My dad painted this in 1981. It was in our home when it burned and was severely damaged by smoke… he restored it as best he could but much of the color and richness was scrubbed off.  My dad (Jim Saw) taught art at Palomar College for 30 years. He painted and actively showed his work for most of his life. Without a doubt he was my first and has been my strongest influence in becoming an artist myself. He’s doing great these days traveling a bit with his wife Nancy. He has not painted much in recent years. You can see a small sample of his work at http://jimsaw.com .

This photo of my son Kai and I was taken by my girlfriend Erika Petersen at the Wild Animal Park.

My painting “Bear Story” was  based on the photo above. It was the first painting that I made after becoming a single father and represents the bonding of a father and his son on the forefront of a great adventure together.  I have used family photos before as a basis for my work but usually change the figures to make them more universal.  

Finished Painting : Portrait of David J. (click to enlarge)

This is a painting I just completed for a show in December. The show is called “Artists by Artists” and will be held in North County San Deigo this December. The show is all about local artist painting other local artists… pretty cool idea! Mary Fleener curated the show and is actually making a painting of me!

I chose to paint David J. because he is someone I have admired and respected for many years… both for his music and his visual art. David was a founding member of the bands Bauhaus and Love and Rockets. This painting was a challenge for me as I really have had no experience painting portraiture. It was a good experience and I learned a lot.

I had a bunch of photos that I had taken of David over the past 5 years… but I decided to recreate this Shakespearean pose that I had used in the painting below.

Reflecting - painted in 2004

Knowing I would have to take some quality reference shots… I got more into photography during this project- which is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing because I really enjoy it! And a curse because now that I know better – I want better equipment – and photography gear is spendy! Here are a few of my photo studies (thanks Tom and Erika!):

Lighting test

Practicing photography

Pose test

I had David come by the studio for a photo shoot and we took a bunch of photos. As it turned out… the one that had the right expression, mood, pose was the worst quality photo that I took… its the one in the lower left with really dark lighting. So I used photoshop to revive it and then used it for the pose reference. I borrowed lighting information from some of the more successful photos.

Photos of David

Here is the under painting:

Under painting

Here’s the first color wash:

Color wash

Another color coat… still needs one more

... another color coat

Here’s what the paint pallet looked like in the end.

Pallet

Once complete… I turned my dining room into a photo studio. I used to have everything shot professionally… but I’m trying to take as much of the process in house to save $. I just bought this light set for less than $200. Each bulb is 500 w… it works good.

Photo shoot

… Snapped this one using a timer just for fun.

David and I

Well… that’s it for now. Hope you enjoyed my first blog post! I actually learned a lot about blogging in the last 30 mins… so I just may do this again… will keep ya posted.

Cheers!