DPC at the PAFA Graduation!

I snapped this pic tonight of the DPC crew at PAFA's ASE show after the graduation ceremony. Joel Shambe and I, David Golas, graduated today and all four of us: Joel, Jane Winter, Mike Manley and I exhibited at the Annual Student Exhibition. I am very glad to have shared this experience with my friends and I think we all have a lot to be proud of. More pics to come soon!

DPC in NYC (Expanded)

This Saturday the DPC went out to New York City to visit several galleries.
The first gallery we stopped at was Adelson. Here they had an amazing John Singer Sargent show up. For those who still want to see this show, it will be up until the 18 of December.
The work consists mostly of Sargent's impressionism paintings, with the edition of a couple drawings and portraits.



The girls looking at a portrait of a child by Sargent.


Painting By Sargent

Painting By Sargent

Painting by Sargent

Detail of painting above

Detail of painting above


Lexi and Mike Manley being cute at Adelson Gallery



The next stop was to Wendt Gallery where Casey Baugh has his solo show, Evoquer up.
I have been looking at Casey's work for about two years now and can't get enough. We arrived just before Casey had left and we talked for a bit and had a group photo with him.


Painting by Baugh

Painting by Baugh

Painting by Baugh


Our final stop was to Arcadia Gallery which shockingly again, we turned out lucky. It just so happened to be Malcolm T. Liepke's opening. Here Mike and Liepke are together for a photo. I must say I was really impressed with his work. I had only seen a few paintings by him in the past at the U.S Artist Show.
After our long day of gallery hoping, we met up with our buddy Scott Cohn for some grub and good times.

Dirty Palette Summer starts!

Hey, well its been a while since I've posted anything here but the Dirty Palette is back in full swing with our first summer outing at the Markward Recreation Center off of 27th street in Philly. The boys and I met up at school and then we trucked it over a short car ride to the park which is near the South Street bridge which is under construction. Sue biked over later and joined us for a little while.

The park is a really awesome little spot with lots of good stuff to paint nearby including plenty of old "Joker Hideouts" as i call the variety of abandoned or run down old buildings and factories which dot the city.

Once in the park we split up to find our spots, the sun gives you maybe 3-4 hours tops to get in whatever you are gonna do before it changes on you. It was a great day full of that silvery sort of light that Philly has, perfect temp too. Lots of people stopped by to watch or comment including a gaggle of school girls from a local school. They were all fascinated with seeing me paint and with the fact I had included Joel in the painting, "Hey you painted Joel!"

I found my spot and went at it quick, set up my palette based on what I saw. I always try and put down colors that are really close to the big color masses I see when I take my glasses off. I was using an old canvas that somebody had left in school, I sanded it down and re-primed it, it was still a bit chunky in spots and that added to the textured surface I wanted on this one-shot painting.



Using a 2B pencils I quickly sketched out the compositing and then using the biggest brush and one of those foam wedge brushes massed in the big shapes quick. I was also thinking a pre=planning the end of the painting as I knew the light world shift a bit and tried to take advantage of that. I also tried to really balance the interest, the red car vs Joel, so your eye would jump around and move. Sometimes nature hypnotizes you, and I have to stop and think and not get seduced by some glorious detail. I re-massed the foreground more than once to not end up fracturing that plane and unite that shadow mass. I would try and remember what Sargent would do in this case--each stroke counts, plane, color, value....

Here is a shot of the painting in the middle stage, here I could either go forward and make a decent painting or ruin it...

Here is the finished painting.




Joel found a great spot and did a great little Plein Air.
Sue broke out her sketchbook.
Dave did watercolors but refused to show them to me...

Joel and I take a break.

Will and Dave with Will's painting.

Joel painting away...

Summer Meeting 6

Yesterday as the severe thunder storms rolled through the area the DPC got down to it's weekly business. Claire came to model for us again and we set about working at a portrait. Unfortunately Claire ended up not feeling well so we had to cut the pose shorter than we hoped, but there is always the camera and next time.
I went ahead and finished up my quick portrait form the photo I snapped.

Next week we have to decide if we are going to do a portrait again or go back out for another landscape.
Dave, Joel and Will get down to work.