99 Paintings: DAY 26

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Day: 26 "Bristly Boy": 

This has to be the simplest painting I've ever done; that is, simplest in the limited use of strokes and minimal rendering to achieve form.  The board was toned blue-green and I used a frayed, stiff, ox hair round to paint in a scratchy manner to work in some lights.  The brush was big, but I fought my desire to grab smaller brushes for the detail work.  I just adjusted the angle and pressure of the brush, and the amount of paint on the bristles to control it for smaller areas like the eyeballs and nose and lip highlights.  Again, despite it coming together in the small jpg, the loose approach in the application of the paint is another first for me.  At the end, I dripped some solvent for more mood.  I love the drip around his occular cavity. - Tom 

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99 Paintings: DAY 25

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Day: 25: "Sludge Flesh": 

Another first for me.  Although it's hard to tell in a little jpg, I've never painted this loosely before.  I used lotsa small dabs of paint to indicate form and did very little rendering.  I let the marks create the form and texture of this creature's skin.  Having the strong light source made it very dramatic as did the fade to black.  Take a look at it bigger on my website - I'm really thrilled with this one.  Lotsa fun. - Tom

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99 Paintings: DAY 24

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Day: 24 "Blue Moth": 
I wanted to apply the same spatter approach I used on the baby head paintings to a more pretty image.  I chose a moth/butterfly.  But I think the random spattering created a lack of focal point and form in the wings.  In fact this piece feels a bit the same all over without my usual focus.  I do like the feeling of an extended tail that comes down over the woman's nose and some of the outward movement eminating from the moth. - Tom

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99 Paintings: DAY 23

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Day: 23 "Digital Haze": 

Another photo montage piece for a book cover sample (click here to see the graphic designed cover that I did).  As with the last digital piece, I started with no pre-concieved notion.  I pulled some faces from my archives and started there.  Then I inverted them and the painting took on a light/white-ish palette and I ran with it.  Below you can see the original "finished" version.  It stayed much more snowy and etherial.  I'm enjoying working in new palettes and demonstrating that I have a broader range than most would expect.]

As I added text, the piece seemed a little washed out for a book cover, so I added some border elements and darkened the male face at the top to pop the title more.  Then I couldn't resist adding the tech pecker gag and pulling this light image back into my dark realm - hehe.  - Tom 

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99 Paintings: DAY 22

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Day: 22 "Baby MossFace": 

Yesterday's painting was so much fun, I had to do another.  This time I was focusing on a moss green palette, another color scheme I seldom use.  - Tom

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99 Paintings: DAY 16

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Day: 21 "Baby Crusty":
Now I'm really letting loose!  This piece was a lot of fun because there is very little rendering and a lot of paint spashing.  Below you can see that all I did was tone the canvas and do a super simple line drawing in acrylic paint, so it wouldn't gow away when I started spattering.  I used some thin glazes then spattered solvent, which caused the canvas color to show through.  I worked quickly and loosely, scraping on paint with stiff brushes and with the palette knife.  I alluded to form by using some darker colors around the edges, but didn't do much rendering.  I love the gritty textures in this one!  Painting is fun!   - Tom

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99 Paintings: DAY 20

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Day: 20 "Zombie": 

And now for something completely different!!  I did this cute portrait of our french bulldog Zombie for my honey Susie for Christmas.  How sweet :)  I never thought it would come to this, but that's what love will do to you - Merry Christmas everyone!!  Enjoy the holiday with the people most close to you. - Tom

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99 Paintings in 99 Days for $99 Project:  Tom Baxa has challenged himself to do a painting a day for 99 consecutive days and post them on BaxaArt.com and his Deadspeak blog.  Each 8x10 painting will be sold for $99, and prints for $9.99.  Baxa will be exploring different subject matters and mediums, including digital, and experimenting with artistic expression.

99 Paintings: DAY 19

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Day: 19 "TrEYElobite": 

I wanted to do something a bit coarse yet simple for this one.  I worked with a dry-ish brush and scumbled most of the way, allowing bits of the "canvas" to show through.  (All those light bits are not specular highlights from bad photography.)  It's not a big revelation or anything, but I've personally never done that, so it was something new for me.  I've also been enjoying using simple color shapes to frame up the figures in this series and give them punch.

 

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99 Paintings: DAY 18

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Day: 18 "HellHog Demon": 

I have this frame that I made out of bones that I absolutely love.  It needs a cool painting.  I sketched this guy out on a red panel real quick with magic marker (the opposite of my usual tight pencil drawing on paper mounted down to board) about 2 years ago and never painted it.  Since I'm on a jag with my 99 Paintings, I thought I'd paint it now - and I had a blast!  All the skull painting I've been doing helped me get a more natural feel to the bones and the red ground is powerful and rich.  I let a lot of the red show through the paint in the shadow areas as reflected light and painted the light side of the skull more opaquely.  Prints available at my site.

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99 Paintings: DAY 17

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Day: 17"Empty Inside": 

I felt inspired to do a creepy kid.  I titled this one "Empty Inside" because of the blank expression I captured with this young girl and since her arms feel kinda like disjointed doll arms, she has an even more artificial and hollow feel. 

I tried a color palette I almost never work in - aqua green and tried tow work quickly and stay loose.

 

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99 Paintings in 99 Days for $99 Project:  Tom Baxa has challenged himself to do a painting a day for 99 consecutive days and post them on BaxaArt.com and his Deadspeak blog.  Each 8x10 painting will be sold for $99, and prints for $9.99.  Baxa will be exploring different subject matters and mediums, including digital, and experimenting with artistic expression.

99 Paintings: DAY 16

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Day: 16 "Zombie Killer":

Man, I had a blast with this one.  Lotsa wrinkly skin, hollow eyes, pretty hair, and glossy lipstick!

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99 Paintings: DAY 15

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Day: 15 "Zombie Mash": 

In a lot of these paintings I've been trying to use color a bit more abstractly.  I'm obviously not breaking my boundries too much yet, but the use of the dark blue-green is a little bolder than just using a cooler color in the shadows.  I'm also pushing paint around more quickly and with less tight rendering, letting the stroke define the form.

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99 Paintings: DAY 14

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Day: 14 "Red Nosed Reindeer": 

Just having some more fun with the Christmas theme.  Rudolf stuck his nose somwhere it didn't belong :)

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99 Paintings: DAY 13

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Day: 13 "The God Inside": 

The first photo montage piece in the 99 paintings series.  As I've said, this undertaking is designed to be a growth experience for me as an artist, so I'm looking forward to dabbling more with photo montage and digital painting.

I have to say, I had a blast with this image.  I had no as to what I was going to do.  I started with the head and was going to try and do something gritty and creepy (my usual - right?).  Then I put the fuchsia leaf behind his head and the piece suddenly took on a whole different feel.  It felt exulted and powerful, infused with energy and oddly a spiritualness that I wasn't expecting.  So I went with it, adding elements at random and playing with shapes and colors.  The centipede created a nice movement and even that felt spiritual to me, like a celestial oriental dragon or some symbol of uncoiling imagination and creative inspiration.  It also lead to the scorpion-like crown. 

The neat thing about photoshop and using the difference filter is that if often puts me into color palettes that I never would paint in in oils.  All and all the surprise factor on this piece made for one great experience. 

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99 Paintings: DAY 12

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Day: 12 "Weep": 

Some days I'm very excited to paint, and other days it's like pulling teeth.  This was one of those tough days; in fact, I almost didn't paint at all.  But I did.  I tried to do something quick, but it still took 2 hours.  I painted with very thin paint and allowed it to dip in a somewhat controlled manner.  The technique can yeild some interesting results, but I felt the figure was a little weak on this one - I should have used some reference.  Next time :)

I thought I'd post some pictures of my painting table, etc.  First is my drawing table with the Grumbacher MAX paints I use and my palette.  You probably can't tell this in the works, but I've been using basically these colors on a lot of the paintings.

I used to put my oil paints propped on the open oven door to dry them overnight when I had a job due.  I would go to bed and close the door so the fumes wouldn't kill me in the night.  It was effective, but needless to say, not a good idea.  I learned this from another artist and use it instead - 4 $8 clamp lights with 150w spotlight bulbs in them.  I made the stand myself with legs on hinges so it can be a bit more portable for storing.  It gives off enough low heat to dry the paintings.

 And here's a stack of the 8x10 masonite boards for the project.  And that's not even all of them - it's about 80.  Pretty dang intimidating - but also cool to think that I'm going to cover every one of them!

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