Saving spot for my art deco raves and rants. I am too tired and i have a loooooong day tomorrow. Need to get some rest.

Saying this spot to add my notes on another great modern day artist.

Rob Gonsalves.

I have been in Miami, in the last few days. Got a gig, been keeping busy all day long and trying to catch some sights in the evening. This evening I was at Bayside and noticed lost of little art shops. One of the stores (not an art store) caught my eye though. As I was walking. I saw some truly remarkable art work ahead. I meant to make a right turn but I was just drawn to go and look at these 3 pieces as I approached them, several different images revealed themselves. I am glad I walked straight on. The art work I saw was Octavio Ocampo's work. He has some truly amazing work but it's rather unfortunate that those pieces were reproductions. I would really love to see the originals.

I googled him and found a page that has his collection and his bio. Here is an excerpt from his bio page.

     Octavio Ocampo was born in Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico on February 28, 1943. Growing up in a family of designers, he first studied art as a boy. Professor Salvador Zuniga directed the local art school in his hometown. At the art school, Ocampo constructed "papier mache" figures for floats, altars, and ornaments that were used during carnival parades and other festivals. By doing this, he learned about art composition, materials, and techniques. In high school, Ocampo painted murals for the Preparatory School and the City Hall of Celaya. Ruth Riviera, daughter of artist and muralist Diego Rivera, and Maria Luisa "La China" Mendoza saw his work and encouraged him to attend the School of Painting and Sculpture of the National Fine Art Institute.

     The talents of Octavio Ocampo were not limited to painting and sculpture, but also extended to acting and dancing. While at the Art Institute of San Francisco, he studied all these disciplines and pursued both a film and theater career. In 1976, he began to devote himself solely to painting and sculpture. He now works primarily in the metamorphic style – using a technique of superimposing and juxtaposing realistic and figurative details within the images that he creates.
"I am fascinated by the forces of Good and Evil and the Sun (male) and the Moon (female). I live in Tepoztlan, which is a mountainous region southwest of Mexico City, and is considered to be one of the most magical places on earth. Like the Bermuda triangle, there is a strange and unexplained, but extremely powerful, confluence of magnetic forces seemingly concentrated in the Tepozteco Mountain." – Octavio Ocampo

     One has to look long and hard at Octavio’s paintings. The longer one looks at his work, the more that is revealed. Faces come into focus at a distance and metamorphose into something else entirely in close up. Flowers become faces, mountains speak to each other, and mourners over a coffin become the face of Christ. His works are full of symbolism, endlessly fascinating, each revealing a new facet, different to each viewer.

 OCTAVIO OCAMPO GALLERY

Imaginery Rhino-taurus :-)
Originally uploaded by Vennittah.

Still a work in progress but non the less, wanted to take a snapshot. I did this painting using acrylic paint. I have never used acrylics before so I was concerned about mixing the colors etc and how the painting would turn out. Not a michelangelo but a good start I think. I think I finally overcame that monster that was making me afraid of painting all weekend long. I have some other ideas in my sketch book and will work on implementing them as time permits.

I finally did the full scale 5 object composition this weekend. I took pictures of various steps of producing this piece and just wanted to share. Please give me your critics. On the final piece one major thing I messed up was the scale and lighting but I want to redo this piece and fix some of those things but overall I was happy with final result.

DSC01397

This is the final piece or rather where I stopped. As time permits, I plan to work some more on correcting the lighting. Below is a strip of the progress shots I took when creating this piece.

Here is another pencil artist whose work I admire. She is self taught and has some amazing work. I still like J.D. Hillberry's work better but I this lady has so much potential. One thing I love about her work over Hillberry's is she capture more modern subjects and her works is very easy to relate to.

Here name is Nicole. B. Fekaris and her work can be viewed at www.extremepencil.com
Here are a few pieces I like

This is one of he artists that has inspired me to do pencil art. His work is so good. I know his has natural abilties that i do not have an far more years of experience and practice but I do hope to produce something nearly as good as his work.

http://www.jdhillberry.com

Here are a few favorites from his gallery. Notice the amazing attention to detail on these piece. He even accounts for refraction of objects against glass and liquids. Also he is able to achieve that shining glossy surface that some of his objects are placed. I just love this guy's work.

DSC01378
Originally uploaded by Vennittah.

This is a 5 object composition I started working on earlier this evening. Actually I should say late last night since its already 4am. I wanted the perfect night light to get the right shadows. However I was getting frustrated with the sketches and I was to distracted by phone calls from home and the need to surf the internet :-).
Anyway, I think this is enough to server as a pre-production sketch I still need to work on the lighting and shading of more of the object but at least you can get an idea of what I am working on. I have done a few other pencil sketches but will upload them later.
Any comments feedback on how to improve this will be appreciated. I am new at pencil shading so any help is appreciated. I need to look up this great pencil artist. I forget his name right now but I have seen his book and his work is amazing.

Random_Landscape
Originally uploaded by Vennittah.

Again another random painting I did this afternoon with my DD. I wanted to do a nighttime landscape but felt inspired by all the warm sunlight so I changed gears and ended up with this piece

Beach Scene
Originally uploaded by Vennittah.

This is a beach scene I painted using water colors. It was inspired by our recent trip to cocoa beach. I really wasn't planning to paint it but I was doing some painitng activities with my DD this afternoon and just got inspired to create this piece. It is still a WIP but I wanted to capture this point coz I felt i could use it in something later.