Robert Olsen: Blog

I’ve Been Working…

robertol — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:41:32 +0000

… from whenever to whenever and haven’t had much to blog about—not that that is a requirement to blog. Here is one of my efforts I just finished, so I thought I’d share the image. The painting is 9 by 16 inches oil on panel. It is currently untitled, but I plan to have a title for when it is exhibited.

I Bought More Lemon…

robertol — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 10:10:17 +0000

…pictures forthcoming.

Here is a reference image of a flower until then.

More Images…

robertol — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 07:50:22 +0000

Tonight is still life night. As soon as I finish this post, I am going to start cutting lemons into pleasing parts. Instead of a new post I added the images below.

Jam

robertol — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:28:40 +0000

I finally set up a new backdrop for my still life images with the aforementioned black fabric; I was using a piece of black foamcore. It only took two days of procrastination (pushing 4 pins into the wall, and a little ironing).

Update: Portraits

robertol — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:56:38 +0000

I am in painting mode, therefore the posts are spreading out again. I’ve been working on the “traditional” paintings that I’ve mentioned before. Part of that is the portrait I posted awhile ago. Today, I worked on it with what I think are good results, so I thought I’d show the latest stage—still a lot of work to go, but it is taking shape.

I also got some black backdrop fabric from a friend today. Hopefully it will improve my production quality.

What I did before I went to bed this morning

robertol — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 02:21:00 +0000

Beer

robertol — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:35:31 +0000

This is a quick and dirty edit of a potential still life image. I was happy with the composition of the bottles, but I had to added a few pixels on both sides of the images to correct the final format, and I took out the light source to the right as well. As with most images from which I base my paintings, the seamlessness of the reference image is not so important. The bad photoshopping doesn’t get transferred to the painting anyway.

Not that these beers are hard to come by, but I wanted to mention that I bought them at Galco’s Soda Pop Stop, known for their large selection of hard to find sodas, many made with sugar cane, as well as a healthy variety of beers—they also make sandwiches.

New Candles

robertol — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:26:13 +0000

I was at my parents last week. While I was there, I got a handful of candles (first picture). The second picture is an OK image of two of the “new” candles. I didn’t feel like waiting till Aperture finished backing up to get a better picture.

This Weekend + a quick plug

robertol — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 05:28:19 +0000

As this is the time for the “Summer Group Show,” there are a few openings—maybe even a lot of openings—on the 12th. I am included and attending an exhibit curated by Beautiful/Decay at Nathan Larramendy Gallery up in Ojai. I was told and subsequently looked it up that there is going to be several cover bands playing in close proximity to the gallery. Here is a link to the Ojai RockFest ‘08. Let the good times… or possibly shudder in horror.

Bruce Conner (1933-2008)

robertol — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:39:39 +0000

Obituary from the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate.

Here is his page at Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles.