My Great-Grandmother Lucille Covey Richards

I have been wanting to do a portrait of this wonderful woman for a LONG time. I've been trying to learn more about my ancestors, and I found a biography of Lucille's life, and it has just inspired me in so many ways. I wanted to express her beauty and the light that she shed on so many others around her.

"In His Own Image" (Creation of Adam) Next Stage

I could work on this more, but the more I look at it the more I want to leave it. I'm not sure. But I've loved doing this piece. It has been an enlivening experience for me. I have always searched for meaning and purpose in my art (besides drawing people I love, which always makes me happy). I've wanted to find something that anyone could look at and understand, and that could make them think about uplifting things. I see so much in the art world today that is the opposite, but I hope to add to the positive art out there. I would appreciate comments/suggestions/feelings about the piece so I can try to make my work more meaningful and powerful in the future. What are some first impressions that you get? Is there anything distracting from the intended message? Just some things you could respond to.

Lightbulb

Coryn Hess

This beautiful girl is one of my dear friends. She is an old roommate and I have always thought she had the most beautiful features and complexion! She reminds me of snow white. This was a light study where the light was coming from below (which is very uncommon because usually we have the light above us). Anyway, I liked this picture that I had so I wanted to use it as my weekly head study. I have never seen eyes like hers!

Seth Peterson

Everyone, meet Seth Elias Peterson, my relatively new nephew. He is such a handsome boy! This painting is in connection with a few portraits from my first post (self portrait and Josh painting). In order to get better at painting the head, I'm trying to do at least one head study a week, in addition to the head paintings that I do in my 3 hour head painting class. Each head study will probably be a little bit different in technique because I'm in an experimental phase right now. I hope these little studies help me to hone my skills and discover a technique that is successful.

A New Theme

These past few months I have filled myself to overflowing with art research!!! Website after website and figure painter after figure painter, I've been looking for ideas of meaningful work that fits my style and subject matter. I've been interested in trying to do something that had to do with my ancestors or something to do with personal identity, but I just couldn't find the outlet. But I think I may have come onto something meaningful.

I want to explore the idea of describing visually each person's infinite worth. Of all the things in this life, this is the idea that I think I have contemplated and wrestled with the most, and I think that this idea will be a time of discovery and visual understanding of a principle that each one of us so desperately needs to understand. This theme also fits well with my semi-realistic figurative portraits/figure paintings and drawings.

An idea...

I've started doing a painting of Adam's creation. We are the children of Adam, and Adam was created in the image of God. Hopefully when people view this piece they will contemplate this idea and their own parenthood and creation.

This is just in the beginning stages. I hope that it woks out how I'm visualizing it in my head!

New Art Blog:::Recent Works

self portrait study for painting technique options

"A Hopeful View"

texture and color study of a river delta

portrait from my current head painting class

another one

and another

portrait paint technique study

Josh Forsyth (brother-in-law)