On the easel...

[GKreindler]

Thanks a lot, Willie Mays Hayes! You've got some great swagger. My stuff is definitely for sale - well, at least the stuff that I have left. You can see some of the available work here:

http://graigkreindler.com/?page_id=2277&gid=2379

Thanks again, and welcome to Net54!

Graig

[yanksfan09]

that 27 Yankees team is amazing.

[the 'stache]

Graig, I can't believe that I've been a member of Net 54 for nearly two years, and I've never seen this discussion topic until today. I will chalk that up to the simple fact that I have not been on this particular forum before. But still, it's hard to believe that I've not caught some reference to it in another discussion before.

Though I haven't looked through all twelve pages yet, I have to say that from what I have seen, I'm pretty much blown away. Baseball has been my greatest passion since I was a little boy, and the way you've captured the golden era of the game is simply exquisite. You are a masterful painter.

[GKreindler]

Hey all,

I know I've said this before, but another time won't hurt. Thank you so much for all of the kind words you fellas have thrown my way about my artwork over the years. It's really meant so much to me to have people who dig what I do and appreciate it on the level that you're all on in terms of your love of the game's history - it just drives me to excel at what I do more than you could possibly imagine.

Anywho, over the past few months, I've been really trying to change the way Dean and I do business. For one thing, we've been doing our best to navigate the murky waters of making and selling reproductions (which continues to be quite the task on every level). I've given him the green light in terms of doing so, but only if they're done right. And by 'done right,' I mean in a way that doesn't at all seem cheesy. He's been trying to get in touch with lots of folks to discuss the different opportunities we may have, so if nothing else, wheels are in motion. They're moving slowly, but again, they're in motion.

The recent hope was that we can start to offer artworks, be they originals or not, at multiple price points. Additionally, we've trying to make my paintings as easy to obtain as possible, be it through redesigning stuff on my website to streamline the process, or just looking for alternate ways of reaching a wider audience. With that in mind, I'm happy to say that for the foreseeable future, I'm going to be offering my color studies for sale on eBay.

I know I posted about them a while back, but for those of you who haven't seen that entry, or might not know what those are, here's that info again. The color studies are part of the preparatory work that I do for most of my larger portrait paintings. They're pretty small at 5" x 7", and are done on linen mounted to board. In essence, they're a way for me to 'draft' out a work before I want to make my jump to starting a final canvas. These studies end up being a bit more painterly and expressionistic than my finished works, but in the faces, that's really where the majority of the real detail work goes.

Here are a few examples:









Now, all of these were sold over the past few months, but I do have a few left (which I listed on eBay last weekend). So, right now, if you're looking for the least expensive option in owning one of my original paintings, these are probably for you. From now on, I'll be placing them on eBay as I finish each one, so if that prospect interests ya, check back often.

My eBay ID is just my name: graigkreindler. And the page to see everything I'm selling: http://www.ebay.com/sch/graigkreindl...p2047675.l2562

If any of you have any questions, feel free to ask away! Otherwise, I'm back to the easel - I got plenty to catch up with (I'm looking at you Brian, Phil and Ben).

Graig

[GKreindler]

Hey all,

It's been a busy couple of months, as I've been trying to move stuff out of the studio that's been sitting around for a bit. Unfortunately, there's still a lot left to go. Well, it's not unfortunate that I have work to do, but it's unfortunate that people have been waiting as long as they have. Le sigh.

Anywho, here's what I've completed recently, including John's raffle painting:


Samuel Winslow, 1885, 16" x 28"


Joe Jackson, 1911, 18" x 22"


Jim Thorpe. April 10, 1913, 20" x 28"


Hank Aaron, 1955-6, 16" x 24"

The Samuel Winslow was a lot of fun. First off, for those of you unfamiliar with him, he was best known as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts. However, Winslow also happened to be the team captain of the Harvard baseball club, and according to his good friend Ernest Thayer, the ORIGINAL inspiration for Casey at the Bat.

The image itself was a lot of fun to work with. Outside of the fact that I was thrilled to work on a painting of the actual inspiration for the great figure, I was also super stoked to have the image be from a studio shot. The biggest challenge for me was in the background of the piece, that landscape, which in this case, was just a background used in a studio setting. I imagined that it was just a fully painted screen of some sort. I wasn't even sure that it would have been in color, as an artist may have just created something like that using a grisaille (monochromatically). But I figured that the quality of that painting (or from what I could tell from the black and white cabinet) didn't seem to match what a grisaille traditionally looks like, so I opted for color. The challenge really laid in reminding myself that it was just a backdrop, and the color of it wouldn't be reflected in Sam himself, as it would normally if he was in the environment. Hopefully it manages to sit back enough in the final. And not for nothing, but Winslow looks like a bad@$$.

With Jackson, the thing that immediately attracted me to the image that the client picked was that shape of the grandstand. It's REALLY awkward, and almost seems like it's chopping Joe's head off. Pictorially, it's a no-no, and I should have nixed it. But there was something in the way some of the other shapes and angles in the image worked with it that I just couldn't get away from. And, something about his head behind clocked off by that shape held a nice metaphor in place, I thought. Granted, I could be completely wrong in all of this, but either way, I LOVED it.

The Thorpe was also a lot of fun, which again had a lot to do with the environment around him. The image came from 1913, and I'm pretty sure it was the first game of the season for the Giants. So, the weather that day was pretty frigid apparently, and though sunny in the morning, by the time the players took the field for BP and the crowd wandered into the ballpark, it had become terribly overcast. I kind of imagined the light being pretty silvery, which can be the case on a cold April day. So that had to reflect not only in the depiction of the stands, but also on Thorpe himself. The purple of his hat and 'NY' were cool touches that had to be adjusted for the occasion.

If anyone has any thoughts, questions, comments or critiques, I'd certainly love to hear them.

Hope ya dig these four!

Graig

[TimCarrollArt]

All are amazing, Graig. And that backdrop? Well done, sir......well done!

Tim

[whitehse]

Are you freaking kidding me?

The four paintings you posted today might be the best collective lot you have ever posted at one time. That Winslow is right up there with your Matty and the Aaron turned out far far greater than I ever expected it to.

I have said it before and will say it again.....you sir, have an incredible talent.