The pleasure of sketching

Since I’ve started with drawings and sketchings and cartoons I’ll give you one more: little boy I’ve sketched during the Bromont Art Symposium… Was it 2002? 2003? I don’t remember any more. But I know I did a lot of skethcing then, waiting for a collector to come and buy everything… Usually,  they didn’t bother but I still covered my expenses and leave there with a little profit… Danu, the capitalist… Anyway, recently I’ve seen some sketches by Watteau, this “artiste maudit” avant la lettre, dead at 37, like Rafael, like Modigliani, Van Gogh and others who “kicked the bucket” at this fatidic age… I was impressed by the spontaneity, the vigour and, at the same time, the exquisite delicacy of his drawings. I could only imagine him, drawing. All the pleasure that sketching would have brought in his poor life, all the joy. Painter of the so called “fêtes galantes of the end of the 17th and beginning of the 17th century in France, associated with “joie de vivre” and eroticism, he was quite and auster artist. Delicat, discretely erotic but not at all as Fragonnard or Boucher. I would say I will appreciate him even more for that… and he was a great draftsman, just as good as Bruegel and Rembrandt an Rubens. It is not rare to be able to tell more about an artist looking at his/her drawins. No “comission” for that… Just the artist, unadulterated,  “pure”…

Dan Quixote

I’ve wrote something lately: about Nietzsche. Again… But it puzzles me and I’m not yet entirely satisfied. So I’ll entertain you (I hope so!) with a drawing – well, a graphic work – I used to do quite often in the years of my depression… 2000-2001… I have entitled it Dan Quixote because I always felt a bit like battling the windmills since I’ve become a full time artist… At the time, I was experimenting with composition and new graphic techniques; I’ll have to tell you one thing: depression has it’s bright side, paradoxically… If you are an artist, it could happen very well that your creativity – and productivity – increase very much, a lot, during depression. Well, not if you are catatonic (I never was)…but a bit of depression can stimulate the hell of your peripheral vision, can encourage you to explore roads you wouldn’t take otherwise… I’m not saying get depressed to get creative; I’m just saying, if this is the case and you ARE depressed, and this increase your creativity-productivity, why not take advantage of it? Even the worst situation MUST have some good sides… When somebody dies, someone else inherits… It’s sad, it’s cruel, maybe, but these are the facts of life (you can call it Wall Mart philosophy or such but it doesn’t make it less true… I remember reading an interview with Paul Schrader, the writer of Taxi Driver. When he wrote the screenplay made famous by Martin Scorsese and Robert de Niro, he was depressed au bout, comme disent les francophones…

Essential loneliness / Singuratate fundamentala

I’ve chosen this drawing to illustrate this title. It’s a couple, they probably make love – or have sex – together. But they are essentialy alone. Same as we are… each and everyone…

There will be a lot to say: no, I’m not alone, I have a wife, a lover, children, parents, friends, etc.

The truth is – and it’s sad, very sad (as I am tonight) that we are, finally, alone. No lover, no wife, no children, no friend (and I value friendship a lot) can fill in the emptyness, the essential loneliness we feel sometimes. Happly, it doesn’t happen often. A few minutes, maybe, in a lifetime. If you are moderately smart, you’ll recognise it. If not it will be only a very unpleasent feeling, a strangeness, something you will put aside as quick as you can, trying to forget about it… If not, you will be prone to cleaning rifles accidents, like Hemingway and his father…

Why do we feel it? I don’t know. It could be a negligent word from some of your dear ones, a mean remarks of a person you thought (how stupid can one be?) was a friend, the fact that your child doesn’t have 2 minutes to ask how are you? Or a stranger’s mean look, with no reason that you know (maybe he or she doesn’t like your mug, as simply as that?)

Very few of us will wish to analyse too much this odd, unpleasent, sickening feeling. Neither do I.

But then, maybe I am disturbed?

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Am ales desenul acesta al unui cuplu pentru a ilustra titlu de mai sus. Probabil ca cei doi fac dragoste – sau au sex – impreuna dar, in mod esentail, ei sunt singuri. La fel ca fiecare dintre noi. Fara exceptzie.

Vor fi multzi care sa spuna: nu, eu nu sunt singur, am o nevasta, o iubita, copii, parintzi, prieteni, etc. Se poate. Dar adevarul este – si e trist, foarte trist (asa cum sunt eu in seara asta) – ca fiecare suntem, pana la urma, singuri. Nici o iubita, nici o nevasta, nici copiii si nici prietenii (si eu am o idee foarte inalta despre prietenie) pot sa umple golul acele, singuratatea noastra fundamentala pe care o simtzim uneori. din fericire, nu se intampla prea des. cateva minute, poate, intr-o viataza de om. Daca esti destul de destept, vei recunoaste momentul, cand se intampla. Daca nu, va ramana doar ca o senzatzie neplacuta, ca un sentiment bizar, ca ceva ciudat, ceva de care te grabesti sa scapi cat mai repede si incerci sa uitzi… Daca intarzii prea mult s-ar putea sa ai accidente de curatzat pusca, ca Hemingway si tatal sau…

De ce se intampla? Habar n-am de ce. Poate sa fie un cuvant aruncat neglijent de catre cineva iubit. Sau o remarca rautacioasa din partea cuiva pe care (oare cat de prost potzi fi?) l-ai crezut prieten, sau faptul ca copilul tau nu are 2 minute ca sa te intrebe de sanatate… Sau, pur si simplu, o uitatura urata de la un strain sau straina (de ce? cum ai putea stii? poate ca nu le place moaca ta?)

Foarte putzini dintre noi vor vrea sa analizeze pe indelete acest sentiment, bizar, neplacut, care-tzi provoaca greatza. Nici eu nu vreau.

Dar, cine stie? poate ca sunt deranjat?

Disturbing stuff in yellow & orange…

This is for my friend Alfred Faltiska (but not exclusively…)

At my post “Cruelty” he made a comment and it seem that he believes dark, angry, disturbing stuff cannot be made with sunny colors like yellow or  pink… I won’t cite him some Vincent paintings I know – in bright, powerful colors – and which are profoundly disturbing. I’ll just post one of ime – Van Gogh don’t need any publicity any more, eh?

I wouldn’t put any limitation on the colors or techniques able to convey disturbing stuf… You can do angry, dark (metaphorically dark…), disturbing, weird, wild stuff with almost all colors, in almost any technique.

This is just a study of the “Adam” figure for a large composition I plan to paint in an unforseen future…if I will gain the lottery or find a Mecena…

One minute drawing

Rapid sketching could be very revealing for an artist, for his “talent”… Bruegel, Rembrandt, Rubens, Delacroix, as well as modern painters like Manet, Degas, Renoir, Pissarro, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Modigliani, Picasso, all did rapid sketches, catching in a blink and in a few fewerishly lines, the essence of a movement or of a move…

Only this enumeration of great names an make me humble. But not that humble… after all, right now, I’m about in the same stage as Vincent Van Gogh coming to Paris: unknown, with still a lot to learn but, however, with some years of hard work and even some good drawings and paintings in my portfolio… I have nothing to lose, except, maybe, the sympathy of some friends who thought I’m modest (which I am and which I am NOT, I cannot really explain…)

So, rapid sketching… There is a “fashion” of the “ateliers d’après modèle vivant” : I don’t know why, exactly, but all do conform to this (in my opinion) stupid rule of the “warming up” poses… the model is tortured for 5-7 minutes in all sort of difficult, artificial postures in the so called “worming up one minute pose”… Rarely, very rarely did I succeed anything else than to waste the paper… I would warm up a lot easier and more gradually doing a 10 minutes pose… But if this is the fashion…well, you have to conform…

This one minute drawing is one of the rare one…one in which I succeeded, I think, to catch “something”… I hope you’ll like it. And when I will gain the lottery I will organize free nude sessions in which the models will pose in natural postures for 10-15 minutes. No fashion. Just beautiful women posing in natural, simple postures…

Cruelty

Life is cruel sometimes. And if you are sketching life you’ll become cruel yourself, especially if you cannot edulcorate the reality, if you cannot cheat and will not lie. This isn’t a nice, pretty sketch. Some gentle souls could be shocked or hurt looking at this. But I did not draw this without the model’s permission. I even draw 2 portraits of him and give him the choice of one… Probably it was something nobody gave him (a gift like that: a portrait of himself) and he was happy. (He chose the gentler version of himself, of course).

I did this sketch in 1995, when I came to Râul Vadului – a sort of a hospital for mentaly challenged (and they were a lot – from a few years old to 70-75 – a group of very divers and frightening faulty humans that nobody wanted). I was there with my friend, sister Mary Rose Christie and some of her helping friends from America. Generous people who sacrified their time and money to help people almost nobody would or could help. I remeber only the name of Ron but there were others too. The pacients knew them already and manifested a great joy to see them again, covering the guest with eager hands and sloppy kisses… I would never forget some of their faces. Even if I do not remeber their names. Just people, anonimous people, forgotten by man and, maybe, by God also… Their hospital was next to the national road to the capital and almost every year there were fatal traffic accidents. Some pacients managed somehow to get out on the road to beg for cigarettes from the motorists…

The Sting

No, it’s not about the famous Robert Redford-Paul Newman movie… It’s about one of my paintings. I cannot call it abstract (so many diletante-s call “abstract” their works! even if there is almost nothing abstract to it… just look on ebay – if you are really bored and have a lot to time to loose…) because it isn’t…

Non-figurative? Well, if you consider “figurative” only human figures, yes, you can call it like that… But it figures something, no less… Insects, weird insects (but aren’t all insects kind of weird to us, humans? I suppose we are also weird – and scary – to them…), or something like that… I don’t know what’s the freudian significance of all the insects and snakes and other animals I need to draw and paint… and I don’t care much… Take your guess…

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Non, je ne parle pas du film avec Robert Redford and Paul Newman… Je parle d’une de mes peintures. Ce n’est pas une peinture “abstraite” ( il y a tellement des dilletants qui appellent “abstraits” leurs peintures qui n’ont vraiment rien d’abstrait… si vous êtes très, trèeees ennuyé/e et vous avez beaucoup de temps a perdre vous pouvez toujours aller voir sur ebay…) parce qu’il n’est pas “abstraite”…

Non-figurative? Peut-être, si vous considerer “figure” exclusivement les figures humains… Il y a certainement des “figures” la-bàs…des insectes, des insectes bizarres (mais ne sont-ils tous les insectes bizarres? et nous, les humains, très bizarres et effrayants – pour eux?) Aucune idée qu’elle sera l’intérpretation freudiene des insectes, serpents et autre animaux que je sent l’impulsion de dessiner et de peindre… Et je m’en fiche pas mal…

Essayez vous dans la psychanalise, si vous voulez…

The Silence of the Lamb

This is, in a way, a prank… I’ve discovered a very old photograph of my wife when she was, maybe, 7-8 years old. In her arms was not exactly a lamb, since technically a lamb is the little one of a sheep and this one was more the little one of a goat – my wife grown up drinking goat milk – I think this can eventually explain a bit of her character… In the photo she had a sad but hypnotic look (did I told you she has the most weird, truly hypnotic, light blue-gray eyes? when you see her eyes for the first time they marvel and fascinate you… they still work for me…) Since I’m also a great fan of the Silence of the Lambs (my first serious CSI) I did a cocktail and this is the result… A bit  of witch, a devil’s claw… Weird, eh? Halloween’s approaching…

Wild stuff… fuckée… chestii salbatice…

A few days – or is it weeks? – ago I’ve discovered some drawings I draw in a pretty fucked up period of my life… 2001-2002… I was depressed (and not mildly! REALLY depressed, almost ready  to kill myself or maybe some others… I’m ok now, don’t worry, I am not dangerous anymore…)

I had a big beard, a savage beard, and some prissy old lady would cross over the street, clutching their purses, when they catch a glimpse of me… So, this drawing is quite wild (but this blog isn’t written for nice, prissy, old ladies, eh?)

I won’t translate this neither in French nor in Romanian. Too damn tired for that… and it’s odd but my feeling is that “wild stuff” is the best aproximative “translation” for this drawing… So enjoy (if you can…)

I join also a “Sinister Self Portrait” to show you what I mean speaking about “savage beard”… In fact, I I would have meet myself on the street, I would have myself cross over…