Here's What I'm Thinking

   I'm painting regular, organizing myself and my thoughts, working on my good art habits. Except for the whole blogging-every-week thing. Sorry. I was thinking about you all. I just didn't have much to tell you. I made a list of my most important things to get done. A lot of business end stuff, but I made sure to put some "creating jobs". One of them was listed as "portrait with two faces", which is how I wrote down my idea for a painting with two separate faces in it. Not next to each other, but overlapping. Both being in the exact same space. I've toyed with the idea before:

I just want to do it with faces. I've been kinda rattled lately, so i thought "this would be a good project to start to kinda let me cut loose". I went to pick out some faces to puzzle piece together, but nothing seemed to look right. I did start a two face painting though:

Okay, either it looks better in real life, or I'm just looking a few steps ahead, because this picture isn't doing it justice. I've done a wash of blue over it since this picture. Something about it tells me blues and purples. I can never go wrong by listening to my art.

AKO ANG HARI
      DOUG

I Keep Forgetting To Include A Title

  I didn't get as many page views on my last blog. I'm not gonna lie, it hurt my feelings. I felt like I was making progress on getting a following on here. Perhaps I was doing too much of the same thing. Who knows? Probably everyone but me. It hasn't stopped me from creating. I have done this recently:

  Of course, I'm having a love/hate relationship with this one. The love is starting to outweigh the hate, so I've got that going for me. I'd just like some positive reinforcement in my life. My daughter is in the ( lengthy, apparently) process of cleaning out her room, which as led to extra clutter around the house. I had just cleaned all my art stuff up and stored it in my studio. Now, I feel like I'm losing progress. I'm also mighty stressed about my wife's health. She had a mastectomy last Thursday. She's a real trooper. I doubt if I'd be so upbeat about it happening to me. I can tell she's hurting and it hurts me to watch. i know it's not forever, and I know it'll be better in the long run, but I'm having trouble keeping a sunshiney attitude. You never know how strong you can be, until being strong is your only option.

   I'd say that's pretty true. I'm getting back on track (there is no 'try') so, I am showing a little progress. I'm pretty pissed about a painting that's gone missing. I have it sold, just can't find it. It was right there, staring at me for months. Now, someone says "I'll buy it" and POOF! it's gone. That happens more often than you'd think. Conspiracy? Supernatural? I don't know. You tell me.
  I'm testing out online portfolio sites. Not very glamorous, but it's on my list of things I need to do. I'm also looking at print on demand art sites. I really like this one link
    People always say they want prints of my work. Now they can buy 'em. Also phone covers, shower curtains, t-shirts,  lots of things. How cool would it be to have a Doug Baltz shower curtain? Pretty fricking cool! Anyway, check it out. Tell me what you think. Please and thank you.
         AKO ANG HARI

           DOUG

You Want Another?

  Here's another face on hand. I really could do these a long time and not get bored. The complexity of a face with the hand thrown in for an extra challenge. As long as the subject speaks to me I'm in for the long haul. Here's the next picture that called my name:

  I love the expression, although I'm told her students see this look A LOT, so they may not appreciate it as much as I do. I know I want to get up close on the face. I have no need for the background, so as far as I'm concerned it's dead to me. I chose another prepared canvas:

   I figured that the upper right portion, which doesn't have as much pigment as other places, matches well with the reference photo. The greenish blob at the bottom will do well to represent the body and the pale spot just above the middle will be a good spot for the face to rest.
   So, I start laying out the composition. Did I start with black, or white? Well, in all this excitement I kinda lost track myself. Here's step one:

   White. I started with white. I painted all the highlights and tried to capture a likeness from the start. Sometimes that works better than others. Sometimes a painting can be done at this stage ( Which frustrates me. I just get started painting and all of a sudden it's over. I listen to my paintings and they tell me where to go. When they say "it's over" then it's over.) This one is just getting started though. If you've been reading my blogs and paying attention you know what comes next. Black:

   At this point I let it dry and compare it to the reference. What needs adjusting? What needs more black? Less black? How are the proportions.  The hand and the mouth/nose need to be tweaked. i can see that right away. So, when the black dries, it's time for the tweaking white layer:

  Which, I can now see, was actually a tweaking black layer. It's all a part of my fluid process. It's starting to look better now. It just needs a few more things. Like what? Like this:

  She now has some life in the eyes. The mouth and hand are much better. I look a while and then this comes:

   I'm looking at it now and thinking, "it needs to be tied together". The best way to do that is with a thin layer of color. Just enough to tint the whole thing and tie every part of it together:

  The lucky color was green. A little green from the tube and a wet rag to spread it around. I helps take the edges off. I'm really liking where this is going, and we're almost there. I pull out my small brush and touch up a little black and a bit of white:

   It's looking pretty good. I'm (almost) tickled to death. My desire to be the Hendrix of acrylic painting spurs me on to do a couple more minor tweaks and lo and behold:

   A few minor adjustments. A few small white highlights on the eyes. I'm very proud of this one. Many thanks to my friend Stephanie for sending me the picture. She's been a fan of my art for a long time and I really appreciate her support.
  This one was pretty similar to the other two. I did use my secret "Color Tint Layer" to help it tie itself together. I don't really tell people about that, so if you could kinda keep it to yourself I'd appreciate it. I suppose the number of views on this one will help dictate if I do another one on here or move on to another topic. Tell your friends. Or, send me some questions or ideas. I'm game for pretty much anything.
    AKO ANG HARI

Another Face, Another Hand

  Okay, here's the step by step on painting two in this series. I got this reference photo from a friend:

  I liked this one immediately. It's not a glamor shot hand pose and there's some great emotion in the face. I converted this to black and white, played up the shadows a bit and decided where I was gonna crop it for the canvas. I picked out this canvas:

 I liked this one for this project because the purplish colors on the right swoop back in a way that defines the area of the face and hands. To me anyway. Maybe I'm not explaining this the best way. There's a whitish triangle from the lower right hand corner, lower left hand corner, and just to the left of the top. that's where I picture the person being. So, I get my reference, get the canvas, and I get my trusty brush and some white paint. Here's the first step:

 It's a much closer view that I thought it would be. What can I say? I go where the paintings lead me. I think it looks pretty cool here. Definitely not finished, but cool. I've laid out all the highlights and I give the white a few minutes to dry.
  Next is the first black layer. I go with either white or black first, depending on whether the background is light or dark. It wouldn't make much sense to paint white on a white canvas. Although, you could do that, call it Modern, and get rich way quicker than I am. If you do, all I ask is that you buy some art from me. Anyway, here it is after the black:

  I was glad to see that I had a pretty good grasp of the emotion at this point. Sometimes it goes better than others. I'm also gonna point out that I'm also doing another painting at the same time (In this series, simultaneously. I actually have upwards of a dozen paintings going on at the same time).
  So, the next step? White. Definitely white. I start to firm up the face and hand, take in the proportions, make sure everything lines up like it's supposed to:

  I tweak the hand and  parts of the face. I'm really liking where this is going and it takes a lot of patience to wait for the paint to dry, so I can do
    Another. Layer.....In Black:

  And here it is, the finished product. I show my wife. She loves it. I show my friend. He loves it. I look at it and think " I can do better", which can be a dangerous thing to think. I could do something horrible. Something I can't fix. I can walk away here and have a really good painting. I suppose by now you've realized that isn't what I did. I don't like to settle for good when I can get close to, if not right on top of, great. The rarefied air.
  So, I get my smaller brush, some black, some white, and some groovin' tunes. i take about fifteen minutes of staring and tweaking, and here's the result:

 A little work around the mouth. A little work around the eyes. Just like a movie star. And there it is. Another painting I'm really proud of. Hopefully I've explained my process to you in a way that you can understand. If not, ask me anything. I'll tell you all I know.

         AKO ANG HARI

The First Hand/Face Painting

  So, I'm starting the project I talked about in my last blog . I got a few submissions. Not nearly as many as I'd have liked, but I'm sure more of my friends and fans will send me inspiration. Here, in case you want to send me a cool picture (hand touching face, get creative! challenge me!). I took some blank canvases and smeared them with paint. Sometimes it helps to get some color going. Sometimes it's just nice not to stare at a blank white canvas. I chose a canvas:

I picked out a reference. This one was sent in by my friend Laura, although it's a picture of her daughter:

 I like this one because it's at an odd angle. Looking down and not full frontal face. Not a three quarter view either. Anyway, it just struck me when I sat down at my easel. So, here goes. This is what happened:

  I've never done a painting on video before. I had trouble holding my phone and painting. I started out on this one holding my phone in front of me. It was very difficult to see my hand with a brush and then see it on my phone too. I kinda got off center at the end there too. (Also these videos were too long to upload on here. I had to upload them to YouTube, which took longer than it did to paint this painting.) That was the 'adding white' phase. Which, of course, is followed by the 'adding black' phase:

  At this point it's pretty much done. I did tweak a few things. Typically, at this point, I like to look at a painting for a while to see what needs to be done. Sometimes something bothers me and I can't quite figure out what it is. In this case I didn't have that problem. I didn't video the rest, just for my sanity I guess. I added some touches of white:

Then, after this dried for a couple minutes, I did another pass in black:

You can see that the paint is still wet on this. After this step i look to see if I need to go back with the white. I didn't see anything that bothered me, so this is the final result:

I suppose it's called "Ella". I really liked this one. It went quickly. The two videos are unedited. That's the amount of time it took, plus about another four or so minutes to do the final passes. I've noticed that I see things I wish were different, but I think it's just due to me putting it all out here. I like the way the subject and the painted canvas go together. I was looking for light and dark patterns to match up to each other. I think it went quite well overall. I'm anxious to hear what you think. Comment on here, or email me, of hit me up on Facebook. Of course, you're welcome to send a monetary compliment:

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Edit: I didn't realize when I was recording these that there would be sound on them. I've been going through my playlist alphabetically, and I was in the T's during this time. That is why Tone Loc was playing in my studio. I make no apologies for listening to him however.

Follow My Idea From Start To Finish

  I have an idea for a painting series. I've realized I like to paint people with their hands to their faces, like this:

 Or even like this:

 So, what I'm thinking is, people send me pictures of themselves (here) with their hand(s) on their face and I do paintings/drawings of them. Imagine, you could be a part of my artistic process! If you'd like you could purchase the finished product. Even if you didn't, you would be a part of history. Immortalized forever in the annuls of art history. I'll post my progress on here, and on my Facebook fanpage  and likely some other places as well. I have no real idea how this will turn out. I'm excited to see. I'm posting this at 3:18 CST on April 11, 2017. Here we go. Oh, here's another painting (or three) before I go:

Here's A Lesson For You

  No artist, no matter how good, makes nothing but high caliber art. Every single one of us has created several pieces that suck. Or just kinda hang there. Maybe not horrible, but not what you'd put in the portfolio. Any artist that tells you different is a liar. No one ever gets good without making mistakes. Sometimes correcting a mistake will show me a new technique that I use to great acclaim. Sometimes it's just nice to create without having to be good. I like to grab some watercolors and a brush and just see what happens. You tell me if these are good or not. Or don't. It doesn't really matter. I enjoyed painting them. I hope you enjoy seeing them.