Here are a couple of acrylic paintings I did today. 

This is of Dada/Surrealist photographer and artist Man Ray. The Spongebob animators liked him so much they made him one of Mermaid Man's arch villains. I think it turned out to be kind of a mixture of Raymond Burr, José David Alfaro Siqueiros and Rod Serling.

Everyone easily recognizes Psychology pioneer Sigmund Freud. Naturally, a student gave me a hard time about including a cigar, since just the day before I'd disallowed him from drawing a cigarette on his final self portrait. One cool thing about this painting is that I think it looks a little like it's in the style of his grandson, English painter, Lucian Freud.

Purple Blues

Almost there

I'm not quite sure what else I need. I don't want to go too far, but it hasn't told me that it's finished yet.

Day Three

It will be interesting to see where this painting takes me tomorrow. I know that it's not where it needs to be just yet. I know his eyes need to be darker. At least I'm getting some serious layers, range, contrast, and density- these are what a monochromatic painting should demonstrate. Check in tomorrow afternoon to see what happens.

Presidential Painting

Here are the first two days' progress on a new watercolor painting I'm doing. The assignment I gave my students is to create a monochromatic portrait, and include a value scale along the side.

I tried to find a fairly serious photo of the President. I wanted to avoid cheesy, overly exuberant, or angry. I think the one I found was pretty somber- although I suspect that my own disappointment in yesterday's mid-terms may  be intruding because he looks particularly melancholy. I was looking at the photo upside down, trying to render it as clinically and visually analytically a manor as I could. It will be interesting to see how this one progresses through the week.

"Beauty is not caused. It is." ~Emily Dickinson

Here is a monochromatic caricature I did of poet Emily Dickinson in oil pastel during my Painting class.

Age of Reason

A new treatment (digital) of an old drawing (from college) of a bust of Benjamin Franklin. From television to texting, from 24 hour news cycles to never-ending campaign cycles, 30 second sound-bytes and incivility... I imagine that our founders would be disappointed in how post-literate, anti-intellectual, uncompromising and unreasonable America has become.

Has anybody seen my good friend Bobby?

Once again, I'm teaching middle school students about color, using oil pastels. This portrait of Robert Kennedy was made with only orange and blue (complementary colors) and black and white.

Psalm 4:2

"You have as much laughter as you have faith"

~Martin Luther

Layers of water and pools of color

Just playing around while my students work on their assignments in Painting class.

Bully

Been talking to 4th, 5th, and 7th graders about complimentary colors and made this oil pastel painting

Loud and Proud

We finally got around to taking team pictures for Cheerleading this year. I'm pretty happy with most of them. Like what you see? Think about me for your Senior pictures! Gotta make a buck somehow this summer.

See more at http://cheercoach.blogspot.com, better yet, you can see the entire shoot at http://tmal.multiply.com

Portraits with Pithy Quotes

Has anybody seen my good friend Bobby?

Above is a watercolor of Robert Kennedy that I did while my Painting class were working on their own historical portraits.

Student Portrait Shoot

Megan missed picture day at our school. She needed to have her picture taken for the yearbook, but she was also thinking about gifts for her parents and boyfriend. This was pretty informal and improvised after school, but with the help of an overcast day and a skylight in the hall, I think we got some beautiful shots. You can see more at my Mallory's Milieu.

My first foray into sanior portraits

I've never taken senior pictures before. This weekend I took over 140 of them for my nephew. We had fun, even though it was in the 100s here in Iowa. I feel good enough about it that I may actually have the guts to advertise to do it for other people's nephews next summer.

See more of these pictures at http://tmal.multiply.com/photos/album/64/Best_of_Cales_Senior_Pics
Maybe you'll like them enough to hire me!

Megan

I think I'm done. 8x10 Acrylic on canvas board. I got some bright, funky colors back, but I had to go with primaries because I never could capture the purples that I wanted. I think it lends a Latino flavor to it. Don't know if that's my Southwestern background coming out or her Hispanic heritage or just coincidence. Students think it looks like her and one of my best students said that they like it so I think it's ready to go.

Scroll down to see how it looked when I first started and while I was working on it.

Not sure

I don't know if this is progress or regression. I liked the variety of colors and the bold vibrant colors yesterday. I'm not sure how much it looks like the subject yet. At least I do like that she looks happier and less worried. Either scroll down past the political cartoon, or click here to see what it how it started out.
We'll see, maybe Monday it will finally come together.

What's on my easil right now

I have a student in the hospital, so in lieu of flowers, I thought I'd make small acrylic painting. I used a photo that had already been made "psychedelic" in PhotoShop. I'm kind of going for a loose, free, fun, bold, bright Peter Max sort of thing. I'm already running into some snags and it's only Day 1. Maybe you can see how I need to rework the eye sockets. I also can't seem to match the purples and reds that I want to. We'll see how tomorrow goes- hopefully better.

Everybody loves a blue-eyed girl

Flexing my PhotoShop muscles with some shots of my 2 year old. She's such a ham. I usually hate posed pictures and prefer candids, she's such a "poser," but I love her anyway.