Mikey's Art - the art of Michael J. Kloepfer

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Chickens LOVE Classical Music

I've been collecting these decorative
oven timers for a while, knowing that
one day they would lead to some
fun still life setups.
Then I set my new headphones down
next to one... That gave me an idea...!

...which gave me another idea.

That idea turned into two...

...and another...

The ideas kept growing...

...and growing!

...They turned into a sequence...

...which I'm now thinking is a series...!

Chickens LOVE classical music!

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Workin' the Color Studies!

I'm doing a color study almost daily now, and it's paying off. Each new image gives me a chance to work with a variety of issues regarding composition, value, color, brushwork, process, decision-making and more. It's amazing how much it affects my confidence... and how much that confidence affects my painting!
The details are not intended to be polished, and only relatively accurate. However, I think that the images that are coming out of these exercises are gaining a certain convincing quality to the light, atmosphere and color scheme. The shadows are making more sense, and my handling of relative values is improving.
The studies are taking longer than they really ought to. But I'm working on color mixing and decision-making, which will speed up with more practice and 'brush mileage.'
Here are two more. I had to stop in the middle of the portrait one to go to work. I'll finish it here in the next few days. The other was a combination of two reference photos.

01/29/14
Study for Portrait (unfinished)
Forest witchcraft 1
(60 min)
4x6" Acrylic on primed paper
Click here for reference

01/30/14
Daenerys and the Owl
(90 min)
4x6" Acrylic on primed paper
Click here for reference

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Don't give up! (A lesson learned...)

I was working on a color study today. After spending almost an hour - way too long for what I intended - having laid in the basic form and shadow of the hair, face and background, it seemed like nothing was happening. What's more, it seemed that I had a long way to go to bring it to completion. The portrait was really more about structure and value than about color. And, as the image stood, it was kinda dull, kind of uninteresting.
I was about to say "enough is enough," set it aside and move on. However, I decided that I would gain more from finishing out the study, by following through and seeing what happened.


01/28/14 Evdokia 75 min 4x6" Acrylic on primed paper Click here for reference

I am glad I did.
I discovered that, even though it seemed futile at the time, I was closer than I had imagined. And by finishing the study, I also came to understand what was really going on in the image, what it would take to bring it to a finish, and what it would mean if transposed to a larger painting. What was lacking was not color - it is a pretty low-chroma image; the color relationships are downplayed and subtle. In fact, the colors needed to be dull. I just hadn't put the accents in, and the piece still had a little more effort left.
And it gave me an opportunity to do some fun things like the 'lost' and 'found' edges of the hair.
What I ended up with is a nice little portrait study. There are some good things happening in it, and I'm glad I pursued it to the end.
And what I gained was a little more experience (i.e. competence,) and a whole lot more confidence.
The experience reminded me of a story related to me, regarding W. Edwards Deming and the 'red beads' experiment:
Most people give up and stop, just before succeeding - or just before improvement.
And that is what color studies are for: learning and improvement.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Rediscovering Watercolor and Revisiting Linkage

Re-reading Don Andrews' book Interpreting the Figure In Watercolor, I got the urge to once again work with watercolor and concentrate on Linkage.

Interpreting The Figure In Watercolor - Don Andrews

I have been using Linkage, but it hasn't been a deliberate part of my process when I paint; it has worked its way to an unconscious level.
Plus, I just love the balance between looseness and detail, suggestion and depiction, and the wondrous air of mystery in Don's paintings, which he achieves through linkage (among other things.)
So I dug around and found several good references for exploring linkage.

01/14/14
Watercolor figure study
I was having so much fun, I couldn't stop-
and I had reached the point where
nothing was happening that was
moving the study forward.I had to force myself
to set the brushes down. .
Click here for reference

01/14/14
The Watcher -
Watercolor Study 01
4x6" Watercolor on paper

Wow, was that fun!!! I remember now how much I really enjoy painting the figure in watercolor.
I am looking forward to revisiting watercolor and exploring linkage some more.

Monday, January 13, 2014

THUMBNAILS and THE TINY SKETCHBOOKS

I built a couple of tiny, pocket-sized sketchbooks out of copy paper and chipboard, and spiral bound them at work. Now I always have a sketchbook with me. It's a great way to work out ideas. Plus being so small eliminates the temptation to overwork the sketches. No time for rendering, just working with the picture space in broad concepts,
major abstract shapes, composition, and gesture.
Later, I was watching a couple of videos where concept artists take you through their creative process, and I really liked their thumbnail processes. I got the idea to transfer the process to traditional drawing media. So, I created a couple of 'grid' pages that I can lay under my sketch paper, so that I am working an idea through a consistent, small visual space.
To my surprise, I found that there's something very satisfying about a full sheet of thumbnails.
It's amazing how much fun you can have with a tiny sketchbook,
or a few sheets of 2x3" rectangles or 1" squares.

The tiny sketchbooks

03/27/14
Horses - thumbnails 3x2"

04/03/14
Dragon thumbnails

04/03/14
Scene thumbnails

03/30/14
Faces thumbnails, Pen, 1"
Pushing shapes around the square.

03/31/14
Composition thumbnails
Pen, 1"
The best thing to do with
an ideais to
'run it through the mill.'

03/29/14
Skulls - 1" thumbails

03/27/14
Misc. 1" thumbnails

03/27/14
Fishes 1" thumbnails

03/27/14
Dogs & Rodents 1" thumbnails

Add 03/27/14
Misc. 1" thumbnails

03/27/14
Horses 1" thumbnails

03/27/14
Birds1" thumbnails

03/27/14
Animal Sketches
Pen & Marker, ~10 x 4"

03/22/14
Thumbnail Sketches (Pen)


01/12/14 Sometimes all I need is a scribble to get the idea down.

01/12/14
I had this idea of
looking down into
a circular room.

12/01/13
For a caricature
commission.

01/09/14
More compositional ideas.
Doorways are a recurring theme.

12/01/13
Slash Sketch 04 - 2x3"

01/10/14
Compositional ideas.
(Ahh, my lucky red pen.)

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Happy Dog says welcome!

Saturday, January 11, 2014

WIP: Work(s)-In-Progress

Bay Horse Portrait
Acrylic on Canvas Board
8x10"

Muddy Waters - Bold Egret
Acrylic on Masonite
5x7"
From a trip to Gatorland in Florida.
I loved the saturated lights on the egret,
and I wanted to capture the murky,
translucent quality of the water.
(In the original photograph,
there was a large alligator
just under the surface of the
water in the lower left
corner of the picture.)