Every year, oil paint manufacturer Gamblin holds a Torrit Grey Competition. Torrit Grey is a color made from all the pigment throughout the year that's sucked into the company's air filtration system. The result is a grey that varies from year to year, sometimes cool, sometimes warm, which is distributed to art suppliers for their customers to try. A competition is held every October in honor of Earth Day and the lucky winners get gift certificates for Gamblin paints, solvents, and mediums.
Only 3 colors can be used in the paintings: Torrit Grey, black and white.

Here are my entries:

"All for Naught"   20" x 16"  

  Torrit with Fast Matte Chromatic Black and Titanium White

Medium: Galkyd Lite

"Apple Pi"   10" x 10"
Torrit with Ivory Black and Titanium White
Medium: Galkyd Lite

" I knew [painting the figure] was really where my heart was. I do think that if you don't paint the way you want, you shouldn't go into painting. You should go into advertising."

-- Mel Leipzig
American Realist

Wishing you all the warmth of the holiday season.

On Drawing

Alas ....

"When it comes to box office pull, work on paper and work on canvas don't carry equal weight. ... At the high, wide banquet table of art, drawing is salad, painting is steak."

-- From an article in the New York Times.

They came. They drank. They bought art.

THREE ARTISTS. ONE NIGHT, a reception on April 28 in Toledo, Ohio, was a rousing success. We plan to do it again, so stay tuned.  
Here are a few photos:
http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=6177406026/a=4326865026_4326865026/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

I've spent part of the winter working on my drawing skills in a class that took me to the Toledo Museum of Art to draw the incredible sculptures there. It was a challenging and wonderful exercise ... and produced this (nearly finished) drawing of Bishamonten, a 2nd Century Japanese god. I'll post it again once it's complete.

Bishamonten
Wood, 1250-1300
One of 4 guardians at the main altar of a Buddhist temple, Bishamonten was the god of victory in war as well as the god of wealth and good fortune. The mask at his belt denotes the subjugation of evil. Quite a guy.