Pink House with Green Shutters…..

Tags

art, artist, artist life, drawings, Paris, pen and ink drawings, pink house

I want to live in a PINK house with GREEN shutters….in PARIS.

Today on Instagram @vuthears a very talented artist living in Paris….posted a Parisian street photo…he is always posting beautiful pictures of Paris…and today’s photo of a little pink cafe really made me want to go back to Paris….like right now!

So in my own little way I salute Paris….and it’s artists….with this simple drawing.

Advertisement

Triathlon….

Tags

action photography, artist, artist life, sports photography, Triathlon photography

Was asked to take photos at a local Triathlon…below are several pictures of the bike portion….I kept experimenting with the shutter speed and aperture….

The first two photos I got a blurred effect with a slower shutter speed of 1/30 of a second, ISO 400 and f/14….

Love the guy in this photo…he gave me a peace sign as he sped by..

These next photos have higher shutter speeds and ISO’s….so the action was frozen…

Last one…I promise…

Spider….

Tags

abstract photography, art and nature, artist, artist life, being creative, black and white nature photography, black and white photos, flower image, flowers, getting outdoors, getting outside, green spider, macro photography, nature, nature art, nature in photographs, nature photograph, nature photography, northeast georgia living, photography, pink flower, spider

Shot these photos around 8am in our front garden…..

Sabi

Artist Life…..Commission Work..

Tags

art, artist, artist life, blue horses, commission work

For years I resisted doing work on commission. People can be so fussy and demanding and the thought of falling short to some one’s expectations was overwhelming daunting thought. So why now am I taking commission work as opposed to earlier in my artist career?

Well…..for years now I have been studying the masters from the Renaissance period to the Impressionist period and beyond. Over the years I have perfected my drawing and painting skills by studying and painting copies of the old masters. Invaluable lessons have been learned through these exercises. True you don’t make much money this way, but is art all about money?

Second…….when taking on a commission I have to be very realistic about my abilities, can I do this?….do I have the time, the skill, and even the desire to do this piece? This is the honest reality check.

Thirdly……is price. I have to be realistic about the price. I do that by keeping up with how much I have invested in the materials. You know paint, canvas….etc.. Then I keep an account of time. Seriously….when I keep up with the amount of time I spend on a particular piece, it is usually much less time than I realized. Then I set an hourly amount I need to be paid to paint a piece.

For example….I just finished I 5×7 inch painting of two horses for a client in Texas. My client had seen another painting like this in her friends house and wanted one like it. Great! I keep all my drawings, so I was ready to start and I completed this piece in about 3 1/2 hours.

So let’s say with the economy the way it is…..a realistic dollar amount per hour for a relatively unknown artist like myself is between $10 and $15 an hour. Yeah, seriously….. My personal philosophy is I would rather be painting than not. And to keep myself in brushes, paint, and canvas… I have to sell. This piece was easy for me to do, so I charged only $10 an hour plus shipping charges. That way the client gets an original piece of art at a good price, my name gets known in my client’s circle of friends, and I get new brushes.

Yes, for the meanwhile….I’ll keep my day job. But I’ll also get to keep painting and eating……

Don’t get discourage….being artistic is more than making money….it’s a necessary passion.

Sabi

Finding One’s Visual Voice…..

Tags

abstract, art, artist, Christ, christian art, christian artist, drawing, flowers, georgia, georgia o'keeffe, giovanni, icon, icons, impressionism, impressionistic, Jesus, landscapes, monet, nature, oil, oil painting, original, original painting, painting, paintings, pantocrator, still life, still life of flowers, van gogh, visual voice

Making a yellow paper mache piggy bank was the only thing that got me through 4th grade…..so I have been a visual artist since I was 9 years old. I say this lightly but with a solid belief that art should be readily available to everyone.

Many like me have the need to work in color and line, but might not be able to make their complete living at it. So what……getting money for one’s visual expressions is not always what matters at the end of the day.  For me time in the studio gets me through life. I’m happy when I see a beautiful orange or yellow on the canvas. I like sharing with others these colors.

While studying painting and drawing at the University of Georgia the focus was more on developing one’s personal narrative as an artist. That’s great if one has a firm grasp on basic drawing and painting skills. I did not…..so I limped through art school.

Before graduation, I backpacked through Europe and got the chance to study many great European artist. Getting a chance to see drawings and under paintings of the great masters encouraged me to work on my drawing skills and basic painting techniques. So over the years I have made many studies of some of my favorite artist.

The Italian painter Matteo di Giovanni painted his ‘Christ with Thorns’ sometime between 1480-95. The format was very much like the Byzantine icon, but the orange and blue color combination was what attracted me to do a study of this work.

Study of Giovanni’s ‘Christ Crowned with Thorns’

Another work that I painted a study of was the ‘The Sinai Pantocrator’ also known as the ‘Blessing Christ.’

Study of ‘The Blessing Christ’

Although these two works are different in tone and style these paintings taught me much about the process of making a proper under painting and facial modeling. One of my professors in college who was an abstract artist said that ‘One should first learn to draw realistically before venturing into the abstract.’ I really took his words to heart. I still have much to learn and practice, but studying these two images of Christ forced my eye and hand to see the geometric proportions of the face.

 

Next, I  wondered onto the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe. O’Keeffe taught me to paint as a woman. Below are several paintings that I did as a study of and inspired by her paintings. In 2010, I got the chance to see O’Keeffe originals in the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her colors are much more vivid than any photograph of her work can reproduce.

After visiting a Claude Monet exhibit at the High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia I was struck by Monet’s subtile tonal and color changes and was inspired to do a study of his ‘Morning on the Seine, Geverny, 1897’

Of course no study is complete, without the influence of Vincent Van Gogh. His usage of color still amazes me and is very difficult to pin down. Below are a few studies I have done of his amazing work,

For 2013, I have decided to find my own visual voice and narrative. I’m sure influences of these great artist will still be present in my work, but I want to focus on what my eye sees and how it sees it. After all, we are all different and bring our own unique interpretations to the palette. Finding out who we are and what we are about is a part of our collective human narrative. Long live the line and the color that comes with it. May we all discover something new about ourselves and share it with others. Being creative is a part of being human.

 

Process of Writing an Icon

Tags

artist, christian artist, drawing, icon in progress, learning how to do icons, painting, process of writing icons, propolasmo, virgin and child icon

The process of writing icons has been handed down for centuries. I will not go into the detail of it, but simply give highlights of how I write my icons. I have learned both under a professional iconographer and I have studied on my own for many years now.

The first step is possibly the hardest and that is getting a good drawing. I can work for weeks on my drawings. Once I have a good drawing I transfer the image to tracing paper.

 

Since it is easier for me to get a good drawing on a small scale I then use my overhead projector to enlarge my drawing. Once the drawing has been transferred with pencil to my canvas I then use a mixture of Burnt Sienna and Yellow Ochre (I use oil based paints) to outline my drawing. Otherwise the pencil markings would disappear at the first touch of turpentine. I wait a day or so giving my drawing plenty of time to dry. Once dry I apply what is called Propolasmo. Propolasmo is a Greek word which means base coat. For all my icons the propolasmo is the same mixture of Cadmium Red, Yellow Ochre and Sap Green. Of course the mixture of these three colors can be in various ratios depending upon whether you want a warm or cool under painting. . The propolasmo acts as a unifier to the entire work and it also represents chaos. The manner in which this layer is applied is that of small X’s. Making the base coat have this natural dark-light quality to it.

Here is a picture of my painting palette. In the center is my mixed propolasmo. I have to be sure to mix enough of this color because it will be added to everything else in varying degrees, from skin tone to to the colors of clothes. To keep this color alive for the number of days it takes me to finish, I carefully cover it with plastic wrap.
When the propolasmo is dry, the first things to be written on the icon are the faces. Here, I have mixed the Propolasmo with various degrees of cadmium red, burnt sienna, raw umber, yellow ochre, and white to achieve the various tones.

 

In the above picture you can see the original propolasmo in the clothing areas. Once the faces are at a desired point I next block in some yellow ochre warmed with a little cadmium yellow medium in the halo areas. I’ll come back to the halos later so I move on to some of the clothing areas. I choose to go with an earthy green for the clothing of the Christ child.

Notice a hint of my original propolasmo on the side. I added it to my greens.

 

Now I simply highlight with my green mixture and white. The darker folds of the fabric are created with raw umber and the green mixture. After all the necessary areas are lighted and darkened I very carefully blend with a one inch brush.

This is where I will pick up tomorrow. I will be posting more pictures in the upcoming days as I finish different sections of this icon.