Tuesday 2 October 2012
Painting course
Just got back from teaching oil painting at Villa Gokcebel in Turkey..... A fantastic time was had and some really good work was produced by 6 complete novices! I shall post pics later, but suffice it to say that I believe everyone can learn to paint and draw really well, with the right encouragement and a few golden rules to follow, although there are no rights or wrongs in painting! That's what gives each artist his own language. I was so proud of my pupils, they were all up and at the canvases before breakfast and worked tirelessly all day! It's also fascinating how each persons character was so clearly visible in their results! That was something that took me by surprise, as I thought I would see a lot of similar work....not a bit of it! There will be another course running soon, and I may do a 4 or 5 day life painting course from a model, run at my studio in Somerset. And Andalusia in Spring, but I will post more details shortly...
Sunday 23 September 2012
Teaching
Am teaching oil painting techniques to beginners and intermediates. This will be the first of many at different locations, but always with a bit of luxury! Check out the news in the following website to see what to expect... http://www.villagokcebel.com
If you are interested in the future, let me know and I will be sure to add you to our mailing list. My motto is that an artist doesn't necessarily have to suffer in the pursuit of art.... you can also do it in great comfort! Will post how we get on and pics
If you are interested in the future, let me know and I will be sure to add you to our mailing list. My motto is that an artist doesn't necessarily have to suffer in the pursuit of art.... you can also do it in great comfort! Will post how we get on and pics
Monday 23 July 2012
A lovely drawing video worth looking at
I just thought i'd post this as I was mesmerised by the beauty and softness of this man David Kassan's work! I wish I could draw like this! watch
Friday 15 June 2012
Carol Marine's Painting a Day: Blitzed
Carol Marine's Painting a Day: Blitzed: Click Here to Bid I apologize for taking so long to post! My kids here in NY are keeping me on my toes. I have to watch them like a haw...
Saturday 9 June 2012
Underpaintings: Art of the Portrait 2012: Day 1, Casey Baugh Demo...
Underpaintings: Art of the Portrait 2012: Day 1, Casey Baugh Demo...: Rules are to be considered fences, placed only where trespass is expected. – Sir Joshua Reynolds Casey Baugh preparing to paint hi...
Monday 28 May 2012
Saturday 26 May 2012
Photo realism - what has happened to the BP Portrait Award?
I have to say that the BP Portrait Award exhibition was the show I looked forward to the most in the painting calendar. It was a chance to see such a varied way of approaching the classic tradition of the portrait, but in a contemporary manner, from artists from all over the world with all the different backgrounds and cultural differences.... In other words, a wide and varied show of the world's figurative talent.... Sounds interesting right?
Well for me, this is no longer the case, and each year I feel increasingly disappointed. It has now become so heavily biased towards photo realism rather than painting in a more spontaneous and instinctive way and in that way becomes less human, where one painting is now so similar to another. I realise this may be unpopular to some or even offensive to the more avant guard figurative establishment, but I have felt so let down in recent years by the increasing amount of photo-realist portraiture that keeps being selected. Of course photographs can aide picture making in many ways, such as for reference, mood, inspiration or if the model cannot sit very often for example. Also working in conjunction with one media and translating that into paint can be interesting. Gerhardt Richter did some of the most powerful work I've seen copying from some old black and white photos, but the emphasis was in them looking like paintings, not photographs. My point is the amount of it selected in the recent years has made the competition so much less interesting, rich or diverse. There is also a definite art trend in galleries for "hyper realism". In some ways it's a good thing, that there's a reversion back towards figurative painting, and the human body etc. I also understand how laborious it is to paint in this way, using highly smooth painting surfaces, sables and softening brushes (I used to paint 'trompe l'oiel', which in French literally translates to 'trick the eye'). Some pictures can be painstaking in detail, where every hair has to be painted to blur away from the focal point, just like a lens can blur the background focus when used with a low aperture. Some paintings in this genre of painting are beautiful, stunning, complex and deserve the prizes they get. But where are the other figurative styles?
For myself as an artist, having painted in photo realistic manner most of my decorative painting life, I am now painting the same subjects, but with bigger brushes (hogs) and thick paint, i.e creminitz white adds a wonderful string like quality to the paint, and wonderful texture. If one looks at Freud (from whom I discovered the effects of cremenitz!), or Tai-Shan Schierenberg or Euan Uglow, Diarmiud Kelly, Alex Kanevsky to name just a few figurative artists, they all use paint beautifully. Whether thickly applied, oozing with depth and texture from artists like Freud and Schierenberg, or a much more considered approach to technique like Uglow or Kelly, the paint, the looseness, the processes, the accidents and corrections that are made when working from life, are so much more engaging, more 'human' in every way. The viewer gains more of a feeling of contact with the artist and to the actual physical process of painting or the thought that creates each picture.
I'm not saying photo realism doesn't have a place in art and it's undeniably a skilled way of working, (and this is where I stick my neck out for some flack!) but it is a lot easier in my opinion to paint photographically. Often on a fairly large scale, in a studio copying from a blown up photo, the artists are on their own time, no model to worry about, and it can become a formulaic way of working. Blocking in, building glazes, softening each layer and gently adding more detail with sables. The image is often traced or projected to the canvas, and the danger is it becomes like painting by numbers! Too perfect to be a painting now seems to be a BP pre-requisite! Boring in other words...
Now try working like that from life, its near impossible. It is not going to work because the eye can't see like a fish eye lens or distort an image or focus as only a camera can, or at least mine can't! Currently I now choose to paint a subject from life whenever i can, with no glazing, no sables, where the finished painting becomes about each mark made, the colours mixed and where they are placed in relation to each-other; i.e. using colour in patches or blocks, similar to making a form of mosaic. The shadow colours are the hardest....to mix a cool receding dark shadow from a solid block of colour and a well placed mark... truly difficult! I am only beginning to understand how much concentration is involved in every aspect. To paint this way is a much, much harder technique to master than copying from a photograph. Painting then becomes far more instinctive, spontaneous, and even sometimes a mistake can help, to make another colour work well, for example, is part of that magic. To me that is really what painting is all about.
The BP seems to be more of a showcase for an artist to show of his skills as a craftsmen with techniques that can be taught relatively easily. Great, but a picture that's alive with energy, passion, drips, brush marks and that wonderful smell of thick linseed oil paint don't feature. Occasionally the selectors may choose the odd painter who works like Schierenberg or Kelly, bringing in a bit more variety, making it more human and expressive... Not often though, with such photographically based work dominating the show. Why not go and take a photo and mount it as a C print instead? We all live in a world of technology, and it will have an effect on the artist, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Painting in it's purest form is man mixing colours from the earth and showing how he sees the world. With photoshop and 3d tv's everywhere, we life in a virtual world near enough. My soul knows when I'm looking at a piece of work that has been done entirely from real life, by another human being.....picture making started as a language and telling a story...let's not ever lose sight of that! Its just a shame the BP seems to have succumbed to the technologically based world. But shouldn't an art gallery showing paintings of other humans not show more humanity? I wonder whether this year the selectors can choose pictures that are about the freedom of brush-marks, spontaneity of colour or will it be the same old photographic realist?!
Well for me, this is no longer the case, and each year I feel increasingly disappointed. It has now become so heavily biased towards photo realism rather than painting in a more spontaneous and instinctive way and in that way becomes less human, where one painting is now so similar to another. I realise this may be unpopular to some or even offensive to the more avant guard figurative establishment, but I have felt so let down in recent years by the increasing amount of photo-realist portraiture that keeps being selected. Of course photographs can aide picture making in many ways, such as for reference, mood, inspiration or if the model cannot sit very often for example. Also working in conjunction with one media and translating that into paint can be interesting. Gerhardt Richter did some of the most powerful work I've seen copying from some old black and white photos, but the emphasis was in them looking like paintings, not photographs. My point is the amount of it selected in the recent years has made the competition so much less interesting, rich or diverse. There is also a definite art trend in galleries for "hyper realism". In some ways it's a good thing, that there's a reversion back towards figurative painting, and the human body etc. I also understand how laborious it is to paint in this way, using highly smooth painting surfaces, sables and softening brushes (I used to paint 'trompe l'oiel', which in French literally translates to 'trick the eye'). Some pictures can be painstaking in detail, where every hair has to be painted to blur away from the focal point, just like a lens can blur the background focus when used with a low aperture. Some paintings in this genre of painting are beautiful, stunning, complex and deserve the prizes they get. But where are the other figurative styles?
For myself as an artist, having painted in photo realistic manner most of my decorative painting life, I am now painting the same subjects, but with bigger brushes (hogs) and thick paint, i.e creminitz white adds a wonderful string like quality to the paint, and wonderful texture. If one looks at Freud (from whom I discovered the effects of cremenitz!), or Tai-Shan Schierenberg or Euan Uglow, Diarmiud Kelly, Alex Kanevsky to name just a few figurative artists, they all use paint beautifully. Whether thickly applied, oozing with depth and texture from artists like Freud and Schierenberg, or a much more considered approach to technique like Uglow or Kelly, the paint, the looseness, the processes, the accidents and corrections that are made when working from life, are so much more engaging, more 'human' in every way. The viewer gains more of a feeling of contact with the artist and to the actual physical process of painting or the thought that creates each picture.
I'm not saying photo realism doesn't have a place in art and it's undeniably a skilled way of working, (and this is where I stick my neck out for some flack!) but it is a lot easier in my opinion to paint photographically. Often on a fairly large scale, in a studio copying from a blown up photo, the artists are on their own time, no model to worry about, and it can become a formulaic way of working. Blocking in, building glazes, softening each layer and gently adding more detail with sables. The image is often traced or projected to the canvas, and the danger is it becomes like painting by numbers! Too perfect to be a painting now seems to be a BP pre-requisite! Boring in other words...
Now try working like that from life, its near impossible. It is not going to work because the eye can't see like a fish eye lens or distort an image or focus as only a camera can, or at least mine can't! Currently I now choose to paint a subject from life whenever i can, with no glazing, no sables, where the finished painting becomes about each mark made, the colours mixed and where they are placed in relation to each-other; i.e. using colour in patches or blocks, similar to making a form of mosaic. The shadow colours are the hardest....to mix a cool receding dark shadow from a solid block of colour and a well placed mark... truly difficult! I am only beginning to understand how much concentration is involved in every aspect. To paint this way is a much, much harder technique to master than copying from a photograph. Painting then becomes far more instinctive, spontaneous, and even sometimes a mistake can help, to make another colour work well, for example, is part of that magic. To me that is really what painting is all about.
The BP seems to be more of a showcase for an artist to show of his skills as a craftsmen with techniques that can be taught relatively easily. Great, but a picture that's alive with energy, passion, drips, brush marks and that wonderful smell of thick linseed oil paint don't feature. Occasionally the selectors may choose the odd painter who works like Schierenberg or Kelly, bringing in a bit more variety, making it more human and expressive... Not often though, with such photographically based work dominating the show. Why not go and take a photo and mount it as a C print instead? We all live in a world of technology, and it will have an effect on the artist, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Painting in it's purest form is man mixing colours from the earth and showing how he sees the world. With photoshop and 3d tv's everywhere, we life in a virtual world near enough. My soul knows when I'm looking at a piece of work that has been done entirely from real life, by another human being.....picture making started as a language and telling a story...let's not ever lose sight of that! Its just a shame the BP seems to have succumbed to the technologically based world. But shouldn't an art gallery showing paintings of other humans not show more humanity? I wonder whether this year the selectors can choose pictures that are about the freedom of brush-marks, spontaneity of colour or will it be the same old photographic realist?!
Saturday 19 May 2012
Tai-Shan Schierenberg sea painting
This is by Tai Shan Shirenberg....A completely beautiful painting of the sea.... He uses such thick paint that this does have a certain solidity, but then thats also what makes it unique. I used to think he was plaguerising a certain Mr Freud, but thats changed, as no doubt a major influence, I feel this work is completely original and stunning in its palette and simplicity..... A truly important one of the few figurative British artists.....
Zimou Tan
http://zimoutan.blogspot.co.uk/
What a gifted artist and he handles paint like Sargent. A real talent with such a light touch
What a gifted artist and he handles paint like Sargent. A real talent with such a light touch
Tuesday 15 May 2012
Painting website and stuff
Hi Everybody
I have just launched my new website of my paintings so if you are interested in modern british figurative painting please feel free to have a look. I am very interested in portraiture and working with the human figure, where i am currently working on a series of nudes for a show. I also do still lives and the occasional landscape, so if you are interested in commissioning a portrait, or know someone who is, then please pass this on! I do children's portraits as well, which I know others dont!
I am very inspired by artists such as Uglow, Diarmuid Kelly, Kanevsky and Lucien Freud and am keen to meet other painters or curators
Many thanks and I'll update you soon
My website can be found on www.nickesch.com
I have just launched my new website of my paintings so if you are interested in modern british figurative painting please feel free to have a look. I am very interested in portraiture and working with the human figure, where i am currently working on a series of nudes for a show. I also do still lives and the occasional landscape, so if you are interested in commissioning a portrait, or know someone who is, then please pass this on! I do children's portraits as well, which I know others dont!
I am very inspired by artists such as Uglow, Diarmuid Kelly, Kanevsky and Lucien Freud and am keen to meet other painters or curators
Many thanks and I'll update you soon
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