Finished Painting, "Desert Sage"

Nathan Abels, "Desert Sage", Acrylic on Linen, 24x36"

Scroll down to see the process of how this developed.

Painting progress

getting closer...

Little farther

Making progress:

Painting Process Update

New Painting process part 1

 Been a long time - but I will try using this blog again occasionally - this time at the request of some new painting students that were asking about my personal process... Here's a few process photos from recent paintings - beginning with a Utah-based work.

The process here began with a 3x4' raw canvas onto which I projected my photo and sketched in a few of the basic shapes. From there I wet most of the raw canvas and poured/painted very thin washes of acrylic paint into the cotton. This stage works similar to a watercolor as the paint diffuses and stains the raw canvas.

 From there, I sealed the absorbent canvas with many layers of clear gesso and self-leveling clear gel (by Golden).  After it is adequately sealed, I begin building up the acrylic with layers of glazed paint.

After those stages, I switched to oil paint to soften some edges and lay in big tones (mostly blues/grays). The photo below may not be the best representation of the finished work but gives you an idea:

The work on the easel right now is also inspired by the desert as well as a previous work (the tree painting above titled "Lumen Vitae", Acrylic on Canvas, 42x60"). This painting focuses on one of my favorite plants: desert sage.


This painting process is more direct - again starting with simple outlines of the forms, I am laying in a lot of the larger background shapes first:

From there I'm building up the acrylic on the sage in the foreground. This photo shows the daylight coming through the linen in my studio. The process from here will continue filling in the larger shapes and proceed to layer more glazed paint to pronounce the warm glow of the setting sun.

New Kaye Donachie

Kaye Donachie
From the compassion that was I, 2013
oil on canvas, 51 x 41 cm

New Kaye Donachie, Glenn Sorensen, Hiroshi Sugito

Galerie Zink

Three by Helmut Federle

Helmut Federle

Paintings by Andrew Mazorol and Tynan Kerr

Paintings by Andrew Mazorol and Tynan Kerr

Inside & Outside

Various Paints on Canvas

48x64 in

2012

Effigies

Various Paints on Canvas

96x60 in

2012

Levitation

Various Paints on Canvas

48x84in

2010

Healing

Various Paints on Canvas

48x64 in

2012

The artist is also in a great band called Myrrh:

Maja Körner

Three untitled works by Maja Körner.

New Work by CT Nelson

 

CT Nelson, "Yesterday is Tomorrowland", Oil on Canvas, 48x60"

Excellent new work by my friend and neighbor CT. It reminded me of the "Light of God" from an interesting article on art and drone technology:

Four by Jules de Balincourt

Photo of the Day: Clyfford Still

detail of a Clyfford Still painting at the museum

Three by Ben Kehoe

"Spiritual Reconnaissance" by Ben Kehoe

"An Element Unprepared For" by Ben Kehoe

"So Long Ramshackle Security" by Ben Kehoe

Painting of the Day: Matthijs Maris

Matthijs Maris, Head of a Girl, 1888, Oil on Canvas (at the Philadelphia Museum of Art - photo by me)

New Work: "Procession"

"Procession", Acrylic and Oil on Canvas, 18x32"

Monday Morning Abstraction

Jason Stopa

Jason Stopa

Sterling Ruby, "SP89", 2010, Spraypaint on canvas, 96 x 84 x 2 in.

Mali Morris, Crossing Lilac, 1996, Acrylic on Canvas, 27 x 35 cm

Mali Morris, CANOPY (2)  2009  18 x 24 cm  Acrylic on canvas

Progress on new painting - at the Denver Art Museum

The next two weekends (October 20, 21 and October 27, 28) I will be painting in the painting studio at the Denver Art Museum. You can see me work on a large new painting from noon until 3 pm each of those days. I would be happy to answer any questions about my work or technique - hope to see you there! Here's the current progress on the work I will be bringing to the museum: