As part of a commissioned drawing I am working on, I’m studying what makes a gaze appear intense. Here are some sketches and drawings:
-Ifat
An Evening of painting outside
This first step in what will become an oil painting is about light, Forest light.
That’s also the name I will give it.
Objective: Make this a short painting for inspiration and study. Let’s see if I can keep it this way. Short and simple, that is 🙂
I started painting this tonight, at dusk, enclosed in my green backyard. Music flowing free in the evening air, feeling absolutely amazing.
I started the evening with the following song [Link], which, to me, feels like it’s capturing the feeling pretty well.
I want to describe just how I feel because, really, if I can ever capture it in a painting, fully and completely, I will know I have achieved my goal as an artist.
The way I feel is – absolutely invincible. Not a victory over anyone specific or any particular problem – but a sense of uncontested freedom and victory over life’s obstacles as a whole. More than that – it’s as if life is pure joy. I feel self confidence so absolute, it doesn’t even feel like it relates specifically to me as an individual, but as if I am that feeling and there is nothing left but to bless life.
I was thinking to myself… feeling the way I did is the reason I am an artist, so that I can communicate it through art.
People often wonder in today’s culture, what reason a man has for staying loyal to one’s conscience. This is my answer; To be able to feel like this, despite all of life’s problems, struggles to figure out right from wrong and all the stuff that brings one down to the point of wanting to give up one’s goals. Personally, I’ve had my share of those and still do. I’m not gonna lie about it.
But so long as I can feel the way I did tonight, life is worth living and the struggle for your goals is worth having, no matter the hardships. Bring it on.
Another sunset cliche? I think not!
(Click image to Enlarge)
An artist friend once old me that if what you want to create has already been done, there is no point in creating it.
I couldn’t disagree more. This painting above, “Yseult”, by Frank Francis Bernard Dicksee (1853-1928), is a painting of a woman at sunset and could be easily seen as a cliche. The subject matter is certainly not un-repeating. But looking at it, one can experience a profound and unique moment. One can feel the vastness of the sea, the isolation and sorrow of this moment as the world is in its utmost beauty, laid open before her, at her fingertips.
So long as one is not blind to her face and the content of the painting, one is being carried away into a powerful emotional experience. To that moment all of us know, of feeling truly alone (not lonely; alone) in a vast universe, no commotion around us to distract us and no cheery conversation that occupies our mind. A moment of facing one’s own life, the reality of one’s own existence in the world and perhaps of one’s mortality. It is a moment of looking at one’s existence in a metaphysical sense.
This painting is grand, yet more paintings with a beautiful woman at sunset, at sea can be powerful. It is not the subject matter that matters – it is how strongly an artist believes in their message – how strongly they are inspired by it and are devoted to that and that alone.
An artist should stay true to their passion and disregard all other considerations in choosing what to create. Nothing one creates in that state of mind can ever be a replica, no matter what physical things one draws upon to paint or how many times they have been painted in the past.
‘At Rest’, finished piece
24” X 18”, oil on Linen stretched on board, limited 4 colors palette.
Painted at my school, Georgetown Atelier.
-Ifat
My weekly post #17
A finished drawing that I started a long time ago. This is 8” X 11”, Graphite on white paper, with digitally enhanced contrast.
-Ifat
My weekly post #16
A sketch I did from my head over the weekend:
I consider drawing from my head to be a very important part of my art training.
This stage of sketching out an idea is the most critical to the creation of art. I am essentially building the backbone for what might later become a finished work. This gives me the idea of what I want to see and achieve when I look at a real model. It might turn out that the pose in the sketch cannot be achieved quite the way I drew it in real life, or the model might not look the same and so on. The sketch serves as a blueprint and guide and can be combined with a real model to selectively create this vision in a realistic way (I should say, selectively real way).
On a different subject, I am officially on my summer vacation now. I return to school in mid September for my final year at Georgetown Atelier.
This summer will be dedicated to making and saving money for next year, some teaching, studying anatomy and perspective as well as moving out to a new apartment.
I am trying to sort some things out for myself, some personal and some relating to my profession. One interesting article I read today, was recommended to me by an acquainted who have had Atelier training himself: “Working on two tracks” by Steven Pressfield. I find the article very interesting. I find that the topic requires a lot of analysis and deserves serious consideration in depth.
The article discusses two possible paths of motivation as an artist: external vs. internal validation.
Granted, this IS indeed something to tackle and think about. Obviously, the right way to go is the path of objective internal validation. On the other hand, External validation is very valuable when other people are a good judge.
This, however, brings up some heavy heavy philosophical questions, one of which is the objectivity of art.
I do believe that external validation is important when it comes from the right source. When it comes from people whose opinion you respect for reasons for which you would judge your own art to be successful or unsuccessful.
Since it’s 1:30am now, I will postpone the continuation of the discussion to another time.
During the summer I will be taking a break from my weekly posts since I won’t have as much content to post. I will post occasionally when I have new things to share.
Last note; I am selling my student work from the past 2 years. Some are 1 week paintings and others 5 months drawings. Sifting through it could be a bit like a treasure hunt.
If you find one you like, contact me about buying it. This will help me pay my tuition and related expenses next year and will be much appreciated.
Here is the LINK to the list of works and prices.
Thank you for your continued interest,
Ifat
My Tuition Fundraiser
Hello,
As part of my efforts to pay the tuition of my art school as well as related expenses next year I am offering my entire collection of student work for sale. Most of the pieces are framed.
These are all originals and will help support my efforts to make a career as an Artist.
My body of work includes drawings in graphite and pastel, monochromatic and limited-palette oil paintings. Some of these works are a result of 5 moths of work, some are shorter studies done in a week.
If you found one you would like to purchase or ask questions about, please contact me.
‘The Merchant’, $2200 ‘Journey’, $850 ‘At Rest’, $850
‘The Little Nun’, $480 ‘Seated Nude’, $660 ‘Potion Making’, SOLD
‘Reclining Nude’, $540 ‘Sea Shell’, $80 ‘Standing Nude’, $450
‘The world in ‘Greek Sculpture’, $450 ‘Woman with Red Scarf’,
my Hand’, $550 $60
‘Sphere’, $80 ‘Glass and Leaf’, $80 ‘Metal Vase’, $80
‘Standing Nude’, $80 ‘Seated Nude’, SOLD
‘Curved’, $60 ‘Standing Nude’, $80 ‘Ashley’, $35
‘Allan’, $35 ‘Triangular’, $35 ‘A Man’s Profile’, $35
My weekly post #14
This weeks was a rather frustrating painting experience for me. I hit a road block and spend part of this weekend searching for answers.
The painting I’m working on is of the study I shared in the past 2 weeks. I selected a large canvas for this one so I don’t feel “crammed”, but that turned out to be a bit more than I can swallow for this period of time. I run into a lot of problems. For one, working on a large scale makes it impossible to see the whole picture all at once while working on one particular area, unless you step back.
It is easy to become so involved with the painting process and forget to do it, resulting in a well painted area that does not match the rest of the painting.
Yes, big bummer.
Secondly this size introduced me up close to a problem I was having all year long: the style or method of applying paint.
See, oil paint, is by nature a very “blendy” substance. It is rather easy, in my opinion, to make a seamless smooth transition between two paints on a canvas by smooshing them into one another with a brush. However, that creates a surface that is unnatural since most surfaces in real life are not stiff and perfectly smooth. They have small variations in them. This raises the question, how should one use paint, a might mooshy substance but achieve that slighty rough effect?
Here is a painting by William Adolf Bouguereau, a masterful painter (1825-1905):
(Click to enlarge)
You may think it is perfectly blended, but you’d be wrong. Take a look at this digital model to see how a truly seamless blend looks like (Link to the artist’s Deviant Art page):
It looks like plastic (though in this case it was probably intended).
In contrast look closely at the shadow on the neck in Bouguereau’s painting:
You’d notice that the shadow does not have one color, but actually 2: it seems like the darker one is on top of the lighter one without covering it uniformly. This repeats throughout the entire figure. This is what I want to learn to do. I’m not quite sure how he actually achieved this, but I would guess that he softly scumbled the darker paint on top of the lighter one after the lighter one was dry or nearly dry.
Here is an example of a painting that I find very “smooshy” (by a contemporary artist named David Kassan).
This is what oil paints will naturally do for you if you don’t learn to manipulate them to meet your goal.
Working on a large scale, every patch of skin is huge, making it harder than normal to achieve a play of color throughout. But my little research has helped and I hope to overcome the time pressure and other issues and produce a painting that matches my vision, because this one, I really like and want to see done.
Finally, as I mentioned last week, 2 weeks from now my Atelier will have a graduation party. If you live in the Seattle area, please come and feel free to bring friends and family. It is a very nice event & don’t forget to introduce yourself to me.
Here is an invitation featuring my painting on it!
-Ifat
Current project and thought on Anatomy (weekly #13)
I am now working on the final painting of the year. It is a long, 4 week pose, from a live model, as always.
I showed the color study for it last week:
It is now transferred to a big canvas (linen on wood panel), 18” X 32.5”
Pretty much life-size. I’ve never worked so big before, this should be interesting (or at least, a very humbling experience to go through in the 2 weeks remaining).
This one is my favorite subject matter from the 2 years I’ve been studying at Georgetown Atelier.
A second close would be This one, with a third fourth and fifth for This, This and This.
In fact I like this one so much I already picked a frame for it, which is pretty unusual for me.
If I am satisfied with my painting when I’m done with it, I will be displaying it at my school’s end of the year party, June 30th (in Seattle).
More about this party at the end of the post.
I recently bought an excellent anatomy book by Elliot Goldfinger, which I’m using to study the underlying anatomy for this current pose.
I’ve asked myself yesterday what is the point of studying anatomy? My initial answer is that I have natural curiosity to understand why something appears the way it is: what’s under the skin that makes the skin look a certain way. Then I thought to myself, “is it really necessary? After all, you can see that there is a bump here, skin fold there – is it really important to know what’s under it to be able to describe it?” And I answered myself “yes”. Because knowing the underlying elements (muscles and bones) help the artist see connections that he wouldn’t otherwise notice, as well as allowing him to notice subtle yet important changes in the skin’s curvature because knowing that a muscle is there helps the artist know to look for it via value difference or something like that.
For example, look at a shoulder:
For someone who doesn’t know anatomy, it would be mighty intuitive to describe it like this:
Then, if they had to replicate that line from memory it might look something like this:
Yes. The notorious Mr. Noodleman.
However, the shoulder area is composed of several main structures which give it a more specific form:
The spine of the scapula, to which the deltoid muscle is attached, and the trapezius muscle, which forms that diagonal shoulder line coming out of the neck. If one looks closely, there is an angle break where I drew the arrow, between the trapezius and the deltoid (link to illustrate).
This is so subtle and can easily be missed without knowing that it’s there. And once you know it’s there, you can no longer draw noodleman anymore, because you know that that curve should be broken down into more segments than 1. 🙂
The more I know anatomy, the more it will free me to be able to work from imagination and the faster I can draw and focus on more important things, like what inspires me about a subject.
I don’t mean “knowing anatomy” in the sense of memorizing every bone and muscle under the skin, but rather knowing practical anatomy – practical for artists, that is, not for doctors.
Now a bit about where I’m at with my education: I am now finishing my second year of training, after which I will have one more year to go.
I study at Georgetown Atelier in Seattle.
Next year I will be the senior student and the only one in my year, painting in full palette.
Other than me there will be two more painters in the school, which are just starting out and the rest of the students (9 of them) will be drawing.
I am a little nervous about that. Up until this point I always had more senior students to consult and learn from, but no more.
All 6 of them will be graduating in 2 weeks after 3 years of hard work.
Our graduation party showing everyone’s work, including mine, will be held at the school, on June 30th, 5-9pm.
It will have lots of art, music, refreshments, people and a really neat ” busy art studio” environment.
If you are in the area I would be happy to meet you and show you around, everyone are invited to the party and I will be very happy to see anyone who has interest in my art. Feel free to invite whoever you’d like. Here is the event on Facebook: Link. I would be delighted to see you there.
-Ifat
