Madison County New York

A community that values and protects its agricultural traditions, rich history and natural scenic beauty.

My inspiration for the painting and the tag line provided by the client.

I'll summarize my thought process from a paint point a view as well as a conceptual one helping define some aspects of the work.

From a compositional standpoint, I vertically stacked the elements allowing me to establish a visual hierarchy based on size and level of articulation, but most of all, I looked for areas of the painting that I could replace reality with color or shape. That thinking was prevalent through out the entire process.

The reason I chose to illustrate and make these elements strong visual devices is because dairy and poultry are agricultural traditions rooted in Madison County.

The landscape, trees and barn do exist in Madison County but not in the painted proximity, I took the opportunity to visit Madison Co., and it helped greatly in gathering reference and just to get a feel for the area. I illustrated these aspects with a basic palette and selected areas of articulation and played with the scale a little.

The hops plant or hops cone is a plant grown in the community and has historical and scenic attributes. My goal illustrating it was to use no more than three values and I wanted it to evolve from the green (field) backdrop but not visually over take the the cow and let it live as a form that replaces reality as one might see it.

The cow; yes dairy cows have horns, I had a great time painting the hair and the face which is mainly a play of cool and warms, mostly umbers with color notes. The middle clump of the tuft is rudimentarily the shape of Madison County. I tried to create an engaging, and visually interesting cow from a paint point of view, and a goal was to have it visually anchor the piece.

I hope you enjoy the painting-
11 x 17 on linen, oils
and it's for sale

Will.i.am

Portrait of Will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas to advance the release of The End.
oils
Illustration is for sale

How barometric and sinus, 8 x 10 oils

How barometric pressure affects the sinus.
Your sinuses are cavities containing air in the bones of your head.

If the barometric pressure drops suddenly, as it does often before a storm it could impact your sinuses by partially blocking the sinus passageway.

When your nose is stuffy, the inner linings of your nose are swollen, and the same swelling can block the passageway, slowing the flow to a drip, preventing air pressure inside your sinus from changing to balance the pressure outside, and you can develop a sinus headache.

If your nose is stuffy most of the time and your mucous is clear, you could have an allergy. If thick yellow-green mucous drips from your nose, you probably have a sinus infection. If fluid levels remain in your sinuses, it could be sinusitis.

Jack Dempsey

8 x 10 linen mounted on board, oils
Jack Dempsey is an oil sketch intrigued by his look and interesting proportions and it's also used an exercise in color temperature and key. I tried to keep the value in a higher key or at least a higher low key and a primary goal was to use temperature to make slight value shifts, while being accurate to his look.
hope you enjoy the study-
best-David

The boiler cleaner,

8 x 10
oil sketch on board

Frank is my barber and recently when getting a haircut, I noticed a copy of a photo sitting in the barber chair next to me.

The photo of his father in-law showed a charismatic looking man, who seemed full of life and Frank described him as a rugged man, who made a living cleaning power plant boilers. Cleaning boilers just sounds like tough work and I think that toughness came through in the look of the man.

I was especially struck by his appearance and rugged features, like his crooked nose and crumpled hat. Frank explained at age 70, the boiler cleaner could walk on his hands, no easy feet, and the kind of thing that I think, helps describe his character and strength very well.

This is one of those paintings you just have to make, mostly, driven by the character of the subject matter. My primary goal is to make a painted image on a larger scale the tells more of his story, for now though, the oil sketch helps me understand the man a little more and starts the process of investigation.

Hope you enjoy the painting

Dr. Spraggs

I feel Dr. Spraggs portrait was received well, he was gracious and seemed satisfied with the painting. The general feeling was, that Dr. Spraggs character and sincerity came through in the painted image, which I find to be a measure of success when painting who I think the sitter is.

Teaser

20 x 24, oils

After a brief hiatus, I'm back to posting work. This post is a teaser to a bigger commissioned portrait recently completed. It wouldn't be fair to the sitter if I revealed the entire work before it's presented.

The subject brought a lot to the table with great facial structure, anatomical landscape and loads of sincere character. All great aspects that help bring success to a picture.

More to come soon and will show the entire work in a later post.
best-David