Being Creative

Hi,
i love art me.

I have always thought that art is the one thing that separates us from animals. Its the divine spark.

A while back I began to paint. I have always drawn in pencil, but painting looked a bit hard really. Then I saw a programme in NZ called "Mastering the Art, with John Myatt. John was an art forger, and an extremely successful one (Google him).

I watched the artists each week trying, and often failing to capture a great artist, and I though I think I might give it a go.

Jacqui paints as well, and does beautiful copies of impressionists. There is a marked difference between how we approach an art-wok. Jacqui will absolutely fearlessly start throwing paint at the canvass, beating it into submission, and achieving great results. I however am slightly different.

I can't copy. When I was a kid my Dad would talk with absolute disdain about copying another mans work, to the point where drawing from a photo was "copying" because it didn't come from your head.

I do paint from photo's it is too complicated otherwise. I paint nudes, because I love the shape of the human form. I paint naked ladies, I don't want to be sexist, but painting a knob isn't something I want to spend my Sunday doing. Also male nudes are harder, and you cant get decent male nude photography is something hard to find, most of it isn't artistic, but verging on porn.

Same thing with the female nude actually, but I didn't mind searching for the nice pose so much.

Anyway, this was my first attempt.



Not bad, so then I did this one, which was a lot more challenging



Now Jacqui did a painting of a close up of one of Modigliani's portraits, and I loved it.



Here is is, I became enamored in how Modigliani achieved a face with so little work, so whilst watching TV, I showed Jacqui how you could draw a female figure using as few lines as possible



Here is the result. In pen, whist watching Brian Sewell on the box. So looking at this I thought i could use the face in a nude.

Unfortunately I didn't photograph the preparatory sketched, but basically I tried to do as much with as little. The background is my bedroom, and Van Gough's Starry Night is out the window. I was more interested in the composition of the colours than the details, (they had to look nice, and I painted the nude with subtle shading (like Modigliani) but with a strong outline technique I stole from Hockney, who stole it from Matisse. I also pinched the hair from Roger Dean and Alan Aldridge (He did the Beatles later artwork)

This is the result



I have to say I am absolutely thrilled how it has turned out. All from within my fevered brain, and onto canvas. It looks simple, but it took me 3 weeks to do, just thinking about what I wanted to achieve.

I can say this is my own work, my own style, and i am pretty happy with myself.

Not quite as good as Modigliani, but better than Matisse!! :-p

Be good