Even though many of my paintings can be labeled as fantasies or non-realistic, my core training as an artist was traditional. I took many of these life drawing sketches and turned them into entirely different representations of imaginary figures.
In the Femme series (I painted 4), I did a series of figures from photographs from a Japanese magazine. The photos featured work by Polish photographer Ionescu. His models were Parisian prostitutes who were made up 'a la Geisha.' This was a French-Japanese-Polish base for my Femmes with painted faces. In these paintings, I wanted to convey the hidden soul of women, who were viewed and judged by their bodies, rather than by their interiors.
I've tried to do self-portraits at various ages/stages in my life.
For a step-by-step view of how I develop a painting, please see my Events page. I show how I start with a photo, develop a sketch, work up the flesh, add details, and more.... My subject is the lovely "Ukalady," Michelle Kiba.
