New Plen Air Painting

This is a 2 hour painting I did at opening night of Ringling's Madeby Gallery. It was great to paint from life again and have so many interesting people come up to me and talk about art. It was a lot of fun, and fortunately my painting sold 40 minutes into painting the thing. The CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest Florida bought it, interestingly enough.

The whole experience makes me wonder about the potential of plein air painting at big events and such. It's definitely got me in the mood to paint from life. I'm going to do a 30x40 version of this painting for my parents to hang above our fireplace...I consider it my rent.

I'm still working full time at Aso LLC here in Sarasota; trying to figure out what's next.

Works in Progress!

Sometimes life feels like a constant work in progress. Where is it all going?!?! I do not know, but here is some new work.

These works are all in progress. I've hesitated to post because I wanted to finish them first. But I can't stand a neglected blog, so it was time to post something. I'll replace them with finished works in the future.

I'm still working full time at Aso LLC here in Sarasota. I'm doing a lot of product illustration, and the cool part is a lot of my work is going to be in major retailers like CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, and others. It's a good job and a good work environment. Of course, outside of work I continue to paint. Thanks for checking out my stuff!

Sketch for a New Paintin

Well, I thought I was done with these South African paintings, but I found a photo hidden within the depths of my computer the other day that I like a lot. This is a drawing based on that photo, and I'll be working on a painting of it today. Should have more up soon!

Also, I'm gonna be posting some of my photos over at http://www.gdechowphotography.blogspot.com/. I don't claim to be a professional photographer but I love doing it and it's been the basis of many of my paintings. The instant click of the camera can capture truly unique moments that I could never get with a pencil and paper or memory.

Old Man on Boat update

Some progress on this painting and a much much more accurate photo of it this time. The colors in the last one were way off.

Just got a new DSLR camera and will be doing more with photography. It's a Canon EOS 50D and it rocks my socks.

New Painting!

This one is a painting of my lovely girlfriend, Emily. It's a very belated birthday present, but I just couldn't bear to give her an unfinished painting. My teachers at Ringling often told me how hard it is to paint objectively someone whom you have feelings for. I now know they were right. I went back and forth on this painting seemingly a hundred times before settling on this version.

I don't have that distinct feeling that this one is a major success, but I know it's much better than my other attempts.

I'm about to start a Graphic Design internship (paid thankfully) at a company in town. I'm going to apply to grad schools this year, and am hopeful I can find somewhere that I can actually afford to go to!

Oily Sketch

Sketch of the old man on the boat. I'm thinking I'm going to do a huge painting of this.

FUTURE PENCIL UNKNOWN

This one is a sketch for a new painting I'm doing. Its based on photos I took a while ago. I was at the Sarasota marina taking pictures and saw this lean old man with an incredibly long beard on his boat. He was doing various things getting his boat ready for whatever it was going to be doing. The guy looks like he just stepped out of a N.C Wyeth painting. Maybe that's why I'm drawn to this image.

Still working out the composition and pose. This is just a prepatory drawing; trying to get a sense of the image and what I want to do with it.

Getting into graduate school is much harder than expected. I applied to 6 schools and all of them say they've had record numbers of applicants. One of the MFA programs I applied to had 200 applicants for 6 slots. Yikes!! I have been accepted to the New York Academy of Art's program, but am still working out the logistics on that one(expensive!!).