Classes start this week, I am excited!

As the title states, classes start this week. I am excited! They start Thursday so I only have one this week but it begins again!

Ross

Summer Update

The break between semesters has been a busy one. I haven't had time to do everything I wanted but I did get a lot done. Sorry to all those I promised to visit but never actually made it out to see during the break. I really did want to see you all.

During the break I helped finish up the mural at The National Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi. I am excited to see it when the rest of the place is done! This was definitely a once in a life time experience. How many other artist can say they have done what I have done here. If you go to the website the mural is not shown, what you see there is the mural for the replica porziuncola. The mural I worked on is on the wall facing it.

I also revamped my website. Something that took a very long time and and gave me a few headaches. I learned how to do so much in the process and am feeling high tech right now. It is the best version of my website I have come up with yet.

I took a little break and went down to LA for a couple of days, we did stop at the Getty and the Moca, while we were there. I enjoyed the Getty (as always) , the Moca wasn't very interesting.

I have found time to paint too. Imagine that! Mostly I worked on my master copy painting. No image of that yet. I was stuck for awhile but after some help from an instructor I think I am heading in the right direction on it now.

The stuff I am posting is studies practicing some ideas I was working on before I approached the copy again. I am working on unifying the whole form. A mistake I have been making is focusing on the detail too early and I make a mess of the painting.

So what you see today is paintings practicing some new techniques and ideas.

The exercise in the first two shown was to practice controlling the paint. It sounds silly, I know but I was watching my instructor demonstrate how modeling the from and I watched how he was applying and moving the paint around. I thought I would try doing it that way. So I pull these two unfinished paintings out and started reworking them. They are very unfinished, but I do like the results. I'll mention it here, more on it below. The color is weird because I was trying something new. It is working but I need to refine my approach.

This one is a painting that I started because I wanted to work in color for the day. I have been working in basically a monochromatic palette. What I have been doing is mixing up nine different values and laying it out on my palette to make it easier when I am painting to get the values on my painting right. This is a method I learned in my head drawing class. I like it as it works for me. So I thought I'd try to incorporate it as a method when I am painting with a color palette. I basically laid out my values then my colors, mixed up a couple more, then got to work painting. I kept with a fairly limited palette so that I don't over complicate it. Looks a little weird but I like this way of doing it.

This next one is just an example of the grissaille painting I have been doing for the master copy. I did this as a practice after that demo I mentioned earlier. I also did this because I have this egbert brush that I wanted to try out. A few instructors use them so I thought I'd give it a try.

Ross

New website version

After many hours of work, lots of questions, many mistakes, many a puzzled moment, and late nights I now have my new version of my website up and running!

I am excited about it. I was fairly tired of the format I had for a few reasons. First it was a quickly done just to get a site up, so it didn't have all the things I wanted. I wanted something that looked more professional and to look less novice. I just just bored of what I had. I saw new software I wanted to add to my site. Finally, I have more artwork to add to my site. So I went to work on building a new site.

It was a much larger project then I expected. It took awhile, and I am very appreciative of my very patent girlfriend, of whom I asked a million questions in the process of all this.

Do check it out. It has some new paintings. www.rossbowns.net

Ross

Painting and website changes

Today I added color back into my paintings. After a long break from painting in color it was nice to use it. I will continue to use a grisaille in my work now as it helps me solve some of the problems I have been dealing with, but color is fun. I was planning to upload some pictures of what I worked on, but I forgot to bring my camera home. Oops, I'll have them for you sometime this week.

Now that there is a break between semesters it is time to catch up on some of the things I have been neglecting. So I am updating my website. In an effort to continue to make it more professional there are going to be a few changes to the layout and content. It is very difficult because I am not a web building person. Hopefully it will be done in the next couple of weeks.

Ross

New Paintings

Here are some new paintings. Its been awhile so now is a good time. Most of them are from my summer studio classI am working on updating my website as well. . I will let you know of any changes.

Ross

This weekend wasn't a painting weekend. Instead I thought I would build a pallet box for transporting around easier. I thought it would be an easy thing and only take a couple of hours to do. It did not. After designing it, Shannon and I set out to build it.

Being the first one we ever built we had to make decisions as they came up. We decided on a masonite base with 1/4 poplar sides that had a groove cut into it to slide a lid in. That grove was the part that held us up. Since we don't have a router we had it improvise. I contemplated buying one, instead we used a dremel tool with a makeshift guide. It seems to have worked out ok, but I don't recommend it. The next one we build I think we we do at the scuplure building or at my parents place. The right tools make things so much easier.

Long time between updates

I have just finished the summer semester and I thought I would take some time to update you on what I am doing right now.

The classes I was taking this semester were Head Drawing and Crossing Borders. Head Drawing is a repeat class for me. I took it as on of my directed study courses, I took it because I felt I needed to revisit my drawing as I have been struggling with it lately. I really enjoyed the class and learned so much from it. I would recommend this class to anyone.

This class was a combination of drawing from life and copying photos and paintings. The photos we copied were old black and white photos of early movie stars. We also did a couple of copies of old master paintings. I copied a Sergeant and a couple of Rembrandt's. The first two were copies of paintings done in charcoal, the last was a copy of a painting done in oil. I am pleased with the result and I will add images of them to my web site soon.

Crossing Borders is a general studies class required for my program. The class is alright, but I took it online and didn't enjoy the online format. I do not recommend taking online courses, one does not get the same from an on site class.

Outside of class I have been helping with a mural and a church near my school. It is a very exciting project and I was very honored to be part of it. I came on late to the project to help out as they were looking for some extra help. I am glad i did because I have been part of something very special. Not many people today can say they have done what I have done.

This mural is based of off designs of the early renaissance era, the time of Giotto and such, 12th and 13th century. It is painted in a Church that was built in the late 1850's in San Francisco. I didn't do any design work, but I got to help. I traced patterns onto the wall, painted in fields of color and did some lining. Simple stuff but I was happy to do it.

Ross