Birth Passage 1

This is my first painting where nothing but the airbrush was used. Normally the majority of my work is an even split between traditional brush work and airbrushing, but I was kinda curious of what I could create with just freehand airbrush techniques, and this is it. I used an Iwata Custom Micron .18mm and an Iwata HP-CH .3mm to paint this. These are some of the masks that I used to give texture and warmth to the surface. The dehydrated leaves were just amazing, this is my first time using them and from now on they are going to be used regularly. On the right is my Iwata Custom Micron B airbrush, this is the best production airbrush available in the USA, also unfortunately the most expensive, but you get what you pay for. It took nearly 50 hours of using this brush to completely get used to this precision instrument, way more finicky and tricky to use than any other airbrush I have ever used, the Iwata was definitely better than me when I first got it.

I will be starting a series of paintings based on the same birth imagery used in this piece. The second will be started in Feb, after I am done with a few commissions, it will be 40x30in size on museum board.

Ken Wilber Oil/Egg Tempera Portrait

The image above is the under drawing for a portrait of Ken Wilber that

I am painting on a linen panel. The color is two layers of a pyrrol red oil mixture,

(PR 254, PO 73, PR 102, PW 1), the paint was mixed 1:1 with a chalk medium and

a few drops of an egg white glair/oil medium were added to increase the flow and

decrease the viscosity of the paint. The linen was rubbed with the chalk medium

(thinly it is 98% transparent) and the glazes were applied.

I am going to try to leave as much of this rich color as I can when I am finished

but I estimate that this piece will at least take 12 layers of paint, a great deal of

swirling blues will be applied to look as if radiating from within the glasses, as well as

plenty of textures which you can only plan so much. This is a small piece at only 8x10in,

will be painted with hand ground egg tempera and oil paints.

I may begin a series of portraits of my favourite philosophers and geniuses in

this small scale, perhaps Friedrich Nietzsche, Aristotle, Ayn Rand, Nicola Tesla, Soren

Kierkegaard, Socrates and a few others.