Tuesday, November 25, 2008
ArtPact #76 - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman?
These days, my sister is going through our parents apartment in Jerusalem (No, not New Jerusalem, OH... the original Jerusalem. Like, the real one).
The long process of sorting through everything, keeping what needs to be cherished and saying goodbye to the rest. It's highly emotional, and a big part of letting go.
Being here, I only participate over the phone and emails. . .
(to continue reading, click here)
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Labels: Art, ArtPact, Damn Technology, Family, It's All About Me
Thursday, November 20, 2008
ArtPact #75 - If You Can't Win Them, Draw Their Limbs
Bill of the OnPainting blog has left a comment on my previous post, implying that I am yet to learn how to do some real whining. That still hurts.
Badly.
And yet, always open to constructive criticism, I took it to my attention, and so today in class I decided to change my tactics. . .
(to continue reading, click here)
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Labels: Art, ArtPact, Wonders of The JohnnyB
Monday, November 17, 2008
ArtPact #74 - More Gazing
This is becoming frightfully repetitive, those models who pierce the classroom space with their bored eyes.
I am not complaining. Not really.
Not sure what I'd do if I had to sit in the same pose for 3 hours, but for us class takers it kills inspiration, again and again.
Or does it? . . .
(to continue reading, click here)
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Wednesday, November 12, 2008
ArtPact #73 - Beyond Sad Women
MembieK recently mentioned to me, yet again, how she and I seem to be specializing in painting sad women. Somehow, somewhy, we do that. When you step into an exhibit that has our work, it's very easy to find our paintings in it. Just look for paintings of gloomy eyed females and - bingo! You can't go wrong.
So, I have decided to go beyond that. No more sad women. Many people don't like to look at them, and we do, after all, paint for the people, no? (hell no, but that's for another post).
Time to go for greener and much happier pastures, time to go beyond.
I went for a reference photo I took of Crow, an incredible model we had in the figure class 3 (or 4?) weeks ago.
When he stepped in, I couldn't believe my eyes!He was the model every figurative painter who's after character dreams of: tall, dark and handsome, with dreadlocks and tons of personality.
He wore an outfit of Uncle Sam, with a stars'n'stripes suit and a very tall Uncle-Samish hat. He took wonderful poses, one with a guitar, one with a bongo drum; he told bar jokes and played the instruments while modeling in order to not get bored, and from time to time he pointed at someone and said "I want YOU" (did I mention Uncle Sam?) and was ecstatically happy with himself. Some people absolutely resented the fact that he moved a bit (right, Val?... :-) but I was beaming with joy!
And... and... ah, tears of gratitude flood my eyes... he announced "If any of you wanna take photos, fell free". Yup, at that moment I pretty much stopped painting and went into a frantic paparazzi mode. It's not every day that you get such an opportunity to take photos of someone who doesn't mind and doesn't try to over-pose, and looks sooooooooooooooooooooooo cool!
I haven't posted the 3 images I did of him in class (yet!), but last night, as the clock hit midnight and Suburbia was turning into a pumpkin, I decided that I just have to give it a try at home, working from one of the reference photos I took.
Now, in the photo, he was kinda falling asleep, looking apathetic, indifferent at best.
When I was done painting him, I realized that I have indeed went beyond painting sad women.
I have moved on to disappointed men!
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Friday, November 07, 2008
ArtPact #72 - Another Gaze
Figure class again.
One endless pose, yet again, like last week.
This time, the teacher wanted us to go for the portrait rather than the whole figure. Yes, I know what y'all are thinking. Indeed, I've been doing mostly portraits the whole time, but that was just me and a couple of others in class. Needless to say, because he told us to do a portrait, MembieM (who always, ALWAYS does stunning portraits) cheerfully went for a full-figure. I filed a complaint to her that being the rebel has always been my job, but she just laughed joyously and proceeded to capture the whole model - 'coz MembieM is a free spirit. Ain't nobody tellin' her what to paint.Now, as much as I wanted to do the figure (and thus keep my rebellious reputation), I simply couldn't. The model (whose name, so I was told, was Paula) was wearing a beige sweatshirt and jeans, which is as boring as it gets. To add to it, she sat a chair and acted like... like... her portrait is being drawn or somethin'.
You know those formal portraits you see in galleries, of uberly blank-gazing people? Yup - that was the expression.
But - it is, after all, class. And we came there to render, so renderin' I went.
I sat next to MembieM and gave it a try. I did one on smooth Bristol surface, and then another one on watercolor paper. The second one actually turned out quite nice (but that's shall be shown in the sequel of this post, sometime next week).
Towards the the end, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to loosen up and get some fresh air into my soul, so I went for some (very) quick sketches of the artists around me. I managed to capture Val and Al at work. Now, THAT was fun! The model looked at me kinda nasty, but hey - she's had 2.5 hours of my undivided attention. That's more than enough, I'd say.
I no longer have these two sketches in my possession, as I gave them to their unsuspecting subjects(*). It was the fair thing to do. Glad I took photos, though.
(*) I'm guessing it would have looked much more professional to write "these two sketches are no longer in my possession, as they are collected". Ah well. Next time.
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Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Art Pact #71 - You Can Leave Your Hat On
Last week's figure class was with the dreaded 3-hour pose.
Why dreaded? because - as opposed to short poses - a long pose pretty much guarantees that the model will go for the most comfortable position s/he can assume.
That ultimately means no creative poses, no spontaneity, no fun gestures. They just gloomily gaze into space, looking stiff, frozen-faced and formal, thus not very inspiring.
And so, the model (named Ogden) sat in a chair.
For three hours; that translates into many 20 minutes sessions with 5-minute breaks in between. Yup, same damn pose!
But - he had a hat on. And he had nice lighting on his face, so I went for a portrait.
I have to say, the more portraits I do, the more I realize that I am getting worse in the non-portrait parts, as in backgrounds and anything that is not a face.
Hmm... something to work on.
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I Think He Can
Found this on Sickipedia:
. . . . I don't see why everyone says Barak Obama is such an advocate for change.
. . . . His 'Yes We Can' motto was being used years ago by Bob the Builder...
Well, he sure has a huge amount of work cut out for him, with so much mess to clean up. Hope springs enternal.
Labels: Creativity of Others, Culture, Damn Technology, Meta Bloggin'
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
History in the Making
OK, so I admit I was skeptical. And I was one of them cynics who said it wouldn't happen, for so many reasons.
Well - I don't remember when I was so happy to be wrong!
Labels: Acculturation, Culture, Major Achievements, Making a Difference, Meta Bloggin', People, Wow
