Latest
Rosey again, different pose
Practice portrait of Rosey by Steve Eichenberger, acrylic on corrugated cardboard bicycle carton, 9-1/4 x 13.
I enjoyed the process on this one, which is part of my goal in keeping things loose: to have fun painting!
( 1/5 addendum: I e-mailed a high resolution jpg of this to Rosey, who is currently in NYC, and she replied: ”Hey Steve!! This is awesome. I look simultaneously angry and proud. I love it. The loose style captures something really great. I showed this painting to my sister, and some friends — everyone has been so impressed! My sister said, ‘Whoahhh…that’s so badass!’”)
Practice Painting
Portrait by Steve Eichenberger, acrylic on acid free paper, 14 x 17.
Another piece in my continuing effort to practice keeping things loose. I even crumpled up the paper before beginning, to make it less “precious” (which came back to haunt me after I finished the piece and decided to adhere it to a foamcore backing, but it turned out okay).
The background is pretty wild; I got a new set of palette knives and used one of them to pile on the paint.
The hair is just roughed in, but I decided it works with the background so resisted refining it.
DPW Challenge
Portrait by Steve Eichenberger, acrylic on corrugated cardboard, 12.5 x 24.
Done in response to this week’s DPW challenge to emulate an artist we admire. This is my second exercise in as many days to experiment with the look and feel of some of Egon Schiele’s 500+ works.
Thanks to friend/neighbor/photographer Willy Paul for permission to use a photo he took of his wife, Kris, for me to use as painting reference. Achieving a likeness was not my focus, but rather to experiment with the broad white accenting strokes, black outlining, unfinished areas and so on that Schiele often uses.
DPW challenge
SOLD via Etsy
Very quick sketch in acrylics on corrugated cardboard, 12 x 16. This week’s DPW challenge was to try painting in the style of an artist we admire. I started out “thinking” Egon Schiele, but then forgot all about it much of the time I was painting… It served as a good “loosening up” exercise.
Portrait of Rosey
Painted portrait by Steve Eichenberger, acrylic on panel, 17 x 22. Click on photo above for close-up (may need to click again on the next screen to get full size).
I may continue to fine tune this painting, but I’ve been working on it for so long I wanted to post it at this near-complete stage for a sense of progress! This was a challenging project for me, I learned a lot from doing it. I took other, easier-to-paint photos of Rosey as well, but there was something about the overall composition and expression that made me want to paint this one, so I went for it. The receding angle of the hand was a challenge, as well as the wonderfully curly hair. It’s always daunting to face such things, I just have to dive in and paint *something*…and then keep revising that something to look gradually better and better until some part of me says “OK” (or sometimes “Uncle!”).
I couldn’t get rid of all the distracting reflections on the glossy background when taking the above photo with the point and shoot camera I normally use for blog shots. May have to break down and actually set up our photo room with strobes, diffusers etc. to get a better shot.
90% complete, working from photos I took of R.D. a few weeks ago in my studio.
Likeness Practice
Painted portrait by Steve Eichenberger, acrylic on panel, 17 x 26.
Thanks to .mosa for permission to use his photo (below) as reference.
Local gal
Portrait by Steve Eichenberger, acrylic on panel, 15-3/4 x 20-1/2.
Thanks to Stephen Sheffrin, Portland photographer, for permission to use his photo below as reference.
Marc Anthony acrylic portrait
Acrylic portrait of Marc Anthony by Steve Eichenberger, on 15-3/4 x 19-1/2 panel, using another photo by Damon Winter as reference (below, and previous entry).
I experimented with glazing this time: brown tinted glaze on yellow background and face (except for eyes); yellow tinted glaze on shirt.
Matt Damon practice portrait
Matt Damon practice portrait by Steve Eichenberger
acrylic on panel, 14 x 20-3/4
Reference photo from magazine cover (Fast Company, July/August 2011 issue) used by kind permission of New York Times photographer Damon Winter.
Yes, unfortunately it’s been awhile since I’ve had a chance to post anything… Travel, moving our handmade tile studio (again!), and other art related busy-ness has required all my waking hours for the past couple of months. As far as I know there are no further crises looming, but in these strange times — who knows?!? Better paint while I can.
“R” portrait
Acrylic portrait on panel by Steve Eichenberger, 11-5/8 x 14-3/8 SOLD
I completed this portrait in a homestead farmhouse in Nebraska while on a road trip through several beautiful Western states last month. When I returned home, I e-mailed the above photo of it to the subject, who is an artist friend in Seattle; here’s what he had to say about it: “OK I am really speechless, or was, but now have more to say. That is really, really cool – almost Van Gogh-like in the colors and contrasts. I am thrilled to see this as I have never had a painting done of me and to tell you the truth would not trust many artists to do a painting of me as I am pretty shy about having pictures, images of me taken. Fantastic work! Can I show off your work to people? … I’ll be following your blog.”
I took the above reference photo in my studio with natural north light, positioning the subject to get just the right amount of light on his right eye.
Portrait Commission
Custom portrait commission, approx. 16 x 22 acrylic on panel by Steve Eichenberger.
This was fun to do because it was a surprise commission for the recipient (the subject). I hear he was honored.
The symbology has to do with his middle name, which connotes strength and deep-rootedness. A large underpainted root system (not evident in the photo) can be seen in the dark lower section when viewing the original if you know it’s there, further supporting the symbology of C’s middle name.
White Bird Gallery Show through May
Several of my ceramic sculptures, and a collection of my cast crows/ravens are in the “Animal Instincts” group show at
White Bird Gallery
Left: “Quiet Solitude Under a Canopy of Stars”; right: “Gratitude 2″; center top: a collection of my cast crows/ravens. Paintings by Anne John of Vancouver, Washington. Several other artists also submitted rabbit themed art for this “Animal Instincts” show…unplanned.
The show runs through May 31.
______________________
April 29, 30 & May 1 it was Spring Unveiling Weekend for the Cannon Beach Gallery Group, and they featured one of my sculptures, “Gratitude 3″ (which is in the White Bird Gallery show, in the front window), on the cover of their brochure:
The “unveiling” of the new show at White Bird Gallery was at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 30. There were scheduled unveilings at over a dozen venues throughout Cannon Beach, visit CBGalleryGroup.com for details (scroll all the way down for White Bird’s announcement).
