a painting a day a story a day: Subject: Old man from Baluchistan. The moment I s...

a painting a day a story a day: Subject:
Old man from Baluchistan. The moment I s...: Subject: Old man from Baluchistan. The moment I saw this old man, I just noticed how warm the flesh tones were. He also had this interestin...

Subject:
Old man from Baluchistan. The moment I saw this old man, I just noticed how warm the flesh tones were. He also had this interesting detached gaze on his face which I tried to show in this painting. For the turban ( I think I am getting better at painting white material ) I tried to mimic Laszlo's brushwork.

I just stumbled upon a great website about Philip de Laszlo, the early 20th century Hungarian portraitist whose name and works are missing from many 20th century art history books, and that sure is a pity! When we were taught art history at Art School, we were told all about modernists from Gaugin to Mondrian, from Pointillism to Dada and everything in between. I for one was convinced that representational painting had come to a halt on the turn of the century, or that modern style was the only pathway to take. Now as I study more about masters like Sargent, Serov, and Laszlo I tend to believe that such names were purposely censored; I hope this all about me being paranoid and that there has never been a scenario to cut a whole chunky chapter out of art history books.

Baluchi Basket Weaver

I consider this painting a success not because I am satisfied with how it eventually turned out, but because of all the things I learned in the process. For one thing I now know that painting white material is trickier than it looks, especially the parts in shadow: I used too many cool colors for the shadows of the garment, making it look like there is ice underneath, not human flesh. In my next painting (will be posted soon)I went a little warmer in the shadows: Instead of ivory black I mixed raw umber with titanium white with a touch of yellow ochre, and used it for the shadow parts of the folds and creases in the white shirt.

 William Whitaker is a master of painting figures in white robes with sharp contrasts of white and grey. His compositions are simple both in color and form which induce a sense of serenity and solitude.

Another thing I learned is that there is a meaningful harmony between a cool green and a warm brown. For the greens in the keffiyeh I used viridian and ultramarine with copious amounts of titanium, and for the background I mixed burnt sienna, alizarin and ultramarine plus some mixture leftover just to kill it off a little.

a painting a day a story a day: Oil Sketch from Life

a painting a day a story a day: Oil Sketch from Life: Limited palette, minimal strokes and a hasty signature down there: That's all I managed in the 4 hours time I had with this model, half of w...

Oil Sketch from Life

Limited palette, minimal strokes and a hasty signature down there: That's all I managed in the 4 hours time I had with this model, half of which went for tea ( smoking) breaks, light adjustment, and the turning on of a million-year-old heater. The model though was great! and I didn't keep it a secret. An almost copper complexion with chiseled features plus a checked black and crimson turban I wish I had more time to elaborate on a bit.

The thing I like about this workshop is that there is no teaching, which means you pay less and work more. It is just a bunch of amateur and professional painters working together at a friendly atmosphere. And if there is any learning it is random, informal and mainly through looking at each other's works.

When you paint against time you tend to do it more strategically, trying to appreciate every second and every stroke you lay on the canvas, and more often the result turns out to be more spontaneous and dynamic. As you see in this portrait I retained the first turpentine wash for the background and in parts for the face as well. I know I sound a bit Schmidish, but honestly I think there is no way escaping his influence, at least for years to come.

a painting a day a story a day: Pleased with this charcoal drawing that took me 3 ...

a painting a day a story a day: Pleased with this charcoal drawing that took me 3 ...: Pleased with this charcoal drawing that took me 3 hours, I just hung around doing nothing the rest of the day. What a waste of time! I suspe...

Pleased with this charcoal drawing that took me 3 hours, I just hung around doing nothing the rest of the day. What a waste of time! I suspect it is because of the satisfaction I get after I do one good painting. Conclusion: keep satisfaction at bay!

It strikes me that artistic endeavor calls for a particular mood that artists try to get in before they embark on a new work. I have heard many artists saying they failed in a certain artistic creation for not being in the right mood. On the other hand it is no secret to anyone that great art works result from hard work and ceaseless practice. So should we artists await our moods  of creativity or should we just keep working?


I personally believe that any artistic endeavor has to be punctuated by breaks of introspection, or you might say I am just making up an excuse for sloth.





Tehrani girl in nomadic costumes



Bakhtiari maid of honor

Charcoal on paper

Here is another charcoal portrait of the same girl from my last post. I am pretty much satisfied with it, and this is the only work I am content with this last week.

The procedure:

 I first covered the paper with vine charcoal powder which was then brushed downward off the paper. Next I massed in the darks in just a slight shade darker than the background, and the fun part was when I began to bring out the light parts of the face using my kneaded eraser! For the highlights though I cheated a bit and used a white pastel - wish I could do that with my eraser!

a painting a day a story a day: Portraits in oil

a painting a day a story a day: Portraits in oil: About this portrait : I painted this old dervish earlier this year. It had been a while since I had done my last grisaille portrait, an...

Portraits in oil

About this portrait :



I painted this old dervish earlier this year. It had been a while since I had done my last grisaille portrait, and its always an excellent learning experience. My limited palette contained black, white, yellow ocher and burnt sienna.
I had a few photo references for this model: all low-quality with uninteresting backgrounds, so I extended the wavy beard wisps into the background to give it a mystical air.






( Sold )

Appreciating Susan Lyon

Drawing in Graphite

Greatly inspired by Susan Lyon, I did a few portraits in Graphite with a conscious attempt to keep them as pale looking as possible. Here I am posting one. Now I see it is really challenging because, while you are doing the rendering, the temptation is to go dark for details; However, if you want to keep it pale you just need to constantly fight that temptation, and you have to put on the brakes all the time.

The other issue is that a pallid portrait might look too weak, or even worse it might look like an ailing person. When you look at Susan's portraits in monochromatic pastel you can see how the pallor helps creat a romantic, but not insipid, look on the face. 

                                                                                                                                                                         

On the left is posted One of Susan' works which is my favorite:  Like all the masters she has gone minimalist, not too generous with the pencil marks, yet look how this face

is emitting power and character !

  Story of the Day: 

Howard Lives

by Joseph Berman

I read this story through tears, alot of it, of laughter. A guy named howard refuses to obey the Death Angel, and roams around the town greeting everybody after he has totally died. You can find this story and many others of all genre in this website:   http://www.short-stories.co.uk/

                                                                                                  

My greatest joys in life come from painting and reading, and I am starting this blog to share my enjoyment.

Painting :

Today I scoured my PC to find something to paint, then I stumbled upon this shot I had taken a fortnight ago in the park near my home. This frail oldman is a sweeper, and a pretty agile one despite his ailing looks. It took me around 2 hours to do it in graphite and charcoal. I think I will do a full scale painting of him in oil as well: I am now toying with the idea of taking my easel and paint box down one early morning to do a life portrait. My greatest worry about painting in the park: It is not that common a sight for people here, not sure how passers are gonna react. Maybe it is on us painters to take painting out into the nature to get people more used to seeing artists working outdoors!


Reading :

How Beautiful With Shoes
By Wilbur Daniel Steele
I just finished reading this amazing story about a half-wit girl who is abducted by a her deranged admirer who gets shot in the end only to leave a lasting impact on the girl. The story is packed with christian allusions. Stronly recommended !