Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Grisaille sketches I

The word grisaille come from the French word "gris," or gray.  It largely refers to a painting done entirely in a monochromatic color scheme.  Gray is not necessarily the base color used.  Often one may use brown as I have below, in which the painting is technically referred to as brunaille. 
The purpose of a grisaille as a matter of sheer exercise may involve a number of things.  Mainly, it is an academic exercise that can serve two purposes:  1.  To test an artist's understanding of value.  2.  To test an artist's ability to manipulate paint.
Since it is monochromatic, it is not really an exercise in color.  Although, there may be a bit of color manipulation involved.  In a nutshell, the grisaille painting is an exercise in drawing with paint.  Rather than using charcoal or pencil, the medium is oil and a brush.  For the grisailles I've done, it was also an exercise in figure drawing and painting.  I wasn't necessarily concerned about finishing every intricate detail of the figure.  I was mostly interested in painting the poses and gestures, and the general idea of light and shadow shapes.

Female figure grisaille painted sketches
oil on canvas
24x18 inches
2012
So for this grisaille, I painted exclusively female figures.  Part 2 will be the male figure version.  Like this one, it will include a series of figures with one focusing on the torso, and another specifically on the portrait.  I may also incorporate the echo, or "ghost" image as in the top left figure on this painting.  Overall, it will be a similar exercise, and hopefully I can have it posted by next week.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Figure in Motion

Hi all,
Just a quick update.  Today I thought I would try my hand at drawing the figure in motion in the style of Robert Liberace, and working from his dvd "The Figure in Motion."  I didn't quite have the time to do everything he did, but this is the result of my attempt, and I'm looking forward to doing some more later on.

Figure in Motion
graphite
2012

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Portrait of a Lady

Hello all... here is the latest from the studio.  I was reminded of a painting I did last year as I was working on this one - the Infanta Margarita.  This had to do with the painting of the dress... and how messy and loosely I was able to paint it.  It was one of those things that Velázquez did when he painted fabric and clothing with elaborate designs that is visually mind-boggling.  Capturing a certain texture could somehow be done by throwing spontaneous, yet intentional goobers of paint on the canvas.  Just like that, it comes together and just makes sense.  So once again, I tried to exploit that technique in this painting, while being a bit more deliberate with the painting of her face and skin.

Portrait of a Lady
oil on canvas
20x16
2012

Monday, January 16, 2012

Alla Prima Velázquez

Tonight I enjoyed a 3 1/2 hour alla prima session in the studio.  I thought I'd do a copy, and of course I chose a self portrait by Velázquez. 

Master copy of Diego Velázquez: Self Portrait
oil on canvas
14x11 inches
2012

He was certainly a master of alla prima painting, though in most of his portraits he used a technique called scumbling, in which he would paint over surfaces that had already dried, ensuring that the paint he was applying would not mix with the layers already on the canvas.  This gave his paintings their trademark appearance, with individual strokes of paint that you can see seemingly dancing on the canvas.  He certainly did some alla prima paintings, but the one I copied tonight was probably not one of them, as the dry brush scumbling is very clearly evident in the original. 
Whatever the case, all I can say is what the infamous Salvador Dalí said of Velázquez:  "His genius surpasses the art of painting itself."

Friday, January 13, 2012

The Cast

If you really want an exercise in patience, determination and skill, then do a cast drawing or painting.  As far as academic drawing goes, the cast is meant to test your ability to see - to see light and shadows and their relationship to form.  The problem with my university-based education in art is that we did the classic exercise of drawing a sphere, and that was it.  After the sphere, I guess we were just expected to understand light and shadows, and depict those elements flawlessly in the rest of our work from that point on.

Torso of Satyr
graphite
2012

Take this drawing above, for instance.  This is the third time I've drawn this sculpture.  It is obviously a sculpture of a male torso (actually, a torso of a male satyr), which can be found at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art.  I frequently go there to do some sketching, and this is one of my favorite sculptures to sketch.  What makes it so appealing to me is that I am always seeing something new and different with it.  I've also found that my drawing of this torso has improved each time.  It looks pretty good here, but if you were to look at the actual sculpture and compare it to my drawing, it doesn't look that impressive.  The shadows, angles, and proportions are not perfect by any means.  But it is so much better than my first attempt almost a year ago, which I drew from a different angle:

Torso of Satyr
graphite
2011

And... this is the problem with a liberal arts education in art.  In college, this sketch is probably as good as it would get.  It would have been a single exercise, never to be revisited again.  And this is why I would discourage anyone from getting an education in art at a typical liberal arts university if you are truly serious about learning the discipline of drawing and painting, and becoming a master of it... but that's another blog for another time. 
The work I do today is the result of self-teaching, reading lots of books, studying the techniques of the old master artists, and working to evolve in my ability to draw and paint.  Not that I have perfected anything... I am certainly still learning.  This is the beauty of being an artist - constantly learning new things and improving in skill (provided you keep working).  A prayer of Michelangelo was "Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish."  This is a profound sentiment, because it actually petitions God to allow us to remain imperfect.  And to embrace that imperfection so that we may continue to want, but that we work toward what we want.  It is too easy to ask God that we may be the best at what we do.  It is much more fulfilling to work toward becoming the best, and then thank God for the opportunity to become it.
I finally did my first cast painting, and it goes without saying I am not completely satisfied with the outcome of my effort, but it was a good exercise and experience.  I had it partially completed last week, and when I came to a stopping point and cleaned up, I walked away from it disappointed.  There was a certain angle that was off, and I knew it was too late to correct it.  Usually, my inclination when this happens is to scrap the painting altogether and start over.  But I decided to keep it and continue working on it with the hope of finishing it as best as I could.  Now that it is finished, the error in the rendering is still hanging over my head, but it will serve as a reminder to pace myself and to be certain that everything is accurate before moving on to the next step - whether in a drawing or a painting.  As I said, patience is one of the many things in which cast drawings and paintings test you.  But the work of being an artist must go on, and hopefully with each failure, and new lesson learned, the task will become slightly less daunting.
Cast painting
oil on canvas
20x16 inches
2012



Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Studying Portraiture

Portrait study of a woman
oil on canvas
14x11 inches
2012


Those that know me well are well aware that my favorite artist of all time is Diego Velázquez. Another book I happily acquired for Christmas is Velazquez: The Technique of Genius by Jonathan Brown and Carmen Garrido, which goes through and discusses the painting technique used by Velázquez in several of his greatest works, including close-up images of the paintings showing the brushwork. Though my only issue with this book is that it does not include two of his greatest portraits ever - Juan de Pareja and Pope Innocent X. Otherwise, it is a fantastic resource for studying his method and mastery of paint handling and manipulation.


The miracle of Velázquez is that his brushwork is so effortless and unsophisticated, and yet it comes together to create a perfect image. I've always been fascinated by the way he paints portraits - particularly the eyes. There are so many intricate details that go into painting or drawing eyes, and yet Velázquez seems to pull them off with just a few swipes of his brush. Take Juan de Pareja, for instance:

detail of Juan de Pareja
I can make out 3 steps or layers to the eyes - black, mid tone, and highlight. On a better detail image, you can also see that the small amount of light on his earlobe is a single, simple stroke of red. It doesn't seem as though Velázquez was a perfectionist that liked to spend a whole lot of time on a painting. Many of his works, such as this one, were alla prima (at first attempt/all at once).
I still attempt to work paint in the same manner as Velázquez, though as simple as his method was... it is by no means easy. One of my favorite pieces of his is the Coronation of the Virgin because it is also one of his most colorful pieces, and I could go on and on about everything else that draws me to the image. It is also an excellent example of his mastery of portraits.

detail of Coronation of the Virgin
As I continue to study the technique of Velázquez, and also continue to paint some studies of portraits, I am looking forward to my own technique to evolve into something much more loose, and yet even closer to an academic style than it has been... something I've been trying to do for a while.

Monday, January 2, 2012

And we're off...

Here is my first painting of 2012 - a quick little alla prima landscape.  Kind of sketchy and random... I just wanted to do a fun little landscape, and hopefully I will have a more elaborate Grand Canyon painting at some point.  For now, I will be focusing on figure and portrait paintings, and some still life.  Unless of course I am commissioned for a landscape at any point.  More to come soon...

Grand Canyon from the Colorado River
oil on canvas
16x20 inches
2012