Full Contact Art

"Back to the Grind"

2011-08-22T11:56:00.000-05:00

Well the day finally came, school is back going and the house and my office are quiet again. My only distraction is Harley, the dog, and he pretty much sleeps all day. I am going to be choosing a new project to start on in the next couple of days. My families annual Cancer Memorial Benefit Golf Tournament is just around the corner and I will be busy with that as well. I feel rejuvenated and am ready to start producing art again. I hope that I have some followers that will pick back up and start reading the blog on a daily basis. I intend to highlight my art and the art of others that I choose along the way. Hope you can spare a little time out of your schedule to come along for the daily ride. Enjoy!

"Summer Break"

2011-07-20T10:35:00.000-05:00

I am still on hiatus from the daily rigors of the blog and tweets, but I am not sitting idle. I have been designing furniture for a remodeled home and have also been asked to produce multiple paintings to hang in the newly remodeled lobby of a local office. I hope to get back to the grind that is my blog when school starts back up and the house and my studio become a more quiet environment to work in. If anyone needs help in producing art for whatever projects that they are working on just contact me through this website and facebook and I will respond. Thanks and Have a Great Summer!

"Portraits"

2011-06-14T08:21:00.000-05:00

From mild to wild when you paint portraits you have the power to turn your subject into anyone that you want. You can bring the subtle nuances of their face to the canvas or you can turn the other way and really blow your portrait right off the page. The most important thing to remember is to catch the basics of your paintee and let your viewer connect the dots the way that they view your subject. When you cross the line of too much detail you take away the work that the person you are trying to contact puts into your painting. Always leave something to the imagination - everyone has their own view on what someone else looks like and they can insert their views onto your painting. Enjoy!

"Portraits"

2011-06-09T08:53:00.000-05:00

Portraits are a great way to catch a moment in time of a person's life. I like to work with photos and make subtle changes to bring out the personality and nuances that every person has. Sometimes a photograph becomes very stiff and unrelenting, whereas a painted portrait can be flowing and not so harsh. I have painted many child portraits - giving the parents a permanent memento of a child's life. If any parents or kids need a portrait of their child or their parent or someone special to them, please contact me to help you get a different perspective on that person than what you could get with a photograph. My pricing is pretty close to what a photographer would charge and the lasting beauty of my paintings will be a lifetime of joy. Thanks!

"Choosing the RIGHT Painting"

2011-06-05T09:52:00.001-05:00

An exciting opportunity has been extended to me through the efforts of one of my best friends, J. Hugh Green. He has worked with Ennis State Bank to allow me to hang some of my paintings in their newly remodeled lobby of the main bank. This is an honor to me and I must make sure that the paintings I choose are the best for the location. I am mulling over my choices and hope to have them in place within a week. If you would like to help me make these choices, please go to my gallery site - Fine Art America - Kirby Crow and make you choices and leave a comment. That way when the final choices are made your input will be used. Hope to see many comments on the site. Enjoy!

"Break In The Schedule"

2011-06-01T10:52:00.000-05:00

Since I have been taking my sabbatical from painting I have felt the need to create. So I have been redesigning my logo for LazerWorkz, my advertising company for the past 20 odd years. Type design is a very specialized art and something that I am not usually involved with. When designing logos for other people I tend to choose a stock type design (there are over 100,000 typestyles) and then change them to work with the vision that I have. For these layouts I have basically re-designed an existing typestyle to work with my vision of what the updated logo should look like. Leave a comment and help me to choose which will make the final cut and be used for my business. Enjoy!

"Available Art"

2011-05-24T08:31:00.000-05:00

I wanted to post today to let everyone know that all of my paintings are available still on my gallery site: Fine Art America - Kirby Crow. You can purchase originals, prints and canvas copies on almost all of my paintings. There will be a menu for the costs on each piece and the different sizes that are available. I will resume painting in the near future and will start the daily blog again - just fighting a little burnout at this time. Keep painting and we will talk real soon. Enjoy!

"Random Thoughts"

2011-05-16T07:20:00.000-05:00

I have decided to take some time and step away from the blog. The work that is being put into this site and the response that is given back is getting wider and wider apart. I appreciate what few followers that have stuck with the site, but was really hoping by now that I would have more feedback and response to the art that has been published. I realize that most people don't share the same passion that I have for painting, photography, design, and all aspects of art, but at the same time I thought that the ones that do would want to interact with their thoughts and their ideas of what art means to them. I may feel better in a couple of days and start to repost but maybe not, only time will tell. Thanks to the small few that did follow and I hope that you still visit my gallery from time to time - Fine Art America - Kirby Crow. Enjoy!

"Happy Birthday"

2011-05-15T07:57:00.000-05:00

For those of you who are regular followers of the blog we apologize for not being on board for a couple of days. The company that processes our site "Blogger" has had some technical issues that had to be resolved and it took them longer than expected. They hope that the problems are fixed and we won't have any more down time. I really wanted to post this picture today of a painting that I did for my sister, Cindy. Today is her birthday, 29th I think, and I wanted her to know how much we love her and miss her (she lives out of state) and can't wait till she is back in Texas. Here's hoping that she has a great time on her special day and hopefully many, many more. Enjoy!

"Faces of Music # 5 - N. Young"

2011-05-12T06:57:00.000-05:00

When I spoke to you yesterday about the importance of having a very detailed drawing before you start painting, on of the reasons for that is the fact that it makes the painting part easier. Pay close attention on this drawing to the hands and fingers and the way that they both lay on the guitar body and neck. The highlights and shadows of the fingers will either make your painting realistic or will doom it as a failure. We will be spending a lot of time with the detail in this area and a strong drawing will really help us. So tighten up that sketch and maybe we will start painting tomorrow or the next day. Enjoy!

"Faces of Music # 5 - N. Young"

2011-05-11T06:45:00.000-05:00

I know the tendency when you are painting is to skip the hard work of a tight drawing and try to go straight to the painting with a minimalist sketch. This is a big mistake and one that all artist, including myself, make at some time. With a precise and detailed drawing it makes many of the decisions of color and balance for you. I try to color block all my paintings beforehand and decide many of the tough decisions before any paint is laid to paper. This does two things, speeds up the painting process and usually guarantees that no mistakes are made thus not ruining an expensive piece of watercolor paper. Watercolor affords you as the artist the ability to achieve bright colors and subtle hues but also eliminates the possibility of painting over any mistakes that you made - that's why it is called the "one shot" medium. Plan , color block and draw your painting first on separate paper so that iwhen you erase you don't scuff the surface of your watercolor paper. You can then transfer to your drawing to your choice of watercolor paper and not worry that the texture has been destroyed. Keep drawing and we will start painting soon. Enjoy!

"New Post"

2011-05-10T07:18:00.000-05:00

Our next project in the "Faces of Music" is going to be Neil Young. I want to stray from the mainstream of doing just a plain portrait and really make the look of this next piece look wild and electric. I wanted to post the photograph that I am starting with to give you time in the next couple of days to really work on your initial drawing. On a picture with this much detail I would suggest that if you are having problems drawing to try the method of scaling that I taught you a couple of weeks ago. Draw your square grid pattern (whatever scale that you like) and transfer to your watercolor paper using this technique. We will spend two or three days just drawing so that when we start to paint we have a very tight layout to work from. Get started, draw and I will return tomorrow to help you with these first steps. Enjoy!

"Faces of Music #4 - Hank"

2011-05-09T07:46:00.000-05:00

It's time we got back to the painting of the week, Hank Williams, Sr. I have worked the areas of the face as much as I wanted leaving some of the detail to the imagination of the viewer. Many times an artist can bring more to the project without painting than piling the detail on the paper. The human eye will fill in what it expects to be there even if it is not. A minimalist approach to your art sometimes will convey more to the casual viewer than the agonizing effect of precise detail painting. I am going to stop at this point with suit, tie and shirt area and channel my detail painting to the shadow that appears below the brim of the hat. This dark needs to work so that all the shadows on the face work. Let's finish up today and meet back here tomorrow and see how each other did. Enjoy!

"Mother's Day"

2011-05-08T10:04:00.000-05:00

I wanted to post a painting today that is in keeping with today's special event, "Mother's Day". This is not a painting of my mother, but my mother's mother, my grandmother. If I ever posted a photo of my own mother that would be the last posting I ever made. The woman you see here was a very special person in my life as well as the lives of all my other family. She instilled in us all the love of books, the arts and to treat everyone the way we would want to be treated. One other thing is, she was by far the best cook that I ever knew. I still have the cookbook that she assembled and she was the person that I gave my first watercolor painting to and it hung in her living room until the day the house was sold. She was a master seamstress as well, churning out handmade quilts for all the grandchildren and making sure that all of her "kids" were treated equal. I never got in trouble with my "Mamaw" and I think the reason was that I never wanted to do anything that would disappoint her. She truly was a beautiful person. Happy Mother's Day to my Mom and all the Moms out there, I hope you have a great day. Enjoy!

"Faces of Music #4 - Hank"

2011-05-06T07:16:00.000-05:00

I wanted to re-post the original photograph that we started our painting with. It's been so long and drawn out with all the technical problems that you some time lose track of the final goal. Pay close attention to the darks under the brim of the hat, they take on a yellow glow from the suit and fade into the hair, side of the face and under the chin. This face is very recognizable so if you don't have the look now you won't in the finished piece either. study the line of the lips as they turn up on the ends and the smile lines around them as well. All these aspects make the total portrait what it is and must be addressed. Keep chugging and maybe we can finish this weekend. Enjoy!

Hank Williams, Sr.

2011-05-05T06:42:00.000-05:00

It's our third day with technical problems and after working on one thing for the first two days we found out our problem lies within the scanner. One is on order and on the way and we hope to be fully functional by the weekend. Just keep plugging along and this break gives you more time to really put a lot of detail in this painting. You will really be ready for the final stage when we are. Enjoy!

"Faces of Music #4 - Hank"

2011-05-04T07:10:00.000-05:00

Really worked hard yesterday to get the program updated and fixed but still fell short of our final goal. My number one "Fixer" was being inducted into the Junior National Honor Society and didn't have time to work all the bugs out. If this was a paying job I would have been mad, but it's not so I'm not. Keep working on the details and we will finish this piece soon. Let's try to decide what our next project is and you can start drawing that as well. Be back tomorrow - Enjoy!

"Faces of Music #4 - Hank"

2011-05-03T07:07:00.000-05:00

I am going to post the same photo from yesterday to give you time to really work the fine detail and to let us make some technical changes with the blog. We are always trying to update and expand our capabilities to bring you the best that we can and these routine updates will help us to do that. Keep working and refining what you have and we should be back tomorrow with the final piece. We need to choose a new famous face to paint, if anyone out there has someone in mind send us a comment and we will take them into consideration. Enjoy!

"Faces of Music #4 - Hank"

2011-05-02T06:57:00.000-05:00

Yesterday and today's post look almost the same. I was working mainly with the detail around the eyes, mouth and ear, working slowly and building the layers as I go. The jacket and shirt have also been modeled and are taking on the look of a final piece. We will darken the whole painting at the very end, after a significant amount of detail is added to the features of the face. The shadows around the hat and chin area are very sharp and pronounced at this stage and will need to be softened before we finish with our final shadows. You need to make sure that you have your background painted to the stage you want and that the shade of color is what you expected. It can still be changed at this time, but the final shadow washes will be based on what colors that you choose. Keep working refining your painting and we will be back tomorrow to hopefully finish. Enjoy!

"Faces of Music #4 - Hank"

2011-05-01T08:02:00.000-05:00

As you can see with this latest photo of our painting we have started to refine the features with pencil. This may dull the look of your painting at first but when we are finished we will seal with a fixative and the dullness will disappear. Let's talk about fixatives, since watercolor is basically water it is prone to problems involving any kinds of spills. The finished piece has to be "fixed" or sprayed with a fixative that is basically just a sealer. There are many brands available at your local art supply store or you can use what I use which is old time Ladies Hair Spray. It must be an aerosol spray as a pump spray will defeat the purpose and cause you more problems. Two light coats should do the trick and allow you to make your painting somewhat waterproof. Make sure that you are completely finished with your art before you spray, you will not be able to paint over the fixative. Keep modeling with your pencil, adding the depth and layers as you see them and we will try to finish this piece on Monday. Take some time with the suit, shirt and tie as this area will be a second focal point of your painting. Enjoy!

"Faces of Music #4 - Hank"

2011-04-30T07:59:00.000-05:00

I am getting real close to the stopping point of the painting and to start adding the final detail with pencil. You may notice that the shadows under the hat brim have been darkened and the suit coat has been painted with the basic washes to indicate the folds of the material. I like the fact that even though there is contour in the face we have painted it to look almost flat, just like an older photograph. We will add more depth with the pencil, something that was very common in the early 20th century in the world of photography. Many pieces were hand tinted and refined with pencil, truly a lost art in today's world of computer photoshops and virtual camera works. I look forward to adding the pencil highlights to the final piece, it should really come together at that point. Define your colors today and darken as much as you seem necessary and we will try to finish the painting by at least Monday. Enjoy!

"Faces of Music #4 - Hank"

2011-04-29T07:27:00.000-05:00

Today we need to make a couple of more decisions as to which way we want the painting to go. The color of the suit that Hank is wearing has to be established so that the reflection of that color can be painted on the underside of the hat. The background color still can be changed at this stage. The decision on how much of the face will be paint and how much detail will be applied with the pencil needs to be made at this time as well. I will probably choose to use the pencil for most of the fine detail and the darkest of darks. Just keep applying your washes over themselves to build the depth that you want, remembering that you can always darken a color but it's real tricky to lighten one. Your painting at this stage should start to look like a finished portrait, just lacking the detail of a final painting. Keep plugging along and we will be back tomorrow for our next stage. Enjoy!

"Faces of Music #4 - Hank"

2011-04-28T07:24:00.000-05:00

I want to address something now before we get too far into this painting. Photos that were taken in the fifties, as this one was, tended to not have the color depth and clarity of film that pictures of today have. The photographer many times hand tinted pieces that they took to change the appearance. With this painting that I chose, the color palette will be used in a way to copy the look of the old photos, using many shades of browns, which will make the skin look aged. You may choose to paint your piece a different way which is fine, you are the master of your art. Back to painting - I have added in the background, fading top to bottom, still not worried about the final color. Adding more depth to the washes on the face and making sure these washes are in the right spot in proportion to each other. With the light coming from the upper left side above the hat, all shadows must fall accordingly, you miss this point and your painting is a failure. We can always darken these shadows later, but you can never move them to a different area, so make sure you put them in the right place the first time. I will probably at this stage remove the pencil lines I don't need and replace them with another layer of color wash. I will be shading with pencil in some areas at the end. Paint to this point and we will continue tomorrow. Enjoy!

"Faces of Music #4 - Hank"

2011-04-27T07:12:00.000-05:00

With all the problems ironed out from yesterday, we should be back on track today. Hopefully the longer downtime allowed you to really get a strong drawing done and your color blocking finished as well. I have added some underpainting to the facial area, putting a reddish wash down in the shadow of the hat brim and the side of the face and under the chin. A decision was also made and washes applied to the background, although this could change at any time. The suit was blocked in as well with large washes and indications of where the pleats and shadows will fall. With just a quick layering of large washes you can already see the painting showing a likeness to your subject. By adding the next few colors it will tighten even more. Go as far as you are comfortable with and we will be back tomorrow. Enjoy!

"Faces of Music #4 - Hank"

2011-04-26T07:37:00.000-05:00

Due to circumstances beyond my control (computer problems) we will not be starting this painting until tomorrow. This will give you a little more time to work on the drawing and really refine the layout. I am going to change the look of this painting with added pencil shading as well. I hope to have all the problems fixed and be back on schedule. Enjoy!