Portrait of an Older Guy Pondering

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I’m so incredibly far behind now in sharing paintings, and it seems like there’s not much I can do to address it. I’ve tried batching multiple into one post, and I’ve tried simplifying my posts as well. But it just seems I am vastly more interested in painting than I am blogging. Not really a problem exactly – I am enjoying myself immensely. But I feel bad paying for website hosting that I’m not using much.

Anyhow, to this specific painting. It’s from about 6 months ago, which frankly is an eternity in this context, because I’ve gotten so much practice since then. I just finished painting #105, whereas this one is number 48. Maybe you could call this a bit “meta,” but from what I recall, I was pondering what to do next and came across a photo on Unsplash of a guy pondering his chess moves.

With this one, I kind of left it a bit unfinished. I essentially ran out of time, because I had to head out for dinner. And I’m not really one to return to a painting later – that was true six months ago when I did this painting, and it’s still true now. I have fully settled into alla prima mode, and if I can’t paint wet-on-wet, I am much more likely to just drop the project and move onto something new. I recognize that this sort of impatience probably won’t work long term as an artist though, because the necessary leap in quality if I ever want to actually sell anything will probably come from those details that get worked through in additional painting sessions.

I’ve also got a couple of YouTube videos embedded below. One is from my “Painting to Music” playlist, this one featuring the Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major. And the second video is a YouTube Shorts time lapse, which is probably the exact same one I shared via Instagram (embedded at the top).

Blick Art Materials
Window Backlight, pencil sketch vs oil painting. Now, here’s a comparison of the pencil sketch I started with while waiting at an airport, then the follow up painting I did when I got home. I like the pencil sketch, but it does lack depth. Using pencil is no excuse, because I certainly could have gotten a bit darker for contrast. With the painting, I made sure to use a nice range of light and dark color blends. I also really like some of the textures here. I decided to take an extra step with the background, adding bright light coming through windows. Nothing too wild, but I think the shining effect around the windows is nice. Overall, this set of portraits seems like it has some of the best fidelity between them so far. Window Backlight, oil on paper. This latest oil painting is another that followed a graphite pencil sketch. The original sketch was done while waiting for a flight, and I decided it was solid enough to try a different medium and expand on it a bit. I wanted to try something a bit new with some nice sunlight coming through windows in the background. Unfortunately, due to cropping necessary for a Reels video, those windows don’t show up in the time lapse. But at least you can get a sense of how the portrait itself came together. It’s a solid one I think! Some nice texture and visible brush stroke remnants that I really like. I have to admit though, I’m not totally sure about head tilt and eye alignment. Swanson Inspired, sketch vs painting. Lately I've really been enjoying sketching with a graphite pencil - just scratching out casual portraits in a small notebook. I've especially liked the concept of sketching and painting, then comparing the two. I'm going to keep rolling with this concept for new portraits, but I also thought it might be fun to go back to portraits from earlier this year and do the same. Field of Wheat painting vs sketch. Like the cat portrait, this was a continued shift in order. The first three were pencil sketch first, followed by oil painting. This one was flipped, with painting happening first, and the pencil sketch coming later when I decided I wanted to do another comparison. My sketchbook is pretty small, so I didn’t have a lot of room for as much of the figure as I did with the painting. But the sketch to painting side-by-side does have pretty solid fidelity between the two. It’s not exact of course, but I think it might be the closest of all the ones I shared this weekend. Field of Wheat, oil on paper. This painting was actually directly inspired by a previous one I shared this weekend. In the high contrast portrait from Saturday, while I was working on it, I shared an instagram story with a poll asking if I should finish the background. Most people said yes I should include a real, detailed background with actual stuff (instead of a generic one or none at all). But, by that point, I had already figured there were some things I couldn’t fix about that portrait, so I decided to abide by the poll, but in a fresh painting.
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