A little of this- and a little of that...

A few weeks ago, before the holiday, Torsten (that is my art teacher if you have forgotten) ushered me into the painting room in his 3 room studio, to where a large easel sat, already prepped with a large piece of white paper. He gestured to some brushes and a palette of water color paints. Then he rummaged around in a resource folder and produced some things for me to work from. Then he handed me the brush, and said...PAINT.

*You mean with no pencil sketches first?...gulp*
*With all these other people around to see my flub up*
*Perspire...what if it's a mess...or loos silly...perspire*

I was not prepared to work on the fly, with my usual calculated and planned style being the crutch...plus the entire idea of making something less than perfect...
Well ugh...*Oh goodness get over yourself girl....*. But Torsten continued to further gesticulate and encourage, while of course this all goes on in German just to further complicate matters...

SO this is what I ended up with at the very beginning ...(Can you tell I was looking at Picasso's fawn ink drawings earlier in the day??) and I must say that while all of this intimidated the living H*ll out of me it was actually felt quite nice to be working only with paint...though I am finding that one of my biggest handicpas is loosing the "Illustrator" style to get things to be a bit more real... I'm workin' on it...This is the version of anothe rimage free hand again in paint only, and the same image again below, but with a pencil sketch first and then several paint washes over top.

The secret it seems to me is to make all of your main lines very lightly in a wash and then to build the colour up refining the shapes as you go. At the end the guiding lines are virtually invisible, so if they were a bit off it is no problem. The beauty of water color if you are using good paper it is easy to lift ant excess color off after the fact, even if it has already dried, with a little light pressure (cutips or TAMPONS work well go figure) and some water.
The next is a rendition of one of Torsten's pieces.
This next peice is something have been fooling around with for a while, wanting to experiment with my pen and ink a bit more, using the pen to do some really super fine detail, and then water color and some ink washes for shadow and depth...It was fun to fool around with the different things...it is called "Chronic Pain", and relates directly to my Prolotherapy experience, those having had prolo for chronic pain are the ones taking little ballons up up UP from the mountain and those for whatever reason didn't/couldn't/or wouldn't are decending to I know where not...sort of dark I know, but being free of pain is what enables me to do all of this!!! YAhhoooo!!!

Got some more watercolor portraits to show you tomorrow!! Check back in!!

Nikki Saint Phalle in Hanover

Eric Fischl

A Later Addition ; in response to a question for Gary over at Withinsight who was wondering about the nature of these sculptures. The sculptures are life sized which adds to the effect and drama of them. Another interesting observation to note, and maybe something that may be more apparent to me as a non-local, the exhibit also included a figure in great physical distress being helped by a Samaritan, indeed the title of the piece called Samaritan, (you can see it at the back of the studio on the left in this photo) a very powerful piece, made me wonder if in fact this is not a nod to German War history, even thought the artist is an American.

The figures themselves appear to be made out of cast iron, and have a very weighty look, but upon reading about them further I discovered that in fact they are cast resin, and then presumably faux finished with various materials to resemble rusted iron, which in fact you can see Fischl doing if you follow the "Samaritan" link. The use of material finish lends them an air of permanence and weightiness physically and figuratively that I do not believe resin would have afforded.

Theses Went to a very cool sculpture exhibition at the suggestion of my art teacher, you can check it to here, famous American sculpture artist Eric Fischl...said with great reverence BTW...

I found the work to be raw and powerful.

It was exhibited at a somewhat obscure (well to me anyway... half tourist and half-walking-newcomer-that-I-usually-am) exhibition hall, but in the end, well turns out that his was my VERY LUCKY DAY.

I am sort of fishing around for some more art contacts, I would love to also do some life drawing, you know naked model who needs money poses for a group of wannabe artists...no but seriously a great way to improve your perception of anatomy, and proportion etc...we did several semesters of it in college (but were all so young and shy we had a hard time not giggling and googling ...goons...)

Any way at the gallery when I inquired about a newsletter in which I might post an ad the receptionist suggested I speak with the curator who might help me. Well if this kind, and of course, utterly elegant woman was not singly one of the sweetest and most helpful souls I have EVER had the good fortune of meeting well just knock me over with a paint canvas...


She not only went through some of the printed material in the reception area with me, but suggested several different avenues I might pursue, and proceeded to take down all my info and insist that yes of course we MUST stay in touch...and then 20 minutes into my visit of the gallery well up on the 2nd floor she huffing and puffingly proceeded to track me down rushing in with even more information that might be of use to me... well just bowl me right over...so very very kind...and at the very end of it all she had found an artist taking students to help them develop their portfolios...

*Gee Toto we don't seem to be in Kansas anymore...*


In any case the exhibit was very cool...what do you think?

Another topic entirely... is anyone else having trouble with spell check?