Live Event Painting Examples and other News

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:

Mercury Soul at Ruby Skye, 2015

26″ x 36″, pigment ink print and acrylic gel on canvas

This painting is based on a photo I took of electronic music DJ and composer Mason Bates and bassist and composer David Arend performing together at an event called Mercury Soul, a wonderful fusion of electronic and live classical music that took place at the venue Ruby Sky, San Francisco. This was created using Corel Painter 2016 on an iMac with a Wacom pen tablet, and is the subject of an online Painter tutorial on my digital paint training site, PaintboxTV.com.

Eric
2015, iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, Procreate

This portrait sketch was created from life at a Boxing Day celebration in my studio on December 26th, 2015. I used an iPad Pro, the Apple Pencil and the Procreate app. You can see below the video replay of the entire drawing, plus the reaction of Eric when he sees the completed portrait for the first time.

If you’re interested to learn to draw and paint on the iPad please join the four day iPad Art Camp in San Francisco, April 4 – 8, and/or you can study online via the iPad Art Online Course

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Dragon’s Gate
2015, pigment on canvas, printed 32″x 16″ / projected 72″ x 36″

This painting was created live at a ChinaSF event on the 24th floor patio of the new NEMA building in San Francisco using the latest technology: the Touchjet Pond (that turns any surface into a smart wall) and the Infinite Painter app.

The Dragon’s Gate depicted is the gateway to San Francisco’s Chinatown and is located at Bush and Grant. It has a fascinating history and design, with every element being symbolic (see the Art & Architecture SF article).

Painting the Dragon’s Gate live on the 24th floor patio of NEMA with the spectacular view of San Francisco in the background

Helen Thomas, CEO of Touchjet Inc., San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and I with the painting at the ChinaSF event

“Thank you again for creating magic last night with the Pond Projector and painting the Dragon’s Gate. So in love with the painting.”
~ Catherine Woo, Director of Sales & Marketing Operations, Touchjet Inc.

I love it when technology, art and performance synergize together in creative harmony and create something bigger and more spectacular than the sum of the parts. That’s what happened at the ArtPoint Cocktail Party, de Young Museum, on November 12th where I had the pleasure of live painting with a combination of cutting edge technology: the recently released Touchjet Pond Projector, which turns any surface into an interactive smart wall; and the Android painting app Corel Painter Mobile.

The theme of the event was innovation and the arts, resonating with the theme of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) which is the subject of the one of the current shows in the museum, plus the theme of Hawaii since the Royal Hawaiian Featherworks are also currently on display in the museum. I chose to paint the Palace of Fine Arts, one of the last remaining structures from the PPIE, loosely basing it on a photo I had taken earlier this year. You can see in the videos below how I was painting on a “real”, i.e. non-digital canvas. It was a pleasure to be able to paint digitally directly at large scale, with full body motion, and to feel the resistance, give and tactility of the canvas surface texture.

After this event I received this nice note:

Dear Jeremy,

I cannot thank you enough for your participation with last night’s event. You truly brought the Art to the Innovation! It has been an absolute pleasure to work with you, and I would love to do so again.

Sincerely, Carrie

Carrie Cottini
Assistant Events Manager
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
de Young
Legion of Honor

To see another example of my use of the Touchjet Pond to digitally paint live on real canvas, please see Dragon’s Gate.