A pleasant surprise

Today I got back the last painting I did in the first term: an egg painted in cool and warm, that is blueish and orangish, grays. Although I had known about warm highlights and cool shadows, I only came to fully understand the principle in the course of Representational Painting. In this exercise I applied it more or less intuitively, without giving it much thought, which resulted in a pleasant looseness I had never appreciated until today. The rest of the term was more of a rational struggle with the notion of temperature change, and I can only hope one day you will see this painterly quality back in my work...

It's a shame! (heheheh)

In a local bookstore I had found a flyer of The Keyhole Sessions, dubbed 'The raciest life-drawing class you’ll ever experience.' I could not let this go by unchecked, so yesterday I paid them a visit. Racy indeed.

Due to the fact that its location is not a public place, they have some more options to make things... ahem... well... interesting. This week we had a model of somewhat dominant character, and after the break she was joined by a girl, stylishly wrapped up in Japanese kinbaku bondage.

At the other side of the frontline, I found the usual crowd of artists, armed with the usual sketchpads, pencils, crayons and even one tablet pc. I discerned some fellow students and Dr. Sketchy regulars. All in all, a well-spent evening.

Brush your teeth three times a day!

I am afraid of the dentist. At least I thought so, until a psychologist told me it is not so much the person I'm afraid of, more so the actual treatment. My dentist from Gouda at least did one thing right: he introduced me to Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema.

On the ceiling, right above The Chair, he had tacked a reproduction of a painting which had kept me mesmerized, if it had not been for the drilling. At home, I could not wait to look it up on the internet, and I did so after the pain had gone. The painting was 'A Coign of Vantage' by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, a Dutch artist who never got much recognition in his home country, and only gathered fame after he had left for Victorian England. I loved this man! Or rather, it was more his work that I loved, especially the scenes from Classical Antiquity, with marble and grotesque and robes and women and everything.

For the course 'Color and Water-based media', I had to choose an existing piece of artwork to reproduce in a monochromatic color scheme. So, I took my chance and did 'A Coign of Vantage', with the result shown here. It still reminds me of my dentist.

When I visited my dentist last summer he had replaced 'A Coign of Vantage' by some lame sunset with beach and palms. It was my last visit. I guess I'll have to find another dentist.

Plaster cast study

I had always wanted to do a plaster cast study, but it was not until a few weeks ago that I found a suitable cast (for those interested, it is an eye from Michelangelo's David). The study of plaster casts is a traditional exercise in art education, which forces one to observe and replicate the values of light and shadow.

Had I been younger, I probably would have chosen to go to a traditional atelier to spend years on studying the nuts and bolts of representational art. However, I severely doubt whether I will ever be able to sell these traditional skills, so therefore I decided to go for Animation, as a field of applied art. But whenever I have the chance I will continue to do something traditional.

A second chance

You remember the pigeons? Well, I thought the mother of the two was hiding in a flower box at the other side of the balcony, but it appeared this was a second pigeon, with its own set of eggs. Today, they hatched out, and the little babies are quite adorable!