Tonight we had a great model at the AFG. Very dynamic and challenging poses. They’re the pencil drawings below. I realized that it had been quite a while since I’d scanned anything. So I scanned a bunch of stuff in the sketchbook tonight.

I’ve been doing a lot of freelance recently also.  I just finished the Sky Candy website and I’m working on another one for Native Nom Nom, a new restaurant that’s just opened in south Austin.  So these projects take up art time and so does going out and drinking.  But as Jack Nicholson said, “All and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

Here’s a bunch of recent figure drawings.  I have charcoals to photograph also.  Maybe next post.

Howdy there true believers. Tonight I went to Gibson and did a couple of watercolors while sitting at the bar. I wanted to spend some time doing arty stuff tonight, but I seem to have the opposite affliction to agoraphobia. Claustrphobia? I have an irrational fear of being home. So I took my sketchbook and watercolors to Gibson, my friendly neighborhood bar and did couple of paintings. It was enjoyable. I got there around 7 and had a couple of hours to talk with my friend who worked there while it was slow. Afterward I was heads down into the painting and was surrounded by people ordering drinks. While making this post, I have one question. Is The Crow soundtrack really the best CD of all time? Or is it just because I was 15 in 1994 that I respond so fervently to this music? Is it a Pavlovian response to the feeling of accomplishment of having grown pubic hair? Maybe the hormonal high of having a new batch of zits to pop every morning felt much more pertinent than the air conditioned nightmare of the cubicle life?

Meh, now that I look at these I see that the photoshopping of the painting of Liz is bullshit. The straight-up watercolor is much better. Oh well, it’s late. If I return to it at some point, it can be improved.

It’s been quite a week of art.  Two figure sessions, a still life, and I have painting on the easel.  Feel good, like I’m not being a drunken lout with all of my spare time.  Although nothing prevents me from being a drunken lout while making art.  Here’s a batch of watercolor figure painting from tonight at the AFG.  I think our model tonight was Rose McGowan.  As always, the prettier the girl, the shittier the drawing.  Ok, that’s not always the rule.  There are some people’s features that I just seem to get and be able to do a good job of drawing every time.  This was not one of those people.

Oh, and I see a search hit in my website stats for “Tom Britton watercolor prints”. Encouraging? A fluke? It turns out that watercolors scan well, unlike oil painting. Watercolor prints would be pretty easy to do, no photography studio involved.

I really didn’t like watercolors for a long time.  When I was younger and hated the brush, watercolors were the most uncontrollable mediums.  They also have the old lady painting mystique.  I’d never seen anything done in watercolor that wasn’t a landscape, a pet, or a really bad portrait of a child.  I thought watercolors lent themselves to that sort of painting.  But after becoming aware of Sargent’s absolutely gorgeous watercolors and the influence of my artist friend Tiffanny Varga, I decided to investigate.  It turns out, like many things I’d dismissed in my youth such as au gratin potatoes and broccoli, I’ve developed an appreciation for them.  I’ve taken them to a few figure drawing sessions lately and I like the results.  The latest was today.  They’re the most finished ones here because I had an hour instead of 15 minutes.

I did a few paintings this Christmas as presents.  I did one for each of my roommates, and one for my parents.  I naturally waited until the week before leaving for my trip back to Indiana before starting these paintings.  I did three paintings in three days the week before Christmas.  The one for my parents was done on a 16×24 hardboard.  I stole a few idea from looking around the East Side Studio Tour and the 12×12 Box Art Show and started masking a border around my paintings.  It makes them look a lot more complete without a frame.

The paintings that I did for the roommates were both 24×24 with a 4 inch border done on 3/4 inch plywood.  I lifted that directly from something I saw on the studio tour.

I also participated in the Austin Figurative Gallery Winter Opening Show.  I have several paintings hanging up at the USAA.  During the show we did a live painting demo.  It’s always fun to paint in front of a crowd.  Usually it’s done alone.  We did four fifteen minute poses of models in costumes.  We got my favorite models, Drea and Waverly for the special event.  I asked them for space outfits, and they delivered with some great outfits.

It seemed to go well.  Spiderhouse opened the bar in the USAA so we had drinks available.  The music was excellent and we had a good amount of art up in the place, including some incredible photographs by a guy named George.  Unfortunately hte rest of his name eludes me.

I just finished a painting of a street scene of Austin.  This is East 6th Street, somewhere around Rio Rita.

Here’s some recent paintings from the AFG.  I hadn’t done these quick paintings for a while.  For a couple of months I deluded myself into thinking I preferred long poses.  But there’s just something about the energy of a really quickly done painting.  15 minutes doesn’t give me time to fuck up a painting.  Since I can come up with 6 of these in a two hour session, if half of htem suck it’s still a win, because I got a few good paintings in one night.

So here they are, I’m a couple of weeks behind, I have another batch of six to photograph and post.

So I was painting a picture of lesbians and it turned into this.  I figured I’d put it up since I’ve been lax about updating recently and I know my fans are clamoring for more.  So here it is.  Now I’m off to watch a beard and moustache competition.