El Malik

This one is of my friend and colleague, who likes to be considered "The King" of outside BBQing, and pretty much anything else. This is painted in the watercolour style, but with acrylic paint. On 60 x 60 canvas, stretched, glue-coated and primed by myself. I think this background (with gesso primer) looks better than the last one, with only the natural canvas background. Acrylic, on canvas, approx. 60 x 60 cm

Jose

This is a picture of my friend & colleague Jose; it is painted on a piece of fabric I stretched myself onto a 60 x 60 cm frame, and coated with animal skin glue. The color of the original fabric shows through -on purpose, of course- but maybe it would have looked better if it had been primed with gesso.

I realize while posting that the photo is pretty bad; it is blurred and the final glossy coat reflects the light from the window. :-(

In any case, acrylics, 60 x0 60 cm

The Boss

(No, it ain't Springssten)

This is a portrait of Mr Tóth, our boss, the second attempt. I thought his rather angular face might make for a good subject for a painting like those of Bogdan Pascu, or even a Freud, but I botched that one. Painted over everything with white, and tried another approach: the minimal, aquarelle-style.

Acrylics on canvas, 60 x 80 cm

Þrætueplið 2012

I spent some time this weekend, trying to make a fake-brass replica of an apple, which I wanted to "award" to my most argumentative colleague in 2012, and maybe make an annual event out of this (no shortage of argumentative colleagues; could last me a century or two). Anyhow, halfway through the process, the plaster solidified (in two minutes), and other things went wrong, but still never dried out ... Here's the result: a lump of plaster some 8 cm tall.

Hegarty

I've been following Stanford's Paul Hegarty lecture on iOS development on iTunesU. What a magnificent opportunity, and excellent lectures! There is practically limitless amount of material out there, only a matter of finding time to view it all.

At some point I got fidgety, and sketched this pastel of the lecturer, in a few minutes rather than sit still and pay attention to the eminently useful discussion of the Xcode Debugger.



Pastel on pink paper, approx. 26 x 36 cm (japanese B5 size); photographed,
appropriately enough, with the iPhone 3.

Another portrait in progress

Approx. 40 x 60 cm in acrylics on canvas.
Model sat for an afternoon; this is halfway done.


Somewhat sadly, when the session was almost finished, I had a lot of paint out on the palette, so I whipped up
another portrait of the same guy, in about 10-15 minutes, and that one was much better, if somewhat imprecise.

Portrait studies

Did some studies for painted portraits; the painting themselves are no good.
These 5,10 and 15 minute studies are somewhat better.
Live model, home made charcoal, newsprint sketch paper ca 70 x 40 cm.

Susanna taking a shower

In some versions of the Old Testament, the Book of Daniel has a chapter 13, which tells the story of a beauty called Susanna, who at some point needed a bath in a park. She was followed, and spied on, by two horny old geezers, who - well, if anyone is interested, the story has the details. The short of it is that Daniel saves her from certain death using lawyerly tactics, cross-examining the geezers, and the key element involves an Oak tree (Quercus -) and a Mastic bush (Pistacia Lenticus). Being an icelander, I don't know Mastic, especially its size relative to the Oak, but this is all symbolic anyway. These are supposed to be the leaves of Quercus Robur, which is especially suited to aging wine.

(BTW: which version is the one true word of God himself, the one with or without Daniel 13 ?)

This is done with acrylics, 40 x 50 cm

Þórir

This man lives in the middle of Europe, a days drive away from the sea, but seeing him squint against the sun while telling stories reminds me of a pirate -a nice pirate. I whipped this portrait up from a photograph, too quickly, of course.

Size A3, approx. 30 x 40 cm, an assortment of pastels and Schminke fixative.

More pastels

Here I have made a portrait of Prof. Chomsky, from a still photo of his lecture on terrible conditions in the Gaza strip, at MIT's Wong auditorium at MIT, January 2009. He had just turned 80 at that point.

I wish my portrait adequately showed my respect for the man and his work, but I don't have the skills for that.

This is done on A3-size paper, of an unfortunate red color (the podium background was similarly red, I thought I should try to capture that). During fixing, the paper bulged up, not being of good quality.