I decided that I would find images of artists whose work I admire, and then attempt to paint some of their portraits, for practice. I had a few photos of Pierre Bonnard, and thought I'd have a go at it. I like Aaron Shikler's assessment of portraiture (above!)
I honestly think I AM learning to paint, but one of the biggest hindrances for me is that I can't draw to save my life! Hahaaa! I do think that if you have a good initial drawing, your painting has a pretty good chance of being a success...(or it at least has a much better probability of success.) (Note Bonnard's beautiful colors and lovely depictions of daily activities such as below:)
Needless to say, I can see tons of flaws in terms of accuracy here in my attempt: the shape of the face is wrong, the length of the nose is off, the eyes are set incorrectly within those glasses frames, the forehead, (which I adjusted and should have left as I'd originally sketched it,) is now too low, and the jawline isn't right. The shoulders are set wrong, (what the heck was I thinking!) the jacket lapels are totally out of wack, and so, given all these bits, the end result has wound up a totally different person,...
But...despite all of that, I'm still pleased with the overall portrait practice. This is a fun exercise, and I'm learning! And it's great practice. Let's just say I painted Bonnard's close cousin! Another of his beautiful paintings below:
Ted Nuttall warned us not to paint someone we know, because he said we'd set ourselves up for frustration. I realize people will tell me the artistic interpretation is what counts, and all that, but let's face it--if you're attempting to do a person's portrait, it'd be nice if there was at least a general likeness as the net result! But I'm not troubled by that here...if anything, I'm more amused.
I'm always fascinated by the way I'll makes lots of observations, as I'm sketching and painting, and yet the finished portrait winds up becoming a totally different person. (I'd like to attempt the photo above, as it's very clear and he's a different age here.)
Another beautiful Bonnard painting full of vibrant color--he often depicted views out of doors and windows from interior rooms:
"I presume, sir, in painting your beautiful portrait, you took your idea of me from my principles, and not from my person." (--Abraham Lincoln)
It's hot as Hades here in North Carolina and it's only June. Thank goodness for air conditioning and a cool spot inside for sketching: the figure sketching practice continues.
I remember life without air conditioning. (How old does that make me!?) And how did we ever manage, years ago, in schools, without a/c? When I was young, we had an attic fan, and room fans throughout our home. My sisters and I were big babysitters in town, and I used to be thrilled when I'd get a call to come for an evening and watch some of the little kids whose houses had central air. I can't remember how old I was when we finally did get central air ourselves, but now I can't imagine living without it...especially here in NC.
In retrospect, it seems to me that as kids, we spent the entire summer in and out of pools, at the beach, and on our bikes throughout town. I guess we didn't think so intensely about the heat when we could leap into the deep end of a pool to cool off.
No wonder some countries have siestas mid-afternoon, or close shop for the day on really hot days. Get out your sombreros and nestle down under a cool, shady tree...it's supposed to be a scorcher every day this week...
Well, I did it! I'm really excited. I signed up to be a participant in the "Sketchbook Project: 2011" (See the link below for details:) Should be a lot of fun...
My grandmother Susan came to America as a young girl, full of hopes and dreams for a life in a land where the streets were surely paved with gold. At home, in Scotland, she was an important figure in her village: she had a good education and was a school teacher, in the Montessori method, which brought her a fair bit of respect from her peers. Here in America, she would play with my sisters, brother and me often, when we were small, and she'd pretend to be a character who couldn't do all kinds of things, so that we'd have to teach her. At the time, I didn't realize how much she was teaching us, and how independent she was helping us to be.
In Scotland, her husband Edward and she had read novels about America, populated with cowboys and swashbuckling figures who made it sound romantic and adventurous. The America they came to know was experiencing the Great Depression, and they were immigrants in a new world. Poor Grandpa never did become a cowboy, (what with living on the outskirts of Manhattan and all.) But when I went through lots of papers and photos, some years ago, doing genealogy research, one of Grandma's finest, most prized possessions was the letter from the US Naturalization offices saying that she was now a citizen of the United States of America. Grandma instilled in me a love of all things musical, artistic and elegant. She was one of the strongest influences in my life, and I often wish she was still around. I know a lot about her, far more than I know about my Romanian grandmother's past, but I often wish I could ask her things now, at this time in my own life when I would have appreciated her stories of the past even more.
Here's a beautiful song, "Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience," from Natalie Merchant's beautiful new CD, "Leave Your Sleep:"
(Above is a sketch of Susan, my Grandma McClafferty--)
Why are we so drawn to paintings of people? Babies seek out faces from the get-go. Is it any wonder? We're all endlessly fascinating.
Think about it.
You can view a mere portion of an individual, and, like some jigsaw puzzle, recognize where this bit fits in with that bit. A neck...an eye...a brow,...
a curl of hair...
We're all unique, and certain traits make us instantly recognizable. It's almost like those sentences that are jumbled, and yet you can still make sense of them:
"Aoccdrnig to rscheeach at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the lteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe."
"I was going to have cosmetic surgery, until I noticed that the doctor's office was full of portraits by Picasso."(--Rita Rudner)
While browsing through some of Joe's old photos, I learned that his father, George James Gervais (Jarvis now) was in a barbershop quartet, and they sang at a spot called "the Cuckoo Club." I was instantly drawn to this photo of him, and wanted to paint this...:
His stance, the pipe tipped in his mouth, the hat, the bow tie, and the whole attitude: they were all appealing to me.
I suppose I feel as if I basically communicated the feel of this image, but as usual, I'm frustrated that I don't have an innate sense of where to place colors. For example, in this jacket and vest, I feel as if I wanted/needed to "push" some additional areas of color for variety and emphasis, but I sat here questioning exactly how I do that. (I know what I want to do, I just don't really know how to do it!) I tried to lay down an initial wash of different colors, but as I added things, I tended to stick with one bluish tone, so that is definitely the predominant tone at this point. That's fine, but I want to learn to "stretch" that.
I tried to apply some of what Ted Nuttall explained to us about backgrounds here. It's funny: in our workshop, Ted very casually suggested to us that "when you're nervous about the next step in your painting, take a break and work on something non-threatening, like the background." Right...I had to laugh--because backgrounds, for me, are always very stressful! I never know how to handle backgrounds.
Ted gave us a suggestion for how to address them, in his workshop, and I'm playing around with this: he said that if your image is pervasively warm colors, then think about building a cooler background as a complement. (Conversely, if your image is comprised of primarily cool colors, try going for a warm background.) He also described building that background by starting out with either a warm or cool color, and then adding a filmy layer of the opposite on the next layer. For example, here, since George Gervais had a lot of cooler blue in his jacket, I decided to paint a layer of raw sienna, a warmer yellow, in the background. Then, after that layer dried, I added a cerulean blue, (which is a cool blue, but definitely leaning towards warm.)
I am still nervous about backgrounds, and in this painting, I didn't go beyond this stage, but I could have gone back in and layered another filmy wash of a warm again, and a cool, etc, until it was a look that suited. I stopped here and will be more experimental as I get braver!
I'm honestly getting better about just saying, "who cares if it doesn't really resemble George, it's still an ok painting." Trust me, that's a big step for me!
"Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music." (--Ronald Reagan)
Well, now I've built up more detail in this piece. It's taken on a little more shape if you compare yesterday's initial stages. It still needs more work, and I've added a simple, kind of nondescript background, which I'll talk about in another post. I worked on the shadow side of the face a bit, and corrected the eyes a bit, as well as the hair. I deepened the jacket tones some, and then went in and deepened and lifted some color from the tie to try to make it look a bit dimensional. Overall, I'm pleased enough with it, (although honestly, he doesn't really resemble the reference photo at all!) But as a portrait study, it's not bad. It's just not particularly "dramatic," or expressive, and I'd like to become confident enough to project some of that in my work...one of these days, right? I tell myself, "Rome wasn't built in a day."
I'm also building another piece I showed you that I started a week or so ago. It still has a way to go as well, and I have to add the dreaded background, as well, but it's developing. Notice I made the shoes black, which was my intent all along. I added the green, and deepened the yellow tones to try to "punch" that shadow a bit. Ever so slowly, but surely...
And as Monty Python would say--"now for something completely different..."
OK--Now, I don't mean this in a morbid way at all, but have you ever thought about what you want done with you when you die?
I have always loved travel, and seeing the world as much as I can. I want my son to experience other cultures and see some of this big old globe as well, before he dies... So, I told him often, while he was growing up, that I want him, when I die, to take my ashes, and scatter me a little bit in Venice, Tuscany, around Lago Maggiore, and maybe a little bit in Provence, and maybe the Netherlands, and Greece. That way, if he follows my wishes, he will have seen some of the world that I've found really beautiful!
Typically, Eric rolls his eyes when I discuss this matter, and says that "even in death, I'm going to be high maintenance."
Joe tells me Eric will probably take my urn of ashes and toss me out the window in a Walmart parking lot one day.
"A person starts dying when they stop dreaming." (--Brian Williams)
I'm still going at it, practicing portraits, and still using some of Joe's genealogy reference photos, since they're just so appealing to me. What a handsome young man James Tracy Cullen was, wasn't he? (This isn't a scan, but a photo, so it's not the best view of it here.) I think the colors in person are more subtle than they appear here. Below is a picture of the reference photo, so you can see what I was attempting:
...and yet closer:
I have seen this Sargent quote (above) before, and I had to use it for this post, because just a little while ago, I had commented to Joe that: "There's definitely something wrong with the mouth in what I've done so far." I still have a lot of fiddling I want to do with this one, but it's a neat photo, isn't it? A fun reference to use, indeed. I've just begun this one, and will develop it some more, but it's a start. Incidentally, I am aware that a centered, full-on portrait is not compositionally considered a smart thing, but I'm just practicing "getting it" at all, at this point!
Ted Nuttall, in his workshop I attended, discussed "cast" vs "form" shadows and their inherent properties. I was aware of what he was saying, but it bears repeating here. Cast shadows (such as the shadow you see noted below, cast from the sphere) are typically going to be hard-edged shapes to paint, unless they are further off from the object casting the shadow, in which case they becomes softer and less defined. A form shadow, on the other hand, is usually going to have a softer edge, and should be painted to indicate that. Notice the differences in the shadows and their "edges" below:
I definitely tried to observe the way Ted Nuttall continually softened edges or parts of those edges in almost everything he painted, losing some and finding others to define objects.
I'm becoming more comfortable getting these initial washes down; it's the subsequent washes I think I'm still struggling with, and building up the painting. I'll keep practicing and gaining some confidence. I need to work on a background for this image as well.
Here's a peek at my new tabletop easel that I'd purchased when I headed to my workshop: it turns out I love the darned thing! I think it helps to be looking at your subject head on, and I really think it keeps the image from becoming distorted when it's "flattened out" on a table before you. Anyway, I like painting with it a lot, and what I didn't show you here is that it has a nice drawer on the right side that pulls out and stores paint tubes, etc in it nicely as well. I got mine very inexpensively from ?Jerry's Artarama? I believe. It adjusts in size, depending on the paper size you're using, and it folds up really easily, it's lightweight, and has a leather handle to carry it from place to place if you want to move it around. If you've never tried one, go for it--it's a pleasure to use.
"A man walks through life painting a portrait; not of what he would have done, should have done, or could have done, but of what he did." (--Unknown)
I decided that I would find images of artists whose work I admire, and then attempt to paint some of their portraits, for practice. I had a few photos of Pierre Bonnard, and thought I'd have a go at it. I like Aaron Shikler's assessment of portraiture (above!)
I'm always fascinated by the way I'll makes lots of observations, as I'm sketching and painting, and yet the finished portrait winds up becoming a totally different person. (I'd like to attempt the photo above, as it's very clear and he's a different age here.)
