paint Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Ben Lustenhouwer

24 May 2015

Lingering thoughts when painting a portrait

These days I am reading the book “Man with a Blue Scarf” by Martin Gayford. It is on sitting for a portrait by Lucian Freud. Good books can take possession of your mind for days. It’s like when you spend some time in a boat and you are accustomed to the constant wobbling. Once on shore you find yourself still waddling. You must readjust. Yesterday and today I have been painting the portrait of the man in the picture above and the spirit of Lucian Freud is present at the sessions. His quotes are constantly itching in my mind.

Such as: “The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real”.

Or: ” I paint people not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.

And “I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them”.

Time and again, I have to clear my mind because these lingering thoughts intervene. I must concentrate on my job, the sitter and me.

1 June 2014

Troubleshooting: the likeness (1)

Portrait of a lady. Seen without my glasses.

Every portrait painter knows this: A portrait is finished, it looks nice but the resemblance is not quite right (or not at all) Conclusion: there is something wrong. But where is the rub? Perhaps it would be the eyes or the mouth, maybe the nose? You are peering & correcting, but an acceptable similarity is not coming into sight. Even worse: all your efforts are jumping out of the frying pan, into the fire. What do you do? Probably despair first. But as you can learn how to get started, you can also learn how to finish a portrait. I will pay attention to this issue here and in future blog posts. There is a number of ways to assess the likeness of a nearly finished portrait.

Here are some tricks you can think of:

1 Take off your glasses.

2 Use a mirror.

3 Check the portrait at twilight.

4 Use transparent paper.

5 Use the computer.

1 Take off your glasses

The portrait is not quite right, however you are absolutely sure all points of reference are in the correct position. Remember that it could also be that the curves are not in the right spot. In particular, the roundness of the cheeks. Up to what point are they exposed to the light, where does the shadow start? I often take off my glasses to see everything a little blurry. I perceive no details, only large shapes. And it works! It’s an amazing trick to find inaccuracies related to curves. “Yes, but I don´t wear glasses” you’ll say. OK. Borrow a pair of your granny´s specs, and put them on! Same effect.

Next time: Using a mirror.

1 August 2012

Voice-over for my video.

At this moment I am really busy to do the voice-over for my video demonstration.

Last week I showed you a picture of myself behind the microphone. The video will have 14 chapters and now I am working on part 9. This is a short fragment of the text that I made for the part when I am cleaning once more a part of my palette:

…but let me clean a bit my palette first before I carry on with the cheekbone. It may seem excessive to clean the palette every now and then. Sometimes I see students jammed in a terrible mess hoping to find their way out. I know that they might be afraid to lose all the mixtures by cleaning. But I think that a pure spot on your palette is much more effective than the possible convenience of recycling a left mixture.

The same error is: using different brushes for different colours. In one of my courses I saw a lady with six different brushes in one hand. I think that is a mistake. That does not help you. I am pretty sure that chaos on your palette and in your hand is the reflection of a chaos in your head. But please do not despair, to be honest I also was the one with that rubbish heap on his palette and with a bouquet of brushes in his hand. Long time ago!