Monday, June 20, 2011

Custer Street fair

This past weekend I participated with an annual event in our neighborhood: the Custer Street Fair. I was a part of a group that displayed our artwork.
Traffic was slow at our booth, so I decided to paint in the street.
Here's my portrait of Karima in the works...

I'm happy with this start, especially since I don't often paint with the paper upright. I'll post it when I'm done.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Full scale portraits

My friend Kate used to paint in oils these really large figures. We did a show together, so as a joke, I made a watercolor painting of her six and a half feet tall. I liked it a lot, so I made another and another.
I would really like to make some more as commissions. This is my most recent one, done on w/c canvas for the Davis's.
©2006 Josh McCallister
Ivy and Aspen
Watercolor on Canvas, 78 x 30

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Painting Portraits

I've mainly done two types of paintings since graduating from art school ten years ago: conceptual, layered watercolors of several images positioned on one frame, and watercolor portraits.

Portraits have been done for a long long time in painting history. Of course, I am a little concerned that portraits are not always considered relevant to the contemporary art scene. What's fresh about painting a face?

(c)2003 Josh McCallister 
Fah
Watercolor on paper, 15 x 12
It's not exactly an answer to the question of relevance, but my favorite portraits are often advocacy paintings. I make an image of a person living on the reservation, or in some slum in Brazil or Thailand. These people matter. I want them to be remembered and considered. The viewer has no real relationship to the person being represented. (No mystery that they don't sell!)
Still, I aim for a vibrant quality in the portraits I come up with.