New member from Seattle
 

I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Aaron Coberly I am 35 and have been painting from life for about 6 years now. I organize a life drawing session in downtown Seattle every Saturday morning and Monday evening. I am self taught and have reached the point that I am at now by going to sessions, reading books and scouring the internet. I was very happy when I came across this Forum there is a lot of great information here.

Here are a few examples of my work. The 2 male portraits were painted from life during 2- 3 hour sessions. The painting of Cathleen in the pink hat was finished during a 3 hour session.

I hope you enjoy

Aaron,
Welcome to the forum. Please participate a lot here, because I want to learn from you.
You have your own personal, very painterly style, but it looks like you have extracted the best from the masters. Cathleen could be by Zorn.

Welcome Aaron.

Your paintings are great! Loved them.

Self-taught - wow! You are going about this in the right way and you have lots of energy in your paint handling with good draftsmanship skills as well. I really enjoy these, so keep posting, please. :)

Love your work! Welcome.

They are sensitive and imaginitively designed.

I went to the Boston Museum School, learned nothing. I haunted libraries and museums to teach myself. This was pre-internet. It is a much easier now to get information.

Again, an enthusiastic welcome.

Hi Aaron, welcome! Wow, these are great paintings! I feel a certain kinship since I also taught myself to paint. I think the term "self-taught" is sometimes misunderstood because people take it to mean you have lived in an ivory tower and learned to paint somehow without ever absorbing information from other artists. But in fact, as you pointed out, it is quite the opposite.

I noticed that you are a concept artist for a computer gaming company (did I get that right?) and this interests me because my son has been talking about entering the world of computer game design in some capacity. He is quite a good artist and also enjoys composing music, so I'm not sure which direction he will go, but he's always pointing out the amazingly realistic animation (complete with 3-d moving light and shadows and reflections, etc., and I have to say it is intriguing, and quite an advance from the visuals from the games of 10 years ago.

That is great that you have organized life drawing sessions. It is clear that you are not content to sit still.

Just beautiful! Welcome.

Welcome to the forum. Nice work.

Your paintings are really great. very impressive.
Welcome, I am quite new here too.

Welcome, Aaron!
You seem to have a lot of fun in your life sessions! Do you decide yourself the pose and the costume of the models? The result is very lively and sensitive.