August 2013 - Ben Lustenhouwer

30 August 2013

´Amber Traffic Lights´ in painting.

What are “Amber Traffic Lights” in painting?

Easily Overlooked Mistakes.

For instance:

You know your basic drawing is bad but you think you will manage later on.
Your photograph is badly printed because you did not have the right paper.
You know your brushes are sort of worn out but you did not have time to get new ones.
Your canvas is badly prepared but you did not want to “spoil” more time and you wanted to start right away.
You are setting up a big size painting but you only will be using small brushes and a small palette.
You run out of a colour and you think you can increase the left amount by adding medium.
You are tired and should stop but you´re too cocky to quit.
Etc.
Etc.

Try to recognize these moments. In the end you will realize that losing time in preparations means gaining time in painting.

25 August 2013

Painting from photography

You often hear the rather pompous opinion that all painting, especially portraits, should be done from life. I work from photos as much as I do from life (I always take the photos myself, sometimes over a hundred).

For me there should be no secrets in art! From as far back as the days of Leonardo da Vinci and Vermeer with their camera obscura, professional artists have often used technology to assist them in the creative process. In my tutorials I want to show how to use the digital camera to provide reference material for your portraits.

David Hockney claims many famous paintings were traced using camera-like devices.”Optical devices certainly don’t paint pictures,” Hockney said. “Let me say now that the use of them diminishes no great artist. ”

To Chuck Close, who paints from photographs of faces, it was self-evident that any artist would use every tool possible to make the job easier—even if art historians don’t want to believe it. “What did we learn?” Close would ask. “That some people are amazed that their artist heroes have cheated.”

24 August 2013

Chelva 2013 – Week of festivities

The third week of August Chelva, the village where we live, celebrates its week of festivities. Normally, our village has about 1200 souls, but during the celebrations there are 5000 inhabitants. People who used to live here and moved to the larger cities such as Valencia and Barcelona. Also those, whose parents ever emigrated to France looking for work. They all come back during these days. For many people the festival week is a reunion. Although we do not belong to the history of Chelva we feel incorporated in this community. We feel at home here.

Traditionally many Spaniards are religious and during the festival week the small statue of the Virgen del Remedio is picked up from a chapel in the mountains and in a procession brought down to the village. On Friday she is carried around through the neighborhood and also comes past our street. At the beginning of the video you can see the street with the painted flowers, where Helma drained the water for our garden, last month.

In the procession you see the villagers: The contractor, the electrician, the carpenter, the grocer, people who join us to joga, people of the supermarket, the mayor, and our Argentine friend the sculptor. You see him at the beginning of the procession carrying the cross-standard (and greeting me unobtrusive.) Many people we got to know and who have become dear to us.

23 August 2013

Recipe Tomato ketchup

You saw Helma´s kitchen garden. Now it is TOMATO TIME.

Here is a recipe for a delicious tomato ketchup:

2.5 kilo´s of tomatoes (remove the seeds from the tomatoes as much as possible in order to make the sauce less runny)
1 red pepper
2 medium size onions
garlic clove, from the press
100 ml of vinegar
75 gr. sugar
2 teaspoons grated ginger
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons nutmeg
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 clove
pepper
juice of half a lemon

Wash the tomatoes and cut them into pieces. Wash peppers and cut into pieces, remove the seeds.

Add the tomato, pepper, onion, lemon juice and garlic with a dash ofwater in a saucepan and simmer about 1 hour on low heat. Stir occasionally to avoid sticking. Add, if needed, a little bit water. Mash the sauce, off the fire with a hand blender.

Put it back on the fire and add the vinegar, sugar and spices.

Allow the sauce to simmer for another 1.5 hours, or until it has thickened sufficiently. Test it on salt and pepper. Pour the hot sauce into sterile jars. Seal the jars with a matching lid and turn it upside down to cool.

23 August 2013

Shut down

I have to apologize for the “shut down” of this blog. I want to thank all of you who sympathized and tried to help me solving the problem that had arisen entirely beyond my fault.

Thanks.

18 August 2013

An iPad holder on my easel

My latest acquisition: an iPad holder on my easel.

Earlier this year, one of my students at the portrait painting course in France designed an iPad holder for his easel. He ordered his tool-maker to carry out his invention. He showed me the thing, and I was very excited. I asked him to order one for me also. Here this you see the result. It is a fantastic tool. I can tilt my iPad in all imaginable positions.

But… unfortunately, he assured me there is no possibility to bring further into production this device. So don´t ask me…

How I save my oil paint the night over

Today I received a question on Youtube how I save the oil paint on my palette the night over. See this very short video, that is an excerpt from the tutorial “Portrait of a Little Boy”

You also can cover your paint with kitchen shrink wrap of course.

9 August 2013

El huertecico de Helma, Helma´s kitchengarden

Earlier in this blog I already wrote about the Helma´s kitchen garden. It is her “pride and joy” I said. And still it is. Now, in August, it is time for the tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines, onions, lettuce and whatnot. A continuing harvest throughout the year. The video I made this week, shows the watering procedure. Chelva has many springs and small rivers whose water is used for agriculture. Through a network of channels, in Spanish “acequias”, the water is directed to the vegetable gardens. A system that has been in use since Roman times.

You see Helma stabbing a small wooden board in the pit of the acequia, thereby draining the water towards our garden. It takes us half an hour to irrigate. It is our turn every week from Tuesday morning’s sun rise, until Wednesday evening sun’s demise. Annual costs: €2.75 . Peanuts!

4 August 2013

Amazing portraits: Van Dyck: Man with a lute

Van dyck en el prado man with lute Ben Lustenhouwer

As I told you last week, I was in The Prado, Madrid to see the Velazquez´s among others. I had a break to see some Spanish impressionist´s in between. At the end of my visit I was exhausted. All these beautiful paintings can drive you crazy in the end. Leaving the museum I came across this portrait of Anthony van Dyck: Man with a lute. My tiredness disappeared as if by magic, believe me or not. An overwhelming experience. What a straightforward power of values and pattern! Now, at home writing this post I leafed through the book Classical Painting Atelier by Juliette Aristides. And she describes exactly the same sensation at the end of a visit at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The secret is is in the simple strength of values.

Be sure to see the entire painting in high resolution at the beautiful Prado´s website.

I made two copies in photoshop. The left one to show the basic composition and the other a display of the chiaroscuro. Both of serene simplicity and power.