Author: jeremysutton

Peggy and I Dance Through the Decades in celebration of the Verdi Club Centennial.
6m 20s

The Verdi Club is a historic Italian-American club a block from our art studios. We know it well from the “Tuesday Night Jump!” Lindy Hop weekly swing dance. We choreographed this dance performance to a custom sound track I put together, spanning the decades. We wanted to share some of the variety of styles of music and dance that people have enjoyed in the Verdi Club over the last one hundred years.

The celebration was attended by the Italian Consul General, Mauro Battocchi, and San Francisco Board of Supervisor Malia Cohen, representing District 10. Listen to the very end of the video to hear Malia’s reaction to the dance performance! MC Karl Kriedel said the next day “Last night was one to remember for the ages. Thank you for helping make it great.”

Here are some photos from the celebration:

Historic Verdi Club neon sign lit up

This shows Peggy and I in front of a photograph in which we are featured as dancers and which has been placed in the new Verdi Club bar. The photograph was designed, taken and printed by our friends and former 1890 Bryant studio neighbors Eszter+David. The photo was shot in the old Verdi Club bar and also includes our artist friend Warren and Jose.

Big Red (1972 Buick Centurion Convertible) parked outside the Verdi Club with a happy birthday balloon!

Verdi Club member Shannon in front of a photograph of her grandparents getting married in the club

Before our performance Sarah Lamb sung a beautiful Verdi aria (Caro Nome from the opera Rigoletto), accompanied by her mother, Cynthia, on piano. Big thank you to Annette, Karl, Sarah, Cynthia, Jason, Veronica, and the whole Verdi Club board, team, volunteers and staff who contributed to making the evening so special.

May 14, 2016

At my Spring Open Studios 2016 we had the pleasure of live musical performance from pianist, Noam Eisen, and singer, Emily Day, who together lead the popular Cosmo Alleycats dance band. In addition to Noam and Emily’s performance. At one point bassist and singer Pam Brandon, featured in my Luxomatics painting, joined in. I gave a short live iPad portrait painting demonstration using the new Earth brushes in Procreate app on the iPad Pro. here are photos from the reception:

Tango instructor, performer and choreographer, Christie Cote and I dance in front of my painting, Moment in Time, in which she is featured.

Bassist and singer, Pam Brandon, and I in front of my painting The Luxomatics at Club Deluxe, in which she and her band are depicted.

Noam and Emily perform as I do a little solo improvisational dance!

This artwork, The Luxomatics at Club Deluxe, based on a live sketch I made of my friends, The Luxomatics, playing, as they do every Sunday from 6 to 9pm, at the wonderful, atmospheric Club Deluxe, will be on display for the first time tonight.

The Luxomatics at Club Deluxe
2016, pigment ink, oil stick and crayon on canvas, 59″ x 36″

This artwork is based on a live sketch I made of my friends, The Luxomatics, playing, as they do every Sunday from 6 to 9pm, at the wonderful, atmospheric Club Deluxe, a local’s music bar icon at Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco. The musicians depicted are, from left to right, Sandy Clifford (harmonica and vocals), Justin Berthiaume (drums), Danny Eisenberg (piano), Byron Burchard and Pam Brandon (bass and vocals).

It is being displayed for the first time at my Spring Open Studios Art Exhibition – please come by if you’re in the area.

Here are some details of the final (large) artwork:

These (below) are views in the club when I made the original drawing:

The original 15″ x 10″ sketch made with Caran D’Ashe Neocolor I and II crayons and some red wine on Canson 140 lb cold press watercolor paper.

And a view of the club from across the road:

“Painting the Night” at a corporate event in Las Vegas. Portrayed Elvis as an Elvis impersonator is performing on stage, with my painting projected live on three 40′ wide by 20′ high screens above the stage.

“Jeremy — thank you so much! Everything was absolutely amazing, you were such an amazing part of our success.“​ ~ Alana C.

In action during the event (photos by David E. Merrell)

The final painting. Each of the main Las vegas performing characters depicted – Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Marilyn Monroe, Barbara Streisand and Elvis Presley – were painted live as “they” appeared on stage.

Click here to see more examples of my live event painting performances.

Quick demo sketch I created of one of the students.

During this three hour playshop on February 27th, 2016, at RileyStreet Art Supply Store in San Rafael, California, fellow artist Rhoda Draws, and I shared our tips and techniques for hands-on live portrait sketching using traditional sketching media – no pixels in sight! The next playshop in Rileystreet is tentatively scheduled for November 19th, 2016. Please see my class schedule for latest details. Enjoy these photos from the class (photos taken by myself, Rhoda and the RileyStreet store manager Bente). Big thanks to the students who participated in this playshop.

The classroom – surrounded by art materials and art.

A demo sketch I made of Rhoda (with her sketch of me in the background)

One of my demos sketching a student (below): explaining how I go about composing; what I look for; how I make decisions on the paper; how I choose to use line, color and shading; and deciding when to stop.

Rhoda did a demo, sharing a technique starting with water-soluble crayon line work, then adding water washes and finally black brush pen accents. She then modeled for the class.

You can see the wonderful results here!

The final project was self-portraits. Rhoda and I both shared our process and technique, and then, using mirrors on mini-easels, everyone had a go.

The final group photo with everyone holding up their self-portraits.

..and, of course, some dancing had to break out! ….

Jin
2016, acrylic and some ink, applied with gravity, knife and brush, on canvas, 20″ x 24″
Painted completely from life in a series of sittings over two days

I painted this portrait of my friend Jin using predominantly acrylic paint on canvas. I prepared the canvas with an acrylic wash and dripping intense pigment ink from various directions (rotating the canvas as I did so).

Half way through the portrait I asked Jin to write down his Korean name on a piece of paper and then I brush painted the Korean characters of his name on the right of the painting. There are three characters arranged vertically. The top one is his family name, Shim. The lower two characters are his first name and mean “let his light shine through”, which is exactly what I strive for in my portrait!

Time lapse video of the painting in progress and Jin explaining his name in the portrait and his first impression of the artwork.

It is always fascinating drawing or painting from life in natural light, as in this portrait. The light changed continually so the resulting artwork is not a depiction of a single view but instead is literally a response, mark by mark, to a myriad of momentary views, none the same as any others. This depiction of myriad of views is something that can’t be reproduced or experienced when working from a static single photographic reference, a single captured moment in time. This is why I love drawing and painting from life with natural light whenever possible. The difference in experience in drawing or painting from life, versus from a photograph, is far greater for me than the difference, for instance, of using digital media versus traditional media. In this particular case no pixels or photography of any kind were used in any part of the painting process, just good old fashioned hand-eye-brain coordination with application of various media onto a canvas.

Mayor Ron Dellums
2006, Mixed media on canvas, 30″ x 40″

This portrait of Hon. Ronald Vernie “Ron” Dellums, former Congressman (1971 – 1998) and Mayor of Oakland (2007 – 2011), was commissioned by members of Gamma Chi Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. as a gift in association with his receiving the Alpha Phi Alpha Living Legend Award in recognition of his service in government. It was initially unveiled at a Living Legend Award ceremony in 2006 and finally presented to him on his 80th birthday celebration in 2016.

Mayor Dellums and his portrait at his Alpha Phi Alpha Living Legend Award ceremony, San Francisco, 2006

Mayor Dellums presented with his portrait during the celebration of his 80th birthday, Oakland, 2016

(54 minutes)

This is a live recording of the Community Talk on “iPad Portrait Sketching” that I gave at FOTOfusion 2016, Palm Beach Photographic Center, West Palm Beach, Florida. You’ll see me briefly show Zen brush 2, Art Set Pro, Procreate and Sketch Club apps.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is one of the largest trade shows in the world, with more than 170,000 attendees, including 50,000 from outside the U.S., visiting some 3,800 exhibitors on nearly 2.5 million square feet of exhibition space. This year I painted live portraits of attendees at the Touchjet booth utilizing their Pond Projector, a compact projector that turns any surface into an interactive Android touch surface. The Android painting app I used for these portraits was the Android painting app Infinite Painter. You can read about the experience of being one of my portrait subjects at CES in Chris Matyszczyk’s CNET article How I let a physicist paint me at CES.

Congratulations to Amanda and Kunal on their beautiful New Year Wedding!! In this video you see me creating a live iPad portrait of the newly weds at their evening reception, including a replay video showing how the portrait developed from beginning to end. Earlier in the evening I painted live iPad portraits of Amanda and Kunal’s family and friends, plus worked on a collage painting based on photographs from the Indian and American Ceremonies.

Wedding Portrait of Amanda and Kunal
Created from life using iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and the Procreate app (shown below displayed on two large screens at the reception)

Here are a few photographs I took of Amanda and Kunal at their wedding: