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Friday, February 27, 2015

Ice Cream For Breakfast

You Have Any Froot Loops? Graphite, 6 x 8",TMDD Series

This kid was over for breakfast a few years back. She didn't like Oatmeal.  She didn't like Fiber One.  She wanted Froot Loops.  In the thirtysome years since my boys ate their last bowl, the cereal had gone to dust. She settled for ice cream on waffles.  What nana could say no?

Before sitting down to sketch the kid this morning, I saw a wonderful video on FB.  It awed me--and at the same time, discouraged. This portrait artist could wield a brush.  He is Chinese.  Instead of taking a class in manually operating a digital camera this spring or finishing my grisaille, I think I'd like to learn to write Chinese.  It's their alphabet, beautifully printed with a brush since an early age,  that makes them maestros. Watch Yuehua He's phenomenal, time lapse portrait video   Note how he handles his brush. Note his palette. It's limited to earth tones.  I was sadder than ever that I don't have the time it would take to achieve such a high level of skill. That's what you get for saving the best for last.












12 comments:

  1. What a face ... what an expression!!! This is a fantastic drawing, Linda! Now I must go look at Yuehua ...

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    1. You'll be sick. This is a video to be watched over and over again till you've figured out his palette. Umbra, for certain. Sienna or TRO second and there was ochre in there somewhere. What amazed me was how he twirled the brush from flat to thin line. I overlooked how he held the brush, but I know his loose grip was a Chinese thing. This portrrait is up your alley: watercolour I believe. Check it out.

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  2. Bonjour,
    Une sacrée frimousse ! j'aime beaucoup ses yeux espiègles ! Très joli dessin.
    Gros bisous ❤︎

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    1. Son petit visage. Merci. Je suis le genre de nana qui suit ses petits-enfants autour d'une caméra. Je lui ai recadré sur une plus grande photo je ai pris ce matin. Je creuser profondément de nouveau dans mes archives pour trouver des références possibles pour mes 30 séances de dessin minute. Ces photos ne ont pas été prises avec l'idée de les utiliser pour les références. Ceux de mon ordinateur portable qui est dans le magasin étaient.

      Her little face. Thanks. I'm the kind of nana who follows her grandchildren around with a camera. I cropped her out of a larger photo I took that morning. I'm digging deep back into my archives to find possible references for my 30 minute drawing sessions. These photos were not taken with the idea of using them for references. The ones in my laptop that's in the shop were.

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  3. Missed some great stuff, Lynne. Thanks for critique. In bed with flu

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    1. I'm sorry to hear that. Did you get the flu vaccine? While it doesn't protect you from all the strains, it does lessen the severity I've heard. I hope my insight was helpful; that painting is quite a challenge?

      I haven't much heart for painting these days. Something's going on--actually has been going on for a while. The sketches are keeping me in tune.

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    2. Sorry didn't mean Lynne, Linda. Yeah I had the vaccine, looks like a non-forecast strain.

      Insight very much appreciated.

      The more you worry about painting the worse it may get. Suggest you spend a week or so of doing accurate and complicated architectural drawings like in your earlier mode ... this will soon bring you back to painting as it did a few years ago

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    3. I saw a wonderful video yesterday on the Robert & Sara Genn Newsletter about Gerhard Richter's method of mounting his huge canvases to the wall which he uses as his easel. The abstract artist's obvious love of the paint itself reminded me when I used just play with the paint to see how it behaved on its own minus the restrictions of subject matter. I adored the child-like process that always yielded surprises.

      Richter's work is anything but child's play. He uses no brushes, he prefers the squeegee. His use of color is highly evolved. Watch him on You Tube while you rest up. He may make you want to try your hand at abstraction--giant abstractions. The kind that dominate a space and expand it by being a window to another world. Very exciting. Small abstractions just don't do it. They are purely experimental.

      Then there's the idea of painting a painting over a painting and letting the two worlds meld to form a third. Abstraction is pretty interesting at the moment--as long as I'm doing my thirty minute realistic sketches. Ellis says, they are probably satisfying me enough where I don't need to paint. He probably has a point, except Ellis has also quit his position and turned in his keys. We are in a transitional period. That's unsettling and can freeze a brush.

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  4. Reminds me of a Dickens character! I love the sketch.

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    1. She was a little urchin. 😄. She still needs a few tweaks, but that's the way of it. Reading a wonderful novel with beautifully written prose you might enjoy if you haven't enjoyed it already: All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Superb structure.

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  5. What a wonderful video! Absolutely fascinating! Thank you for the link - and the one for Gerard Richter which I need to watch when I have more time.
    Just read your comment about the brush freezing - please don't let that happen. Good luck for the transition times.

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    1. Thanks Carol. the one thing nice about transitional times is that they are transitional. ;-)) The three minute video gives you a good idea of Gerhard Richter's work. The other is if you are at all interested in his evolution. I only watched half myself. Abstractionists are very abstract.

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