Search Results: g (2707)

Letters dale-chihuly_basket-light-drawing_2017
20

Yesterday, my friend Joe Blodgett brought a big yellow print into the studio. It was sort of modern, with a large, undecipherable signature across the lower end. “What do you think of this?” he asked. “Interesting,” I said, which is what I say when I don’t know what to say. “Why don’t you run it through those ‘evaluation points’ that you use when you jury?” he suggested. I protested that my points were subject to modification — sometimes there’s something major that upsets them. “Like, ‘I like it,’ ” I said.

Letters poons_turned-his-head_2017
16

“People think I’m dead,” Larry Poons says, without irony. At age 80, he’s explaining his obscurity to filmmaker Nathanial Kahn while daubing colour onto a mammoth work-in-progress — un-stretched canvas draped ceiling-to-floor in a circle around him. Larry’s wizened face, hobo duds and ramshackle studio in rural, upstate New York describe an archetype of monetary irreverence. He and Kahn are in the midst of shooting The Price of Everything, Kahn’s documentary about the skyrocketing contemporary art market. Poons has been cast as The Purist.

Letters Vincent-van-Gogh_The-yellow-house_(The-street)
21

In the comments section of last Friday’s letter, Sharon Lalonde asked, “What is the responsibility of an artist to be a good host at her opening, and what would that look like? I have been to openings where one has to guess who the artist is, or the artist is comfortably in a corner with a few friends and does not engage. I think some education in this area would be valuable.”

Letters Caspar-David-Friedrich_Abby_in_the-Oak-Wood
26

Like the novel or memoir many of us feel we have lurking inside but will probably never put to paper, there is undoubtedly a painting or two that simmers in the arm and hand of all creative beings. More primal than writing, mark-making begins in early childhood, to be perverted later into a messy and inconvenient activity where the exception to do it in adulthood is made only when it serves an industry. A lawyer friend once invited me to his basement to show me an appealing, sort-of pointillist portrait in cheery colours. “Can you help me get a show?” he asked.

Letters tom-thomson_forest-interior-birches_1916
19

A young Canadian artist wrote, “I had meant to ask your dad about those mahogany wood panels. I have been looking for a wood panel that is cheap in cost so that I can paint more and is time tested and archival, and something I can trust. I tried to look into it myself, but can’t seem to find them. I would also use the wood panels to glue canvas onto for oils and acrylics. Are these mahogany wood panels still a professional choice to sell the work compared to a stretched canvas, or are they only good for studies? Does it matter?”

Letters elizabeth-sparhawk-jones_in-rittenhouse-square_nurse-maids
16

Called “The Order of the Golden Day,” here’s a bit of fun that can change your life:

You set aside a clear and uncluttered day to work and love your craft. Start early; end late. You put your head down and push yourself from one thing to another. It’s a day where everything comes out of the end of the brush (or pen, or chisel), a luxury day where all that counts is the universe of your creation. After, on your weary way to bed, you can give yourself a badge.

Letters COURBET, Gustave (b. 1819, Ornans, d. 1877, La Tour-de-Peilz) The Grain Sifters 1854 Oil on canvas, 131 x 167 cm Mus?e des Beaux-Arts, Nantes The women here are Courbet's sisters, Zo? and Juliette, along with Courbet's son, D?sir? Binet. A masterpiece of rural simplicity, it is a brilliant example of the genre scene and reminiscent of Millet. The painting was exhibited at the 1855 Salon. --- Keywords: -------------- Author: COURBET, Gustave Title: The Grain Sifters Time-line: 1851-1900 School: French Form: painting Type: genre
19

A subscriber wrote, “I’ve been a photographer for longer than I care to mention and have recently taken up painting in acrylic. I find that all the subject matter has been expressed through my photography and not much, if anything, catches my eye for painting. There are always subjects to paint, but none that I want to paint. My wife and I are packing up and moving to the B.C. Gulf Islands in an attempt to spark the creative juices again. Have you ever run into this kind of block?”

Letters Budavar-repossession-by-Gyula-Benczur
11

At the top of the staircase at the National Gallery in Budapest hangs what many agree to be the last Hungarian historical painting. Commissioned for Budapest’s bicentennial and finished in 1896, it depicts the moment two hundred years earlier when the troops of the Holy League, led by Commander Prince Charles of Lorraine, took the city back after 150 years under Turkish rule. At over 23 feet long and 11 feet high, the painting puts me at eye level with the iridescent pink flag and golden boots of an unknown colour guard, who has been crushed beneath the slain body of the Turkish pasha Ali Abdurrahman. They lay strewn across the painting’s almost dead-centre foreground.

Letters Canadian Fine Art resale market
10

Early in my career I came to know an artist by the name of Lawren Harris. On one of our walks together he told me that he thought paintings came out of themselves. He explained that the painting you are doing right now is the springboard for the next and the next after that. When paintings follow one another, in series or in similar format, they “learn” from one another. A useful technique is to vary the approaches to the development of the series. The whole idea, as I’ve come to understand and apply it, is to better extract the spirit of subjects. Here are a few methods:

Letters edward-hopper_house-at-the-fort
24

A subscriber wrote, “I was wondering what you would have to say about saving a painting by reworking it. I do watercolours and when things go wrong, they usually head south fast. But I sometimes go in and try to save things. Does trying to save a painting ever really work? Have you ever gotten a great painting out of one that was on its way to the dumpster?”

1 … 13 14 15 16 17 … 271