Exploring dance theme

I found a book with photographs from ballet performances. This was before my trip to London where one of my friends really likes ballet so I thought I would do a painting for her. I have chosen a picture to work from and here is the initial result:


Dancers 20' x 24'


It turned out ok but I just wasn't happy with it. I made it too literal. It didn't communicate the energy of it. So I have started a different canvas taking a new approach. I have a posting of this work earlier this month but it changed since then and here is the pre-final version.

Female Model Drawing

During my last class I had just over an hour to complete this drawing. It's done in graphite with some blending achieved by the use of toilet paper, that a teacher distributed at the beginning of the class. Who would have thought that it might be useful in drawing.



I have to admit to being helped with her face.

Dance

I have worked on this piece trying to communicate the energy of a dance. My initial drawings were based on ballet movements.


Dance 30' x 30'

In the Woods

In the Woods 36' x 24'

I have completed another painting that went through a lot of transformation before it got to this stage.

Male Figure Drawing

In my figure drawing class today we had a male model doing a long pose for over an hour. Here is a result that I am reasonably happy with. This drawing was done on a paper that I toned before starting.


It's the first time I worked with this technique which I liked as one starts with mid tones and develops the drawing from there. This was a really hard pose because of the foreshortening that I was dealing with.

An Interesting Fact about Paint Storage History

I have just learnt that before the invention of metal paint tubes in 1841 by John Rand, paints were stored in pieces of pig's bladder and could dry up even before the bladder was pierced. The invention has allowed an artist to work on their own without a need for a workshop to prepare materials estimating how much paint is needed and when.

Art Exhibitions in London

I just returned from London where I had a wonderful time not only catching up with my friends but also spending hours at art exhibitions. I think I squeezed in as many as possible and in the end I was so saturated that I felt dizzy looking at some of my favourite paintings during my last gallery trip. In a week I visited National and Portrait Galleries, Tate Modern, Royal Academy of Art, Royal College of Art and the Courtauld Gallery.

Van Gogh's exhibition was particularly outstanding. I have seen a lot of his work in Amsterdam and other museums including a big exhibition in New York but this one has really given the most rounded view of the artist. It included a vast selection of his drawings, studies, paintings and letters with sketches, some were on public view for the first time. There were rooms and rooms filled with his works where one could see how he was developing his vision and painting skills. He wrote a lot to his younger brother Theo about his work including new techniques, color theory and other concepts. He often made a drawing in a letter of the painting that he was working on. Here is one of the examples when in November 1888, Van Gogh wrote to Theo to tell him about his recent painting of a sower:




































And here are some other paintings from the exhibition:

Vincent van Gogh, 'Still Life with a Plate of Onions', Early January 1889



Vincent Van Gogh, 'Cypresses', June 1889.

Another interesting exhibit included works of Arshile Gorky. Many are not familiar with this artist who immigrated to America when he was still a child and grew to become a key figure in the New York art world during the 1930s and 1940s. His name is homage to a Soviet writer Maxim Gorky allowing people believe to be his relation. I saw a big Kandinsky influence in a lot of his works. Here is one painting that my friends two year old son especially liked and kept coming back to.


Arshille Gorky 'Waterfall' 1943

I was also amazed by an exhibit of Michelangelo's drawings that were new to me. The Dream is part of the drawings presented by Michelangelo to Tommaso de'Cavalieri, a young Roman nobleman with whom he had fallen passionately in love. Here is a fragment of the Dream.