Determined to Draw

I am determined to draw a little, or a lot, each night this week. So determined was I when I arrived home tonight that I took out most of my charcoal and chalks, erasers, knives, and drawing pads and put them on the table so I would not be able to ignore them. This is a trick I have to play on myself. Although it is untidy and impractical to have all that material lying around, it makes life easier not having to unpack the material each night from my trusty toolbox.

I've decided for my next submission to the current Following the Masters challenge, I am not going to do a painting, I am going to do a charcoal sketch of the artist whose work we are paying homage to - Robert Henri. I have found a good photograph on the internet, so I'll work from that. I just don't know his work at all, and nor do I know the work of the Ashcan School. This makes me realise just how Eurocentric my art knowledge is at present, and even our libraries don't seem to have any decent monographs on his work or of his followers. I love to work from a good reproduction, but this time they are not available, so I'm going to use this challenge to practice my drawing. Not inventive, but totally practical. Some more clarity.

Off we go...

Homage to a Homage

This is my submission to the latest Following the Masters challenge. I have been waiting so long to photograph this work because the light has been so poor lately. However, today, I decided I could not wait any longer as the deadline for submission is tomorrow, so I chose the best photograph out of many and felt it would have to do as 'good enough' for the project.

I chose this Picasso because it was one of the works on show at a magnificent blockbuster exhibition held at the National Gallery in 2009. The format was also roughly the same as a spare canvas I had, so a lot of practicality was involved in choosing this work. It is not my favourite by a long distance, but I loved its quirkiness. This massive show was titled "PICASSO - Challenging the Past". The entire exhibition was based on Picasso's own homages to past masters and the pictures he had painted directly from their masterpieces, e.g. Velasquez' 'Las Meninas' which was for me, the utlimate picture at the show. So my work is a homage to Picasso's homage to Lucas Cranach the Younger! It was a spectacular show and I found it very difficult to leave the exhibition halls. The energy of all his work together was staggering. The original work is actually a linocut and to emulate some of those effects was difficult but I didn't try to push that too hard. In addition, the yellows and ochres were incredibly hard to paint. I had to go over them many times to get them to look solid. I should have thought this through carefully at the beginning but I was so eager to start. It took a lot longer than I anticipated. I kept seeing extra details that I had missed but all in all, it is close enough to my original vision to send it off to Following the Masters. Another interesting part of this challenge was finding the original work by Lucas Cranach the Younger which inspired Picasso to do his linocut. I find all these transitions over time hugely absorbing.

My homage to Picasso

Oil on Canvas - 30" x 25"

The Original Picasso

"Portrait of a Woman after Cranach the Younger"
Colour Linocut - 25" x 13"

The Original of Lucas Cranach the Younger

"Portrait of a Woman" - Oil on Board - 83 x 64 cm

Kunsthistorisches Museum - Vienna

My Latest Blog Challenge! No. 5.

In the spirit of adventure I have entered another blog challenge. Recently I discovered another super blog Follow the Masters which challenges artists to respond to various images of the Master Painters. This last challenge was to take any Maxfield Parrish work and interpret it. I have visited art galleries in the USA but confess, that I have never lingered in front of any of his work. This therefore was a double challenge because I only had a web image to work from. Interestingly, the images of his work on Google Images vary so dramatically that it is impossible to work out how far they are removed from the original but I would assume, very far indeed, especially the one I chose which is "The Tempest". I loved the web image I chose because it had huge drama and it looked as if it was one of those over-printed images that was many generations away from the original register. I loved the rock formations and I think they were the real hook to get me started on this work because, on close inspection, they reminded me so much of the abstract expressionist work I used to do at University. However, it was great to get it finished, even though it took me far longer than I anticipated, but that is what these blog challenges are all about; learning.

After Maxfield Parrish's "The Tempest"
Oil on Gesso Board - 12" x 12"

Detail that reminded me of my University days!

The Original Maxfield Parrish "Tempest"