Kevin’s Painting Blog

Everyone hates rejection, but for some reason I think I must hate it worse than most. Damn. Anyway, as I mentioned in the previous entry, there was a city contest held at the local art museum. The problem I had was that the painting I had wanted to enter was too small - they insist on huge painting that are completely unrealistic. What can one do? They make the rules, stupid though they may seem. So I kind of rushed out “Kristy” down below, and entered it.

Turns out there were like, 160 entries and they only had room for 120 (well, there would have been room if only that had not insisted on Louvre sized paintings, duh. ) Regardless, while 40 paintings had to be cut, I wasn’t too worried. While I didn’t expect to win it, I have in the past usually got at least an honorable mention. After entering, a few days later a card came in the mail telling me that my painting, “Kristy, had been one of the 40 dropped. Rejected? Huh?! So I headed over to the museum to pick her up and upon arriving was escorted into a separate room, the one just for the rejects. While searching for Kristy, naturally, I just had to look at what else got rejected and I must say, there were a few good paintings amongst the bunch that really surprised me. “There must be some really high level paintings in this contest”, I thought to myself.

So the next day, I decided I needed to head over there again and see for myself exactly what was making it into the contest and what wasn’t. I’m kind of doubting the artists who’s photos I’m about to show you will ever read this blog (if they can read english at all) but if they do, “sorry.” I only took two photo’s on my cellphone, I could have taken a lot more just like these two. Anyway, these were the first two I came across as I enter the museum and with a few exceptions this is pretty much what the other 120 looked like. These two paintings were not rejected.

( not mine)

(not mine)

I really don’t know what else to say about this, I guess it just comes with the territory.  Call me biased, I’m sure I am, but “puh-lease!!!”

Turns out this contest had one judge who came up from Tokyo. Not sure what he didn’t like about Kristy, hmm.  The next contest in May will be for the entire prefecture and will involve five judges and have normal sized paintings in it so I will focus my energies on that one.

Whatever!

Since there is an upcoming contest, I thought I would enter “The Trainer” but they told me it was too small - the contest is for sizes F10 or larger and “The Trainer is only an F8. What a ridiculous rule, but whatever. With 2 weeks before the entry deadline, I decided to paint something quick and size F15 or larger, which I am sure will still be considered “on the small side.” This town I live in is small and not exactly cosmopolitan, but what can you do?

This is a girl I met in college, we were both in the same Japanese class. She also took photography and gave me a black and white image that I happened to see and like. I immediately painted it, gave her the painting, and stored the image away, only to recently  pull it out again. This took me three sessions, it went rather quick. I think I spent about 8 hours on it total. I can think of a few things I could fix that are not right about it, but I am out of time.

Full Sized Image HERE

I looked all over the web and couldn’t find this info. For future reference sake, here are some standard metric canvas sizes found here in Japan. I believe it’s the same for Europe as well as I recently attempted to copy a Renoir and what do you know, the original was “exactly” F15 measurements! The more I am forced to deal with metric, the more I am liking it I must say!

Standard Canvas Sizes (unit=millimeters)

Although I started this during the summer, I just finished this painting on Christmas day. Not that it took me one half of a year’s worth of work, I think I may have put about 8 or 10 hours into it total. It consisted of three, one to two hour sittings with the model, plus about 3-5 or so hours in the studio.  My model here is a Japanese friend who has his own baseball training business.  The “R” on the shirt and cap stands for major league baseball  hitter “Reggie Smith”, who my friend trained with in the USA and whose training system he uses.

“The Trainer” - F8 Oil on Canvas

(Large version here)

This is my third New Year’s in Japan, and the third time I’ve spent it at my favorite pub.

 Year by year, new faces appear while other’s do not for one reason or another. We brought in the new year this time with some of the most excellent white wine I’ve ever had - from 1981. Can’t remember what it’s called but it was expensive.

Around 3 am we walked in the cold to the local shrine and feasted on takoyaki. Great time.

From 2005

From 2004