The Ingres Variation V

After the body is filled in I continued on with the background cloths and cushions.

The Ingres Variation IV

Here is more body work laid in.  The base skin tones are being filled in fully here.

The Ingres Variation III

Here are two more shots of the progression of the commission.  Here I've started laying in all the 'dead coloring' that acts as the base for subsequent layers.  It's worth noting at this point that I'm also going to change the color scheme of this painting significantly, as well as nix the fan in her hand.

The Ingres Variation II

So, I've been commissioned to do a variation of Ingres's Odalisque.  This is the initial stage of the painting after I've prepped the canvas and begun the preliminary laying in.  I've always thought the spine was a bit long so we'll see how I can address that in the coming painting.  My original idea was to change the head as well.  I did a small sketch and then gridded it up to the larger painting size.

The Ingres Variation I

Here is Ingres's original Le Grande Odalisque painted in 1814 and housed in the Louvre.

My other Journal

Just in case there is anyone that has not noticed yet, I started a new blog a little over a month and a half ago.  It's www.MaxMillerPaintings.blogspot.com and it's linked up on my main website as well.  The basic premise is that every day I paint a small painting that goes up for sale.  The first to contact me about it gets it.  I've already gotten a great response on these little paintings that are super affordable and a bit whimsical.  Check them out.

Dr. Askins Final

Here is the finished Dr. Askins portrait and a picture of the unveiling of the final painting at Dr. Askins's retirement party.  He was happy with it, so I was happy with it.

Dr. Askins Portrait

Recently I finished a painting commission of Dr. Askins, who was retiring from MUSC.  This painting is now on display down at the hospital.  Here is a slideshow of the creation progression of the painting.  It was very quick, I had a deadline and did it in about two weeks.  The slideshow takes a moment to load as there are 26 pictures in it.

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More Bonfire Pictures

I was up until four and the fire was still burning strong.  Here's a picture of the aftermath the next day also, still smoldering.

The Bonfire

Last week I had the pleasure of going to a bonfire party thrown by my good friend Doug Ballantine in Greensboro, NC.  He'd been building this bonfire pile for quite awhile out on the land he owns.  Doug burns a good fire every two years or so and the one he did before this one burned for nine days.  It was a great time and a perfect night for it.  The flames reached at least twenty feet in the air and the fire department stopped by to make sure everything was smooth.

Traveling....

I'll be in New York for the next week or so visiting the Met and picking up some paintings/drawings. There may not be updates during that time, or there might be.

Pandora state 2

Here's an update on the Pandora painting.  There's actually not a whole lot more to do, just work in the cloth and legs, hands and the smoke/etc coming out of the box.  Unfortunately this will have to be put on the backburner for a little while while I sort out some commissions.

Army Wives in Charleston

So last Thursday I had the chance to be an extra on the set of Army Wives.  It was a pretty long day, about 9 or 10 hours, and it seemed they may have only gotten 5 minutes of footage out of the whole thing.  I'd been on sets before, so I knew how much work went into just a tiny scene, but it was cool to see it again.  I was dressed as an Iraqi street vender.  What!? You may say, well, I had a fairly long beard at the time, and a head wrap and they darkened my skin.  The beard is gone now by the way.  Anyway, I didn't have my camera that day, but here's a group of photos I took yesterday of the area in North Charleston where the scene was shot.  It was dressed up as an outdoor bazaar in Iraq where a shooting took place.  I had a few different background roles I had to fill including a fruit vendor, shopper and baby goat herder.  There's a picture of blank shells, holes in the wall where some errant bullets were supposed to have hit and two of the gunpowder squib balls used for creating gunshot holes.

Prepping a new canvas

This is a huge (though it doesn't look that big in this picture) canvas, 64 x 44, that I've been preparing for a portrait of my mother.  Here I'm painting rabbit skin glue onto the raw canvas to get it ready for the next step, gesso.  The rabbit skin glue is used as an isolation, or size that separates the canvas from the gesso as they don't play well together long-term.  It also tightens the canvas down onto the strainer support.

Pandora Early State

Here's an image of an early version of my Pandora painting, it's fairly large as the figure is near life-size. There's still quite a bit of work to be done on figure, background, box, well...everything. But you can see what I'm going for here - a quiet, intimate moment where Pandora has found a hiding place to open the box alone.

Pandora/Eve Precurser

So a few months ago I had the inspiration to begin a painting based on the Greek Myth of Pandora. I've always been intrigued by the story and I found a model who was into the idea so we came up with a pose and began the painting. If you don't know the myth of Pandora, this is taken from wikipedia:

In Greek Mythology, Pandora was the first woman. Each god helped create her by giving her unique gifts. Zeus ordered Hephaestus to mould her out of Earth as part of the punishment of mankind for Prometheus' theft of the secret of fire , and all the gods joined in offering this "beautiful evil" seductive gifts. According to the myth, Pandora opened a jar, in modern accounts referred to as "Pandora's Box", releasing all the evils of mankind— greed, vanity, slander, envy, pining— leaving only hope inside once she had closed it again.

What the above excerpt doesn't mention is that Pandora had no prior knowledge of what was in the box, she was merely told that she 'shouldn't open it.' As you may imagine, many artist have been inspired to create images of Pandora in the past. Of course on occasion there may have been that propensity for artists to want to paint a Pandora image as a knock against a cruel lover, or maybe an unattainable, thus 'evil' woman in their life. As you can see, the blaming of women for the worlds evils is not a new idea, even in the age when the Bible was written. Of course that's ludicrous, who wouldn't open the jar/box if it was given to them?

Here are a few examples of works focusing on Pandora, including one by Rossetti and another more contemporary one by Boris (heh). My favorite has always been the Arthur Rackham one (bottom right), you might recognize his work from Alice in Wonderland.

Portrait of Margaret Andrews

Here's an image of the latest portrait commission I completed for the Andrews family in Lynchburg, Virginia. There's also an early version of it when it was about halfway finished, you can see how far it came along. I think they were pretty happy with it. Take note, my shop is always open for commissions.