Carrasco Studio

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. 

About Face! Drawing Lesson # 10

W.B. Yeats by John Singer Sargent.

I was delighted to find this dashing portrait of Yeats, by, who else, John Singer Sargent! I had no idea Sargent knew Yeats... one of my favorite painters drawing one of my favorite poets. Yeats as a young man, ardent, handsome with that sensual mouth.  What woman could resist him?  But one woman did....

William Butler Yeats fell in love with Maude Gonne when he was 21 years old and although he married later  and had two children with his wife, Georgie Hyde-Lees, he never got over his love for Maude.  Being a poet, he celebrated her loveliness (even George Berhard Shaw was astonished by her beauty) in transcendant poetry.

Maud Gonne MacBride (Irish: Maud Nic Ghoinn, Bean Mhic Giolla Bhríde, 21 December 1866 – 27 April 1953) was an English-born Irish revolutionary, ...

 

His last poems were about Maude Gone.  How his wife must have felt, we will never know.  As we would say in our time, as we get older, we all carry baggage.  WB Yeats carried a suitcase full of Maude Gonne all his life..

One of Yeat’s descriptions (paraphrased) ....”Pallas Athena with that straight back and arrogant head”  and ...”the fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,”  God! What woman wouldn’t love to be described as such! 

Here is one of his many poems about her face, and her wild spirit.

     WHEN YOU ARE OLD

        by: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

          W HEN you are old and grey and full of sleep,
            And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
            And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
            Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
            
            How many loved your moments of glad grace,
            And loved your beauty with love false or true,
            But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
            And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
            
            And bending down beside the glowing bars,
            Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
            And paced upon the mountains overhead
            And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

“When You Are Old” is reprinted from The Rose. W.B. Yeats. 1893.

...in old age.

Drawing Lesson 10

 

Leonardo DaVinci.....both drawings

Discuss reading in Drawing with the Right Side of the Brain, 3/4 view. Hand out Wyeth and DaVinci drawing.  Difficulties and advantages...more interesting....  Width of different sides of face....eye is narrower and shaped differently.  Nose seems wider..top and side.  Mouth from center to corner is on the turned side and shaped differently from the mouth on the other side of the centerline.

 

 Practice on DaVinci. and Wyeth drawing with colored pencil..Negative space outline...then the negative space of the farthest chunk of eye (between large neg. space and nose)  Then central axis....curved...looking down , looking up !  Horizontal axis ....curve around egg (show egg and “features”)  Choose a basic unit. Use it to measure distance to eye, back of ear....etc. (Show me)




Look at Escher drawing and hand out circle (Or trace a circle on your paper of at least 6") and round mirror. Prepare to draw your own self portrait in 3/4  view....but outline shadow shapes as well.Squint!

DRAW VERY LIGHTLY WITH A SHARP PENCIL!
4. Set up lamp so you will have part of your face in shadow .... Prop up mirror so you can see top of head to chin.....side of face to at least back of ear. Adjust your posture so you are in a comfortable position...don’t change this for your drawing.. Start with pg220.  Look at negative shape first...note where it begins and ends on your circle format.

5.   Lightly draw the negative shape on your circle (I check it)  Now LIGHTLY draw the central axis of your 3/4 view....watch the angle! and “curve it around your “egg” Choose your basic unit...(show me)....I want to see you use this unit, either horizontal or vertical, for all your measurements.

6.  Now lightly mark in where the horizontal axis crosses the central axis for eyes, then nose, then mouth and chin and top of head if it shows in the mirror.

7. LIGHTLY mark dots for beginning and endings of eyes, nose, mouth and  ear. (I go through pg 222)
 Now draw this very lightly in contour....all the shapes of your face.

8.  Now SQUINT at your face and very lightly draw in all the shadow shapes.  Hatch all, then cross hatch the medium and then the darkest core shadows
Try to achieve a continuous tone.

Shall I Compare Thee to an Elephant....Drawing Lesson 9

Elephant  by Rembrandt Van Rijn

.....or anything else, for that matter...old men, angel's playing violin................................

Old Man    Venetian School

 

Angel by Paul Baudry

  My point is that you can use the skills you learned in this very basic drawing class for any subject you want.  Or with abstract drawings of delicious lines and exquisite hatching. 

Little Attic by Wilhelm DeKooning

Again, remember that you need to consider for drawings: edges, spaces(negative and positive), relationships, lights and shadows, =gestalt and expressiveness.

Drawing Lesson 9
1.Look at animal and human profiles assignment, discuss reading.  Look at “upside down Courbet” in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain,  and trace lightly with pencil the light shapes. Go to page 206 ...squint....and do the same to young Hopper’s face.  What is a set of hatching?  continuous tone....show how to use a slip sheet for continuous tone.

 



1.  Hand out example of sphere. Read out loud.  Have class look at sphere directions...Draw lightly around different sections ...discuss Core Shadow ....then look at detailed sphere diagrram. On a black sphere, color in the medium values with grey conte crayon, leaving the core shadows alone. Then add the highlights with white.  Blend with a rolled up corner of t-shirt. Finish shadow at home.

Goyko by Anthony Ryder from his book, Understanding Light and Shadow.

2.Look at drawing of Goyko ...stare and then outline the negative shape in front of the profile.with colored pencil. Hold a vertical on tip of nose...a mini negative shape...then a horizontal under the nose...estimate the angle...at the chin,going down...estimate the angle....compare with my diagram....measure and draw in triangle. Hold up a vertical pencil to inner eye.  Where does mouth end. Hold vertical at chin...mark with X where the vertical crosses other points on profile.  Now, with colored pencil, draw around the light shapes on Goyko’s profile.  Now draw the core shadows (Betty Edwards calls them the “crest” shadows)  Again, these are the areas where the crest breaks on a form.  Can you isolate and draw around some medium dark values in other parts of the face.?


3.  Look again at my diagram of frontal  features....check on “askew” factor on Mme Matisse and Madam Cezanne.

  Note: Most portraits of wives of painters are spectacularly dour.  Note that Cezanne didn't even include a mouth on his wife.  No doubt he wanted her to shut up.

I am more sympathetic....it must have been hard to be married to a guy who was always broke and coming home with paint on his shirts.  Not to mention the sniffles one would get from posing nude for him in drafty studios.

4.  Draw format a little bit larger than Gericault’s painting of a  blond boy.  Draw around all edges of negative space to “see it” Put only dots at midline....vertical and horizontal.  Draw “egg” and try to get placement of head and shoulders by comparison..(remember your negative space)..where is it on each “quarter” of the format...draw central axis down middle of head...watch tilt!  Lightly place eyes (watch askew), end of nose, middle of mouth and bottom of ear.  Don’t make the neck too thin!
5.  On Gericault face now draw with colored pencils around outer edge of all medium dark shadow inclusive of core shadow. Now draw around core shadow.  Squint!

6.On your paper format. Try to draw LIGHTLY  the shadow shapes....big to small,  all medium and dark inclusive, then draw the dark core shadow shapes within the medium shapes.  Hatch in all the medium dark and darkest core shadow space with medium hatching...follow the curves if you can.   Look at Tony Ryder example, pg. 25.  Then cross hatch....building up darker areas as you go...finally the darkest on the core shadow.

Remember, Anthony Ryder's wonderful book on drawing the figure...The Artist's Complete Guide to Figure Drawing, year 2000, Watson Guptil publishers! And also, check out his sites, : www.tonyryder.com and www.theryderstudio.com.

Assignment: Finish sphere and copy of the Tony Ryder drawing at home. If you feel ambitious, do a drawing of Anya's dog Grommet, Ben's Annie or Judy's crow Nevermore.  Read from 209 to 224.  Be sure to do this....next time is our last class!

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)