oil paintings from life (nudity)

[Brittons]

Thanks for taking the time to look at my work. I'm interested in starting to show some of my fine art and I would love any constructive criticism or comments. All pieces were painted/drawn from life.

[Mitchell]

wow these are really really nice!

[Staz Johnson]

Beautiful work... I envy your considerable skills.

[jrr]

fine work you have here, but i have one comment, there's something a tad, hmm, consistent? with the way you handle your strokes, it feels the same. the way the model's skin and the way the background is painted, the strokes seem a bit too similiar. i say variation would make these babies jump at the viewer. this is hair, this is skin, this is cloth kinda thing. does that make sense?

[Arne S.]

that´s great! makes me wanna start oilpainting!

[Brittons]

Hi guys,

Thank you for the the comments. I've been looking at your work as well and really like it. I'm a huge fan of comic book work and was really enjoying looking through some of that.

Thanks for the comment about texture in the paintings. Perhaps you could give a few examples of artists or specific paintings you like that use that successfully? I'm definately guilty of working through a painting with only a few brushes, which seems like a good idea to me, but your comment has me wondering if maybe I could benefit from using a few different brands of brushes for background/foreground/figure/hair, etc, etc. I've just gotten into the habit of using Langnickel brushes for EVERYTHING and when I look at it, I can see how it might really be of help to change things up a bit with that, so thank you for the good suggestion and I'll try incorporating it.

[Jens]

really beautifull paintings!!

scott burdick comes to mind, when i think of interesting textures, his site has a lot of closeups, paintings of his wife Susan Lyon are equally interesting as wel

http://www.burdicklyon.com/2007scottBurdick.htm

[Fireflights]

Gorgeous :)

[Brittons]

I really love Scott Burdick and Susan Lyon's work, so I like that comparison. I haven't had a chance to see them paint or watch any of their DVD's, but I check out the two sites for updates and I like the step by steps on their pages.

[koppa]

awesome mate very nice brushwork,

maybe spend a bit more time on the lips in the paintings they look a bit flat in some of them :)

[SwordOfDivineFire]

Beautiful...

[Bruce Pluto]

Nice work Brittons. Doing nudes especially painted ones is tuff for me but yours are great!! I really like'em.

Bruce

[emily g]

Great work. I like your colors a lot.

[Justin.]

you know, I had the EXACT same thoughts as jrr before I saw his comment.

looks nice though :D

[bhanu]

beautiful studd dude.Post more like these.

[Brittons]

Here are a few more... Reminds me that I need to photograph some more of my work.

[Molly]

Britton - very very nice work. no crits, just comments, keep at it, and post some more when you have 'em.

Mx

[asoir]

the colours of the woman sitting down is incredible, very fine stuff!

[CHARLES CARVALHO]

WOW!
Your work is fantastic, very natural colors! Very good!
Congratulations!

[kev ferrara]

I love the brushwork oriented style of paint application you work with. I think it's interesting and elegant and beautiful. The colors, drawing, form, light, etc. all beautiful.

In terms of technique, it's a :)

Not sure about the imaginative front, though. Painting well from the model is all well and good, but for the most part, in my opinion, these works look like model studies, not finished works. Try spending some time thinking and researching about compositional dynamics and the canvas as a field of energy. Just because you don't really care for the work of Pollock, De Kooning or Franz Kline, that doesn't mean you can't learn from their exhibitions of aesthetic energy and compositional daring.

Summary: You're too talented not to push all the areas available to you to achieve success with your work.

Best,
kev

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=101106

[Dizon]

Just amazing.....

Where did you learn to paint?

[Mr.Blonde]

cool... i'm diggin these... really nice work

[bengine]

Wonderful! thank you for the inspiration, iiiih½!

[Kan Muftić]

Always good to refresh the heart with good, old oils.
Thumbs up!

[Brittons]

Hey everybody,

Thanks for the nice comments. Kev Ferrara, I completely agree with what you're saying. That's actually one of the toughest things I've been dealing with lately... what kind of painter/artist I want to be. I've always loved painting from life and I feel as though my work really suffers when I try to do it any other way, but I have not found a way to completely break out of the box of that and make things "more than a study". I think the most successful person out there making figurative painting right now is Jeremy Lipking and I really admire how he can take what would be simply a nude study in the hands of a lesser artist and turn it into an amazing "piece". I think the key is in composition and more of a focus on the thought/idea behind the work. I'm actually starting to get models at my home, so I can choose the poses/clothing and make the pieces I want. Right now, I paint in a big group of people, so I'm only a voice in the crowd as to what pose the model takes or that sort of thing... I've definately tried to go the route of making illustrative work like Howard Pyle, fantasy work like Frazetta and a ton of other things, but the hat that fits me best is painting simple observations from life. I totally agree with you that right now, it's playing out like a collection of studies and I'm looking to reach another level with things. In my day to day life, I work for THQ, making video games oriented to kids and doing alot of conceptual work, so maybe the cartoony style of that and my painting will find a common ground at some point... Send me cool links to check out for painters you like!

As far as where I've learned to paint, Dennis Cheney in Boston has been my main teacher for painting. He's a brilliant artist and teacher and his work is at www.dennischeaney.com. I went to the Watts Atelier in San Diego for two years, going Saturday mornings. I know many of you know Jeff Watts and Ron Lemen from there and have studied there as well. Those were my first drawing classes, so I'm probably remembered more for my annoying questions than for my "great art", but I got a good start there and still have a ton of great drawings from the teachers that I study. From Watts Atelier, I studied more drawing with Glenn Orbik, a brilliant illustrator and I must have taken another great illustrator named Mark Westermoe's class literally 30 times for figure/head/quicksketch. While I was in California, I also had the good fortune of meeting Tony Pro, who is a great painter and has a very organized approach to setting up a pallate and an amazing sense of color/drawing/design. He really got me started in the beginning of understanding what it takes to become an accomplished oil painter. Other great teachers I've had have been Richard Morris, Ryan Wurmser, Arron Westerberg, Michelle Dunaway, Jeff Hein, Erik Gist, Ron Lemen, Lenny Scarolla and a bunch of others in there too. Google these people and you'll be very impressed with what you see.

[Konstruktion]

Wouch! I really like the unfinnished look on some of them. Especially the 4th pic, the head... great workj.

[Gaussian3d]

very nice stuff Britt.... Don't forget, I still want to meet the model!!!! :D

[bhanu]

wow dude you seem to have learn from the best teachers out there.I am a fan of most of the artists you mentioned.WOw you are lucky .Anyways great stuff here like I said earlier, but yeah pushing yourself more from here is of utmost importance.

[jtek]

Wow, Britt, i'm really digging the faces. Awesome stuff man.

-Jae-

[Aphex™]

Love the paintings theyre awesome, I would probably like more white in the eyeball, but each to their own. Good job !!!

[designboot]

cool painting stuff ! :) keep up the good work!

[steven rodriguez]

i am fortunate to have britt as one of my mentors. last year i took up a couple of classes he was teaching, and i picked up a new technique that he was able to pass along among other things. i have two male live model pencil drawings i sketched in his classes i feel were pretty successful. nothing like what he draws but hey im not him.

britt thanks for all the help and you've got some great pieces here, big fan bro! cant wait to see more!

http://stevenrodriguez.wordpress.com/

[Brittons]

Thanks to everyone who has responded here. Here are a few more pieces. The head was a two hour, graphite drawing from last night and the flowers are another quick study from home.

[Noë]

Wow, these paintings are absolutely gorgeous. Great realism I must say.

Since you asked for constructive criticism, I figured I'd try:
The skin colours look very true to how they were in real life when you painted. It's looking awesome ofcourse, but you could try to experiment some more with colours, painting a model in different colour schemes can add a really different mood to the image, I'm sure it's fun to experiment with.

Well I'll be checking for updates ^^
Love,
Marleen

[Dragonbones]

Wonderful work! I'm glad to see people here working on the traditional fine art style, and every time I see something like this it inspires me to work harder! :)

[Leon Roé]

Great Work, I Love It!!

__________________________
www.leon-bekkema.nl

[Brittons]

Thanks Marleen,

I've actually been thinking that as well when I see everything in one page. I've been liking a painter named Robert Coombs who has an amazing sense of lighting the model, so I think I'll get my feet wet by ripping him off for a little while to break me out. He has an amazing thing he does where there's this really warm rim light on the model in a generally cool toned painting. Thanks for any comments you guys are giving. It's much easier to get it here than to just have people look at my stuff when I make a push to get in some galleries and reject it. I really appreciate the comments.

[Alex Baer]

wow, i really amire your ability to capture the natural skintones and form woth such precision, very nice!

[kev ferrara]

Looks to me like Coombs is very influenced by Dan Gerhartz who was taught by Schmid.

kev

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=101106

[mary77]

Good jobIt uis very interesting, both your scinery and your nudes.
If you have more it would be nice to see them.

Miriam

[Dizon]

Do you use the method of triangulation? Thanks.

[Brittons]

Hi guys,

This is great to get so many responses. To answer a few questions/comments...

My color sense really got a lot better through a few things. First off, if I can't paint in natural light, it's absolutely essential that I use a form of white light. You can get lamps through art stores that simulate natural light. They don't really simulate it as much as they just give you a "non yellow" light. From there, I make sure that the color of my palatte matches the color of my canvas exactly. If I tone my canvas, I will also paint the same tone on a piece of canvas paper and put it underneathe my glass palatte. It's important that your lighting is good. There are too many times I hear people say, "it doesn't matter, I'll paint though it", but it really does matter. I make sure that I have equal light on both my canvas and palatte or I just don't paint.

As far as colors go, I use high quality windsor newton, gamblin and rembrant colors and have a small pallate of about 10 colors of so.

For drawing, I feel that most of my drawing training was through what you guys would know as the Watts Atelier method. Like I said in my last post, I really didn't go there as intensely as I liked, but over the years since then, I've backed up what I picked up there (hi Jeff) from other people who have had the same background. Modeling in paint, charcoal, photoshop or whatever is really the same thing for me, give or take a few technical hurdles. I know what you're saying about triangulation, but I don't really do that sort of thing. For the way I like my drawings to look, I just squint and put down the big shape and chisel it from there with the half-tones. I really never clicked with the whole "robot people" drawing or more technical things like that. It's a great way to study and understand the figure, but I think it will only take an artist so far and then you need to put that sort of thing aside. That said, I really got alot out of the Bridgman books as well as the Loomis books. It's sort of a good rule of thumb and really generic art advice that if you can nail the big shape, it will look like what you're trying to draw. That's actually been a better help for me, approaching drawing this way in my concept art too. If you guys are interested in my site, it's www.brittsnyder.com Thanks for all the comments and I'll post again in the future when I have enough new work I like. I really appreciate all the comments.

[Gaussian3d]

Oh my gawd man, you're like, my god, totally :D

Nice to see the new stuff Britt! Let's do something this weekend man!

[Bhrazz]

Oh yea, Juicy stuff, your oils skills are awesome! Thanks for sharing and good job!

[Niva.]

That last one with the glass jar is very well done, your oils are amazing, wish I could actually see you paint this. Thanks for the inspiration.

[grinn]

A lot of these pieces are great, cool to see that you have studied with so many great artists.

[mallow]

wow! great skills :bow:

[jtek]

Eek, if you get any better at this, you'll have to quit your job here and open up a gallery.

:D

[Coleb]

Beautiful work. Lovely command of the technique, quality of light and brushwork.

I find that in the painted figures I´m very aware of the edge between the body and the background. It tends to flatten the figure a little. Just searching for something to say, really.

Please show more.