Malden Rose (canvas panel 6X6'', 3.15.2016)

This was a rose I got for myself a while back from the Malden T station, where really affordable bouquets were sold from a flower stand. I loved the orange yellow pedals that had a pink glow to it at the same time. The object of this painting was not to capture detail, but an overall sense of layer and pedal and color shades. Admittedly it could use a few more hard edges, but I thought the yellow highlights were well-placed. Next time I look forward to painting from a real rose as opposed to from a photo. It's one of those subjects that allows me to practice similar techniques, hold space to explore new ones, yet still come out unique and satisfying most of the time.  

Flushing Feast (canvas panel 6X6", 3.11.2016) GIFTED

This was based off a photo of my friend Lucy who lives in NYC. When I visited her last year in November we went out for a lamb dinner. I love the glorious light coming in and streaming past her from behind. I tried to capture that based on how I imagined it had felt. I took hours over the course of a few days to try capture her cute smile, but was only partially successful. The bright colors represent how I felt about this particular moment. This is a weird painting in the sense that I have still not decided how I feel about it.

The Cheese of Life (canvas panel 5X7", 3.1.2016)

This one is a bit more abstract, I like the curves around the rattie, and that even though his bulging belly is not completely realistic, does give him a sense of being well-fed and a lover of food. I decided to make the piece of cheese larger than life in order to portray a concept rather than what is normally considered reality. If Jesus were attempting to save a group of rodents he'd say... " I am the cheese of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."

Portrait of a Friend (canvas panel 5X7", 2.20.2016)

At some point in painting this I came close to destroying it in attempt to start over, but finally after much observation I was able to capture to a decent degree the facial features of my rat Remy. What made it hard was that this friend did not like to stay still and squirmed a lot while I tried very hard to visually memorize what he looked like in frontal view. It came out a bit more formal looking than what I was going for, but there are still aspects of it that I really like especially the dark and light contrast. There's not much shape to his tummy area because he has grown fat recently. I appreciate the way the hands are kept dark to not draw too much attention to them but still give a sense of something supporting his position. This painting was especially challenging to capture on camera without a glare. It taught me a lot about how to use light and shadow in photography. The actual paintings are always more colorful than photos.