Wedding soon

Almost 10 years ago I painted in oil the portrait of our daughter when she was 18 years old. The watercolour painting is made some ten years earlier. End of next week we will celebrate her wedding in Madrid.
I am glad that I painted some portraits of her. I never think in terms of eternity and I don’t consider my work so important that everyone will have to remember me after hundred years. But these portraits are different to me. You will understand.

Karen leyendo
Karen leyendo
Karen de azul
Karen de azul

Chelva

As you have seen every now and then I took pictures of the “skyline” of our village Chelva from our garden. I made a short slideshow on Youtube. The guitar is by Rob Kietselaer.

Enjoy.

Active and passive zones in painting

Part of the text of my next video demonstration “Learn how to  paint a portrait”: Portrait of a little girl.

In a painting there are active and passive zones. Let me explain that. In my portraits almost always I want to draw the maximum attention to the eyes. So I try to make that zone the most active place in the painting. How? Among others by creating the highest possible articulation of the highlights on the eyes. The mouth is the second in this order of attention. It is clear that the the background is the most passive zone of the portrait. But you will have to pay the same attention to all the parts of the painting. The active as well as the passive. Every part deserves the same attention.

I am painting here the neck and this is not a very active part of the portrait. Nevertheless it has to be well painted. Good colours and good brushwork. And why do I say that? I want to stress that no part of the painting may become a bungled piece of work.

You should seek for the highest dedication to all areas. Passive and active.

 

Voice-over for my video.

Interim cleaning my palette.

At this moment I am really busy to do the voice-over for my video demonstration.

Interim cleaning my palette.
Still from the video.

Last week I showed you a picture of myself behind the microphone. The video will have 14 chapters and now I am working on part 9. This is a short fragment of the text that I made for the part when I am cleaning once more a part of my palette:

…but let me clean a bit my palette first  before I carry on with the cheekbone. It may seem excessive to clean the palette every now and then. Sometimes I see students jammed in a terrible mess hoping to find their way out. I know that they might be afraid to lose all the mixtures by cleaning. But I think that a pure spot on your palette is much more effective than the possible convenience of recycling a left mixture.

The same error is: using different brushes for different colours. In one of my courses I saw a lady with six different brushes in one hand. I think that is a mistake. That does not help you. I am pretty sure that chaos on your palette and in your hand is the reflection of a chaos in your head. But please do not despair, to be honest I also was the one with that rubbish heap on his palette and with a bouquet of brushes in his hand. Long time ago!