Scott Kennedy

The face and hair is pretty much done.  I have decided to change the flower and its angle and need to get another live one to look at as the old is dried up and in the trash. I have worked to soften up some of the edges to make her more “alive”. It is fun now to move on to other areas of the painting and hopefully it will flow quickly.

Detail from new painting in progress

I have started a new figurative piece for the “Windows” series.  It is a rather large piece that the entire figure will be in.  She will be sitting in the window holding a love letter. Her face is about done. The flower needs more work and hair more touch up (softening etc).

Our neighbor, Kim, has posed for this piece. She is a model, a great subject and was helpful in giving me the type of pose I wanted. Her family and ours have become good friends. This painting will go in an old arched window frame with shutters that I ran across at an architectural antiques dealer in New Mexico. I will be posting my progress on this painting in the future…

image size 14.5" x 23.5"

I’m happy with this new painting of my daughter, Natalie. The background tapestry is one that we bought in Beliz from a woman whose family hand makes them. Originally I did not have the flower in her hair. One day I was struggling a little with it and Natalie fleetingly suggested I put a flower in her hair to finish it off… she was right, I really like the final touch it puts on the piece.

frame size: 5'6" h x 2'10" w

I just finished the final coat of varnish on this piece and recieved the hand crafted frame from Stafford Framemakers.  Troy Stafford did an exquisite job on this frame. He is one of the finest framemakers in the US and makes handcrafted frames for museums and top collectors. The painting is a rather large piece, almost as tall as me, and with the frame has a great deal of depth and drama.

This piece has been a long time in the making (two years) and has gone through several stages of reworking.  I like its simplicity now and the strong verticle shape lends itself to emphasizing that the woman is in prayer.  It has a lot of symbolism with the sunrise doubling as a halo as well as the morning star that can be seen through the branches.  It was a difficult piece as I did not have the figure in light with shadows… so, to give her depth, I ended up placing her against a brighter background.

image size 18 3/4" x 34 3/4"

Maybe its odd, after 30 plus years as an artist, but for the first time I feel a true sense of peace about my current and upcoming works.  I’ve wandered with my creativity for so long …experamenting with a multitude of subjects and media, never seeming truly ”comfortable” with what I was doing.  How refreshing it is to have the opportunity to wake up most mornings eager to see what the day’s efforts bring about …and hopefully what I am able to lay down on the canvas will be a visual pleasure to experience.

The Art Renewal 2009 Salon Catalog will be available soon

The Art Renewal Center selected Scotts painting “A Quiet Thought” of one of the worlds top figurative paintings in 2009 and will be included in their full color ARC Catalog due to come out this Fall.  If interested you can visit their website at http://www.artrenewal.org to reserve a copy.

"Temptation" image size 11" x 14"

This sketch was an experamental endeavor to explore a more complicated image.  I wanted to do a beautiful piece with a dark side.  There is much to explore in the piece with a lot of story in the imagery on several levels. I think it would be a striking painting to do… maybe some day…