Natalia

Natalia, 2009, oil on linen, 40 x 35 in.

Okay, finally finished it – I'm not saying I won't, over the next few days, go back in with a few tweaks or changes, but essentially it's done. It took a while, I know, but with getting sick for what ended up being two weeks, working on other things as well, and getting the paintings crated and shipped for the Belgium exhibition, time flew by.

A Couple of Art Events

For any of you who are going to be in Brussels during the first part of April: Myself, James Jean, and Joshua Hagler will be exhibiting paintings in A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF UNCERTAINTIES from April 4 - April 12, 2009. The opening will be on April 3 at 20:00. I believe James and Joshua will be in attendance. As of now, my schedule is not going to allow me to be there. If this changes, I'll post it. The address is AA Docks, Internationalelaan 7, 1070 Brussels. The paintings of mine being exhibited are the first six works posted under the PAINTINGS section at kentwilliams.com.

For details go to takeawayartgallery.wordpress.com

This is a small painting for another event also happening in early april: GIVE & TAKE: An Artspace After Dark Event to benefit the ARTSPACE Summer Arts Program and Scholarship Fund for kids. This is happening Thursday evening, April 2, 7-10 pm.

50 artists, 50 works of art, $50 each to support arts education!

ARTSPACE
201 E. Davie St.
Raleigh, NC 27601
919.821.2787

For details go to artspacenc.org/Give&Take.html

In Progress 3 (kind of)

Sorry for the delay, but just not much progress. Have been down and out with the flu all week. I did manage to get out of bed and into the studio today and put in just about an hour or so. Not much, but thought I would go ahead and post these so you didn't think I flaked on you. I did respond to a question from Brian from the last post and thought I would restate the answer here, thinking that it would be of interest to some of you. Brian's question was "...do you mix anything into your oils to give it that texture?"

No, generally on my first pass I'm using no or very little medium. The texture is coming about by the fact that I'm loading my brush up pretty heavy with paint and simply laying it down that way. As I work towards the finish, I start using more and more medium, thus resulting in less textured paint (but of course, that initial brushwork telescopes through the proceeding layers.) So, no, I'm using no artificial 'texture' medium. So much of this would be much more understandable and obvious if you could see the original, not just in print or on the screen here.

In Progress 2

Another pass, but a ways to go yet.

New Painting Started

Okay–started a new figure painting today and it feels good! This is the first one of Natalia from the drawing session last week. Some of you have asked for a few notes on my process and thinking. Here's a little: Laid in some underpainting with Prussian blue (I know–runs counter to the traditional earth color approach. I've begun the majority of the paintings from the last few years with blue) and then, after giving this a couple of hours to tack-up, I went in with my first pass of the "fairest" flesh color, valued up and down with a compressed range of about five values, pushing in some exaggerated warms and cools. Very little, if any medium with this round–just a touch of Cobalt dryer so all will be dry and ready when i get back to it for an initial glaze (pushing the values back, sort of "keying" my colors together, starting to establish the tone or atmosphere of the environment, and making ready for a second pass.)

Life Drawing

Had a great five hour drawing session today with my friend Natalia. It was overcast and rainy so decided to work out of my home instead of the studio – Was one of those days in which it was just nice to be inside all day. I did a number of drawings, some straight with pen – Posted are my favorites of the batch. These are done on Canson Classic Cream at 14 x 17 inches. Also managed to work out a couple of concrete ideas for paintings.