Forgive the cliché but this year has gone by fast! I hope everyone had a great time and ticked off a few things they had wanted to explore and accomplish. I've just moved into a new apartment and am re-organising my studio for the coming years work. It seems like a great time to do it with this crappy weather too! A massive thank you again to my clients in 2017. I worked on some amazing commissioned portraits of both people and animals, even one with both in the same image! I thought I would share a handful of images here from the year. Enjoy!
A super close detail from most recent commisison.
The pin stripes on this dress were a challenge!
Here are a few images from my most recent oil painting commission for a wonderful couple all the way over in California. They commissioned the painting for their 40th wedding anniversary and didn't want to leave behind the third member of their family, their beautiful Golden Retriever Clancy!
For this piece the clients couldn't find suitable existing images for the work. On my recommendation we agreed to hire a local photographer in their area to take some NEW images. The photographer was worth the small investment! We now had some great images to work from and do the painting the justice it deserved. A few things that stood out with the new image was both the quality of light, colour, detail and composition. I really enjoyed painting this piece!
'Return to an Innocence Lost' framed in hand welded raw steel, float mounted under museum quality non reflective glass. In 2017 I had this drawing framed, an important part of a large body of work about the American side of my family and the Pacific War that interrupted their lives. A big part of the concept of this body of work centres around the contrast of rural innocence with the first hand experience of the Pacific War. It was important to me that the medium of the frame contrasted with the softness and gentle nature of the drawing that sits within it. It comments on the nature of war. Soft flesh meeting raw metal.
Just before the winter break I mounted and wrapped some treasured drawings and a one off lithograph from back in 2008. Within this collection there is one pencil on paper portrait drawing of my grandfather Billy Bowman. To my understanding this image was taken from when he was first in the U.S. Marine Corps. I love the image the piece is drawn from as you could see a wealth of youthfulness and innocence in his facial expression. This contacts heavily with the photos of him returning from the war in the Pacific. When looking back on the drawing after a while of it being hidden away I loved seeing some of the mark making, especially the cross-hatched background.
A pencil on paper drawing of my grandfather Billy D Bowman way back from 2008. It felt great to have it finally mounted and safely protected in cellophane.
