose it is high time. So I've started with a small canvas (8x16) of, what else? The Horsehead Nebula.

Already this has been a joy to work on...and something quite different in approach as well as subject. I did not initially intend to do a total monochrome underpainting, but it quickly ended up that way--appropriate, I suppose, for the subject. And nice and relaxing to do with all those abstract shapes and soft edges...that's another different thing to this approach, all the blending I've been doing. (So there *is* a reason to blend, after all! :D)

This makes me want to do a lot more monochrome work...which might help a great deal in various value issues I often struggle with.

There is a lot more work to go into this!

Dining Room "Plein Air", 5x7

The view out of my dining room door. I'm not much for doing landscapes, but I was pretty inspired today, I guess. :)

Boots/Self-Portrait

Well, Jessica says I need to update my blog, so here I am. :) My excuse this time is that I've been thinking of "updating" to a "regular" site to make it easier for casual viewers (whom I suspect make up the vast majority of anyone looking at any of this), but after rummaging around looking at domain names, maybe I just don't want to bother. :p I don't know. But I suppose I've no real reason not to update my blog, anyway, hmmm?

This painting (16x24) was done entirely with Sennelier oil sticks, a new media for me. I made a rather extensive post on WetCanvas about these sticks and the process of this, so I won't go into any details here. Suffice to say, I totally dig the oil sticks.
And here's another recent painting, a self-portrait. Don't think I need to say much about this one, either. :D

Please also note, to the left I have provided a link to my "real" site, as it stands.