LIGHT ARISES IN THE DARKNESS:
A Journal of Comfort, Encouragement, and Inspiration
It’s for the Children
Last weekend, I had a wonderful opportunity to be able to do live portrait sketches at the United Special Sportsman Alliance Summerfest Event held in Pittsville, WI. This was kind of a summer camp for children with special needs, offering them various outdoor activities like archery, fishing, kayaking, paddleboats, horseback riding, and crafts. And every event was free. Many vendors came from different places to volunteer their time and resources to be a blessing to hundreds of disabled and special needs children. This was a place where they felt welcomed, special, and not alone. So I set up my tent Friday morning, and started sketching portraits around 9am. Instead of doing the sketches on a first come first served basis like I usually do, most of the sketches were by appointment. This allowed the people to go and enjoy the day, and then come back at time they were scheduled. I must have sketched about 50 faces between Friday and Saturday morning, each one taking about 10-15 minutes. One portrait that stood out in my mind was of a African American boy, about 14, with down’s syndrome. Although mostly non-verbal, he exuded charm. He would lift his eyebrows up and down and wink at me, in a completely innocent yet seemingly flirtatious way. Since the portraits were set up mainly by appointment, people that walked by and wanted one done had to be fit in the schedule. There was a girl who would not be deterred. She kept coming back several times, even though I was busy with the appointment sketches, that when I had the smallest window... read more
Why I Like Drawing Portraits Live
When you watch a talk show or hear a speech, do you like it better live or rehearsed? Just think about that for a moment. Your and my political opinions aside, there is a reason why a certain candidate for president has such a large following. People like spontaneity. It can be dangerous sometimes, but it has a way of reaching, relating to people that something planned and rehearsed cannot. Last Saturday, I signed up to share a tent with three fellow artists at Artisan Forge Studios at the Artist’s Market held in Phoenix Park, here in Eau Claire. It was an absolutely beautiful day–sunny, not too hot, with a gentle breeze. A perfect day for doing drawing live portraits. We got set up at around 7 am, and things were slow for the first couple hours. Then, around 9 am, things really took off. The market was starting to get busier with more people passing by every minute. I asked one my fellow artists to sit for me and I did a free portrait of him to “prime the pump.” That portrait broke the ice and soon enough I had a small line of people interested. I ended the day having done several portraits and the last drawing was 4 faces on one paper! Here’s why I love doing live pencil portraits (though I still like drawing from photos too.) 1. It keeps your drawing skills fresh. Capturing a person’s likeness in about 10-15 minutes is not easy, especially when they move around. (I often find that children hold still better than some adults do!) In addition, the challenge... read more
Tribute to the Army Medic: 3-D Mural
This is going to be a much shorter post than usual. I’d like to share a mural I did back in 2004 at Kenner Clinic Army Hospital in Ft. Lee, VA, with a successful Florida muralist, Bob Jenny. I completed this mural mostly by myself, while he was working on other murals. At that time, he was suffering from cancer and with his health rapidly deteriorating, I ended finishing all the murals within the hospital. In the spirit of Independence Day, The mural I’m showing is a tribute to our veterans who have served so well in defending out freedoms. Part of the army staff that is sometimes not remembered as much is the army medic. They suffered the same things on the combat field as the rest of the army, but their main purpose was administering medical care on the combat field and saving lives of fallen comrades. Here a mural I did showing the army medic helping a wounded soldier with compassion and disciplined treatment of his wounds. The mural is meant to look like a three-dimensional bronze sculpture set within a marble alcove. This “trompe-l’oeil” (French for “fool the eye”) technique is challenging to pull off convincingly, but very rewarding to look at when you are done with it. The entire mural, including the marble blocks, were painted on a flat wall. In addition to that, knowing that the veterans who come into the hospital for routine checkups and sometimes life-threatening diseases, possibly could receive some encouragement from the murals Bob and I did, really made the project worthwhile. These veterans felt in many... read more
New Art and How to Stay Together When It’s Tough
If you’ve read my blog for a while, you know that I often use my works of art as a conversation piece. The art becomes an avenue of dialogue, and sometimes the conversation diverges off the path of the original idea conveyed in the work, just like you may compliment your friend on their tasteful decor, and then moments later you segue into talking about how you and your best friend met. I think this is what will happen with today’s post. I hope you don’t mind. 🙂 I recently got back from a wonderful vacation in Michigan visiting friends over in the Detroit area, and then had a beautiful, scenic drive through the U.P. We stayed overnight in Escanaba, and in the morning our kids played at a vacant and refreshing beach. With this time away from the studio, I came back refreshed, but had to stoke the coals a bit to get the productive artist in me going again after a week of inactivity! Monday afternoon, some classmates from high school made the two-hour drive from Merrill, WI to Eau Claire to pick up this wedding portrait I did for them. I love how it turned out, and as I told them, it all starts with an excellent photo to work from. The pose is natural and the they are a good looking couple. This was a candid shot taken right before the grand march, and perfectly captures the overflowing joy of the celebration of their new life together. Here is a photo of them in front of the painting. Nearly twenty years and still going... read more
New Artwork and Building Bridges Part 2
A few weeks ago, I posted on a new painting I completed recently, a 48″ x 72″ black-and-white portrait of a family from the Twin Cities. It was the largest portrait I have ever been commissioned to do, and arguable the most unique. There’s more about the idea and how the portrait came to be, here. I’ll jump in where I left off on the last post. The portrait took nearly 200 hours to complete, from the time taken to build the sizable canvas stretcher frame to the last dab of paint. I underestimated the challenge of painting in monochromatic. Although it is easier to do a painting this way than full-blown color, it presented a few difficulties that I didn’t foresee, at least to the extent that surfaced in this work. You would think that to do a black and white painting that you would simply just use black and white paint and mix various amounts to arrive at the grey tones in between. It didn’t work that way for me. I typically paint with a translucent glazing technique that allows light to reflect through the canvas and back to your eye through the layers of paint, like the Old Masters, giving the final painting a vibrance that is hard to capture with opaque paint alone. So, when you mix black with the clear acrylic medium, even mixed with some white, and apply it to the canvas, the resulting color is not slate grey, but a brownish grey, because the light shining through the canvas warms up the color. Then, when certain areas become more opaque than... read more
About Me
Hi, I’m Matt Philleo. I create artwork to comfort, encourage, and inspire. For those who are discouraged, brokenhearted and experiencing loss, my artwork has special meaning, often by guiding them to the One who can bring true peace and lasting joy.
I’ve been doing art on commission and exhibition on a part-time basis since 1991, and exclusively full-time since 2013. Currently, I live in Eau Claire, WI with my wife and three children.
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