Miscellaneous (Gifts, Trades, and Obtainments 3)

An update on some miscellaneous things I've been working on:

Two new introspective drawings that were started in the last few months and have come to a conclusion recently (will be gifts). Up in the Hypothesis section of my site as well.                  

Meal, watercolor, octopus skin, acrylic, white charcoal on paper, 12"x16"

Blind, watercolor, graphite, acrylic, ink , white charcoal on paper, 9"x12"

Some time ago I was working on a painting, intention and composition of which I eventually deemed failed, yet decided to cut out, and keep developing a fragment of it, in its own right, as a portrait.
Will be trading this for a landscape by Lisa Fiore, who was a model for the piece.

oil on canvas, 15"x14"

A while back I did some model drawings at an event (revolving around Manet's luncheon on the grass painting) organized by my freshman year drawing professor Nils Karsten. He's having a show soon, reception this Thursday(20th) 6-8, @ Churner and Churner, don't miss it !

watercolor, ballpoint pen, white charcoal on paper, 12"x16"

acrylic, ballpoint pen, white charcoal on paper, 14"x17"

Added these to Sentient.



Last weekend I was invited to a party by Zoe Williams, for which everyone made an ornament, here is mine:

Sketchbook finished

My modus operandi sketchbook has been nearly finished for the longest time, but only recently I was able to get back into it and complete the last few pages.

Scanned the whole thing again in order to have large files, which better present the idea of scale, since it was one of the main ones in here. Along with scale, surface treatment experimentation, continuity/flow, and using unbiased intuitive imagination were the determining guiding restrictions. Towards the end a spontaneous focus arose manifested in development of the fleshmaps idea: using objects in nature, to study and attempt to apply their pattern; most direct object being the palm of the hand...

After finishing the sketchbook I felt the need to continue this process, and began working on another several pieces during my stay in Russia this fall. My experience from the visit created the content, which turned the new intuitive experimental drawings into a series. Currently refining and finishing those, more information soon.

World Inferno Friendship Society

I was commissioned by the punk band World Inferno Friendship Society to paint a banner for their halloween concert at the Warsaw Concert Hall in brooklyn. Derived from the conceptual/lyrical content of the music, the imagery is mimicking the Citizen Kane election scene, with a pumpkin puppet as the politician. Updated the Applied section of the commissioned work website.

Live photo by Konstantin Sergeyev

Another large scale project I had fun with recently was helping Sean Mellyn work on a mural he's creating for Crown Maple Farm. I was doing some painting in the early layers of the initial image, here are a couple of process photos:

Long story short.

Besides my own art I have been busy with a lot of commercial projects in the past year. After graduating I really wanted to support myself using art related jobs.

Though commissioned, I try to have fun with these works, by exploiting my interests outside the primary direction: moments in art history/specific artists/ purely technical, esthetic, or conceptual aspects/various mediums (interior design, publication, film).

I've been working on a separate website, dedicated to serve as a portfolio of my commissioned projects.

There is a whole bunch of stuff, so I'll break it up into separate posts.
Details below...

Woodland

In this project I got to explore interior design, and working with a specific predetermined aesthetic. The Brooklyn restaurant Woodland commissioned me to make images for decorating the environment. The work is themed around forest/trees, and is following an earthly palette of umber, sienna, and ocher, with limited color. I used this as a personal study of some of my favorite tree painters/paintings: Ivan Shishkin, Andrew Wyeth, Alexei Savrasov, Caspar David Friedrich.

This is the painting for the central area of the restaurant:

The following three mural paintings serve as bathroom decoration:

Repino

This is as series of landscapes depicting nature in the area surrounding my country house outside St. Petersburg (thus the name). The formal qualities are primarily influenced by the hallmark of russian landscape painting with a slight alteration of the palette towards cooler notes.