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!’”)

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.

Acrylic on corrugated cardboard, 13-1/2 x 15-1/2, by Steve Eichenberger.

<—Photo I took last summer at Portland Saturday Market.

For this challenge, I tried to loosen up on brushstrokes as in this self portrait by Theodore Gericault —>

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Step by step

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.

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.

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.

Thanks to .mosa for permission to use his photo (below) as reference.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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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).

Local Portrait Commission

by Steve Eichenberger

Acrylic on panel

16 x 22

He’s about a year older now than when the photo was taken.

Reference photo provided by client.

(Thanks C. for your OK to post this on my blog.)

Acrylic painting on panel, by Steve Eichenberger

“First Day at the Dog Park” SOLD

approx 13 x 26

(keep clicking on photo for close-up)

Based on a photo I took the other day at Luscher Farms dog park in Lake Oswego. He looks like a little bear.

Started this one yesterday, finished tonight…well, I might still work on the background, but I think the face is done. And I am pleased with the step toward looseness it represents in my experimentation!

I had a color experiment in mind too; I saw in a color mixing book the wonderful neutral greens that result from mixing ultramarine blue and yellow ochre, so started with them. I don’t usually like or use greens, so this was a good learning experience for me in that regard too.

In the slideshow below, the first one (the one that’s different from all the rest) is actually a completely different painting. I was struggling to get a likeness, painting out and re-painting various features, when I realized I wasn’t having fun. So I set it aside and started over using bolder color, less deliberation, and choppier strokes with almost no blending. Definitely more fun! Adjusting position/size etc of features was much easier as the entire image was freer, looser, more fluid.

It’s hard to quantify how well I did on the likeness…but for such an impressionistic rendition I’m OK with it.

I don’t like the background, may work on it some more later…or not…also want to keep moving forward to see what comes out next!

I scrounged some bicycle cartons today from a bike shop near my studio, so I have plenty of “canvasses” to work on. I’m motivated to make as many paintings as I can before April 1 when I open my studio for First Friday Artwalk. I don’t expect a big crowd, but it’s a nice motivation nonetheless.

My thanks to Bill Wadman at http://www.365portraits.com/ for permission to use his photo as practice reference.

Keep clicking through several screens on the above image to zoom in close to see the brush strokes (the final click should show a magnifying glass cursor).

This was a challenge for me because of its size — about 3 feet wide. I wasn’t attempting a likeness, just trying to get proportions reasonably in the ballpark since I was working far larger than I’ve ever done before.

This one taught me I don’t like working small! Face is only about 2-1/2″ tall. I used teeny tiny brushes. Not that happy with the likeness either, although for having just recently started trying to do likenesses I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on myself.

My thanks to Bill Wadman at http://www.365portraits.com/ for permission to use his photo as practice reference.

Painted freehand looking at various photos from the web (below).

Thank you to Lyle’s management office for giving me the go-ahead to paint his likeness.

on 8×13 corrugated cardboard

It helped to have various angles and lighting to discern shapes and decide what characteristics seemed most important for a likeness.

I did a preliminary study which took longer than this one, but I don’t like it as well as this one so I’m not posting it. But it did teach me that doing a study first is beneficial; I basically had the features memorized, including what to “watch out for” the second time around.

Lifesize portrait, acrylic on 34 x 42 cardboard, freehand from photo reference.

Photo credit: Bill Wadman, 365portraits.com. Used by permission.

First two slides: Practicing achieving a likeness. Not sure my “corrections” are better…maybe overcorrected. Will try again tomorrow, maybe split the difference.

My thanks to Bill Wadman at http://www.365portraits.com/ for permission to use his photo as practice reference.

3/6 update: I’m painting entirely freehand, just looking at the photo for reference…no enlarging, no grids. But I was curious which iteration I’ve done so far was more accurate, so I put everything in the computer and did some overlays. My conclusion is that I did indeed overcorrect. I’ll keep tweaking today. I think some good learning is going on.

3/6 evening: I did paint out and re-do a third time, splitting the difference, and I think it helped. May add a few final highlights and/or dark accents tomorrow. It’s my largest painting so far; lifesize figure on a 34 w x 42 h piece of corrugated cardboard that was throwing around the Watershed.

Literature about portraiture says a typical newbie mistake is to make all the features too large. In comparing my painting to the original photo I think I was too careful on this count; I made the features too small rather than too large, which in my opinion makes the subject look more mature. To me, iterations 1 and 2 look the right age for the subject, but they look perkier, more open than she does in the photo, as pointed out by a friend who came in my studio during iteration 2. I think I captured her more inward, slightly guarded expression in iteration 3, but in so doing aged her a few years vs iterations 1 and 2. Interesting how such seemingly minor adjustments have unforeseen effects…effects I can use on purpose in the future. (3/7 addendum: an artist friend had the opposite opinion about apparent age: he thought my portrait looked younger than the subject. Jackie thought the painting and photo look the same age. My first lessons in how subjective evaluating my work will be…)

One thing I liked right away about this subject is her sweeping jawline and the way it presents in the pose; my extra attention to this feature resulted in a bit of an exaggeration of that sweep, which I’ll chalk up to artist’s license.

To test myself to see if I could produce a likeness. 1 hour sketch.

Unfinished. Can’t decide what to put under his head. Someone suggested making him a dandelion’s head

Very fast sketch.

Quick sketch.

Quick sketch in box. My intention was to do the eye sockets in complete shadow, but I see from the photo I didn’t resist putting in some detail.

Artists have been painting on cardboard for over 100 years (e.g. this Picasso, 1900).

Cardboard’s main advantages in my opinion:

— It is non-precious. I find I paint more freely on corrugated cardboard than any other substrate. Even before I make the first brushstroke I feel like “this is an experiment.”

— It’s free! It’s abundant!

— I can work on an oversize piece of cardboard, and “crop” my painting with a knife after the fact.

— It’s already manufactured. I’m repurposing something that would otherwise be recycled or discarded. Zero carbon footprint.

— It’s immediate. Cut, paint.

— I like the way it takes paint. (I use heavy body, artist’s grade acrylics.)

— It’s fun to see what graphics may already be printed on it (see this painting for example) that I can leave visible.

— It’s lightweight.

— If it gets beat up a little on the edges or corners, who cares?!?

The best cardboard for painting is double thick; two corrugated layers sandwiched together. To find the best stuff, think of large/fragile/expensive items, and go to stores that sell them — electronics, bicycles, appliances. I’ve found that local bike shops are happy to save me their bicycle cartons.

Take a box cutter along to cut down the cartons for easier transport (as a courtesy I also haul away the leftover scraps and recycle them myself, so I don’t leave a mess for the shop owner).

Large Home Depot-type stores tend to bale their cardboard immediately, unfortunately, although I did score a refrigerator box at Lowes by being there at precisely the right time once.

Keep your cardboard stash dry, don’t store in a shed or humid environment. Avoid cheap pulpy cardboard (such as cartons for tools from Harbor Freight ).

For relatively temporary works (years, not decades) just paint right on the cardboard. It will be absorbent, which can be annoying or useful depending on your medium and intentions. Bare areas will be subject to fading, especially if displayed where sunlight strikes it.

To make it much less absorbent but still retain its cardboardy look, apply thinned down acrylic medium before painting on it; do both sides equally to minimize warping.

For more permanence, prime both sides with house primer, gesso, or acrylic medium. Give both sides an equal number of coats to minimize warping.

For grunge appeal, you can purposely tear off the top layer here and there to expose underlying corrugations, and/or leave some of the arrows, ‘this side up’ labeling, hand hold holes, big copper staples, UPC codes, and other original artifacts intact or partially painted over.

Tip for hanging  cardboard paintings: 

Easy hanging method: glue scrap on back, insert picture wire down through one corrugation and back up through another, twist wires.

Cut scrap of cardboard and glue onto back of painting as anchor for a hanging wire or string. It’s surprisingly strong, and is in keeping with the cardboard theme. You can also make hang tags, title placards, portfolios to transport your cardboard masterpieces in, and so on, all from cardboard. Once you have large sheets of it laying around, all kinds of uses start popping up.

You can “reverse engineer” how to make a cardboard box by looking at an already-made one, draw a layout on a big panel, cut/score it, paint it, then fold/glue/staple it into a sturdy decorated box that will last for years with reasonable care.

I painted the self portrait (below) on cardboard, as well as the following paintings:

http://steveeichenberger.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/positive-step/

http://steveeichenberger.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/big-small/

http://steveeichenberger.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/lyle-lovett/

http://steveeichenberger.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/portrait-practice/

http://steveeichenberger.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/more-practicing-on-cardboard/

That’s it for now…I’ll add more if I think of something else.

Good luck!

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Following is my original entry under the heading “Painting on Cardboard” :

Self Portrait February 24 2011, freehand from a b/w photo I took yesterday

Acrylic on corrugated cardboard, slightly smaller than life size (area shown is 13 x 15, panel is 19 x 27)

Using just two colors of paint: Burnt Sienna and Unbleached Titanium White

We had a “snow day” today, many Portlanders stayed home from work. This painting is what I did with my snow day. No my hair doesn’t have snow on it, that’s just the color it has decided to be now that it’s grown up.

I enjoyed the process.

The product, however, is way more conservative than I’d like…it’s a baby step along the path of moving stylistically to where I’d rather be.

This is the  most recent practice project in my current fling with attempting likenesses. I think the painting probably looks better than the subject, but since it’s a self portrait I’m not keen on posting the reference photo just to prove the subject looks worse than the painting.

20″h x 15″w x 7″d

Fired ceramic, rubbed pigment and wax patina, wall mount.

I’ve been working on publicity for our Valentines season double weekend show in our new Venetian Red Gallery space, so haven’t had much time to sculpt recently, but I did accomplish something, something I’ve been stressing over for months — figuring out how to patina my new series. I experimented on a couple of small test heads, then got up my nerve and patinaed the above pictured “Orangutan.”

Feb 22 addendum: Now I’m painting. Yes, painting…painting faces, on cardboard. Um hm, I did say cardboard. As in corrugated. Because I just wanted something to quickly experiment on, and there was a nice box at hand.  And now I kind of like the mid-tone ground, the absorbency, the repurposing. Not sure if I’ll post photos (which would only serve to document my current state of digression from whatever trajectory I was on before).

After watching myself from afar…well, not that far…for many decades, I’ve noticed some patterns within my disorganization. My current position in the creative cycle I call “scrabbling.” Like what you would do if you were stuck in a mud bog…try to scrabble your way forward. Or what you would do to the side walls of a pit you’re stuck in: try to scrabble your way out. Scrabbling is unsettling because there’s no way of knowing if all the frenetic energy expended will ever move me in any beneficial direction, or just exhaust me. But I also have an underlying current of enigmatic expectation, that anything can happen. My critic grumbles nothing probably will, but my 17-year-old core-self says Some Big Thing Just Might.

I experience the full gamut of emotions simultaneously during scrabbling, resulting in an over-cooked internal stew that tastes kind of gray, but nevertheless provides abundant energy to keep on scrabbling. And I do feel highly motivated to keep on scrabbling, no matter what, no matter if there’s no known why (yet). The afar part of me is entertained watching myself scrabble. I’m curious to see where it will take me this time — where it will lead me artistically.

Untitled, ceramic sculpture by Steve Eichenberger

SOLD

A little smaller than life size. Sculpted solid, hollowed out, pieces cut out and glazed separately, then black grouted back together. It doesn’t translate in the photo, but the mid-toned portions have exquisite patterns of shiny black nubbins smaller than the head of a pin; visually and tactilely mesmerizing. The lightest section looks and feels like ivory — not white — but it’s virtually impossible to photograph pieces with extreme lights and darks without over- or under-exposing one or the other.

I think this piece has something to do with the ever-present background/subconscious weighing of issues that have no clear answers.

And it appears I’m off on yet another side trip…indulging a recurring fascination with trying to do likenesses of people. I check in every ten or twenty years to see if I can do it yet. No clear idea of why, or what I’ll do with the results if I do…but it seems like a good skill to have in my toolbox.

“Strange Bird” in process. (5/11 addendum: SOLD!)

I’ve been invited by White Bird Gallery in Cannon Beach, Oregon to be in their Animals show this spring. This is a possible piece for that show, if the human ears don’t disqualify it from the “animal” category.

Small quick sketch for patina testing purposes, face 5 or 6″ tall.

Major challenge to hollow out, but it’s done now and drying.

Thanks 2010! It’s been a pleasure living you!

First completed piece of my newly evolving series, working title for the series: “If You’re Not Laughing, You’re Not Paying Attention.” Approx. 12 x 12 x 6, wall mount, hand-built one of a kind fired ceramic w/underglaze, SOLD (thanks C&L of Portland).

More about this piece in previous post.

I say ‘evolving’ series because I still feel like more of an observer of my current work than an originator of it — the meaning is still in the process of settling in. The most obvious common denominator is laughter. Some pieces look like “hearty laughter.” Others look more tweaked, perhaps drifting closer to maniacal laughter…which is fine by me, I can easily identify with that…maniacal laughter seems a perfectly rational response to much going on around me in these strange times economically and politically.

I’m in the midst of being a guinea pig in my own experiment: experiencing the positive endorphins released in the process of sculpting big laughs. It’s hard to be all hang dog when face to face with huge laughter.

12/12 finessed ears and teeth. Think I’m about done with sculpting phase. Was going to do some other things with this, but kind of like it the way it is so may leave it. I was going to do the same things to the previous similar one, but decided to keep it as it was…I can just keep making more until I’m ready to try the modifications on one…

13w x 14h x 8d in wet clay stage — pretty big.

12/11 revision with oversized ears roughed in…think I’ll leave them this big for comic effect; will refine them tomorrow after the clay has had a chance to firm up a bit.

Soooo time consuming! but fun.

My inner critic is heckling me for spending so much time on these faces without knowing if they will sell for enough to make even minimum wage for my time. So far it’s not getting to me…I’m too busy enjoying the process, which for now is worth more than money to me.

Many good things going on artistically:

–A local couple made a very encouraging purchase from me today, they bought one of the brand new pieces I’m working on before I’ve even finished it! It still needs one more trip through the kiln to fire on the underglaze. I’ll post a photo of it later with its final finish, but you can see it in wet clay form here: If You’re Not Laughing, You’re Not Paying Attention. Thanks C & L from Portland! This was a wonderful affirmation for me as I continue to experiment with this new series. Visitors to our just-completed Open Studios event saw me working on another in this series, not named yet, shown in the slideshow a couple entries below (female face, ram’s horns), which I finished sculpting today.

–I like my new studio. I know I’ve said that before, but if I can’t repeat it to my blog, where can I say it?!? Today I had fun showing dozens of Open Studio visitors my new space and new sculptures in process or fresh out of the kiln.

–The positive response to our Open Studio event (five days over two weekends) was energizing and motivating! I want to populate my tall white walls with a crowd of sculpted faces!

–I’m looking forward to my next piece, based on a photo of a boy letting out a roar of a laugh! I contacted the photographer who immediately gave me his blessing to use it as reference. It may well end up looking like an old man simultaneously with looking like a youngster, which would be fine by me…that’s kind of how I feel! Anyway, I’m anxious to be “surprised” by how it turns out over the next several days. I’ll add new photos to the slideshow below as it progresses (12/10 update: sculpting phase complete as shown in final slide):