Summer

This is a new piece I've been tinkering with this past week, it's
dedicated to the long summer days soon to be upon us.  Here's
to summer! Enjoy. Here is the larger version: Summer.

Portrait: Brian Wilson

The next portrait my series, this is Brian Wilson, 

creative genius of the Beach Boys, and sometimes 

friend of Charles Manson. He was the force behind 

the album Pet Sounds, one of the most influential 

bits of recorded music committed to vinyl, Pet Sounds 

is a monumentally joyous celebration of life, which 

contrasts deeply with the personality of its creator; a 

troubled, reclusive, drug addled mind, Wilson slowly 

slipped into obscurity for the better part of 30 years 

when his follow up to Pet Sounds and would-be opus, 

the album Smile, became too much of an undertaking 

for his fragile ego. He would leave the album in pieces 

and unfinished until he returned to it in 2004, and 

finishing a version of the fabled recording.

  

Portrait: J.M. Coetzee

Here is the next in a series of portraits I'm working on.  This is a 

portrait of the writer J.M.Coetzee.  Sometimes considered greatest 

living writer, he's at least, possibly, the most decorated living writer 

being the only author to win two Bookers, he also has a Nobel in 

literature. He's South African and writes about colonialism, 

racism, the ability of language to empower

or enslave, and sometimes  the outright failure of language. In his

 books conflicts are often irreconcilable, problems have no tangible 

solutions, and the outlook is bleak. I created the portrait out of a digital 

combination of ink, gauche, and Photoshop brushes, and tried to 

combined sharp jagged angular features, with a sympathetic, and 

somewhat confused stare.

Portrait: Raymond Carver

I've been working on a series of portraits as a personal
project recently (more coming soon) like most personal
projects I set up for myself, it's as much about the content
as it is about experimenting with new medium and process.
The above portrait is the great short story writer Raymond
Carver, one of the more influential writers in the short story
form from the last  30 years.  His writing is incredibly lean,
brutally honest and full of from 80's Americana, trailer parks,
and suburbs populated with Violent and vulnerable characters
on the verge of, or diving straight into completed ruin and
destruction. (see his collection Cathedral if your interested)

For this image I was playing with a mixture of ink line (in face)
Pencil line (the coat) The face was first painted underneath with
gauche, the ink line was layered in digitally, and extra layers of
shading in his face and jacket were drawn separately on tracing
paper with flat black ink washes, then layered in digitally, lightened,
and made transparent. For touch ups, I went back and cleaned and
adjusted and tweaked areas with the clone tool, and digital painting.
This is somehow what I ended up with.