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Steps in the Production of a Painting Video

March 10, 2016 Uncategorized Comments Off on Steps in the Production of a Painting Video 1463

I just started playing around with some new video software and have put together some videos on the painting process, mostly aimed at helping my students.

Here is one on the steps in the production of a painting:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbCqobeTlI0

Here is  “Big Form Modelling a Bouguereau”.

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The Method of Caravaggio – Part 3 – The Overpainting

December 7, 2015 Uncategorized Comments Off on The Method of Caravaggio – Part 3 – The Overpainting 2641

As we have seen, Caravaggio developed a system of painting that allowed him to be extremely efficient in the period before his death.

 The wash drawing is executed to a high degree of finish. The flesh is under painted with white and drapery is painted directly. Then, when dry, the overpainting of the flesh is started.

Caravaggio’s basic palette included lead white, red
and yellow ocher, lead-tin yellow, vermilion (cinnbar),
malachite, carbon black and earth colors, plus madder
lake and copper resinate glazes. 
I use a variation of a palette  invented by John Angel and used at the Angel Academy.  I have tried many different palettes and this one is perfect for copying Caravaggio.
 From left to right: Lead white, Zecchi roman ochre, Zecchi vermillion, Old Holland persian red, Old Holland red umber, Michael Harding burnt umber, Michael Harding raw umber, Old Holland green umber and ivory black.
The painting is then finished piecemeal. The colours are painted thin but opaque and then blended to a finish.
Copy by workshop student Jacqui Butterworth.

Below is a video of the workshop demo on the application of the overpainting:

For more info on the Methods of Caravaggio workshop : http://www.angelartschool.com/workshop7_2016.html

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The Method of Caravaggio – Step Two – Underpainting the Lights

November 26, 2015 Uncategorized Comments Off on The Method of Caravaggio – Step Two – Underpainting the Lights 3132

When studying late Caravaggio paintings,  one gets an idea of his working method in this period.

 

He is working very efficiently, leaving the mid-tone ground to act as shadows and thinner application of umber to describe darker tones while the lights are painted with few colours.
In the Martrydom of St. Ursula, notice the flesh in the figure of St. Ursula, on the right. It is painted with an opaque white which is pulled thinner as the form moves away from the light. This gives us an idea of his underpainting process.

Continuing on from the last blog entry, once the wash drawing has dried, the lights are rendered using a white. Caravaggio would have used a lead white but titanium works as well. If using titanium, add in a little bit of calcium carbonate to give the paint some body, opacity and to help it dry a little faster. Where the flesh is lightest, the paint is applied thickly. As the flesh darkens the paint is pulled thinner, resulting in the illusion of the three dimensional form.

Here is an explanation of the process, filmed during the workshop at Angel Academy.

Once this has dried the flesh is painted using a limited palette. The next blog entry will describe this process.

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The Method of Caravaggio – Step One

November 25, 2015 Uncategorized Comments Off on The Method of Caravaggio – Step One 4580

Michelangelo Merisi of Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio, was the   great painter of the counter reformation. A  contemporary of Galileo and Shakespeare, he was the first artist in history whose paintings are directly concerned with his life.  
In his later years Caravaggio developed a process which allowed him to work very efficiently – important as he was on the run for much of his last years.
I teach this method at the Angel Academy in Florence, Italy. For more info:
(http://www.angelartschool.com/workshop7_2016.html). 
I will share what I have discovered about his process over the next few blog posts.
The begin, the canvas is to be toned with a warm brown, mid-tone in value.
The drawing is then rendered with umbers. The paint should be applied thinly, varying opacity where needed. The goal is to use 2 or 3 values to describe the image:
When studying  “the Martyrdom of St. Ursula”, one can get an idea of the next step:
This step, the underpainting with white, will be described in the next post. 

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Off the Coast Podcast – A Conversation with Antonio Macedo

October 30, 2015 Uncategorized Comments Off on Off the Coast Podcast – A Conversation with Antonio Macedo 1031

Having spent some time in Portugal has allowed me to make friends with a number of artists living and working there. One of these, the painter Antonio Macedo, invited me into his studio recently where we talked about his experience as an artist. Working professionally for 40 years, the conversation will be of interest to young artists just starting out as Antonio shares his ideas of what painting should be.

The interview can found on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/off-the-coast-of-utopia/off-the-coast-with-antonio-macedo

Antonio’s website: http://antoniomacedo.pt/en/ 
Antonio is also active on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/antonio.macedo.54?fref=ts
Music for the podcast is by Kid Cholera courtesy of Opsound.org

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Artistic Anatomy – Odd Nerdrum

October 23, 2014 Uncategorized Comments Off on Artistic Anatomy – Odd Nerdrum 1557

Odd Nerdrum is  one of the most interesting and important artists alive today. Nerdrum’s pictures reflect the spiritual malaise which overwhelms post-modern man. His paintings are timeless, yet radically traditional.
The figures of Nerdrum’s (seemingly) post-apocolyptic landscapes reflect a clear belief in the manipulation of anatomy to express a mood or an idea. The master himself talks about this:
“The highest level you could think about is when you make a picture where you can’t say when it was made. You have to make small heads, big hands, long stomachs, so the whole figure is moving upwards”. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUrP2cvtFJ4#t=21m34s)

“Two Green Feathers” 
“The Singers”

In other of Nerdrum’s paintings he distorts the figures in a less graceful way.

“Woman Kills Injured Man”
Man Bitten by a Snake 
Nerdrum works exclusively from life, with multiple sittings from multiple models. He selects those features he needs, distorting and interpreting to create the characters that populate his landscapes.
As an example of this, in my time studying with Nerdrum, I was asked to pose for one of the figures in a painting, that of an old wizard. The model for the wizard was a well-built older gentleman with a healthy head of hair while the figure in the painting was bald. My head came in handy as I was the only bald student around.
This quote from the website sine qua non sums up Nerdrum’s work beautifully:
“In Nerdrum’s work the body and its natural functions – erections, defecation, even aging- are used to jolt us out of our tidy complacency. His blighted landscapes also do much to increase the overall disquiet. 
But at the core, the essence, Nerdrum’s paintings violate with one final traumatic twinge: that of almost unbearable beauty”
For more pictures of unbearable beauty: http://www.nerdrummuseum.com/Paintings.php

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Dublin with David

June 3, 2014 Uncategorized Comments Off on Dublin with David 1066

I just finished up a 5-day workshop with noted American figure painter David Jon Kassan at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin.

The workshop focused on the students learning Kassan’s method of approaching a portrait painting. The class was split between David’s demo and the students working.

From the first morn David set the tone, wanting the workshop to be a positive group experience. He would move through the classroom, attending to each student individually and guiding them in whatever way he saw necessary for success. David himself was very personable, alternating between cracking bad jokes and espousing his philosophy on painting.

David begins with a drawing on gunmetal gray Daler-Rowney Canford card paper, using Pan Pastel black blocked in with a number 4 trowel shaped drawing tool. From the block-in he refines the drawing with General’s Charcoal pencils and white chalk pencils.
(check out this video)

Once completed, the drawing is photocopied and Pan Pastel red iron oxide is rubbed on the back of the copy.  This is placed upon die-bond plastic board that has been prepared with Golden N6 acrylic grey and traced out. Below you can see the beginning stages of the painting along with the drawing on the board.

David uses Vasari colours which he believes are the best.
He paints with small brushes specifically size 2 Isabey Kolinsky Sable round series 6227Z. He builds up texture with a series of lines, focusing on details and small variations. I compared it to a 
Van Gogh, but I do not think David appreciated it!

In order to get the desired texture, David uses Liquin oleopasto medium. Other mediums include stand-oil and M. Graham’s walnut alkyd oil. Binoculars are used at all stages of the drawing and painting in order to refine shapes and details.

The final painting was auctioned of with proceeds going to the David Kassan Foundation

Below is my work (no time for the poor ear). David kept telling me to add more texture. The method is a lot different than the way I work which is from large general block-ins down to the specific. Here I had to jump into the detail right away and work from the center out.

  

David has videos on his drawing and painting methods that are available for purchase through his website: http://store.davidkassan.com



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