I discovered Jason deCaires Taylor’s sculptures today while I was looking up work by another artist.  I immediately became distracted as soon as I saw the first image of his haunting work.  After going to his website, I could not stop looking at the images of his underwater sculptures.  Part of me was repelled, part of me fascinated, as I am with the ruins of Pompei, or the wreck of the Titanic.  His work brought to mind for me concepts such as the passing of time and the concept of freezing time, individuality, community, natural disasters, humanity, death, life, dreaming and sleeping, community, God, eternity, the preciousness of details, and the mysteries of the lives of others.  When you encounter these images, it is almost like you are discovering sleepwalking people that you want to awaken, or ghosts of lives not finished, or people turned to stone by the White Witch of Narnia and doomed to spend all eternity in the depths of the blue sea.  One almost can hear the silence, and one fights the urge to hold your breath as you look on these sculptures.  There’s something about the figure used realistically in an artist’s work that draws you in emotionally.

Quite honestly, I haven’t been truly moved by art in so long..perhaps because I have seen so much of it… but these sculptures are powerful enough to deliver emotion, whether one likes it or not.  One strong emotion it aroused in me was the desire to rescue.  Don’t you want to wake these immobile stone sleepers, and bring them to the surface?  It makes me want to bring them to shore to lead a full life of laughter and color and movement.  Perhaps that is the strength of the art, to bring the viewer to action in life, to change thier view a little.

In reality, Taylor’s sculptures serve as more than objects of beauty and thought, they are also gardens that help spread natural coral reefs–the sculptures change as they grow underwater, and marine life take up residence among the statues.  Some are decorated with coral growths of many colors and kinds, so they resemble a finely made haute couture dress on the figure.

My favorite sculptures are the two women who appear to be swimming in a long pool, luxuriously enjoying the sunshine and the water, looking like nymphs of the lilies.  They seem completely at ease and rest.

This Biography was taken directly from the artist’s website, which you can see by visiting here.

“Jason deCaires Taylor is a man of many identities whose work resonates with the influences of his eclectic life. Growing up in Europe and Asia with his English father and Guyanese mother nurtured his passion for exploration and discovery. Much of his childhood was spent on the coral reefs of Malaysia where he developed a profound love of the sea and a fascination with the natural world. This would later lead him to spend several years working as a scuba diving instructor in various parts of the globe, developing a strong interest in conservation, underwater naturalism and photography. His bond with the sea remains a constant throughout Taylor’s life though other key influences are found far from the oceans. During his teenage years, work as a graffiti artist fired his interest in the relationship between art and the environment, fostering an ambition to produce art in public spaces and directing the focus of his formal art training. He graduated in 1998 from the London Institute of Arts, with a B.A. Honours in Sculpture and Ceramics. Later, experience in Canterbury Cathedral taught him traditional stone carving techniques whilst five years working in set design and concert installations exposed him to cranes, lifting, logistics and completing projects on a grand scale.

With this range of experiences he was equipping himself with the skills required to execute the ambitious underwater projects that have made his name. Carving cement instead of stone and supervising cranes while in full scuba gear to create artificial reefs submerged below the surface of the Caribbean Sea, the various strands of his diverse life resolve themselves convincingly in the development of his underwater sculptures. These ambitious, public works have a practical, functional aspect, facilitating positive interactions between people and fragile underwater habitats.”

Christian Birmingham is an illustrator whose work I have long admired.  His talent is obvious in the way he combines color, composition, atmosphere and drama in all of his work, to bring you into a world of fantasy and make it believable.  He has illustrated classic fairy tales such as the Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty,, the Snow Queen, and many others.  Although not technically ‘classical fine art’, I find myself very inspired by Birmingham’s work, all done in pastels.  Enjoy!

Peaches and Cream Portrait Study, 8x10", oil on canvas, Jessica Libor 2012

At Ellen Cooper’s portrait class last week, we completed the first portrait.  For me, this was two sittings, 3 hours each.  The model had the most wonderful, elegant profile, and flawless skin, the overall effect being that of an English noblewoman painted so frequently by John Singer Sargent.

Although my painting is no Sargent, I tried to capture the loveliness of her glowing skin and the attitude of her profile.

Refuge, oil and silver leaf on linen, 20"x24", Jessica Libor 2011

I completed this painting about a month ago, but wanted to wait until I had a good image to share before posting about it.  It’s called “Refuge”, and is oil and silver leaf on linen, at 18″X20 inches in dimension.  It’s a painting of a friend, like most of my work, and something  I really enjoyed working on.  If you’re interested in collecting it, see more details on my website www.jessicalibor.com, or if you’re interested in viewing it, email me and we can work something out.  Enjoy!

Refuge (detail), oil and silver leaf on linen, Jessica Libor 2011

Maria (unfinished) by Joshua LaRock, during the window shading stage over top of ebauche

This is the stage in the painting where it all starts to come together.  In part six of this series of posts on how to paint like the masters, we left off when finishing the ebauche, a thin layer of paint and turpinoid with a few drops of oil mixed in, to set the tone of the painting.

Today, we will address layer two, using a thicker coat of paint, mixed with retouch varnish and oil (either poppy, walnut of linseed).  Later, we’ll discuss the glazing.

Start out by scumbling retouch varnish or oil over the ebauche.  The brings the full color to life again.  When choosing how to mix your lights, keep in mind that titanium white is stronger and colder, while flake white is more transparent and warmer.

Window shading is step two of painting in the classical 19th century French academic method.  They call it that because it is like pulling a shade down on a window, working in full detail from the top to the bottom of the canvas.  Finishing the painting is the goal for this stage.  Watch your model carefully for subsurface scattering–when light passes through and reflects inside the skin, like your hand in front of a flashlight.  Places common to seeing subsurface scattering are under the eyelids, the ears, the nose and hands.  Anywhere where your skin is thinner and more blood comes to the surface, you will see this subtle glowing effect.

After the window shading layer dries, you should have a completed painting.  If you would like to deepen the shadows more or add more transparency to the painting, consider a third layer, by glazing and scumbling.  Check out the detail from John Waterhouse’s Flora and the Zephyrs, where he used many layers of glaze to achieve a glowing look to her skin, fabric and roses.

Detail from Flora and the Zephyrs by John Waterhouse

Glazing: dark, thinned paint over lighter paint

Scumbling: Light paint, thicker and more opaque, over dark paint

In order to glaze and scumble, the painting must be completely dry, otherwise you risk rubbing out all your hard work.

To make something look glowing like oranges in a still life, glazing is the way to go.  If something looks transparent, paint it with transparent layers.  For the glazing layer, use GamVar, made by Gamblin, with a sponge brush.

Minneolas, by Joshua LaRock, oil on linen, 2009

That’s the final layer.  Congratulations on learning how to paint like the masters!

Homebound, by Steven Assael, oil on canvas, 60"x72"

Last year, I attended a visiting artist lecture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where Steven Assael, a New York native artist, was the guest speaker.

I was electrified at his presentation, and sat eagerly forward on my chair throughout the entire slideshow.  Seeing his work blown up large in a darkened theatre brought a new intensity to it.

D, oil on canvas, 62.5x92.5 inches, by Steven Assael 1998

What struck me about Steven’s work was the emotional pull of it.  In each of his characters that he paints, it is as if he put thier very soul into the image.  He is unflinching in depicting the relationship of the sitter and the painter, and lets you in to see the vulnerability and inner workings of his subjects.

There is also a drama, a sweet strain of sadness and mystery that runs through his work.  It seems as if he purposefully chooses unusual subjects physically, so that through his paintings he can give them a dignity and humanity that many people overlook.

Drawing by Steven Assael

After the lecture, I spoke to Mr. Assael about his work.  He was truly one of the kindest artists I’ve ever met, with a humility and quiet gravity to him, much like the work he produces.  It struck me how much you can tell about an artist by simply the work that he or she does.  In most cases, you are very much what you paint, for it comes out of the deepest place in your soul.

Nicole and James, oil on canvas, by Steven Assael, 32x20 inches, 2005

For more information about Steven Assael, check out this documentary on his work here.

Almost-completed Ebauche stage by Joshua LaRock 2011

This post will continue our journey we began several posts ago, picking up where we left off at the last stage of rendering the drawing.  We are beginning this post with the assumption that you have in front of you a canvas with the transferred drawing on it, the very correct drawing that you’ve been working so hard on!

These are notes that I am sharing with you again from that particularly helpful workshop led by Joshua LaRock that I took at the Grand Central Academy of Art this past summer.

I remember when this day came at last, it was the beginning of the second week, and a Monday.  I was so excited to begin painting!  However, the teacher lectured for a while before we could begin…which was exactly what most of us needed.  I gained a wealth of information, without which my painting would not have improved.

We began the morning with some basic definitions, and built from there.

The Ebauche: Layer 1 of paint, a thinned down value study with mostly turpenoid and a few drops of oil.

Beginning the Ebauche, by Joshua LaRock 2011

Value: the lightness or darkness

Hue:  Color (red, yellow, green, blue)

Chroma: the intensity relative to neutral (gray)

All skintones are a mixture of yellow and red.

The plane most perpendicular (most facing) the light is the most chromatic (the most color, ignoring the hightlights).  As a form turns away from the light, the color gets darker in value and less in chroma.  The highest chromatic (color intense) colors are straight from the tube.  The hightest chroma paints are the cadmium colors.  When painting shadows, remember that black is actually a very dark blue.  On a one color object, keep the HUE (pure color) at all costs, no matter how light or dark things get.

Mandarins, 11″x14″, Joshua LaRock 2009

When setting up the pallete, try to stay organized.  Your pallette is a reflection of your mind.  Start out to the left with the yellows, then go to the reds, then the greens, and lastly blues.  Below is a list of the exact paints we used for the full pallette, in order of how they should be laid out on the pallette.

1. White

2. Lemon Yellow

3. Cadmium Yellow

4. Naples Yellow

5. Yellow Ochre

6. Raw Sienna

7. Raw Umber

8. Cadmium Orange

9. Cadmium Red

10. Venetian Red

11. Alizarin Crimson

12. Burnt Umber

13. White

14. Cadmium Green

15. Sap Green

16. Viridian Green

17. Cerulean Blue

18. Ultramarine Blue

19. Cobalt Blue

20. Violet (Dioxazine Purple)

21. Ivory Black

22. VanDyke Brown

25% Raw umber, 25% burnt sienna, and 50% black make a perfect neutral, that you can make lighter or darker with white.

As far as a medium when you are painting, I personally use Walnut oil, because it’s so environmentally healthy you could theoretically eat it and be fine.  However, the traditional method is to use linseed oil or poppy oil to mix with the paint to make it more buttery.  Poppy oil doesn’t yellow as much as linseed oil, however.

Either way you go, you DO NOT need to use an oil at this point while doing the traditional Ebauche (underpainting).  If you use too much oil with your paint at this point, then in subsequent layers, your paint will bead up.  When doing the Ebauche, use paint thinner to thin the paint, or an odorless turpenoid (natural substitute for turpentine).

When beginning painting the Ebauche, keep in mind that it is to get the overall general effect of the painting, with colors, values and feel of the work.  Don’t lose your drawing at this stage.  You can start correcting your drawing if needed.  When you paint a dark over a light, you get a chromatic rise–this is what happens when you glaze.  So overall, your ebauche should be a little lighter in value than what you want your painting to look like at the end, if you’d like to glaze over it.

Start painting the ebauche with the lights, the highest in chroma and value (for instance, typically the nose and forhead), and go darker in value and lower in chroma in the shadow from there.

Mix up a separate mixture for the shadows, and use a separate brush to keep the painting as clean as possible.

Also, mix up a separate mixture for the hair.

Protect the hight value, high chroma parts of the painting!  Get all the lights and darks established before going into detail.  For example, do a section on the forehead, side of cheek and shadow and hair, then do the rest of the face, using those sections as keys of light or darkness on the form.

Sometimes, when two complementary colors are set next to each other, they both appear brighter.  This is a similar optical effect to simultaneous contrast.  Don’t let your eyes deieve you!

Think again of sculpting, same as the drawing!  You want the picture to leap out of the canvas into life.

The legendary William Adolphe Bouguereau painted in for layers, and this was the first.  Only three more to go!  Below, check out his unfinished painting, where you can clearly see the ebauche stage showing through.

Unfinished painting by Bouguereau

Step 1, Daughter of Eve, Jessica Libor 2012

I started out the painting by sketching it out on the canvas mounted on board.  Next, I went over the entire canvas with a sepia tone (mixed with turpenoid)  to get rid of the white.  After that layer dried, I applied silver leaf over specific places in the painting that  I wanted to shine, such as the sky between the branches, and the necklace on the figure.

Next I began painting the figure and sky, going over the colors in blocks and laying in the correct tones.

Step 2, Daughter of Eve (unfinished), oil on canvas with silver leaf, Jessica Libor 2012

From there, I really concentrated on the skin tones, thinking of the classical way of painting flesh, and painting what I saw, not what  I thought looked right.  A lot of times our eyes deceive us, and we have to trust our minds instead.

I’ve been working on this piece and a few others nonstop for the past week, trying to wrap up a portfolio for a scholarship from New York Academy of Art.  There have been some late nights (or rather, mornings!) painting in the studio this week!  Next post, I’ll share another painting I’ve been working on.  Until then!

Step 3, "Daughter of Eve" unfinished, oil and silver leaf on canvas board, Jessica Libor 2012