First of all, I apologize for the long lag in blog updates.  I’ve been having a few technical issues with the blog.  However, we are currently working on a major revamp of both the RationalArt blog, and the Bryan Larsen Fine Art website…so stay tuned, and please, pardon out dust.

In the mean time, you can follow the progress of my current projects in the Artist’s Studio at Quent Cordair Fine art.

In my studio at this very moment sit several several blank canvasses, newly stretched, primed and ready for a little paint.  Of these, three in particular are of interest for the purposes of this post, and I’ll tell you why.   All three will be figure paintings for which I already have scrap and compositional sketches, and which I will be working on all at once.  I have completed full, scale drawings which are ready to transfer to canvas.  Once they are, I will be posing regular updates on the progress of all three paintings in coordination with posts in ‘The Artist’s Studio’ at Quent Cordair Fine Art.

Stay tuned…

Yet again I have let far too much time pass by between blog updates, and there is a lot of new news to post.  Most excitingly, at least for me, I have just moved into a new studio space in Downtown Salt Lake City.  For the past six years I have been working out of various smaller, home-based studios which, while well appointed and extremely convenient from a commuting standpoint, also came with a few limitations…not the least of which were a somewhat blurred line between work and home-life, a sort of self imposed hermit-like lifestyle, and the close proximity of children to lovely chemicals such as lead and cadmium.  For a number of reasons, this move is a huge improvement.  I have tons of workspace, incredible light, and freedom from distractions.  A professional space is also a much more comfortable setting for scrap-shoots and sittings with models as you can imagine.  Here are a couple of photos of the studio in its first incarnation:

Related to the new studio in a very direct way is the completion, just today, of two new figure paintings.  They are sort of a set.  Obviously similar in composition, setting, lighting and props, they also share the same model.  Both are loose interpretations of a secular take on Eve.  One is a relatively classical pose and the other more contemporary.  Instead of a ‘fall’, I take the gaining of knowledge of good and evil, of ethics, of reality, to be an elevation of Eve…and enlightenment.  In the contemporary composition, the apple is replaced by books as a symbol of knowledge learned. 

These are preliminary images, with the paint in various stages of drying and without varnish:

‘Eve’

And ‘Evelyn’

Both paintings are 14X24 inches.

Also, I have just learned that my painting ‘Contrast’ was selected by the Art Renewal Center as one of the top 100 figurative paintings entered in this year’s international competition, and will be featured on their website and in their catalogue. 

The final bit of news for today is that the new studio space will be open for the Salt Lake City Downtown Gallery Stroll on Friday, May 21^st from 6 PM until 9.  The two Eve paintings will be on display before they are crated up and shipped off to Quent Cordair Fine Art.  If you are planning on being in the Salt Lake area on the 21^st and would like to check out the new digs, send me an email, and I will send you the address.

Admittedly, it’s been quite a while since I have posted anything new in part because I have been working on a commission piece that I can’t yet post images of.  But that particular project is finished.  I have a couple of new figure paintings in the works which deserve their own post (coming soon), but to get back in the swing of things, here is a little New York City cityscape fresh off the easel. 

The painting of Young Icarus is all but finished.  There are always a number of minor touch-ups and tweaks that take place in the final days of a painting’s progress, but they are usually subtle enough that they would go un-noticed in a digital photo.   So, until I can get a professional photographer to one-up my camera handling…here is a final image of Icarus as a Boy.  I haven’t settled on a final title yet, as seems to be my style.  Enjoy!

Yes, it’s toga time here again in the studio.  This time my model was actually in cosume for the photo shoot, which made things considerably easier on me.  One might expect that Asher running around in a tiny sheet at the neighborhood park in 50 degree weather (he earned his pay that day) would raise some eyebrows, but then the park is across the street from a frat house…

I blocked in the winged figurine the young Icarus is flying today.  I’m temporarily satisfied with the way it turned out.  Once the rest of the figure is complete, I may reevaluate.  Stay tuned….

More progress on the young Icarus’ abs:

Asher tells me he doesn’t even work out.   How is that fair?

I finally got around to finishing the rock.  This may actually be my first somewhat accurate painting of a specific rock…a portrait of sorts.  So, next time you’re hanging around Reservoir Park in Salt Lake and you come across a largish rock in the middle of the playground and think to yourself, “I’ve seen this before…this means something…this is important”, you either recognize my fine likeness of this geological specimen, or you’re having a ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ moment.

And now on to a much easier portrait: the young Icarus.  At least he’s somewhat symmetrical, and far less craggy.  I’m working a little rough at this point, especially on the hair, with the intention of pulling everything into better focus once all the flesh tones are in place.  I’m using the color string method I used for ‘Muse and Medium’ again, still trying to decide if I like it more or less than the under-painting-with-color-over-the-top method I used on ‘Deliberation’.  The one distinct advantage to this technique is that it allows me far more opportunities to break up a larger figure into pieces that can be finished in a reasonable workday.  Who knows, I may end up finding some hybrid of the two processes that works even better.

Need I say more?