Carrasco Studio

Fifi and Fo Fum. French Yaps

 
A few years ago I was requested to present a client's small dogs in panels for her living room.  They were to be portrayed "in the French manner" Perfect for Rococo.

I always like to meet the real thing when I do a job, so I drove over to meet the little creatures with some doggie treats and a camera. 

They were tiny gnat-like creatures.  Little yapping ectoplasms to one used to gallumping labradors and hunting dogs, but the client loved them....all five of the little dogs swarming  around in a bunch at my feet.......if mosquitos could bark.

I have the rest of the series....somewhere on a CD, and once I get this wretched job of getting my images and projects ready for my web guy, I should have them all together....

Days of Wine and Hedges

Meet "Pensive Bacchus".......my newest mural for a wine cellar. 

My clients love France...and they asked me to design a "sculpture" of a young Bacchus along the lines of Michelangelo's adolescent Bacchus....(not the riotous infant Bacchus or dipsomaniac paunchy Bacchus, although they would have been fun)....against a stylized " Versaille" parterre or tall trimmed hedge. 

All this against a base color of deep cobalt blue, which I pointed up with a  ceiling comet of gold leaf stars and a sprinkling of stars on the ceiling, the sky and some of the parterre. 

The wine cellar is to the left, and this mural is in a small tasting room.  The "hedge" or parterre will extend all the way around the room.  The effect I aimed for is a moonlit night, and it's surprising how the deep color and the repetitive patterns have enlarged the space visually.

I literally overlapped on two big projects.....had to place plastic over my big triptych pieces and whale away on the wine cellar mural.  It can be done.

And here are some of my steps....

I painted some of my Roclon canvas a deep cobalt blue.  I don't have to stretch this type of canvas (see [email protected] for sources) ; otherwise I couldn't have overlapped my underlying canvas as I did. 

 
I drew and cut my stencils for the leaf patterns and drew my Bacchus on tissue and pricked the lines with a pouncing tool. Then I started applying layers of stencilled leaf patterns onto the cobalt canvas.....lighter yellows and greens at the top, darker greens and black greens at the bottom.

Then I started glazing with blue, purple, and black glazes in the appropriate areas....darker at the bottom.

 I then pounced the pattern with white chalk, and then followed the pouncing points with a fine white line of paint and started filling him in with naples yellow, leaving some bluish areas for shadows or adding  and changing shadows with a mixture of paynes grey and naples yellow.

After I got the Bacchus to not look so snarky,  I applied  a glaze of cobalt blue and/or red violet to Bacchus and all of the hedge at once.  I wiped  off a few areas about the shoulders, his head, his wine glass, his fingers and left arm to create a feeling of moonlight falling on his form.

My client and I worked together on the application of the canvas to the wall, rolling claybased adhesive (Roman brand at Rodda Paint) on both the wall and the canvas...waiting for about 20 minutes to let the adhesive set up, applying the mural to the wall, smoothing it out from the center....and then, cleaning up!

I finished the mural the day before Xmas Eve, when my talented clients included Phil and me in a sit down, Oh La La,  fourteen dish, (Julia Child recipes,) 7 wine FEAST for Revillion de Noel. A work of art in itself.

Uh.  Sorry to say, after that,  we didn't end up the evening with the traditional Midnight Mass.

Today we have felt blissfully weak and wandered around all day in our pajamas.

Salut. 

A Horse of a Different Color

Since I'm ramping up for a new project ( a set of three murals,) I haven't done new work since I did the rendering for this current job.  So I thought I'd throw in a blast from the past. (You can tell by my hair color)  One of my more unusual jobs.

This was done for The Ruins, an private dining club extravaganza where nothing was ordinary. I was fortunate to be hired to do a lot of painting for The Ruins, and this was one of my projects.

My client showed me a full sized white paper mache horse that he had bought from Fredrick and Nelson department store when it went out of business, and asked me to paint it gold and then cover it with tiny flowers.  The horse had traveled with Yves St. Laurent's runway fashion show, and Seattle was the end of the line, so Mr. French Thoroughbred ended up the store basement, waiting for someone to lead him into the light.

A horse knowledgeable friend told me that the horse looked like it had too much spring grass....perhaps refering to it's round belly.  I preferred to think it was pregnant and one night would give birth to a whole litter of floral colts.  Of course it is a boy horse, but I didn't let that interfere with my story.

Horses keep turning up in my oeuvre, and in fact, were my initial drive to create art.  I lived in a small rural community and all my friends had horses and/or cattle, and I desperately wanted a horse.  However, my father, in his infinite wisdom, would not buy me one.  So I drew them, did paintings of them, rode my friend's horses and would whinny and paw the air when I came to the breakfast table.  Dad ignored my subtle hints, and I outgrew my fetish.  Well, sorta.

Later in life I painted and repainted the Spokane Loof Carrousel horses on four different occasions.  Fifty-eight of the lovely creatures.  I posted this before (see my carrousel archive), but here it is again.  GiddyUp.

 

 

Drawing Lesson 8, Scandalous Profiles and Classical drawing

 
These two profiles of women painted by Sargent are very telling.  The first is of Rosina Ferrara, a young girl of Capri, and the second, of course is of the notorious Madame X whose full length portrait resides now in the Metropolitan Museum. (see the full length portrait at the bottom of this blog.)

Ms. Ferarra modeled several times for Sargent when he was just starting out as a painter in his early twenties.  Rosina was a girl of Capri, and several painters besides Sargent searched her out as a model, and one, George Barse, eventually married her and brought her to the USA.  In all reports, she had a sweet disposition (read "compliant") and loved to dance. Her 43 year marriage was very happy, her husband adored her, and she raised 2 lovely children.  Madam Gautreau, or Madame X as she was later labeled,  had a very different life, and not an especially happy one.  When as a "professional beauty", her loveliness begain to fade and her notoriety grew, Madam X retired from society. 

I am entertained by the contrasts in the two profile/portraits.  Sargent was from a  conservative  social background, but because of his talent and youth, he was thrown in with a more raffish crew of artists and models in Capri.  His portraits of Rosina celebrate her earthiness and love of life. I doubt if his mother would have approved.  

Often Rosina is shown dancing or leaning insouciantly against a wall or branch of an olive tree.  Not at all the proper corseted young American woman. There is a  bit of class snobbery  and fascination with "exotic types" evidenced in Sargent's portraits of Ms Ferrera.

In contrast, his portrait of Madam X is as coldly seductive as much as it is formal.  Much, I imagine, like the model herself , and Sargent's professional ambitions are as much reflected in her portrait  as  is Mme Gautreau's social climbing.

Mme X  John Singer Sargent               Sargent painting in Paris

Lesson 8  Drawing the Profile from life.....and Drapery and Hatching

1.  Look at Drawing assignments for the profiles of Mme Gautreau in Drawing on the Right side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. Discuss Sargent and Madam X.

2. PROFILE.

Set up for doing a profile of me. Use the plexi view finder and bring out my profile diagram .

a.  MARK YOUR FORMAT!!!!
b.  Mark cross hairs on format....lightly
c.  CHOOSE YOUR BASIC  UNIT! (page 183...#6...Read it)  Show me.
d.  Transfor the basic unit to your paper....let me see.
e.  Using the basic unit as a measuring guide, mark the top of the head and the back of the ears and head.
f.   Go through pg. 184 to 186 step by step.  Compare angles of lines to horizontal and vertical sides. No shading
g.  Go thru 188 tips.

2  Hatching and Crosshatching

Here I include several examples from Anthony Ryder's wonderful book on drawing the figure...The Artist's Complete Guide to Figure Drawing, year 2000, Watson Guptil publishers.  Mr. Ryder has kindly given permission to scan portions of his book for some of these lessons, but I would recommend that interested students and artists purchase their own copies.  Also, check out his sites, : www.tonyryder.com and www.theryderstudio.com.  His drawings are exquisite and his writing is cogent and often funny.  A must for your library!

a. Softly, regular lines (show examples) for hatching...relatively short.  Cross hatching is hatching on top of one  another....softly!  Sharp point.

b.  Show examples in Ryder’s book, ...Look at pg. 208 in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Practice this your own hatching and crosshatching.

3. Drapery

a. Hold up your paper viewfinder....MARK YOUR FORMAT!

b. Lightly mark the cross hairs on your format.
c. Look closely at the drapery.  Choose your basic unit!  Show me! LIGHTLY draw the entire outer shape of the drapery. Draw the NEGATIVE SPACE on the example first.
 LOOK AT THE NEGATIVE SPACE of the actual drapery
 d. . Squint and draw the outer line of the entire medium and darkest values of the drapery.

e.  Hatch in the entire medium and dark shapes with a light, regular sewing machine like one directional  hatching. Now, LIGHTLY draw in the darkest value shape within each medium value shape.  Cross hatch the darkest shapes....regular, lightly.....until you have the right dark value.

4.  Dog or bird profile.....choose either.

a.  Hold up your paper viewfinder....MARK YOUR FORMAT! (ask the steps...cross hairs, Basic unit)  It soon becomes automatic.
b. Draw the NEGATIVE SPACE on the example first. Then draw the negative space on your paper.
c. Hatch and cross hatch. Both have directions and length in their hair or feathers.  Therefore, the crow’s hatching would be a little shorter than the dogs.  LEAVE THE LIGHTEST VALUE UNHATCHED EXCEPT FOR LINES BETWEEN HAIRS OR FEATHERS.

Assignment: Draw an animal of your choosing (a live one is best, but you can use a photo if none are available.)  Hatch and cross hatch.  Draw someone in profile.  Try hatching and cross hatching on the profile.  There are subtle changes in value all over the face.  Read 194 to 213

....and the shocking Madam X, who, after the display of this painting in 1884, was ridiculed and condemned for her "immoral" pose, and the artist, John Singer Sargent, was dashed of his hopes to become a sought after portrait painter in France. Sargent  had to withdraw this painting and fled to England.  Madam X, it is rumored,  eventually retired to her estate and draped cloth over all her mirrors to avoid seeing her aging image.

 Sargent said when he sold it to the Metropolitan Museum in l9l6, "I suppose it is the best thing I have done."

 

Drawing Lesson 7 Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown

Study for Portrait of the Family of St. Thomas More         Drawing by Hans Holbein the younger

Sigh! What a lovely drawing.  St. Thomas More, the erstwhile best friend of Henry the 8th before Henry had him beheaded,  believed in education for women, a rarity at the time, and the study shows More sitting placidly among an active gathering of his family of women and men....his wife reading a quote from a book, the five daughters engaged in the discourse or thoughts of their own...and  the painter Hans Holbein the Younger did this all without  the benefit of camera. What an eye.

 

Hans Holbein the Younger, Self Portrait:   lived 1497 to 1543. Died of plague

History has always fascinated me, and I’m a sucker for well researched historical fiction.  My Dad liked it too, and when my mother deemed the novels suitable for my tender years (i.e., not too much S.E.X. ) I would read what we termed Dad’s Hysterical Novels from cover to cover. Consequently I minored in history and English in college and the connections of art and history snag me every time.

 
Francis 1st , 1494 –  1547,by Joos Van Cleve    Henry the 8th, 1491-1547 by Hans Holbein the Younger

Both kings died of complications from an abcess, and  reportedly, in fear and regret.

In lesson 6, I brought up Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawing of the double spiral staircase for Franciis 1 for his chateau at Chambord in the Loire valley?  Well, when I was looking at the beautiful portraits by Holbein...mostly of Henry the 8th and his Tudor court, I realized  that  Francis 1st and Henry 8th were about the same age, and Holbein was caught up in the beginnings of the Reformation...around the time Luther tacked his famous posting against the abuses of the Church up on the door of All Saint's in 1517,  whereas the death of Leonardo in 1519 signaled the endings of the Rennaisance. 

A painter such as Holbein, (born in Augsburg in 1497) still survived by commissions, but the Catholic Church’s power was waning whereas the power of the aristocracy and the rulers of Europe were in  ascendancy. Consequently, the artist turned more and more to the aristocrats as patrons, and this remained mostly the case until  the 1800’s when Romanticsm (shipwrecks at sea, exotic locales, etc) was the rage,  and  then Impressionism  came along in the mid 1800's and celebrated the lives of the French bourgeosie. The romantic ideal of the independent ( and often improverished) artist evolved with both of these movements, and this notion has survived up to this very day.

This drawing of Ann Boleyn has been attributed to Holbein, and  he also did the painting of St. Thomas More (on right)  Both were executed by Henry 8th. Thomas More because he would not recognize Ann as the new queen and because he refused to secede from the Catholic Church.  Ann was executed a year later in 1534 because she did not deliver a male heir for Henry, and because Henry was tired of her. (She was reported to be uppity) Also, she was convicted of witchcraft. It was rumored that she had a 6th finger on one hand, which cinched the verdict.

“Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter?”  Pablo Picasso
Lesson 7
1.  Look at drawings.....discuss chapter 9....Drawing is always the same task...1. edges 2. spaces 3. relationships 4. lights and shadows, = gestalt.  (and expressiveness, of course)  Try the index cards and  man size perception.165. in your book

Mirror experiment.  On a mirror, mark spots of top of head r and chin.... have “partner” measure with ruler your actual length from top of head to chin and compare with length in mirror.  What is your discovery.?

Remember, these are generalizations....as John Singer Sargent said, A portrait is a painting with something a little wrong with the mouth."

2. Discuss measurements of frontal views of face...chin to eye, eye to chin (one half)  Show portraits where the early artist didn’t quite get the measurement right.  Compare with correct proportions on drawings.  Check on Holbein and DaVinci drawings. Hand out diagram of frontal view...discuss central axis. and cross divisions...(if crooked, the face looks “wrong”

Take a look at the painting by Flemish medieval artist Roger Van Der Weyden on the left, and a journeyman British painter of the 18th century on the right....the eyes are placed too high or else both subjects had serious lantern jaw problems.

      

3.  Partner up...Draw each other from the  side..a “tilted egg” for profile...circle and chin. Go thru pg. 173- 176 with each other.

Draw eye level line first.(half)  Check it on each other.  Then measure length to ear (same as eye to chin measurement from outer end of eye to back of ear). Mark. “eye to chin, end of eye to back of ear”.  Isosceles triangle. End of nose (about 1/2 of eye to chin).  Mouth.= about 1/2 of nose to chin.  Back of head where joins neck..1 and 1/2 from upper lip along bottom of ear (mark) to back of neck.

NEED TO DO YOUR DRAWING WITH AN ASSURED BUT VERY LIGHT HAND.

Also, I noticed that most of you still do not draw in the correct format before you start..it makes a difference!

Practice Portrait.  Medieval princess...She is a little short in the brain department!  Use your whole paper  but Draw in the right Format at the very beginning first in your sketchbook....LIGHTLY  divide into quarters..  Take one moment to squint and “ghostwrite” the negative spaces above your paper.  Lightly draw in your “egg” and mark the eye level.  Then the nose (a little higher than half) and  then the mouth..(again, a little high)  Mark the end of eye to the end of ear (same as inner eye to chin measurement)  Correct as you go along.

Open your book to page 180 and answer and correct for each checkpoint in the list.

Assignment:  Draw Mme. Pierre Gautreau..by Sargent, pg. 179 and follow checkpoints, pg. 180 ...don’t use the viewfinder this time...just mark LIGHTLY on your paper format.  Reread pg 181-191

And, bear with me.  One more connection.  Sir Thomas Wyatt, a member of Henry the 8th's court, had his portrait drawn by Holbein.  He was a fine poet and said to have brought the sonnet form England.  All I can say is that he must have been a very skilled diplomat as well, since he was imprisoned twice in the Tower of London, and once for being accused of being Ann Boleyn's lover.  However, he survived both adventures and went home to be reconciled with his estranged wife and died of illness at the age of 39.

This poem is said to be about Ann Boleyn.

They Flee From Me

 They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, ‘dear heart, how like you this?’

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserve.

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)

Drawing Lesson 6, The Secret Double Helix. Angles and Units

  Drawing Lesson 6.   Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

 
Chamboard double staircase     Leonardo DaVinci      

Spirals..and another image leading to an infinite journey, and a metaphor for  any search.  Remember, "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Ecco?....a spiraling novel, like a rose petal curved around rose petal.  And the Chambered Nautilus that my friend Theresa Cheek featured in her blog , http://artstheanswer.blogspot.com/2010/06/shell-game.html

              

  I especially like this sea creature as a metaphor because it always is connected by a thread of it's corporeal body to the first chamber it created... from the beginning this thread runs through each chamber to the last.....an excellent concept for the artist, who always brings his or her past experiences into the now....some events bumping and jostling to be expressed, some remaining in the dark and closed up forever.  It also is stellar example of Fibonacci geometry, but don't get me started.

At the end of this lesson, I challenged the class to copy  the first drawing in this blog that I thought MIGHT be by Leonardo DaVinci, and MIGHT be a design done by him for Francis 1st of France for the double stairway of Chambord, a castle Francis was building in the Loire valley.  To my delight, Ben Shimizu looked it up on his phone and I was right!  Please excuse my preening.

Keep up the effort in homework...you'll be repaid in spades!   Look at ballerina drawing...did you stare long enough to “see” the negative spaces?  Was it more difficult to draw organic angles and lines?  Can you find angles in organic forms relative to horizontal and vertical edges of the format?  How about basic units? (perhaps smaller increments in organic forms)   Discuss Chapter 8....Right brained? left brained=Relationships and ratios...accept the visual paradox of  foreshortening, more acute angles, more narrow or wider areas and shapes than we “know”...linear formal perspective needs to be taught in another class.  This, for me, is the hardest skill to teach, but once you get it, it becomes automatic.

Even Mantegna had to struggle with foreshortening....close but not quite!

2.  Look at the Hammershoie drawing.  Danish...serene, very little color in his paintings as well.   Mark off (LIGHTLY) the vertical divisions in the room...judge by distance from center or edge of paper format.. How far down on the right side of the paper is the corner of the floor and wall...mark with a dot.note how he measures  the angle of the  Pick your Basic Unit (top of door).  Measure space from door to corner.....mark with a dot in several places.  Then go to the door (vertical...top and bottom and mark with a dot where the corners of the open door end. (use your basic unit!)     Measure the angle of the top and the bottom of the door (and the basic unit) with a Horizontal read (don’t be fooled by the top of the basic unit...IT IS NOT HORIZONTAL!)  Keep checking with your basic unit and the vertical and horizontals,,,,work from large to small.

Here's another Hammershoi painting to look at...in color this time...just for general tastiness.  I do, do, love his subtle pallate.

3.  Actual open door drawing...from the hallway looking in.  Use your viewfinder, close one eye and look carefully before you start,,look at the negative spaces..  Don’t “poke” your measuring pencil into your invisible picture plane.   Choose a basic unit and make some measurements where you mark with dots...i.e. end of floor, top of door, etc. Check angles with the verticals and horizontals of the edges of your paper. Draw only what you see and check often.  Keep your head and view in the same space and at the same angle.  Keep your clear plastic picture plane with you to double check questionable areas.

4.  Draw a dutch iris in a bottle with both hands.  Relationships. Yes!  No words!

5.  Drawing  Stacks of books......Focus on a basic unit this time..choose a basic unit...(check with me)..and compare angles with edges of the format.  Can use ruler if you want.

6. Tell story of Francis 1st and how Da Vinci lived with him in his old age.  Legend says he died in the king’s arms.  I picked this off the web (see first drawing)...wanted an old drawing (artist dead, public domain) and looked at it....reminded me of the hidden stairway Francis has designed for Chambord.....his palace on the Loire....he was a notorious womanizer, and chastity among his court was observed mostly in it’s breach.  I look at this drawing, it looks like Leonardo’s drawings, and it looks like Francis 1’st spiral stairway...I can hear the whispers of lovers and the swish of skirts along the steps.
 

Assigment  Read chapter 9.   I challenge you, I throw down my glove...copy this drawing of the spiral stairway...pick the basic unit, check the angles and connect with the past...Da Vinci, Francis 1st and the lovers of long ago. Or, for the timid, draw the corner of your kitchen (blah) using the skills we practiced in class...checking angles with the vertical and the hotizontal edges of your paper, and choosing a basic unit to measure distances, lengths and relationships.

And here's another stairway by MC Escher to drive you crazy.

Spring Cadeaux

 

Here's a big rustling bouquet of flowers for your imagination.  I like the sound of a big bouquet as much as the scent and color. (Have you ever noticed how daffodil stems squeak when you gather a bunch?)

Anyhow, I finished this small mural, about 2 'by 1 and 1/2 ', on canvas for a client last night.  The color is a little off since I snapped the picture Very Late at Night by studio light, so the peach and coral are dimmed, but it turned out to my satisfaction.

Here are my steps, if anyone is interested.  Several people have chided me for giving away my "secrets" for free, but actually, there is no true recipe for this kind of work.
Every painter's body talks differently, and in all of my teaching, I have been delighted and surprised by the different takes my students produce from the same assignment.
"Vive la difference!," I say. ( I like to throw in French now and then to show I am literary.)

After I get approval for my drawing, I usually check with my client to see if she or he wants a color rendering for final approval.  In this case, my client passed on the option, so I went on to transfer my drawing to canvas.  I trace it with tracing paper I make myself.....from chalk pastel....color of my choice....and Bestine rubbed over the pastel I have rubbed onto a piece of tracing tissue.  I like this method better than using Saral tracing paper, because Saral is waxy and the colors are too sharp...reds, blues, and blacks. (Also, it's cheaper!)

 

The next step is my underpainting, and I posterized this image a bit to make it more understandable.  I paint plain Golden Acrylic Glaze all over the area and beyond where the image will be painted.  Then I paint a faint background "bloom" in  the area...in this case it was a very pale coral/peach glaze.  After this dried, I painted a pale yellow on the shapes where I could alter the colors with glazes....i.e. pale blue over yellow makes a radiant green, pale vat orange or light quinacridone red over yellow makes peachy or coral hues.....but painted pale blues in areas for my periwinkles and purples.

Then I placed another more coral "bloom" over the area. Softly! Lightly!

 

And, as I said, this is a little dark because of my lighting, but I think one can see my progression....building up the greens, the reds and the periwinkles with thin glazes.
This technique is much like watercolor, and is done with liquid Golden Acrylic paints.  However, you can bring it further into a more painterly and modeled form by going back into shapes and putting down opaque highlights and glazing over them. This is especially effective when you are working on a buff background, as I am doing here. 

The old Flemish painters did this to great effect.  Some instructor told me that Van Eyck would sometimes place 40 layers of red glazes to get that glowing rich red in his masterpieces.

The Huntress. Versaille. Watercolor

It's difficult painting the figure in watercolor; at least I find it a challenge.  the tints and subtle shadings for curves and folds, especially in a sculpted figure such as this Diana/Athena I admired in the Versaille gardens last summer.

Carved from that lovely warm stone I saw all over Paris, this more than life sized goddess surveyed all of us tourists with  Gallic insouciance.  "Look but don't touch, you silly little people in your anoraks and wet tennies.  Isn't the sun and rain lovely on my glorious body?  I am beautiful in any weather, unlike you miserable creatures."

I loved the Versaille gardens, the Petit Trianon and the Hameu (sp?) far more than the gas and bombast of the main palace. All the ornament and glitter of the palace becomes a visual burden.  I can imagine how it must have become very depressing to wake up to that every morning.  No wonder Marie Antoinette wanted to romp around in the meadows as a shepherdess.

By the way, I am churning out watercolors because I am gearing up for some big jobs and trying to finish my oil painting for Tony.  I work on it and stop.  It takes a while...each layer, since I am working in oils, has to dry before I work into it, and the weather has not been helpful. The rain has been steady and heavy this fall.  So, I use this time to study Photoshop or do watercolors.  Guess which one I'd rather do.........