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This painting is my first miniature. The size is 7” x 5”. This is Stan Bearpaw. Stan is a friend and neighbor from Cody, WY. He is a full-blooded Cherokee and he is the great, great, great nephew of the famous Indian Outlaw, Ned Christie.
This painting is traditional oils on Realgesso Masonite. Here is version one. On day one, I painted in the sky background.
This is day two. I have roughed in the feathers and hair on his head dress, along with the upper part of his face.
This is the final version.
Thanks for riding along. Stay tuned, there are many more of my works in progress to come. Denny |
Archive for the ‘Works In Progress’ Category
Tuesday, May 7th, 2013
Tuesday, April 16th, 2013
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This is Danny Reyes from the Cheyenne Nation.
This painting is traditional oils on Ampersand Gessobord Masonite. The finished size is 11″ x 14″. Here is version one. On day one, I painted in all the dark areas.
This is day two. I have laid in the base coat for the upper head feathers.
Day three. Here I painted the base coat on his face.
Day four. I spent the entire day roughing in his porcupine quill collar/chest plate and ear rings plus I added more detail to his face.
This is the final version. I finished detailing out his upper feathers, painted in David’s collar feathers and lastly, I signed it. I wanted to point out something in this painting that I didn’t notice until after I was about half way through the painting. If you look closely, check out the gold shape on David’s face. It is very cleverly painted to represent a crescent moon using his actual eye and nose, giving us the title that Andrew and I came up with, Cheyenne Moon.
Here are two close-ups of my final version to show all the detail.
Thanks for riding along. Stay tuned, there are many more of my works in progress to come. Denny |
Thursday, September 27th, 2012
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Hardcore Steeler fans know him as the longtime Steelers scout with the five Super Bowl rings or the former Courier sports writer, local promoter, collegiate basketball star. For certain, he was celebrated locally for many things, a jack of many trades. But when he constructed a bridge between the Steelers and the black colleges that produced such players as John Stallworth, Mel Blount and Donnie Shell, this Bill Nunn became notable simply in one respect: “Super Scout!”
This painting is traditional oils on Ampersand Gessobord Masonite. The finished size is 13″ x 16″. Here is day one. I went at this painting a little different. I laid in the darkest areas in first and left them dry.
This is day two. Here I have added in the base flesh tones on his face.
Day three. I finished detailing his face. I have added the base flesh tones on his hands and roughed in his 1979 Super Bowl ring.
Day four. I spent the entire day finishing his hands, ring and laid in the background color.
This is day five. I roughed in the base coat on his shirt.
Here is the final. I finished detailing the cloth detail on Bill’s shirt and finally signed it.
This is a photograph that my wife Leigh took of Bill Nunn, myself and Hall of Famer, Jack Butler. This was taken in Art Rooney, Jr’s owners box during a Steeler home game.
The main reason for doing this painting was to have a limited edition collector card made for Mr. Rooney. Here is that card that I designed.
Thanks for riding along everyone. There are many more of my works-in-progress to come. Go Steelers! Denny |
Wednesday, July 4th, 2012
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This is my very close friend here in Cody. His name is Greg Koschtial. Leigh and I met him in 2004 when he was outbid on my pistol piece that was up for auction at the Buffalo Bill History Center. The next day, we came into his store and I gave him a signed print I had. A few weeks later, a beautiful sterling silver, handmade bison pin with a 22ct. gold horn arrived in my mailbox. Greg is a master craftsman jeweler.
We soon became really good friends after that. Just before we moved here in 2007, Greg lost his left leg in a terrible motorcycle accident. He was riding near Jackson Hole, WY with a friend, and a friend of his friend. Greg spotted a large bull bison near the road and he pulled off on the berm to wait until the others caught up. The friend of a friend, wasn’t paying attention because he was standing up on his bike taking pictures and he didn’t see Greg. He slammed into his fiberglass bags on Greg’s Honda Gold Wing bike. They exploded into big pieces of sharp razors that cut his leg almost completely off. Thank God an EMS guy, and a nurse happened to be driving by. If it weren’t for them, he would have bled out in minutes. After a ton of surgeries, he now walks with a high-tech, U.S. Flag-decorated leg. He never, ever complains. I don’t know how he does it. This is a guy who survived Vietnam without a scratch and to come home years later to have this thing happen, it’s just heartbreaking! In 2010, a friend of Greg’s took several photos of him. He is Andrew Hogarth, a world famous photographer from Scotland. In my oil painting, to commemorate the incident and the “American Spirit” that he is, I painted a running herd of American bison reflected in his sunglasses. This painting is traditional oils on Ampersand Gessobord Masonite. The finished size is 14″ x 20″. Here is day one. I laid down a base coat for the American flag in the background.
This is day two. I have added more detail to the flag and laid down my base coat for Greg’s hat.
Day three. I finished detailing his hat. I also roughed in Greg’s face and his sunglasses with the bison herd reflections.
Day four. I spent the entire day finishing his face, roughing in his elk ivory necklace and his pistol.
This is day five of “An American Spirit.” The obvious addition is Greg’s chest area, his arm and hand where I was able to lay down a base coat. A few other things that I did was, I toned down the stars on the U.S. flag. I tighten up Greg’s gold necklace and elk tooth ivory pendant. I finished detailing his .45 Caliber Sig Sauer P220.
Here is the final! I smoothed out the flesh on his chest and painted in the hair. The last thing was to paint in the seams and stitches on the flag, and I finally sign it.
Here are two close-ups of my final version to show all the detail.
Thanks for riding along. Stay tuned, there are many more of my works in progress to come. Denny |
Thursday, March 8th, 2012
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This is Christina Tift. She is originally from Denmark. I met Christina and her husband, Jeff a few years back at the Cody, Wyoming Annual Horse Auction. They live in Sheridan, WY.
This painting is traditional oils on Ampersand Gessobord Masonite. The finished size is 16″ x 16″. Here is version one. On day one, I laid down a base coat for Christina’s Stetson, face, scarf, hair and leather collar.
This is day two. I have added more detail to her face and laid down my base coat for her wool coat and hands.
Day three. I finished detailing her upper body. I also added the leather trim on the top of her chaps and the decorative leather trim with the Conchos on the front of her jeans.
Day four. I spent the entire day roughing in the back of her saddle, saddle blanket and the horse’s rear.
Day five. Here I have laid in the base coat for her beautiful, weathered chaps.
Day six. I finished detailing her chaps and the back of her saddle. I was able to lay in the base coat for the front of her saddle.
Day seven. Here I laid in the horse’s neck, mane, reins and the front of the saddle blanket.
Here is the final! I painted in the background color and signed it.
Here are three close-ups of my final version to show all the detail.
Thanks for riding along. Stay tuned, there are many more of my works in progress to come. Denny |
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
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This fine young man is Native American, Jay Eagle from Bullhead, South Dakota. Jay is Hunkpapa/Oglala Lakota.
This painting is traditional oils on Ampersand Gessobord Masonite. The finished size is 16″ x 16″. Here is version one. On day one, I laid down a base coat for Jay’s face.
This is day two. I have added some detail to his face and laid down my base coat for Jay’s leather bonnet straps, neck and the top of his cloth necklace that holds a feathered pendent that is just out of the picture.
Day three. Here I added the cloth that is wrapped around his long hair braids. I also roughed in the feather cluster on his left shoulder.
Day four. I spent the entire day roughing in all the feathers in his bonnet and more detail to his face.
This is the final version. I finished detailing out his bonnet feathers, painted in the off-white background and lastly, I signed it.
Here are two close-ups of my final version to show all the detail.
Thanks for riding along. Stay tuned, there are many more of my works in progress to come. Denny |
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
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This is Pittsburgh Steeler All-Pro Quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger.
This painting is traditional oils on museum-grade Masonite. The finished size is 20″ x 16″. Here is version one. I laid down the base coat for his helmet shell. A lot more detail to come!
This is day two. After his helmet and cage dried, I was able to paint the melted snow droplets on the surfaces. I also roughed in Ben’s face and added the Duke Football.
Day three. Here I roughed in the upper part of his jersey, his long sleeved turtleneck shirt along with his leather gloves.
Day four. I spent the day roughing in the front of Ben’s jersey that is a nylon mesh. I also added the Pittsburgh Steeler and NFL Equipment patches to his jersey.
Day five. Today I added a lot of the creases and folds in his jersey. I also added the faint white dots which shows his white shoulder pads underneath. I painted in his number 7 to his jersey as well.
Day six. I spent the better part of this day painting in all the black mesh holes in Ben’s jersey front.
Day seven. Here, I laid in the background color.
This is the final version. As you can see from the detail, you can probably tell this took many hours to paint in all the flakes of snow.
Here are some close-ups of my final version to show all the detail.
Thanks for riding along. There are many more of my works in progress to come. Denny |
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
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This is Gage Skinner. Gage is a cultural anthropologist, widely-traveled former Peace Corp Volunteer, Foreign Service Officer (South America), State and National Park Service Ranger (Oklahoma and the Rocky Mountain Region), professor at Grossmont-Cuyamaca College District, Fur Trade historian, re-enactor and poet. Gage posed for me in 2006 at the Mountain Man Rendezvous in Pinedale, Wyoming.
This painting is traditional oils on “Realgesso” Masonite. The overall size is 11″ x 14″. This is day one.
Day two.
Day three.
Day four
Day five.
Day six.
Here is the final version of Gage’s portrait.
Here are two close-ups of my final version to show all the detail.
Thanks for riding along. Stay tuned, there are many more of my works in progress to come. Denny |
Sunday, August 28th, 2011
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This is Pittsburgh Steeler Defensive End, Brett Keisel from Greybull, Wyoming. I posed him where he hunts, up on the famous Carter Mountain Range. This is located right above where we live in Cody, Wyoming.
This painting is traditional oils on museum-grade Masonite. The finished size is 18″ x 24″. This is day one.
Day two.
Day three.
Day four.
Day five.
Day six.
Day seven.
Day eight.
Here is the final version of Brett’s portrait.
Here are four close-ups of my final version to show all the detail. One little side note, if you look at the last close-up, you will see a small pair of buffalo tracks after my signature. This is to commemorate Brett’s High School mascot and my company name.
I want to thank Brett for allowing me to paint his image. Also, I want to thank my wife Leigh, for taking her valuable time to photograph all the images of this painting. Thanks for riding along. Stay tuned, there are many more of my works in progress to come. Denny |
Saturday, June 18th, 2011
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This is Steeler Defensive End, Brett Keisel from Greybull, Wyoming.
This painting is traditional oils on museum-grade Masonite. The finished size is 16″ x 20″. Here is version one. I laid down the base coat for his helmet shell. A lot more detail to come!
This is day two. Today I roughed in Brett’s face.
Day three. Here I roughed his helmet cage. This is one of the toughest things that I paint. Next in line, are a rifle barrel and hands. I would rather paint ten faces than one helmet cage! The real challenge is to paint a true straight line. Any slight variations really jump off the board to my eye.
A good example of a real challenge for me was this piece titled Spirit, Horse, Hunter. A lot of the parts of Richard Ashburn’s flintlock had many straight lines to contend with. Then, throw in my other favorite thing to paint, hands!
Day four. After his helmet and cage dried, I was able to paint the melted snow droplets on the surfaces. If you look close, there are even a few hanging from his cage bars. I will add a few more on the bars in front of his chin piece once it dries. Speaking of his chin piece, I was able to rough it in along with his hair and beard. Once they dry I can finish detailing them.
Day five. I have finished detailing the cage, the chin piece and straps. As you see I have also roughed in his right shoulder, left shoulder and collar area. Once the collar area dries, I can finish painting in Brett’s long beard and hair that come down over that area. I will also finish detailing the snow lying on his shoulders.
Day six. I detailed his beard and hair to come down over the jersey. There will be more beard and hair detail to add again later. I was able to finish laying down the base coat for the rest of the jersey, the #99, NFL Equipment patch and the Steeler patch. Now comes the painstaking job of painting all the holes in the mesh of the jersey. I’m on the home stretch now!
The artist at work.
Day seven. I spent the better part of the day shading his right sleeve and painting the hundreds of mesh holes in the front of the jersey!
Here is a close-up of Brett’s jersey front.
Day eight. I wasn’t going to post this step but decided to show what took a lot longer to paint than I thought. I spent hours painting all the snowflakes on top of Brett. When he was photographed by Mike Fabus, the Steeler photographer, the falling snow takes on a lot of different sizes because of the camera’s depth of field. The snowsflakes closer to the lens appear bigger and out of focus compared to the snowflakes closer to Brett. This was tough to recreate but I think that I nailed it. Now, the background!
Here is the final version of Brett’s portrait. The obvious thing you see is the snowy background that I added but there are also a lot of little details that I added to Brett. You will see that I made his beard the correct length and reworked his hair over the grey background after it dried slightly. I detailed the #99 on the front of his jersey and added some detail to the small NFL Equipment and Steeler patches. Lastly, I signed it.
Here are two close-ups of my final version to show all the detail.
I want to thank Brett for allowing me to paint his image. Also, I want to thank my wife Leigh, for taking her valuable time to photograph all the images. Thanks to my good friend and fellow Pittsburgh artist, Larry Klukaszewski for getting me hooked back up with Brett. Thanks to my good friend and fellow artist, Scott Spillman for all his input. Thanks to all my friends on FaceBook, especially Brett’s family that posted such great comments. Lastly, I want to thank Art Rooney, Jr. and all his close friends and family for all their suggestions. If it wasn’t for Mr. Rooney, I wouldn’t have ever met Brett back in 2007 to make this all possible. Thanks for riding along. Stay tuned, there are many more of my works in progress to come. Denny |
