Digital Paintings
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"Eclipse," "Palmetto," Rhoda," Becca," and "Rebecca" are nudes that I drew during the height of the Pandemic. Before this global nightmare descended upon humanity, I used to hire models and work from life; but for these artworks, I used models from an artists' models website called PoseSpace. I used to draw a lot with my life drawing students, and over the years made many satisfying drawings. I think those drawings are resolved works of art in addition to being great teaching aids.
Having to resort to photographic references encouraged me to try them out in my paintings, too: for "Shady Grove," "Reddleman and Green Jeans," and "Pumpkin Pie," I used photos I took myself for the characters and the landscapes.
I wanted to explore skin tones of black people; I hadn't since 2019 when I used black sitters for one of my Old Time music oil paintings, "Rya's House," and for one of my oil portraits, "Maggie Batta."
By placing the eclipsed moon low in the sky, I wanted to make my character in "Eclipse" seem larger than life. I wanted her to be majestic in her solitude, lost in thought.