I've been taking a few art classes this semester and having a blast. It rocks when you actually have time to do art and also get credit for doing it. I've been learning a bunch about oil painting, composition and color. Here's some of the work I've done in the past two months.
First official oil painting! First official still life! This one was a lot of fun. I finally got to paint with oils and I love it. There's just so much you can do with it, which can be a good thing and a bad thing. For example, the amount of time I have to paint something seems endless compared to acrylic. This is nice to fix things, but it also allows me to procrastinate on painting things I don't really want to paint (which sometimes messes me up in the long run). I've also realized that I like painting things that shine or reflect.
Still life #2. This one was done a little faster and isn't as detailed. That's ok though because I got more comfortable with using thicker paint on my brush and not so afraid of making mistakes. I'll call this one Jon's Learning Still Life. 
Still life #4. No, I didn't skip a number, I just didn't have a great picture of my third still life. These is a picture of it in the next image though. This one however was done alla prima or all at once in one session. It was pretty challenging because of the still life and I because I was painting a bit larger. But all in all I'm pretty happy with it.
At the end of our still life section we got to display it in class and talk about it. I just wanted to put this here as a group comparison. 
Devendra Banhart. First portrait in oil! This one is unfinished (hands), but that wasn't really the focal point anyway. I went into the studio one Saturday and decided that I would try out painting a face with oils before we officially did it in class. I guess it was kind of my test for myself to see if I could do it or not. I'm pretty happy with this one and it might be my first sold piece.
First official portrait. For our first portrait assignment we had to copy a masters painting to get the hang of painting a face. This one is a copy of McKenzie's Self- Portrait. Sorry I couldn't provide more info on the original, but I don't have any more. This one was really fun though. The shirt was just a bunch of brustrokes that work together to make a believable image (I think).
First official hung piece. This is my midterm project for my 2-D Design/Color Theory class. It was to show that we understand the color concepts we've learned. I was pleasantly surprise to find this hanging in the hall way of the art building the other day. I didn't really enjoy doing the project, but I'm happy with the end result and super stoked that it is hanging in the hall.
Cool, well hopefully there are still people who check this once in a while to have actually read this long overdue post. I'll hopefully be posting a blog soon about my recent spring break. Lets just say it was the best spring break.
