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All paintings constructed using a partner drawing. All design heavily influenced by Francis Bacon and Paul Wunderlich. Francis Bacon and Paul Wundrlich both had large exhibits in New York in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Wunderlich was used as the model on how to setup the stencil process for the airbrush oil paintings.
Image 1: Cropped from a 1966 Iowa City figure painting created in acrylic paint.
Images 2 - 5: Backgrounds brush painted. Figure 90% airbrush 10% brush. I hadn't fully developed the stencil process and did some detailing with small brushes.
Images 6 - 17: 99% airbrush/stencil construction. 1% brush fine detailing. Image 16 was never finished; maybe I forgot about it over a summer?
Image 16 - 19: Used same drawings and some stencils as in the airbrush versions. Wanted to wean myself away from the airbrush painting method. This way of painting was extremely time consuming. The preparation had to be meticulous or none of the fineness of the airbrush structure would work the way I wanted it to. So I moved back to painting with brushes. Also since the stencils were made of architect tracing paper, spraying acrylic paint simply wrinkled the paper and made the edges of the stencil unusable. Using a brush, I could now introduce acrylic paint back into my painting program. Paradoxically, none of the figure painting in this set were executed in acrylic paint.
Images 20 - 26: All oil on canvas using brush application. No use of partner drawings. All execution involved improvisation. I simply started painting and let the brush define the figure. All figure structures from memory. Actually images 24- 26 started out as landscape paintings in landscape mode (long sides were top and bottom). One day as I entered the studio and saw one of these paintings stand as long sides as the sides, I saw standing figures in each of them and completed them this way. These were the last figure paintings I ever did. None made since the summer 1974. Bad me!
Image 1: Cropped from a 1966 Iowa City figure painting created in acrylic paint.
Images 2 - 5: Backgrounds brush painted. Figure 90% airbrush 10% brush. I hadn't fully developed the stencil process and did some detailing with small brushes.
Images 6 - 17: 99% airbrush/stencil construction. 1% brush fine detailing. Image 16 was never finished; maybe I forgot about it over a summer?
Image 16 - 19: Used same drawings and some stencils as in the airbrush versions. Wanted to wean myself away from the airbrush painting method. This way of painting was extremely time consuming. The preparation had to be meticulous or none of the fineness of the airbrush structure would work the way I wanted it to. So I moved back to painting with brushes. Also since the stencils were made of architect tracing paper, spraying acrylic paint simply wrinkled the paper and made the edges of the stencil unusable. Using a brush, I could now introduce acrylic paint back into my painting program. Paradoxically, none of the figure painting in this set were executed in acrylic paint.
Images 20 - 26: All oil on canvas using brush application. No use of partner drawings. All execution involved improvisation. I simply started painting and let the brush define the figure. All figure structures from memory. Actually images 24- 26 started out as landscape paintings in landscape mode (long sides were top and bottom). One day as I entered the studio and saw one of these paintings stand as long sides as the sides, I saw standing figures in each of them and completed them this way. These were the last figure paintings I ever did. None made since the summer 1974. Bad me!