Funny Quote by Gertrude Stein

Love that is it a visual that drives home the humor...because of course it is!

Realism and Cubism Together or Apart

A great way to fully understand an art movement...

To have to paint the same subject matter realistically and then in that style.

It especially helped me to both both canvases at the same time.  I would take one object, paint it realistically then move to the other canvas and break and repaint it down cubist style.

I would know I was painting too long when I would accidentally mix up the canvases.  Not sure which one I prefer, but I can now tell you much more about cubism than I ever thought I would ver be able to.

Main take away, it is not as easy as it looks!

Cubistic and Realistic Still Life

A great study practice....my strategy is the paint the first object realistically, then use the leftover paint to paint the same object in a cubistic fashion on the other canvas...

Obviously these babies are still in progress...

Great Work from Winter 2017 Class!

What a fun time we had, painting, learning, solving all the world's problems...;)

These paintings certainly do not look like beginner level at all!

Fantastic work!

Click here it see the schedule for our next class!

Abstraction/Reality Part Deux!

So the art geek in me just cannot get enough of this looking waaaay up CLOSE to artwork and seeing the little abstractions in the BIG reality.  I blame (or thank) both Chuck Close with his gridded portraits of the 90s (zoom in close on one and see what I mean) as well as digital photography...

Yes it is such a geeky love of mine that I took about 1000 close ups photos of paintings in the louvre.  Just like these...

And yes sometime I spend my evenings just scrolling through them...

looking at them, I try to see the technique and palettes used, trying to guess what the artist was thinking and planning while creating their masterpiece ...

Forging for What? Aesthetic Experience vs. Financial Investment

Did you know that by some estimates, as much as 1 out of 3 pieces that you see in a museum are forgeries?

 In fact it is so prevalent that some museums are now hosting shows devoted to forged art!

Shocking, isn’t it?

Or is it?  Really?

Art forgeries are not as bad as say, terrorism, famine, and catastrophic illness... I think we would all agree. While it does sham many out of millions, could this be just a large scale buyer beware situation?

In fact, if you do not personally invest huge wads of $$$$ into the art market, it may actually be kind of intriguing...this Youtube video on the history of art forgery sum it up quite nicely.

This article from NPR puts an fresh perspective on it for the little museum goers, like you and me...Signature vs. Architecture in paintings (and other forgeries).   I really wish NPR still had the comments section for this one, would love to hear the overall reception of it.  It brings up a great point, should the average viewer really even care if it is a fake or not, should that come into play at all with the aesthetic interaction they are having with the piece right in front of them?

Happy Reading! And Pondering!

In Reality, It Is ALL Abstract!

And the scale!  Take this warm/cool study I just finished...

Here is the whole image, and it is fairly realistic by my standards of viewing and style of painting...

24"x18"

And now at super hyper close-up....

...these images are standing on their own...

                                                              ...but give a totally different feel

                                    ...even if you can tell which part of the big picture it is.

Try this the next time you see realistic large scale paintings, try to get as close as possible to see the abstractions...a wild way to interact with art!