Chimp Sketch of the week #40

Equality and Individually Primate Paint Together

In preparation for the opening of my show tomorrow I have made this short film. Incase your not already aware based on my months of posting on the subject tomorrow in Florida my gallery show Equality and Individually opens. This is a group art show with myself and a group of chimps that live in a sanctuary in Florida. It includes five collaborative paintings that I did with the chimps and the show is designed to raise money and awareness for chimps that spent there lives in cages at medical laboratories and are now living a free life in sanctuary. This show has been a year in the making and it opens tomorrow I am so proud and thankful for my new friends at Save the chimps

Chimp Sketch of the Week # 39

Melody

This is a film showing the creation of a portrait of Melody a chimp that lives in a chimpanzee sanctuary called Save The Chimps in Florida. This a collaborative painting done with a chimp named Cheetah another resident at Save The Chimps and will be on display at gallery 14 in Vero Beach Fl in May. 

Chimp Sketch of the Week #34

Anna

Painted in watercolor another sketch for my Show in May in Florida more on that soon

Good Bye To Our Beloved Boardwalk

The news of the Boardwalk in Long Beach being demolished has gotten me very sentimental. Long Beach is a great strong community. They type of home that is always home no matter how far away you might move away from it. Growing up in Long Beach we all have our memories and stories of our beloved boardwalk. I thought I would share some painting I have done of long beach over the years, some horrible some good all painted/sketched with love. The top painting was one I did in grad school when asked to paint something personal. I saw this as a portrait of our wonderful town. Ironically I gave this painting to my sister as a house-warming present the day before Sandy hit.

Temple Israel

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/nyregion/long-beach-new-york-says-goodbye-to-its-boardwalk.html?_r=0

Chimp Sketch of the week #31

Thoto RIP

This sketch is another one I recently painted of a resident at SAVE THE CHIMPS. Thoto was a circus chimp which had all his teeth pulled out as a measure of protection for his handlers afraid he might bite them. Thoto was eventually sold into medical research and forced to live in a cage. I instantly fell in love with his face when I saw his picture and it inspired me to paint him. This beautiful chimp is a perfect example of the great work that Save the chimps do because poor Thoto was forced through most of his life as an entertainer and lab experiment but thanks to save the chimps he was able to live the last ten tears of his life as a chimp.

For a full obituary of Thoto please go HERE and please consider donating some money in his honor.

Meet Thoto in this clip from YouTube. I was hoping to meet him one day but I am so happy that I could paint his portrait and honor him and save the chimps in this way.

How I spent my summer

I spent the summer doing Plein Air watercolor studies. As mentioned in a previous post I reloaded my Cottman travel set set to suit my needs and with a moleskin watercolor notebook and water brush I am able to do these studies as conveniently as drawing with a pencil.

I fell in love with the Plein Air Painting ideals this summer and this is something I plan on taking further breaking away from the comfort of the sketchbook and taking to an easel and extended palette and travel to paint in open air. Of course here in NY we are headed into our cold season so this might have to wait until spring.

Below is a sample of some of my favorite studies from the summer.

Happy Anniversary

Today signifies the one-year partnership of the writer Eric Johnson and I publishing at Scientific American, we completed 32 posts together. Below is the image I created for today’s Anniversary post

Below are a few of my favorites over the year.

shakespeare

This one was inspired by an article Eric Johnson wrote. I drew this one a year ago after reading it. We recently published them together at Scientific American. click here

Mental Health

This illustration is for the primate diaries this week.  The chimp is drawn with ink and wash but the background is created with a type of paint called Casein paint. Derived from milk casein, is a fast-drying, water-soluble medium. It generally has a glue-like consistency, but can be thinned with water to the degree that fits a particular artist's style and desired result. It can be used on canvas panels, illustration boards, paper, wood and Masonite but here I am using it in 4 ply Bristol board. Casein paint is reworkable and can be used for underpainting. It generally dries to a matte finish. This was the paint of choice for illustrators prior to the 1960s but once Acrylic came to be most illustrators dropped Casein paint but I think I will be exploring it more in the near future.

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With Respect to Whistlers Mother

I started with a simple sketch with ink to define the contours and the overall design thankfully on this one the composition and design was done for me by James McNeill Whistler back in 1871, I changed the composition slightly but the fact that this is a homage to Whistler made this part easier.

Next I added my darkest darks as a point of reference. Since all values are relative to the values they are up against it is important to define early a point that all values are compared against, for me that is always my darkest dark.

At this point I began to define the form with a wash. This is when I begin to soften the values with lamp black watercolor, I am also using plain water to spread the ink that already exists on the page. Since the ink I used is non-waterproof the ink smears and creates more solid shapes.

Now I cover the entire drawing with one coat of acrylic gloss varnish. This does two things; it brings the image down two steps in value and also creates a surface available for painting. Once it is dry since the value has gotten two values darker I hit it with my whitest whites and use a little bit of paint and color pencils to define the shapes a bit more.

The last step is color, using acrylic paint and gouache. I carved the chimp out with a light color using simple temperature changes to show shadow. Here I am using the original painting for color queues but I am still making decisions to intensify them. A little paint and color pencil to detail the curtain on the left and I call it quits.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/2011/10/13/sacrifice-on-the-serengeti/