Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Yours truly.

This Russian artist always amazes me, here are two self portraits, young and middle aged.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Sometimes it is interesting to see what the subject looks like compared to what the artist creates. Photo and actual painting side by side.

Some watercolor still life studies, done years ago.

I know, why did I put this up? Because I think it is incredibly beautiful, a Japanese wedding dress from Nara Japan.

An interesting effect can be achieved by using Adobe Photoshop filters, almost like an oil painting, if used judiciously. It gives the artist a target to aim for, with tones and colours pre figured out. Interesting.

Two sketches of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, that I used as basis for paintings. A building and a body are the same in many ways, if you understand the bone and muscle structure, then you will be able to draw a better body, and so too a building, that needs to be looked at and understood before drawing it, or while drawing, you come to understand it. This applies for both landscapes and life drawing.

While I was drawing Notre Dame from the front, I kept thinking something was wrong with my eyes, but no, the left bell tower is askew. No doubt they didn't use laser levelers in those days...

Yes, they took hours to create.

Monday, February 27, 2012

An digital painting in the style of a George de la Tour candle lit piece.

The Pieta compostion is coming along, I need models to refine the pose and hands. The triangle of three people is like the Michelangelo Pieta composition of two people.

I have been experimenting with photoshop filters, trying to take a photograph and make it look like it has been painted in oils or pastels. Here are the results, hope you like them. patrickmcdonnell.com

The copy of the Mona Lisa in the Prado museum, that was recently cleaned, offers a fresh view of what the original painting probably looked like before centuries of varnish, dust and soot covered Leonardo da Vinci's version. Plus the greenish bullet proof glass... The sfmanto technique of the master is evident, though I find the student copy (if that is what it is, one his apprentices in Leonardo's bottega/studio) did a very bad job with the eyes - the sitter's right eye looks a bit bigger and darker, and to close to the nose? More on my blog on how to make sure portrait eyes don't look cross eyed. Or, the sitter may have had one eye larger than the other, as I have encountered with sitters. Look on the Prado web site for more information on this enigmatic painting.

To make these sketches I used a brown ink. There are several inks that are brown, such as bistre ink. Brown inks can be purchased in stationary and art stores. Some of them may be synthetic concoctions, some may be traditional. The color fastness ie how long they last before fading varies, and the interaction of an ink with paper varies as well - a pH neutral paper is advisable. I had an art teacher who gave us a sure fire way of making brown ink using one's urine and ashes from a fire (but I have never tried making it... that way ;-) Patrick McDonnell

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a traditional ink made by boiling wood soot. The resulting ink color depends on the type of wood burnt to make the soot. Authentic Bistre is made from Beechwood and gives a transparent, dark brown with yellow undertones. Traditionally prepared Bistre is not considered fugitive but is not entirely stable: improperly aged Bistre is acidic and may fade, while better quality Bistre inks will darken somewhat over time.>>

Brown ink can also be made from walnuts

. N.B. these subtances are toxic and do stain, no matter what you may read on the internet. <<There is a misconception that ink is non-toxic even if swallowed. Once ingested, ink can be hazardous to one's health. Certain inks, such as those used in printers, and even those found in a common pen can be harmful. Though ink does not easily cause death, inappropriate contact can cause effects such as severe headaches, skin irritation, or nervous system damage. These effects can be caused by solvents, or by pigment ingredients such as p-Anisidine, which helps create some inks' color and shine.>>

This website is a good resource on sketching.http://sketchingjourney.com/2011/03/25/penciled-nude-studies/

The long story of my painting of Taos pueblo New Mexico. I was still in High School when I drove up with my friend Marcia Beauregard Fernandez to Santa Fe where she was playing a gig in a local cafe. We decided to go up to Taos to see the pueblo. You have to pay to take pictures or sketch, of course, unless they are having a religious ceremony, and then neither are allowed. I spent the afternoon sketching this wonderful view, it must have been spring, snow on sacred mountains. I put the drawing away, and then years later I visited Taos again, and took some photos, put them away. When I took up painting again, about 10 years ago, I took out the photographs, used Quicktime stitcher to put the photos together and painted this. I always felt Taos pueblo is one of the spiritual centers of the earth (I am a scientist so this is emotion based reasoning) and the setting is magnificent. Pueblo indians live there without electricity or plumbing as they have for thousands of years. Hope you like it.

Lucien Freud loved to paint, and his subjects varied accordingly from Kate Moss, the Twiggy model of our age, to opulent women like this one. His passing is to be regretted by the art world. http://painters-table.com/blog/lucian-freud-last-look

One of my favorite things to do is sketch airplanes at airports, and what else is there to do while waiting for your flight? Here is an architect who has the same passion. http://sketchingjourney.com/2012/01/26/helsinki-international-airport/

This Russian artist has always been one of my favorites; beautiful portraits and figures.

Zinaida_Serebriakova

Google is going along and documenting museums all around the world, which is a good thing. http://www.googleartproject.com/?utm_source=museumpage&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=artproject

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Painting water can be tricky, but there is a trick to it. Water is like a mirror, in some ways, but it has its own physics. Depending on the clearness of the water (water that is transparent lacks bionic matter, so is clear, as in the Caribbean) and how rough the surface is, ripples and waves are caused by wind and currents, and passing ships. Turgid water can vary in color (the Yellow river is yellow in color from the loam in it) and some inland rivers are greenish in tint.

How you make a picture of water look real is by looking at the different tones; water reflections will make shadows lighter and lights darker. This compression of tone makes water look like water. Add on to that, ripples and waves that may be reflecting different parts of the sky, then you may have a darker blue, or even a milky color that is a reflection of clouds. Remember, light passes through water, and so it is not a mirror. There is an intermixing of the cast light and of the reflections; an observant artist will note this. The water of Caravaggio is very simplified, he uses repeated strokes to show the surface is water.

Sketch of the Natchez steam boat (one of the last all wooden ones still working) docked in New Orleans. This was a sketch I did on the spot, and then using photographic references I did an oil painting.

Oil painting I did of Natchez steamer docked in New Orleans. The Mississippi river water is turgid, full of silt, and reflects the sky in a strange manner. The atmosphere is humid and thick, and the clouds are diffuse and very bright in the south, especially in summer.

Small oil sketch done from Ecole des Beaux Arts, where I was studying in the 70s. From life using the Maroger Medium.

A Bermuda scene that begs to be painted

Photo of swimmer Bermuda

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Here are my two paintings, the top one in watercolor and the bottom one done in oil paint, that I call Homage to Homer, Winslow Homer of course. He used to go to Florida and Bermuda to paint subjects. This is an actual scene of a man swimming in the Atlantic. I took his picture and thought it would make a great painting. I took out his left hand in the final piece because it looked like he was drowning. Or waving at the passing sailing ship. Notice that the water color is pale, and the oil is rich and dark. The media differ in their value - or that is my excuse. Homer was able to get rich colors in his water color paintings. And Turner made 'high key' oils.

My portrait in oils of Marcia Beauregard reading vs Fragonard Liseuse in National art museum Washington DC

Oil painting of red male nude

life drawing class, red male

life drawing class

life drawing Pastel of Japanese model, done from photograph

life drawing class

Photographs of my teacher, Mr Siegfried Hahn who taught me how to draw and paint using the old master techniques as elaborated by Jacques Maroger.http://www.patrickmcdonnell.com/Mr%20Hahn/photossiegfriedh.html

A page devoted to the art of my 'master' Siegfried Hahn on my site patrickmcdonnell.comhttp://www.patrickmcdonnell.com/Mr%20Hahn/index.html

Sketch for Kristy King portrait, spaghetti strap black top.

I did this sketch of Notre Dame from photographs I took. It is not the best way to work, as an on the spot sketch gives you a better idea of what you are doing, as you can walk around and see. Sketching from photos is tricky, I usually try to do a sketch and photos.

This is a version of my view of Notre Dame; I took the original sketch and scanned it into Photoshop to play around to see if I could get a etching like effect. Without having to smell the acid bath ( I was trained in etching techniques at the Ecole des Beaux Arts Paris).

Another church that faces the Louvre, called Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, which is the official church of the French Royal family (St Denis cathedral is where the kings are buried). Very Flamboyant Gothic style.

Sketch from the Louvre museum looking out onto Tuileries Gardens and the arc of the Carousel, winter.

For anyone who wants to learn a thing or two about drawing, which is after all the basis of all art, then I would suggest reading any book written by

Arthur Guptill

http://www.gnsi.org/journal/multifaceted-life-and-books-arthur-guptill

A quick pen and ink of Notre Dame from behind.

This is a close up of the sketch I did of Notre Dame; I call it a 'document'. As well I took photographs and executed a water colour of the scene with the lighting effect I wanted to recreate in an oil painting. See next post.

I painted this view of Notre Dame Cathedral in a month, section by section. I use the Maroger old master's medium to give it a 3 dimensionality and sparkle that can only be appreciated by seeing the original.

This is the image I sent to the sitter and her mother for their approval. It is actually done in Photoshop. Not my normal way of starting, as I will do a pencil or charcoal sketch first. The primary objective is to figure out the composition.

Here is the burnt umber/turpentine sketch of Rachel King. I usually do a charcoal sketch then go over that with a thin paint brush and paint to fix the image, always refining the image.