Mixing techniques

I’ve always like to try new things… to mix techniques and try new drawing instruments (for instance, the dry reed is an excellent one, used by Rembrandt, Bruegel and Van Gogh). Practically, with acrylics, and acrylic mediums and pastas you can use almost anything to shape your painting: a comb,  all kind of plastic dinner forks and knifes, knitting needles, your hands and nails, the other side of the brush (the handle) etc. etc. Only your imagination puts a limit to this… The excellent adherence of the acrylic paint – inks included – makes very interesting the combination acrylic base + pastel (oil pastel is preferable because of its better adherence and simplicity – no need to apply a fixer…) This is one of my first experiments in mixing acrylics, watercolor and pastel. Not a masterpiece but it can give you an idea of what I’m talking about… And it will make a contrast with some sad, melodramatic postings I did lately…

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Mi-a placut intotdeauna sa experimentez. Sa incerc noi tehnici picturale, noi materiale, noi instrumente de desin…de ex., trestia taiata pe care atat Rembrandt cat si Bruegel si Van Gogh au folosit-o…Practic, odata cu culorile de tip acrilic (inclusiv tusurile, ca si nenumaratele varietatzi de paste si mediumuri acrilice) campul de experiementare a devenit practic nelimitat (doar limitele propriei imaginatzii constinuie “limita”…) Datorita excelentei lor aderentze si a faptului ca potzi modela tabloul tau cu practic aproape orice instrument, de la piepteni la ace de crosetat, etc. o baza ade acrilice poate fi foarte usor si bine “desenata” cu pasteluri (personal le prefer pe cele de ulei – in cazul acesta – fiindca adera mai bine si nu trebuie fixate, ca cel seci…)

Nudul prezent e una din primele mele incercari de “tehnica mixta” . Nu e o capodopera, dar va putetzi face o idee despre ce inseamna “tehnica mixta” acrilice-pastel, cu ceva acuarele in plus…Si face un contrast interesant fatza de unele postari triste si melodramatice pe care le-am facut recent…

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…