Art Exhibit Season

My oil painting Still Life with Skull was awarded “Best Painting” in the 2025 juried exhibit of the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts. The festival takes place every summer in the town that surrounds the campus of our Commonwealth’s university, casually known as Penn State. Just to have a painting chosen for this exhibit was nice. There were 346 submissions from artists across the state and only 47 pieces were chosen to be in the show. I will attempt to jury into this exhibit again in 2026 and defend my title!

Aside from the usual (and gratuitous) picture of myself with my work after the reception, my wife and I had a great time in the following days walking around State College and the beautiful Penn State campus taking pictures and enjoying the vibe of a university town, which was tangible even between semesters.

We also made sure to visit the fine drinking establishments situated just off campus, of which there are many.

At each stop we made sure to sample the beverages— purely for research purposes. The crowds were minimal so chopping it up with the bartenders was a big part of the fun.

More Exhibits:

Big Thanks to the thousands of, ... (OK five) people who visited my recent solo exhibit at the Elaine Biondi Gallery Space in Monroeville, PA.

Good thing I hauled enough pieces to hang there— the space was bigger than I expected. This overlapped with the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts juried exhibit, so I did something I don’t usually do, which is get a print on canvas made of my State College submission to include in my solo showing. Below is another cheesy gratuitous picture of myself and a couple installation views.

A few days ago I submitted 3 paintings to be shown in the Southwestern Pennsylvania Council for the Arts 30th annual exhibition. Hopefully they’re accepted. That takes place in the Galleries of The Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art at Ligonier Valley, which is about an hour and a half away from my home studio. The opening reception is November 15th.

Holbein Biography Book:

The book I am currently enjoying is the biography of Hans Holbein which came out a couple years ago called The King’s Painter by Franny Moyle.

Outside of The Ambassadors and his portrait drawings, I didn’t fully consider and appreciate Holbein’s art until recent years. Aside from learning about Holbein’s process and techniques, the book does the one supremely important thing a biography needs to do when looking at a life and art from so long ago, and that thing is putting the subject and his work into the context of the their own time.

Mrs. Moyle’s book also discusses visual clues in Holbein’s paintings that otherwise go unappreciated. Similar to Holbein’s life, his art had to mean different things and give different messages to different people in order to keep everyone happy. In those whacked out days of Luther’s reformation and Henry VIII’s megalomania if you couldn’t walk a fine line it could literally cost you your head. Holbein was able to flatter his sitters, yet give some of them the stick on the sly at the same time, if you know what I mean. Here’s your face. Take that you rotten so-and-so!

Lastly I have to take my hat off and hand it to authors like Mrs. Moyle who write books like this. When I stop and think about the amount of time, effort, and expense it must take to research so much of the obscure correspondence, documents, and images, that informs the writing— let alone weave an enjoyable narrative of a life from so long ago, where the known facts are thin to begin with— is quite an accomplishment. So big props to Franny!

Winter & Things

Fine Art:

As I try to decide what regional and national juried fine art exhibits to enter this year, I wanted to share a few little landscapes I recently completed. All depict the English Countryside, and all are from my photos which I shot while  on walking holidays there (Gloucestershire to be exact.)

Landscapes aren’t really my best subject matter, but I did these partially for fun, and partially for a permanent loan to a family member who wanted more pieces to accompany another larger landscape they have which I also painted. All of them are below in situ. The small one on the top left is actually a print on canvas of an original oil I did years back which sold shortly after I painted it. The large one is another I painted from my British photos and shows a scenic view of Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.

I had so much fun working on these landscapes, that I decided to start  another one from my archive of British holiday reference shots. This new one will feature a dramatic sky over Wiltshire.

Other than that I am always coming up with ideas for the next few Christmas-themed images I can create. I will use those on future printed Christmas cards I design for my wife and I to send out. Below on the left is the one from Christmas 2024. I did this one in pastel. As usual I had a better idea for it after it went to print, so I created the one on the right in conte and watercolor pencil, then used it for social media.

History:

Sometimes people will ask me if I listen to music while I paint. I always tell them it depends on how the work is going and what stage I am on in the process. But most often, what I listen to are podcasts. History podcasts. Right now my favorites are The History Extra podcast (from BBC History magazine) and one called Not Just the Tudors. I learn all kind of stuff listening to the likes of Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Dan Snow, Tracy Borman, and others. I get so interested in some of the subjects of these podcasts that I buy the books they sometimes discuss. Below are some great books I’ve been enjoying as a result of listening to the podcasts. A couple of them are catalogs to exhibitions which I never had the chance to see in person. Those are the ones I value the most!

Graphic Design:

I continue to be busy this new year with all of my graphic design clients asking me for work. At this writing, I am in the second of a three month long project for the largest of them. This is the next phase of a project I successfully completed for them last summer. Thankful for them and every opportunity I get to expand on my recent years of ad agency experience. I like to say, I offer clients ad agency experience minus the ad agency attitudes! I’m always doing graphic design stuff on my own too. Below is a poster I created for fun that is a tip of the cap to those old British travel posters you come across sometimes.

I designed and created this using one of my shots while on holiday over there. Are you sensing a pattern here??

Postcards From Summer Exhibit

Here are a few postcards from the CrossCurrents regional fine art exhibit a few months back. This was before my recent shoulder surgery that made everything in general a little more complicated.

The Stifel Fine Arts Center was a former private home built in 1910 and sits just south of Oglebay Resort in Wheeling, West Virginia. The center is part of Oglebay Institute and engages more than 13,000 people each year with a full calendar of fun events.

This was the 43rd year for the CrossCurrents fine art exhibit and my first time displaying oil paintings there. Both pieces I entered were accepted. Pretty nice considering one of them was my first landscape painting in over a decade.

The next stop for both of my paintings will be my solo exhibit in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania in October.

Lorenzo De Medici drawing

Here is a recent drawing I did from one of the many reference photos of busts and sculptures I shot on trips to the National Gallery in Washington D.C. This is Lorenzo De Medici (Magnifico).

I Used Generals 2B charcoal pencil on this crazy paper that looks like canvas, but feels like plastic. I got the paper at the ad agency I used to work for. It was on a pile of sample pieces of paper that a sales rep had dropped off years before. It was going to be thrown in the trash, so I salvaged it. Really tough to get a wide variety of values with it, but sometimes that can be good since all you need is three values for an effective drawing.

Sometime I will draw directly from sculptures while in a museum, but I always shoot reference anyway. When shooting reference like this in a museum, never get up close, and preferably don’t use your phone. The image gets skewed too much I feel. The right way to shoot sculpture busts is by doing what good portrait photographers do— stand back as far as you can and use a long zoom lens to bring your subject in close.

The lens I use is 210mm, but you don't need to be that far away. Another tip is to try to include something in the frame that you know to be true, like the edge of a wall or doorway to the next gallery. That way you have a plumb line of sorts to guide you when processing and straightening the image as needed before drawing it.

Lorenzo De Medici was loved by some, hated by many, and ruled late 14th century Florence like a mafioso at time when the city was losing influence to Rome. But dammit he kept bread prices low for the working class! His family home is now a police station, which is probably why our tour guide wouldn’t take us inside.

Pewter and Pear Painting

 As promised, below are a couple progress shots of this little 5x7 painting I recently completed. The pic below shows pretty much my view of the subject as I sit at my easel. The surface for this is a hard, pre-primed board that I taped to a piece of black foam-core so I can paint the entire surface to the edges. What is behind that, is just an extra easel that I placed there to keep from getting blinded by my spot light hitting the subjects as I look at them. I didn't use a box for this set-up and my eye sight isn't great so I like to sit as close to the subject as possible when painting from life. This 5x7 board has been around my studio for years - Notice the lines of another still life which I never went forward with drawn under the paint. Centuries from now someone will x-ray the finished oil painting, notice that, and scholarly essays will be written about it... O.K. probably not!!

Below is the initial color block-in. I like dark rich backgrounds, so that old sheet in the setup became dark and rich. The pear is plastic, and I'm using that as my excuse for it looking more like a light bulb at this stage. The truth is, I am sadly out of practice drawing with my brush. I would much rather set down a loose but accurate pencil or charcoal under-drawing and go from there. I wanted to try something different this time and not do that. I would have loved to finish this piece in one sitting. I really respect painters who can do that. However, my working method over the years has been to go back, rework, and glaze certain parts that need tweaked.

Below is the final oil painting. Perhaps I will be happier with this result once I "oil out" the painting, which will make the sheen uniform across the entire surface. Basically that process consists of putting a bit of Winsor & Newton Painting Medium on a foam brush and quickly brushing it over the whole surface making sure it is all covered evenly.

Notice the odd looking areas of the background to the left of the cup handle, and to the right of the pear. Uneven application of painting medium when I was reworking those areas caused that. "Oiling it out" should fix that. Finally, in two to three months it should dry completely and be ready for my solo exhibit next October.

Bust of Victory

 Of all the still life subjects I have collected at antique fairs over the years, this early 20th century French bust of Victory is one of my favorites.

Recently I lit it and rendered it in charcoal on a piece of tan canson paper. The base it sits on in the pic below is actually a marble lazy Susan and not part of the bust itself. I use that a lot when doing busts like this because its so easy to turn and sketch at different angles before starting on a final piece.

Here is the final piece that was inspired by some John Singer Sargent charcoal portraits I saw recently.

Bobcat Skull Drawing

 During lockdown last year, one of the charcoal drawings I did was this bobcat skull.

It's about 20x18 inches and a lot of fun to create. It was recently chosen for inclusion in the Pittsburgh Society of Artists 55th annual exhibit. Pretty nice since it was a juried exhibit and many people that submitted did not get in. The exhibit is in a gallery space in Pittsburgh's historic South Side and runs from July 9 to August 28. I started this by toning white the paper with charcoal, and then drawing over that, and finally lifting out the highlights with an eraser.

The actual drawing itself is much larger than the skull. Below is my studio set up when doing a drawing from life of a single small item.

I have a big old drawing table that inclines to a nice angle. The surface is all nicked up, so I put a clean drawing board on that to draw on. To my left, under the light, I built a shelf out of foam-core to sit small subjects on. I like this setup because it gets me close as I can be to the subject to see it well.

Michelangelo: Mind of the Master

This Covid world we now live in has me thinking of happier times - one recent time was at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where I enjoyed the Michelangelo: Mind of the Master exhibit. What a fantastic weekend.

Seeing these Michelangelo drawings up close for the first time after studying some of them in books for so long was, to say the least, a thrill. After the initial walk through the exhibit I went back and spent time in front of my favorite pieces.

The museum did a great job of putting the original drawings in context by showing them among  large reproductions of the finished paintings these drawings were studies for.

It was also fun to watch people try to find the matching figure in the large reproductions.

The exhibit catalogue is an interesting read because it tells the provenance of these drawings and points out specific items of historic and artistic interest about them.

Could not help feel that Michelangelo cheated us all by destroying so many of his drawings after seeing these few.

Three Swiss Guards - Aged Effect

This new piece was inspired by a past visit to the Vatican, and by the drawings of Michelangelo. On an early Wednesday morning in St. Peter's Square while waiting with the rest of the crowd for the arrival of the pope, I was taking in the scenery with my 300mm lens.

The Swiss Guards, along with the sculptures adorning St. Peter's Basicalla (above) were among the images I captured for artistic reference. Below is the initial mixed-media painting I created in 2016 from my main shot of the Swiss Guard.

A while after completing this painting, I was inspired to revisit this subject in either graphite or charcoal after seeing an interesting "aged-paper" technique in one of my fine-art books.

I had the initial drawing worked up on a nice piece of watercolor paper, but then put it aside to work on other projects. The drawing sat in my studio for over a year. What fired me up to finally complete the piece was a trip to the Cleveland Museum of Art to see the fantastic exhibit, Michelangelo: Mind of the Master.

After seeing so many of Michelangelo's original drawings and how beautiful they were on the 500 year old stained, pockmarked, and torn paper, I could not wait to finish my new Swiss Guard piece!

After spraying the final drawing with workable fix, I poured some instant coffee over it, crushed it, and tore it. After it dried, I took a piece of an apple and smashed it onto the surface of the piece, rubbing it in different directions, unevenly over the surface. I did the same thing with a carrot too. Finally I put the piece on a section of aluminum foil, lit a candle, and carefully burned sections of the edges.

To finish, I drew on top of that, adding a few details to the piece and darkening the darks. I tried to frame it as close as I could to the look of the way the original Michelangelo drawings were presented in the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Drawing Fun

Whether from life or from photographs, drawing is a fun and helpful way to sharpen the artistic and observational skills. It is also helpful when you begin the early stages of a painting and you must "draw with the brush" as they say.

Below is my little studio setup as I draw one of my many busts.

As you can see, I customized my big drawing table with a handy shelf to hold my busts on the left side. Oh the many uses of foam core!

Other than drawing busts, it is also fun and challenging to draw the figure from a live model. Recently I have started to attend a Wednesday night drawing session. Sometimes the model is nude, sometimes costumed.

Below are a few of my drawings from recent weeks of our costumed model, Laura.

Charcoal Drawing and a Good Book

Here is my latest drawing:  A Highclere Wyvern

Medium: Charcoal on paper.
Size: 8x10 inches. Price: 375 dollars.

A Wyvern is a mythical heraldic beast that is part dragon and part bird. This particular one sits just outside the front door of Highclere Castle in England. That is the house used as the setting for that magnetic Crawley family in Downton Abbey. I visited the property recently and was intrigued by these winged creatures sitting either side of the front door, watching me enter. When I saw them, I thought "I could do these up in charcoal really right."

My reference shot. The thing is no taller than 2 feet, if that.

Of the many art instruction books I own, one of my favorites is "The Drawing Bible" by Craig Nelson. Mr. Nelson is a master artist in many mediums and in his book he shares a rich variety of techniques for various drawing mediums. There are so many fun techniques and methods to get your artistic vision across, that I sometimes find it hard to decide which one to employ.

Draw, draw, draw. Smudge, smudge, smudge, Refine, refine, refine. Repeat.

For my drawing of the Wyvern I decided to use a technique where, after drawing the loose outline and some shadows, you smear the whole thing with a kleenex to quickly build a middle tone. Then the fun begins when you lift out the highlights with a kneaded eraser. Lastly you go back in with charcoal and gracefully refine the darks where needed. Real nice.

Buy your copy of the book here, then contact me to buy my original charcoal drawing.