A Little Light Reading

The new Painting is coming along quickly.

It's the largest canvas I've painted on in years, at 54" by 48" .

I am painting in a loose style, being as gestural with the brushstrokes as I can, and amping up the texture as much as possible. I'm using larger brushes, as well as palette knives to help with this. I'd been getting in the rut of painting too detailed, being a slave to a type of photographic realism, and I wanted to paint with painterly gusto.

The scene is from my first deployment to Iraq, in November 2006, when I was out near Habbaniyah, with Lima Co 3/2, at one of their FOBs, OP Broncos. I took a lot of photos and did a lot of sketching at the time, and went out on several patrols with them, to see how they lived and worked and record their activities.

One morning, as I walked into the area depicted here, I saw the way the light was cascading on everything, and the way the Marines were sitting there, reading and keeping warm by a small fire, and I knew I'd have to paint it. It not only served as an historical scene, as a picture of life in an outpost, but also as an artistic investigation of light (who's Thomas Kinkade kidding with his art title, anyway?!) ...

The Marines depicted here were reading books and magazines they'd received from Stateside, and were shooting the breeze, before getting on with the duties of the day--standing post, patrol, etc.

Here are the stages of the painting so far:

The Drawing (This is important, as the phrase I heard Schmid say, quoted from the French Academy, "Well Drawn is Well Painted")

The First Strokes!:
Establishing the Lightest Lights (I got that from Charlie Grow here at the Combat Art Program. This helps a lot later on in keeping high values and avoiding muddy or unexciting paintings...):
Establishing the Darkest Darks (Once this is done, along with the lightest lights, it really helps fill in the middle ranges, where the transitional forms and values make a painting richer):
Then Flesh it out (Here the painting is in its youth, not fully grown, but beginning to stand on it s own...):
If I can maintain the sort of controlled frenzy each time I approach the painting, I may be able to save a lot of time and worry, and have a dynamic painting to show for it.

Painting, Paperworking, Sculpting, and Self-Aggrandizing!

Hello, all--

I have been busy lately, working on administrative things for future promotions and deployments, as well as working to finish some things I've been putt-putting around on in the studio...so I have little to show you visually (yet)--

I can report, however, that I have just started a sculpture-- MY FIRST ONE!

It's an actual, honest-to-goodness clay sculpture built on a wire armature, and hopefully will be cast-able when it's finished. There are no guarantees on whether the Corps will cast it in bronze, but even if it's not cast, it will serve as a great foundation and practice for future works. I'll show you the photos this week, when I get the next step done...

By the way-- you may think you know how to render and that you know anatomy, until you try to sculpt the human form in three dimensions!

Gunner Fay, who has a lot of experience with the sculpted form, has been teaching me a lot about the physiology of the figure. He's been giving me books to read and websites to check out. It's helped an immense amount. I feel a lot more confident that I can render the figure in both 2- or 3D, after this.

By the way, CWO2 Fay and I were in the local paper recently, and he provides the link to it, but if you want to see it now, here it is.

Sketching from Life is Truly Living

I'm posting a few of the sketches from my recent deployment to Iraq- the veritable resort area known as Al Anbar Province(!)-- specifically, the sketches I did from life, as I was seeing it...

Many artists work from photos, and that is useful (much of my oil painting is studio-done from photographs I've taken)-- but there is nothing quite like getting out, getting a life, and sketching it!

If Drawing is truly the Mother of all Arts, then Sketching is the Grandmother! All art comes ultimately from the Sketch. If you can get yourself out into the world, sit in front of an interesting subject and sketch it, your art will strengthen, sure as shootin' (no pun intended from the combat artist!)

Many times your sketches may not be perfect-- proportions are a bear! But sometimes these imperfect sketches have a life to them that's worth showing. So get out there and sketch!!


Charcoal sketch of Marine on improvised Rifle Range (elevator of USS Wasp)
Ink drawing of LtCol LeBlanc as he gave a pre-flight briefing in the Ready Room of Wasp
Pencil Sketch from the jumpseat of an Osprey, as LtCol LeBlanc taxis at Al Asad air base in Iraq
Pencil Sketch of VMM 263 Marines on the flight out to the USS Wasp
This pencil sketch of Marines being transported in Al Anbar isn't too well-done (I mentioned proportions earlier) but I find it interesting nonetheless.

Ink sketch of Ospreys on the Flight Line at Al Asad


Pencil Sketch (note the smudges from vibration of aircraft!) of crewman Cpl Cowan, waiting for takeoff at Al Asad
Ink sketch of Sgt Aguilar on a flight from Korean Village, Iraq

Ink sketch of LtCol Rock as he watches flight operations on deck of the USS Wasp

The Ospreys are Deployed!

Greetings, fellow Marines, art lovers and Internet Raconteurs!

It's been a while since I last posted, but there's been good reason.

In September, I deployed to Al Asad, Iraq with VMM 263, the Osprey Squadron, on the beginning of its historic deployment-- the first deployment of the Osprey to a combat zone.

They are an incredibly professional bunch of Marines, aware of their place in history and the role they play in Marine Corps aviation. They are a serious group, and do their job well -- but they are also a friendly bunch of Marines. They really made me feel welcome and part of the group from day one.

I hitched a ride on one of their birds out to the USS Wasp, where we floated across the Atlantic and Mediterranean, through the Suez, and eventually flew into Iraq.

I sketched and painted my way with them, and became an honorary "Thunder Chicken."

Here is some art of mine from the deployment (more to come):
This is an oil sketch on paper, of a civilian contractors working on the nacelle of one of the aircraft, before we flew out from New River, NC.
This is an oil sketch, done from a sketch I made and photo I took while on our flight out to the ship we sailed on to Iraq. These gentlemen are members of VMM 263, who are part of the contingent that traveled by ship across the proverbial pond: Mitchell(not visible, except for the top of his cranial helmet) Wearmouth, Kinchen, and "Doc" Jones)...
Another quick oil sketch on paper, of "Doc" Jones looking out the back hatch while in flight...

This is an Osprey with its wing rotated in line with its fuselage, while it sits on the deck (and let me tell you, it's hard to sketch on the deck of a carrier!)I sketched this "60" while it sat in the hangar deck of the Wasp-- it's India ink wash on watercolor paper.To get to Iraq, we sailed into the Mediterranean, and thus passed by the Rock of Gibraltar-- I sketched it as we went by, and watercolored it later, below deck...)This is a symbolic sketch, of one of the CH53s from the departing squadron, as the Ospreys came on board for duty in Iraq (note: I was told by the squadron that this particular CH53, #20, is the oldest one in the fleet, originally being delivered to the Corps in 1967-- one year before I was born!)These two oil sketches are of Cpl Cowan, on of the flight crewmen, done from photographs I took while we were on a flight out to points West in Al Anbar Province...


This is one of the "Thunder Chicken" pilots (aviators!) Capt Arnold... It's hard to tell who it is, due to the helmet and visor, but it still was a fun sketch to do.

It was a great deployment, and I'm glad to be safe back home, where I will work on bigger oil paintings of the images I gathered while overseas. Stay tuned...

Making the nightly news (but in a good way...) UPDATED!

Recently I was honored to be a part of an ABC News interview for Persons of the Week, which focused on four Marine Combat Artists, two of us still working, and two retired. CWO2 Mike Fay, retired combat artist Charles Grow, Col. Charles Waterhouse (retired combat artist and the former Artist in Residence of the Marine Corps), and myself.

We went up to Col. Waterhouse's studio and museum in Toms River NJ. He has a great collection of works in his museum- from an art career that has spanned over 40 years, and a Marine Corps career that dates back to WWII (see his bio).

We sat and talked about what it was to be a Marine Combat Artist, and they filmed us and used our work for the piece, which aired tonight, 7 September, on World News with Charles Gibson.

It's currently on their website for this week-- check it out if you'd like to see us gab...

Up a Certain Proverbial Creek

This is an ink wash I did from photos I took back in Dec 2006, in Ramadi, Iraq. I used India ink, brush, and watercolor pencil on Arches watercolor paper.

We went out to see COP Falcon, one of the Combat OutPosts in South Central Ramadi, and we noticed a lot of muddy water in the streets at that time. It really made an interesting visual element, with the reflections and play of light, and I felt compelled to draw the scene, even after I found out the source of the water and its color (hint: they called the stream "S*#t Creek"...)!

I also found the sign on the back of the Humvee instructive, and I kept it in color to emphasize the feeling of intense alert one gets when in or near a convoy in a combat zone...

I very quickly came to admire these kids -- the Marines who regularly ventured into such challenging places as Ramadi and helped further the security and stability of Al Anbar.

Look, Ma, I made the cover!

I am about to have one of my works on the cover of Fortitudine magazine, the bulletin of the USMC Historical Program, produced by the History Division. It's a great honor.

The image is an oil painting I did of a MV-22 Osprey from VMM-263 as it is taxiing on the flight line at Marine Corps Air Station New River, NC.

As many of you may know, the Osprey is the "new wave" of Vertical and Short Takeoff and Landing aircraft, and is being used by the Marine Corps and the Air Force.

The aircraft will soon have its debut in a combat environment, as VMM-263 is expected to deploy to the War on Terror sometime in the near future.

Portaits R Us

John Singer Sargent was once reported to have said, "A portrait is a painting with something a little wrong with the mouth."

How true.

I have been working on a set of portraits of Marines I met in Iraq during my deployment.

Two of them I have signed, and the third is nearing completion, though I could paint forever on them (someone else said that a painting is never finished... that is also true)...

I am always excited when a painting comes to its completion--if it can survive over-working-- because as it matures, the colors and values all begin to resonate in harmony, and the time of ugliness is over for the piece (I have a theory that all paintings go through an "ugly adolescent" phase before they grow up and are let out of the house)!

I love Alla Prima and direct painting, as I have stated in previous posts, but there is definitely a richness in the classical methods of painting, in which layers of color and glaze are applied over an underpainting, slowly bringing the surface to maturity.

The hard part is that one can too easily get stuck in a painting and over work it. Also, an artist's production is drastically slowed with the more "Academic" methods.

Portraiture, with all its demands and difficulties, also has an inherent power, in that the viewer sees the arrangement of form and color that you've created as a personal object-- that is, when you paint a person's image, people relate to it more deeply-- especially if you've rendered the likeness in a pleasing way.

These oil sketches are studies, once again, for larger paintings I'm going to work on.

The image of the Marine on the radio is one of Capt. OJ Weiss, whom I'd sketched in pencil as he called in fire on an insurgent house back in November 2006.

The two sketches of Marines reading are from a series of photos I took while spending time with the 3rd Battalion 2nd Marine Regiment near Habbaniyah. They may not be scenes of action, but they are part of a series I've been doing, of images that emphasize the more banal aspects of Marine life in a war zone.

I'm learning a lot about quick rendering, and direct painting, from these studies. I believe that the techniques learned in these will spill over and bear fruit in the bigger works.

Another Oil Sketch!

This is the latest in oil sketches and portrait studies I've done, and I'm pleased with it, as this one was done Alla Prima, sometimes called Au Premier Coup-- that is, in one setting, in one layer of paint.

It was done from a sketch I did and a set of photos I took when I was in a small Iraqi town called Anah. The 4th Civil Affairs Group was conducting a CMOC, and the Iraqi people were coming in, and the Iraqi Police and Army were doing security along with the Marines.

I saw this Jundi/IP sitting on a bench, and I talked with him (brokenly) and sketched him in pencil, just before he had to leave on a patrol. I took some photos of him, too, and decided recently to do an oil portrait of him.

The above is the result-- it's not a highly finished oil portrait, but I feel that it came out really well as an Alla Prima work, which was creatively "therapeutic" for me. I am moving more toward this kind of direct painting, because when done right, the paintings have freshness that more classically finished paintings sometimes lack (and you get more of them done in less time!).