Detailed or blurry

Detailed or blurry

Detailed or blurry
Portrait painting from photography has pros and cons. One of the major drawbacks is the inclination to copy all the details. Detailed or blurry?Apparently every wrinkle, eyelash and hair lock must be displayed faithfully. But a good portrait is not a sum of all observable details. I have said it last week: It’s not about whether it just seems real, the point is that it is true and authentic.

In his book Alla Prima ll Richard Schmid says:” In my view, detail for its own sake is a shallow goal, because I don´t think art is about how much stuff I can depict” Continue reading “Detailed or blurry”

Portrait painting and filming

making a video tutorial
Editing the long tutorial video

It happens to everyone once and a while: the loss of documents in the computer. Five years ago I almost finished the editing of my third long video demonstration. By bad luck, I lost all the work. I was defeated and angry at myself for disconnecting the hard drive from my computer without the necessary precautions. Months and months of work lost! A negligence which I had to atone a longtime. Eventually the footage could be retrieved by a specialist company in Madrid, but the editing had gone forever. I am taking charge of the project again. From now I will be spending all available time behind the screens. I hope to finish the project by summer. I will keep you posted.

Stills from the video
Stills from the video
Stills from the video
Stills from the video
Stills from the video
Stills from the video

Portrait painting lessons (3) about brushes

Sometimes I see students paint with miserable brushes because of slackness or just stinginess. A Very Bad Habit!
good and bad brushes

In my studio I have a brushes’ grave yard.

– Why not throw them all away?

– I can´t do that. They have served me faithfully.

– But they are far from being worn!

– No, but they are not good enough anymore.

Actually I should not think of a cemetery, let me call it a brushes retirement home. Sometimes I take some brushes out of that stock and I try them again, but I have to conclude that they are turned down for some reason.

What standards must a good brush meet?

  1. It must accurately lead paint on the canvas where the artist wants it.
  2. It must be able to bring sufficient paint onto the canvas.
  3. It should be shapeable, a paint brush must be able to cut like a knife.
  4. It must not scrape off paint.

Continue reading “Portrait painting lessons (3) about brushes”