Spectrum: From the intense to the gently humourous

  

Time for a big catch-up on the artist-of-the-week on-line course.   First, a quick review.  You know my methods, Watson.  -- or do you?  I've been lurking around the edges of this course, adhering to only one of its rules:  There ARE no rules, and you can do whatever you want or nothing at all.

  

So:  I take note of the artist-of-the-week, trying to work at least a week in advance.  Then I go to my art books and/or make a mesmerizing Google Images search, and then I decide what to do to best suit my personal goals.

But what to do when the week presented Van Gogh?  Like so many other artists-or-not,  I feel almost a personal connection with him from the time decades ago that I read his biography and his letters to his brother.  The words "awe" and "reverence" are not too strong for my feelings of regard and attachment.   I couldn't imagine either copying a painting (which in other cases I might do) or working in his style.  Then, as I looked through a wonderful book of Van Gogh portraits, I decided to select four self-portraits and reproduce only "Vincent's Eyes" -- or, singular, that one magnificent eye that stares back at me from my bulletin board and energizes my whole studio.

The next week I became better acquainted with Kees van Dongen -- a name I'd heard as an artist in Matisse's early circle.  He painted many big-eyed colourful female portraits, but I was most taken with his "Portrait of Madame Jasmy" in black-white-grey.

In the Image Search, I spotted a photo of van Dongen in his studio, holding an easel, and decided to recreate this in the manner of Madame -- borrowing some colour from other of his works.

Next up:  A female artist whose name I knew -- unfortunately, as so many people do, as "the sister of.........A More Famous Male Artist."   Or, and this applied, too:  "Mistress of a More Famous Artist."

She's Gwen John, sister of Augustus John, with whom I had a slight familiarity, and also the sometime mistress of the great sculptor (and womanizer) Rodin.   As I cruised through images of her rather restrained, rather Victorian portraits, I stopped in my tracks at this dynamite portrait of her sister Winifred. 

This one I had to try copying!   The work-in-progress sequence is rather interesting -- as I tried using an acrylic paste medium to enable a texture like the one in John's oil painting.   Here's my final "Portrait of Winifred John - an emulation."

 At this point you might be wondering where in the spectrum we'll encounter the "gently humourous."  The first sample comes by way of my introduction to a fascinating artist I'd never heard of -- a South African painter named Irma Stern (1894-1966).   The Afro-American instructor who created the week's lesson credited Stern with humanizing and dignifying African and Asian subjects in a very atypical way for that era in South Africa.

Stern is a fabulous colourist who merits more of my study -- but I was enthralled with her fairly muted "Portrait of the Baillie Children."

Hmmmmm.  What to make of this?  Lightbulb flash!  I'd take them forward in time about 15 years.  Here's my "And Then They Grew Up."

I *love* this punky twosome who still give me a morning laugh in the studio.  Oh, I do enjoy my own sense of humour.........as shown next, when we reached the artist Pierre Bonnard.

Decades back, on one of our few trips to France, we saw a fabulous exhibit of Les Nabis, the group of artists which includes Bonnard.  His colours,  particularly "in real life," are ravishing -- and I'm a great fan.  And what's more -- something I'd known for a long time -- Bonnard was one of those artists who adored cats.   When this one hopped up in the Image Search, I was struck by its title:  "The Demanding Cat." 

My course of action was clear.  There was nothing for it but to grab the white cat's colour for my own almost-snowy hair and substitute a streamlined tabby to represent a special little cat-boy who was full of affection and his own irresistible assertiveness.  Here we are, together enjoying our own sense of humour:  "Self-portrait with The Commander-Demander."

  

We've come full circle with this post's spectrum -- but there will be lots more ahead.  After all, it seems in some people, the human eye can distinguish a million or more colours.  

What are we gonna do?!

After a disoriented April, I got back to the drawing studio on May Day.  M'aidez, indeed!  Everyone was all set to go, all chairs were filled in the circle around the model stand, but -- no model.  This had never happened (to me) before.

Okay.  No worries.  The model phoned to say she was stuck in traffic, and the imperturbable studio monitor appealed to a member of the group -- another of the regular models, who is also an artist, who was attending the session to do drawing herself.  She agreed to do the warm-up by modelling for the 1- and 2-minute poses, but "draped" as we say (keeping her clothes on).

I think this young woman was one of the first models I had when I began this routine just a year ago -- and she's FAB.  Here are a couple of her 1-minute poses:

And several two-minute poses:

  

It was positively exhilarating.  And then the scheduled model arrived -- a very beautiful young woman with a perfect body.  Under other circumstances, it would have been satisfying to try to do justice to this perfection -- but after the first model's challenging twists, turns, shifts in balance....  Well, as I confirmed at the break with a regular compatriot who I often sit near:  the energy just seemed to evaporate from the room.

For the most part, I chose to focus on sections of her figure rather than on an entire serene pose.  Some 5-minute poses:

A couple of 10-minute poses:

And a playing-with-crayons (me) 30-minute pose:

 Not bad for an overall session, considering that implementing Plan B resulted in an A Plus performance.  When I thanked both models afterwards, the dynamic one reminded me that the models' monthly schedule is posted on the website.  AND it just so happens that she's on the May 15^th roster.  YA-HOO!   I'll be there.