Jonathan Enck Graphics

It is a somewhat curious thing to me to see how the art that I’m creating now bears little resemblance to the art that I may have been expected to create even shortly after graduation. To date I’ve gotten two commissions for “mechanical” paintings. By this I mean that the subjects for the paintings were both of a mechanical nature. The first was a “portrait” of a friend’s Mustang Cobra, and the one that currently rests on my easel is primarily of a B-17 Flying Fortress, soon to include a few P-47 Thunderbolt fighters too. It is an interesting proposal for me as the majority of my painting experience has been with subjects of a more organic form. What intrigues me personally is the fact that I enjoy most painting subjects with a more organic nature.

I do think that I have been growing because of the two commissions. I’ve been forced to consider the aesthetics of somebody else’s work accurately because these machines are well known. It is a challenge to do justice to the machines, the modifications to the Mustang and to the history of the B-17 and the men that flew them. I find that exciting and I do my best to live up to the expectations for the pieces while still remaining true to my own visions. Then there is another commission that I haven’t begun yet, due to time constraints on the B-17 that make it a priority. This one will be mainly text with relatively simple illustrations. An even greater break from the work that I would say I’m known for, but there in lies the chance to expand my repertoire and become more than just a one trick pony.

Hopefully soon I’ll be able to post more work. I managed to save a number of my negatives in a digital format. And for some of them it looks like none too soon. Apparently I didn’t master fixing my negatives until I got into Photo 2. While not all 200 plus will make the grade for this site, I will hopefully be able to share them in the relatively near future. I’m also hoping to be able to begin making digital art soon, and perhaps soon I won’t be just making promises about all this. That’s life sometimes though.

The Bravo Network has begun a program called “Work of Art”. It is yet another competition between professionals/ amateurs in a given field. It’s format is not that dissimilar to either Project Runway or Top Chef. I have been impressed by the tests of skill and dedication that Top Chef has displayed in its run of seasons. While I still enjoy the episodes from Top Chef’s season one to most of the other seasons, the spirit of competition and the push to expand or reveal new talent in the culinary field is energizing.

When I saw the ads for Work of Art I was skeptical of it’s ability to have staying power. This is partly because of the fairly universal independent streak present in artists. It also depends on whether the participants showcase the better sides of artistic vision or as a good number of artists do, throw out flimsy excuses and claim that their work isn’t bound by the structure of something like the assignments that the show uses.

The premier show had a great example of the behavior I’m talking about (and loathe). The contestants were paired up and told to do portraits of their partner. The idea being marrying your style to portray not only the person’s form, but also to say something about who they are as a person. One of the artists, Nao, created an extremely minimalist painting attempting to track the somewhat fevered movements of Miles, her partner, as he worked on his piece. When the critics begin doing what they do, she says, “I’m not responsible for how you perceive my work.” In other words, “No matter what critique you have of me it doesn’t stick to this piece because that is just an opinion.” While there are some conceptual artists out there who can pull off this sort of attitude, they are the rare few. Much like Jackson Pollack is really the only true genius of paint spatter as art form. Since he pioneered the idea, and did have an incredible amount of mental processes that into pursuing this form of painting, he really owned the idea. It would be foolish to say that absolutely no one will ever successfully create a splatter painting, yet it is also true that it will take a very diligent mind to create something that isn’t either a copy of his idea but rather has become it’s own process.

Incidentally the artist Nao, is one of the very common superbly egotistical artists. In fact in her introductory bit she already claims she’s won and that there is no one in the competition that can compare to her. I understand that this really is a common malady among artists, in fact I could name a few individuals in my own experience who fall victim to this. What I have been impressed with is the breadth of personality that the show has brought together for the competition. I look forward to seeing the projects presented each week and how the artists respond to them.

After a 3 year absence from editing anything at all on this site, I will attempt in the near future to begin to make this a far more regularly updated and useful place to visit to see my work. In the time since I last did anything on this site, much has changed for me. For instance I graduated from college, sold my first painting, began learning a new trade, and I have  a commission for the biggest piece I have ever attempted to date. In the coming weeks and months I will seek to have a marked increase in my presence here, and possibly the launch of another website.

I find myself needing to select newer work to showcase as I fully intend to leave this as my online art portfolio and numerous pieces that are on here need to be either altered again, or removed altogether. There is also a great deal of new work and work that simply did not make it onto this site while I was originally creating the web page.  Hopefully soon I can share these successes.

This is a digital painting I’ve been working on while waiting on things to render during my 3D Character Design class. It was inspired by a classmate who was working on his Computer Illustration monster. though his doesn’t look like this. It was still a fun assignment for my tired mind to work on. So I decided that my monster would be painted in a similar fashion to the old court paintings. Like the painting Louis the XVI the Sun King. Clearly this has a while to go before it is finished.

This past weekend was the artist reception for my senior show. I found it to be a singularly interesting experience. Though there were three other artist that were showing with me, the people that came to see me definitely made me feel special. Considering that my paintings had to compete with several animations I think it might be a testament to my skill that there were as many people that commented about my work. Nearly everyone who told me their favorite chose my painting I call “Young Lovers”. (more…)

That’s right folks, I’m a bit frustrated with one of my professors right now. This individual is sincere and I suppose they are a good person, but I am really frustrated at the “teaching” that is going on in class. I’m fed up with a number of the approaches taken in class. For instance it was brought up in class, as we are discussing modern (i.e. 1900-present) works, this very afternoon about the violent imagery as well as the presence of nudity. We are skipping as much of this as we can get away with because this idividual is disturbed by these images. For instance the only reason we looked at Matisse’s “The Joy of Life” is apparently because it is the only Fauvist painting in the book we are using. I’m sorry but that is not a valid point for a 300 level course. (more…)

This last week has been one heck of a stressful week. Pretty much from last Sunday night until now, and even a little bit more on when I get up again, I’ve been going around full throttle. In fact the painting of my sister which is the final piece for my senior project went from little more than blocked in to fully realized in this week. Basically I’ve been registering about 8- 10 hours of work on something for the show every day this week. Which is a bit of a shock to the system of working about 3-5 hours plus about the same amount for my other classes. Which over all I still had to work on this week on top of finishing up. But fortunately after this week there are going to fewer things that really get me horribly worked up. Much like spring semester of my sophomore year when I took 4 studio classes, I’ve been through about the toughest things that you can given my circumstances and I’m still alive and talking about it.

In web site news I’ve gotten a few kinks worked out and most of my stuff is showing in Lightbox. I will definitely have more of my work up and running by the end of the week. Thank you all for your patience, and I look forward to being able to show you more stuff and hearing what you have to say about it. Now I’m off to take a quick sleep before I have to do more things, stay well.

The artist reception for the annual Huntington University Student Show was last Saturday. I managed to get two pieces in this year. Given the time constraints I had I’m pretty satisfied. I hadn’t planned on entering this year given that in just a matter of weeks I’ll be installing my senior project. However Professor Coffman twisted my arm enough and I decided to enter a couple of things. I spent the rest of that evening scrambling to scan in negatives from Photo 2 to get printed off. I entered 3 photos and an illustration I did of a Roman Centurion. Of those four the Roman Centurion and a photo of Greg (the same one who is helping build this site) and his wife actually made it into the show.

As always my stuff failed to garner any actual awards but at least I can wrap myself up in the pride of being in the show. It all comes down to the fact that my art isn’t immediately pretty. It usually needs some time of careful observation to understand how brilliant it really is. For instance my Centurion was painted in gouache (one of my favorite painting media by the way) and is quite detailed even though it is a rather small painting. But if you just skim by it you’ll likely miss the level of detail that I added, with a fine tipped brush rather than colored pencil. I should stop whining about my life and let you resume yours.

Alright here are a few of the exploratory sketches I did for one of my senior project paintings. These are for reference on my father. Each one was based on photos from our 2006 Christmas. They don’t actually have direct bearing on what wound up in the painting. But as they are just exploratory that’s not a huge surprise. So without building them up any more here they are.

That’s right thanks to Greg Wardwell I know have this most excellent design for this website. Now it’s up to me to get some good content so that this site doesn’t look like such a waste of his talent. Right now I’m going shamelessly plug his site . Thank you so much for your work Greg.