Aaron Nagel

LOS ANGELES / SEAN CHEETHAM / PHOTOSHOOTS

admin — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 23:09:51 +0000

I took a quick trip down to LA last weekend. I go down every so often to visit buds, but timed this trip so I could catch Sean Cheethams show opening, as well as get in a few photoshoots. a very productive trip; little sleep and much coffee.

Sean Cheetham’s show at Katherine Cone Gallery was great, quite a bit of work from an artist that I haven’t seen much new stuff from the last few years. I particularly liked the smaller work, which is rare for me as I tend to prefer giant oil paintings. my favorites must have been less than 18″ or 20″ square, and were painted on these little panels with rough unfinished edges. I particularly like how Cheetham’s able to get the panel surface to show through so much on certain areas. It creates a really nice contrast between the looser and more finished areas of each piece.

Sean Cheetham

I also had a chance to head over to Orange County and do a photoshoot in my friend Trevor’s house. The interior of Trevor’s house is all black; walls, furniture, everything. it’s fucking great, couldn’t have made up a better place to shoot. Also worked with a new model who was fantastic. I’m still going through the pictures but they’re definitely looking like the jump off point for a new series, so I’ll likely head down and do even more shooting there within the next few months. I’ll post more from the shoot as well as some goofy pictures we all took together soon.

model, Chanon in the black house

PORTRAIT STUDY, LAUREN

admin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 07:41:24 +0000

another little portrait study from this week. here are some incessant ramblings about it: I wanted to experiment with painting on a cool color, instead of the usual warm canvas tint I usually use — so this one is on a piece of gesso board, that I lightly painted with a medium grey acrylic. I really liked it. not sure why it made such a difference, although with the ground showing, it certainly made it easier to make the flesh tone glow. I also tried to experiment a little with dry brushing paint into the background…which I’m definitely going to need to work on, although I like where it’s going.

I’m going to keep banging away at these small studies and practice pieces, and will hopefully be able to do more and more. I’m also slowly planning the next series of larger work; really mapping out concepts and composition this time around. I’m going to start shooting reference material this weekend, and I’ll do my best document that process since it’s something I haven’t much covered in the blog before.

portrait study, "Lauren" 16" x 20", oil on panel. 2012

PORTRAIT STUDY ON VELLUM

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:59:27 +0000

Did this little experiment on vellum the other night. I had never painted on paper with oils, and always assumed I’d need some super high quality treated surface that would be expensive and a pain to deal with. Then I remembered vellum. although I usually have a harder time with smooth surfaces, I decided to give it a try. This is maybe a 3 or 4 hour study, which I painted mounted to a piece of cardboard tacked on the wall. the cardboard texture that came through was entirely unintentional, but I like it. maybe something to play around with in the future.

portrait study, "Amanda", oil on vellum, ~24" x ~24", 2012

PORTRAIT STUDY, DAVEY

admin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:04:21 +0000

Painted my good friend Davey a few weeks back. I really tried to get the cool colors to pop a bit in the flesh tones as I feel I always fall short there. I’m happy with how it came out, especially as I was able to get things close enough in one sitting that I didn’t feel like I needed to go back in for glazing. again, apologies for all the glare here — I can’t really afford to get all these studies shot by somebody that knows what they’re doing, especially as I plan to keep cranking these out.

portrait study, "Davey", 16" x 20", oil on panel. 2011

JENNY SAVILLE IN WEST PALM BEACH

admin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:18:04 +0000

Last friday, I got on a plane and flew from SF to Ft. Lauderdale. The occasion was two-fold: get tattooed in Tampa, and see Jenny Saville’s exhibition in West Palm Beach. When I was out this way in December for Art Basel, my friend (and excellent tattooer) Phil Holt mentioned he had just found out that Jenny Saville had around 20 pieces in an obscure museum in West Palm Beach. We’re both big fans of her work and hadn’t heard a peep about this show, even though it had been up since November. We didn’t have time to make it then, but decided we needed to see it before it came down in March.

The Norton museum didn’t allow photos (super lame), but we managed to sneak as many we could. Like most art, and especially with work of this scale, these things need to be seen in person. if you happen to be in South Florida within the next few months or can make the trip, I highly recommend it. some really fantastic work.

human added for scale.

these pieces (among many others) were there as well, although I didn’t get good shots. here are some from the internets.

STILL LIFE?

admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 23:29:32 +0000

Now that I have some time to play around a little bit, I’ve been doing a lot of blog reading. I’m always looking for oil painters willing to talk about their process, especially those who have been classically (or otherwise) trained. It’s a great resource to pick up tips and discover things I may not have stumbled upon on my own, and to hear what other artists are going through, who they’re influenced by, etc. there are a ton I read on a regular basis, and it’s really been invaluable (it’s the main reason I feel obligated to write about my own process so much, kind of a ‘pay it forward’ type situation, for lack of another stupid phrase). I’ll do an entry on the blogs that I read sometime in the near future if you care to check them out (and you should), but for the time being, I told that story so I could tell this one:

A lot of the blogs I follow are written by realist artists, and during a particularly long trip down the internets, I came across some really fantastic still-life paintings. i’m not huge on the still-life genre in general (is it a genre?), mainly because regardless of the execution, I need something interesting to look at. I can certainly appreciate the artistry of a painting of a bowl, and I admire the simplicity…but I tend to also get bored with it before any of that appreciation actually kicks in. so anyway, I found some nice ones…very well painted and of interesting subject matter that held my attention. It was then that it occurred to me that I have another glaring hole in my self-education, and a rather embarrassing one actually; I’ve never painted a still-life. not even for practice. It seems totally neglectful of me, and while I know i’m being critical, and that I am a figurative painter, I also know that I probably should have been experimenting with them for years. not because all oil painters need to paint still-life’s, but because I’m fairly certain that most probably do at some point (and probably very early in their learning to boot). there has to be some reason for that right?.

so, given all that rambling you just suffered through, and the fact that painting anything outside of my comfort zone is generally a good idea, I started on my first still-life — and you know what? totally fun. here is the final product (excuse the glare). I’m going to title this “Still Life #1″, because I am the most creative guy on earth.

"Still Life #1", 12" x 12", oil on panel. 2012 (click to enlarge)

“THE CALMING” SOLD OUT!

admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:23:12 +0000

A huge thank you to all who picked up “the Calming” print from 1xRun, we sold out within the first day! Totally amazed at the response — the support means everything. I’ll definitely be doing more with them in the future, any particular prints you’d like to see? leave them in the comments if you have a moment.

big thanks to 1xRun and Creepmachine as well!

“THE CALMING” NOW AVAILABLE

admin — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:14:44 +0000

“The Calming” is now available from 1xRun. this is a limited time-release and will only be available for 6 days or until the edition runs out. get one here: http://1xrun.com/runs/The_Calming. huge thanks to Creepmachine and 1xRun for putting this together.

I also did new interviews with both Creepmachine (here) and 1xRun (here) to accompany the release…fun!

“THE CALMING” PRINT RELEASE

admin — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:48:22 +0000

I’m happy announce I’ll be doing a very limited print run of “The Calming” as a collaboration with 1xrun.com and creepmachine.com. The prints will be only $65 (?!) and will be limited to 60. They will be available January 10th thru January 16th on 1xrun.com here. This will be the only time this piece, which is one of my favorites, will be available as a print…so make sure to grab one next week if you’re interested.

PORTRAIT STUDY, BRITTANY

admin — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 20:03:15 +0000

"Brittany", 16" x 20", oil on panel, 2011

Another portrait study, this time of a model i’ve been wanting to work with for years. She’s got a fantastic spooky look, and I’ll definitely be doing some larger pieces with her in the future. This study took about 8 hours, and while I generally don’t glaze these quick portrait studies, there were a few spots that I wasn’t able to get dark enough during that first sitting, so I did maybe 5 minutes of glazing once things had dried. Below you can see the pre/post glazing shots. very subtle difference I know, but necessary this time around to get those shadows to sit right.

* as usual, I’m having a bitch of a time getting these shots to be color-accurate. you’ll have to take my word for it that they are a lot cooler and less saturated than they appear here.