Fine Art Pet portrait paintings by Marcelo Rocha

Marcelo Rocha Oil Painter Fine Art, Specifically Pet Portrait Oil Paintings

I’ve worked most of my life with IT. I am an MBA in strategic technology management and I have several certifications in the area, but since I started painting as a hobby, it has taken such a large proportion in my life to the point that I decided to leave a great job and salary to dedicate myself to fine arts.

In Brazil where I was born I studied oil painting and drawing at Pleinair Studios, one of the best known art schools in Brazil. I even moved to another country because of this passion, I left Brazil and moved to New York to study at The Art Students League of New York, perhaps the oldest and most traditional art school in the USA. Names such as Norman Rockwell, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko among others passed through there. I enrolled in a 4-year Certification Program with a workload of approximately 28 hours per week. My main subject was painting and my secondary subject was drawing. Every morning I had a painting class and twice a week in the afternoon I had a drawing class. All classes at The Art Students League are live models which add a lot to learning. My teachers there were Gregg Kreutz for painting and John Varianno for drawing. Especially drawing classes at The Art Students League of New York has something so special that it’s hard to say. Not only because it is a drawing room with more than 100 years, but in drawing the live models are always naked and in addition to improving my drawing enormously, I learned to observe the anatomical aspects of the human body and realize how beautiful it is.

The school is very close to Central Park so on the days when I had drawing class in the afternoon, I went to Central Park to have my lunch before starting drawing class. I also frequented Central Park a lot to do Plein air paintings. Plein air is a French word that means “outdoors” and what it actually means when we do a painting outdoors, using the landscape itself as a reference. I love doing it in New York. I did numerous paintings in Central Park, I painted “Le Carrousel” in Bryand Park, I painted the Lions in the New York Public Library among many other references in the city, but for Plein Air painting Central Park has always been my favorite place. It’s also important to highlight how the American is friendly with whoever is painting, always curious to understand what technique I’m using, always asking “Is it oil or acrylic?” and always praising and motivating us to continue painting.

Today my main subjects are custom pet portrait painting, eventually of people too and I work with commissions mainly for the USA but I have paintings in the UK, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Holland among others. My website is www.marcelorocha.art and my Instagram @artrocha.

Realistic pet portrait by Marcelo Rocha Oil Painter Giove the Great Dane – 12×16″ Oil Painting.