Oil sketch, in progress.

I recently received some great painting inspiration in the form of very lively and lovely houseguests - here's a recent sketch, hopefully to be worked on again at some point very soon:

sb, oil sketch in-progress, 9"x12" by me.

One more time: GROSS!

I neglected to mention earlier that Sadie and I made it to the Philadelphia Museum of Art a couple of weekends ago while she was in town to see the newly-restored, deliciously dark Eakins painting "The Gross Clinic". In the name of laziness, I will forward you on to this link for a greater and more in-depth story of the painting... but first, let me just say that I am proud of Philly for pulling the funds together to keep the painting in the city, instead of selling it off to some far-flung place... YAY. So, without further ado: Gross!

Eakins' painting The Gross Clinic, photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Shanking.

Last week I checked out a live portrait painting demonstration by Nelson Shanks at Studio Incamminati here in Philadelphia. Two fellow painters from North Carolina, Kiki Farish and Jill Eberle, had the good fortune of taking a full intensive two-week course at the school, and they were kind enough to save me a front-row seat for the demo. It was great! Much better than the one I went to a couple of months ago at the Union League here in Philadelphia, where we were in a HUGE room and people in the audience/standing around schmoozing on the periphery were super-chatty and distracting. This was a more intimate setting with serious students, and was a delightful and informative session. Here are some photos of Mr. Shanks' painting of his son Alexander, in progress through the evening:

The painting in-progress

This photo courtesy of Jill Eberle

Just beachy.

More posts to come soon, including one about the Nelson Shanks painting demo I went to last week. But I'm just coming off some time at the beach, so please give my brain some time to re-focus.

Metropolis!

Just saw the re-released, extended version of Metropolis. Now these are some great dance moves, folks:

Lancaster.

Here are some more photos from the weekend's road trip to the wolf sanctuary and Amish country out in Lancaster County, PA:

I looove black-eyed susans

even Amish get the blues

little Amish piglets

EXTREME chocolate milk. EXTREME.

Dibs on this for a band name.

No matter how many times I see the Amish riding in their horse-driven buggies on the modern streets, it will never fail to look really weird - and kind of awesome.

Disapproving Amish rabbit

L'anniversaire.

Today = 8 years since I became a Feissel!!
These have been the best 8 years of my life - actually, the last 11 since I've been with the amazing Mr. John Feissel have been super-great.
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Here's the first painting I ever did of him, back in '99:

jf1, 1999, oil on board

Here's another one I did a couple of years later, a personal favorite:

nap8, 2003, oil and alkyd on linen, 11"x14"

Happy anniversary, baby!