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16 November 2014

The final check

In my post two weeks ago I talked about portrait painting and the applause of uncles and aunts; the worthless fame. What you really need is a critical eye of someone who understands matters. Someone whose opinion you appreciate. Someone who does not give compliments just to please you. Formerly, before a painting left my studio, my daughter came to approve the product. And when she had critical points, she almost always was right. She is married now and lives in Madrid already for five years. This week she is staying with us. So I can call on her scrutiny. The family portrait, which I have shown you before, is in it´s final stage. Together we have gone over. Beside a few little things I got her approval and for her part the painting can be delivered. Of course I also sent an image to the client. They are very enthusiastic. (aside from some small comments). After these corrections the painting can be varnished and shipped.

26 October 2014

Common mistakes in composition

About composition: Never put your subject right in the centre of the canvas. A composition is rarely successful in this way because here is the dead, boring point of the painting.

Pomegranates — Basket with pomegranates. Focal point in the centre of the image.

Pomegranates on the blue tablecloth in our kitchen — A better composition?

22 October 2014

Portrait painting & music

A short message in this mid-week post. In some of my portrait painting videos, the music is provided by my cousin Will Sophie. For those who want to learn to play guitar like Will: that is possible. Check out his video, really great. I wish you lots of success Will.

My cousin Will teaching how to play Southern Rock Licks

12 October 2014

Don´t marry, he said…

“If you are planning to make a living out of art, I have to warn you, it might consume you completely. It will confiscate your life and hinder any relationship. In fact, Ben, it is wise not to marry.¨ These are the words of Beatus Nijs, my art teacher. I was fifteen years old and did not really understand the meaning of his ardent advice. I was a boy. Almost fifty years later, casting my mind back, I recognize some truth in this statement.

The large painting that I am busy with, sequestrates me completely, and not just when I’m painting. Also when I am eating, when I go shopping, or taking the daily walk with my wife. Continuously the work is in my mind. For me it´s no problem but for people around me it certainly is. I am not very sociable. However I’m glad I never followed Beatus´s advice. Of course.

5 October 2014

Portrait painting: handiwork

This week I am busy working on the family portrait I told you about last week: many hands, and that is really where I enjoy myself. So, literally handiwork. However, I have to be careful that drawing attention to them will not distract too much from the faces! By all means there is still a lot to be done. To be continued…

28 September 2014

From nine to five

I´d like to start this post quoting Chuck Close.

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.

(Charles Thomas “Chuck” Close (born July 5, 1940) American painter and photographer.)

on-the-easel — Underpainting in acrylics

Last week we returned from our short trip to the Netherlands. And back to work right away. The project of which I wrote in my post of August 13th was already on the easel waiting for me. Everything well prepared before I left. The sketches approved by the client, the linen stretched, covered with three layers of gesso and the drawing carefully transferred in red crayon. So, immediately after returning I was able to start. I like to work from nine to five. I never have to wait for the inspiration that Chuck Close writes about. However, I do need to be well focussed and the run up to that sometimes takes days. Part of the concentration process is applying the underpainting. In the final version of this painting there is a lot of blue and green, and that’s why I like to use a magenta undertone.

21 September 2014

Good times in Holland

Delevering portrait commission — Delevering a portrait commission at Morren Galeries, Utrecht

Having delivered some portrait commissions at Morren Galleries in Utrecht we went to the isle of Texel in the North of the Netherlands. September is bird migration time and Texel is a good place to be. Some members of my family are trained birdwatchers. With them we walked and watched. For those who are interested, this is the list of birds we saw this morning at National park the Slufter: Grey Heron, Little Egret, Bean Goose, Greylag Goose, White-fronted Goose, Mallard, Northern Pintail, Eurasian Wigeon, Northern Shoveler, Common Eider, Common Shelduck, Hen Harrier, Roug-legged Buzzard, Common Buzzard, Common Kestrel, Merlin, Common Pheasant, Great-ringed Plover, Black-tailed Godwit, Curlew, Common Greenshank, Broad-billed Sandpiper, Oystercatcher, Herring Gull, Collared Dove, Turtle Dove, Wood Pigeon, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Meadow Pipet, Northern Wheatear, Robin, Common Stonechat, Blackbird, Wren, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Magpie, Eurasian Jay, Common Starling, Carrion Crow, Eurasian Jackdaw, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Yellowhammer, Egyptian Goose.

Although the real migration did not start yet this week we had a great time!

7 September 2014

Stork migration, delivered at home.

We are bird watchers. We like to go out, taking along our binoculars, and look at the birds around. Even in the immediate vicinity of our house we see many different species. Occasionally we even go on a special journey for bird watching. For example, at the end of September we will travel to the Netherlands, to the Northern Islands for the autumn bird migration. This week however we did not even have to walk out of the door to see something very special. Last Thursday, at twilight, some hundreds of storks came down in Chelva. On the roofs of houses and churches, no ledge or striker remained unoccupied. We had never experienced this before, and also for the villagers this was totally unusual. Friday morning when the sun gained some power the flock left again. As expected, I made photographs to show you.

Storks in Chelva — No ledge or striker remained unoccupied

On the wings in the morning hours, bound for Gibraltar and Africa.

In the beginning I told you that this blog would not always be about portraiture. Well this is a similar kind of different post. Not about brushes or paint but about a spectacular show just in front of our eyes.

31 August 2014

25 years ago

Next week it will be 25 years since we left Holland and moved to Spain. Friends offered their house in Valencia. We planned to stay for a year but then never came back. We set our wings to the wind, to wider horizons. In Holland we were very happy and content, as we are now in Spain. Here was work to provide our livelihood, sometimes more, sometimes less, but we managed. We have been lucky to make many friends, and we still enjoy the simple life, in rural Spain. None of us knows what lies in store for us tomorrow. But just more of the same, that would be great.

My scrapbook of the first year of our stay in Spain

24 August 2014

Am I a bungler?

It’s not always fun in the the beast´s belly of creation. Once in a blue moon it’s doom and gloom. You always feel as good or bad as your last painting. When you have done a great job you feel invincible, then there is nothing to worry about. But once in a while you make something mediocre, no matter what you do. You feel miserable. Fear is lurking to be unmasked as a bungler, a charlatan. The strange thing is that this phenomenon of despair grows with you. If all goes well your quality as a painter improves with the years. But sometimes you realize that you might not reach the top that you had in mind for yourself. Winds of uncertainty. Then it’s good to look back, and see what you have created in the past. On the occasion you see a piece again and it can be surprising. In such a way that you think: Did I make that? It’s not really bad!

I recently came across this portrait, a commission that I made in 1999. The subdivision of the background may not be great, the person’s ear is a bit fancy but the brushwork and the atmosphere surprised me. I wish I could paint that way again!