Portrait Painting, eigth and nineth session

During the eight session I worked in the bakground, homeogenizing the painting and applying a thicker layer with a bit of yellow and red, also I widened the shoulders a little, and tried to warm-up the skin. I did not attend to the studio for the nineth session because I went with my wife to a concert of "Il Divo" (I gave her tickets for her birthday) so I took the canvas home and worked based on a photography (the same I posted previoulsy) on the lights, and on the eyes which were not quite right, now they are more open and green, not blue. I also gave some touches to the air and shoulders.

Portrait Painting, seventh session

During this session the work was on the skin, begining with the shadows and dark tones.

Then I continue with the hair and mid-tones. I was still working with the limited palette of red, yellow and blue, this make the work more difficult because I tried no to use different types of yellow, blue or red despite of the fact it was the teacher's idea. The color of the shirt, for example, was not possible to achieve based on ultramarine blue.

At this stage I am not really satisfied with the results, I have some concerns eith the proportions: the head looks a bit large compared with the rest of the body. I checked again with the model, and it is OK. I will check again during the following stages, and if this impression does not change I will try to fix this effect enhancing the shoulders or something else.

Portrait Painting, Sixth Session

During this session the task was to paint the background to get rid of the blue, and give the subject a better contrast. After we continue with the shadows, and dark tones of the skin, to finish the session working on the yellow fabric covering the sofa.

Portrait Painting, Fifth Session, New model

The next session after learning the glaze technique is quite different, now instead of begin with a charcoal portrait as base, we have to underpaint the canvas with a shade of blue, I chose Ultramarine Blue dissolved in a half-half mix of oil and alkyd medium. The layer has to be semitransparent, not thick or opaque.
The model today is a different subject with more fair complexion so we can practice with a different skin color.

The canvas this time is quite big, 1.00 m x 1,20 m so it was not easy to get it covered with blue. After we get it all covered with blue paint, it was time to use the rug to get lights to get the subject initial portrait stage.
We will continue using a limited pallette, the three basic colors , Red, Blue and Yellow and white, we may use diferent types of each one, but I will try to limit myself to Primary Red, Ultramarine Blue, and Cadmium Yellow. This time we will use oils, I will use the Louvre I have from long time ago , which I never used.

After getting the lights, and once we have an acceptable resemblance of the subject we baegin to paint the shadows.After a while I have a general draft and the proportions of the model, still I am not sure of the right proportions, but I measureed again using a stick, and they are right. I assume that the "ot of proportion" feeling is just an optical effect.We finishet this session and we have to wait for the following class.

Portrait Painting, Fourth Session

Now, in the fourth session, and the last of the glaze technique, we check the painting was dry, and then applied paint to enhance the lights and some shadows to make more contrast on selected areas, finishing the painting.

Portrait Painting, third session

We returned to our painting, dry again, the surface give me an almost "plastified" feeling, perhaps I used too much alkyd medium.

The first stage now was to enhance the lights. We will leave the glaze for the next session.

My next task was to work on the shirt, it was blue, but because of the limited palette I turned it green, which looks quite nice against the color of the skin.

After finished the shirt, now with a natural hair brush I applied a glaze, with black alkyd paint and normal medium on the hair and shadow areas.

Next Session we will finish with a glaze, and we will get comments and evaluation.

Portrait Painting Course, Second Session

Finally, a week passed and we return to our painting, now completely dry.




Then we applied new glaze, using the same formula be used before. Warning! I forgot the mix included also non-alkyd medium so I tried to make it thinner adding more and more alkyd medium and the mix stayed very sticky, I had to wipe the excess of glaze with a rug to desaturate the canvas. This glaze was applied selectively by areas, darker in dark areas and thinner in lighter areas such as the face. Then I had the chance to fix some problems such the breast size. After the glaze we get lights again with a rug.



Now we began to paint with the glaze still wet, so we save some time, and the paint integrated easily with the previous layer.



We continue working on contrast, trying to get more volume and character. I had to apply more Burnt Sienna in order to warm up the picture, and get rid of that greenish hue.




We will wait until next session, probably the last one on applying glaze.

Portrait Painting Course

I have just began to attend to a portrait painting course at the School of Arts of the Catholic University of Chile. Last semester I was attending a watercolour course, my first attempt with painting. It was a nice experience as an introduction to the technique, I will keep practicing and sketching; watercolor is not an easy technique; later I will post some of my work.

The painting sessions will we each thursday. Our teacher is Francisco Schwember, check it out his web page at http://www.franciscoschwember.cl/

Now I am so excited with my first oil painting class that I am posting a sequence of my first four- hours class. The model is in the following photo.




First, we made a portrait sketch of the model in charcoal, which I fixed with airspray (Alberto VO5 worked just OK.)

Following the drawing, we mixed Burnt Sienna and Sap Green (alkyd colors for fast dry) with alkyd medium to make a thin color to apply a glaze. I used Gamblim medium and Windsor and Newton colors. We added standard medium to make the mix thinner an less gooey.

After applying the glaze we used a rag to get the lights from the painting, and have some volumes.

We waited for the glaze to dry while we had cup of coffe, and later we prepare a palette: Sap Green, Burnt Sienna, and Zinc White, mixed with a little of Alkyd white that a classmate kindly provided -it could have been just alkyid white, but I did not get it so we had to improvise. Using just this limited palette we continued painting the subject, light to dark. Now we have to wait until the next session, on thursday evening.

My first exhibition

I was invited to participate with one drawing at the Human Figure Art Exhibition at Sodimac in Santiago. I presented a chalk sketch on black paper, you may see it in this brochure.

TRUMBO

I watched “Trumbo” this weekend. It was a documentary about the life of Dalton Trumbo, Hollywood screenwriter and one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of film professionals who testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry. This documentary was filmed on 2008 and it is an interesting film which gives a picture of the McCarthyism and the times and life of this interesting person.

In 1947, Trumbo, along with nine other writers and directors, was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee as an unfriendly witness to testify on the presence of communist influence in Hollywood. Trumbo refused to give information. After conviction for contempt of Congress, he was blacklisted, and in 1950, spent 11 months in prison, and later he moved to Mexico and continued writing scripts for Hollywood with a friend as a “front” for his writings.

Trumbo and others refuse to answer the Congress inquiry on their membership of the communist party, this supported by the first amendment guarantee of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Trumbo said that the sentence for contempt of the Congress was just, since he really feel contempt for such Congress. Well, I think they could have said “acknowledgement from the parties make discoveries non-essential”.

He was right to have contempt for that Congress, however he was really aligned with the communist party at that time, and later he officially joined it. In my opinion, if we analyze this with the perspective that gives the time passed, and the distance that I have to the facts. And my admiration for the United States as Nation, it is very simple to draw some conclusions that may be not very popular:

That was time of Cold War; USA was threatened by the Soviet Union. Many communists and idealists felt loyalty to the international principles of communism. The representative of communism was the Soviet Union, hence they were a clear danger, even if the idea of prosecute them was not pretty. It is the same danger that today represent Islamic fundamentalism inside the USA borders. Forbid it is un-democratic, but it could turn to be a real danger.

Freedom and democracy will be always threatened by their own philosophy: freedom of speech and freedom of assembly facilitate the work of the enemy, internal or external. On the other hand, if that system defends itself creating organisms for its protection and performing defensive actions it look also as acts against the democratic system.

This ambiguity also is fed by the protagonists. In 1939 Trumbo wrote a prize winning anti-war novel “Johnny Got His Gun” which was quite in synchrony with the feeling of the times. During the beginning years of WWII communist were against the involvement of the US in the war beside England because the USSR was at peace with Germany. In 1941 Trumbo wrote “The Remarkable Andrew”, supporting the neutrality of the United States. However after the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union American communists change their minds, and Trumbo decided to suspend the reprint of is previous anti-war novel “Johnny Got His Gun”. After receiving several letters from people who were against the involvement of the US in the war, and wanted a new issue of the novel, Trumbo contacted the FBI and turned these letters to them. What a different in the stand he would have years later when he refused to give information to the Congress on Communist activities!

The movie fail in giving an impartial view of the facts, I agree that Trumbo was quite a personage, and had a very interesting life, but it shows the government and those who were anti-communists at the time as the evil ones. In conclusion: nothing new, the film supports the common idea that McCarthyism was evil and Communism was not a real threat. Things were not that Black and White.

1958-2009

We will miss you Michael.

Más Dibujos / More Drawings

Still drawing... I found my real self again through drawing. Years passed and I dedicated myself to other interests leaving drawing and painting on a secondary place. I never stopped completely, but my hobbie was put aside, and restricted mostly to doodling, sketching during conferences and classes, reading books on art, and buying art materials.

Now I have completed the prerequisites to get an Art Diploma from the Catholic University of Chile, and I am taking a course on watercolor. Next semester I am planning on taking another course on portrait oil painting. I hope I will be able to continue on this route.

Re-activation

Now I am re-activating this blog. I did not save time to do it before. I always have the intention, but I had a little issue with commitment. Now I am taking this seriously thanks to the friends that gave me comments, liked my posts, and encouraged me to continue. So far I have been drifting from professional, personal issues, and hobbies. From now on I will focus my posts on more playful interests such drawing, painting, movies, comics, etc.