Portraits

Finally, something resembling spring days have also come to Paris. I took a long walk to the quartier latin and saw Craig Hanna's works at the Laurence Esnol Gallery. What a treat. Apart from his fantastic sense of color he combines a new technique of painting both on the reverse side of perspex glass, as well as the underlying board, with acrylics and ink. It produces a great effect, and his portraits are stunning in their brilliance and depth. I wish  I had been there too, to share the experience. It provided food for thought on what new techniques can bring, alongside a sence of perspective, context, color and form.

The art of Love

So, I took the time to do a large size watercolor sketch. As you can see it is not finished. I have to wait for my muse to return in some way before I can continue ....

I used Andrew Wyeth's Lovers as reference. He was increadibly skilled, and I have yet to figure out how he handled the various parts of this marvelous tribute to a woman. He must have loved her deeply given the painstaking detail with which he painted her. He painted her again and again over many many years, in secret. His dry brush watercolor technique is simply outstanding, as is his intriguing compositions. Like Dumas the younger, who wrote a whole book, La Dame aux Camélias, for his love of a woman, and of great human drama, he manages to create magic tension in his works.

Wyeth's works seem fresh and spontaneous, but he uses such a range of techniques and sometime doing brush strokes with only one or two hairs on the brush (the hair for example) .. I would have loved to watch him work. A contemplative approach and yet direct ..

I wouldn't mind.