More pix by Lartigue are here. (And here.) The one I actually recognize is this one, of the race car getting sucked out of the frame. I always admired it. (Might dust off my interest in oddball effects in photography. Tho it's somewhat ho-hum these days, given the magic of Ps.)
Scene: Weekday, noonish. Metro train pulls into station, stops. But ho! The main lights in the individual car in front of Subject are off, yet the doors open. The lights of the other, surrounding cars glow, as do the station lights, so it's dim, but not pitch dark. AC hum is also missing. Conclusion? Dead car. But it'll still go.
and MetroMan (our pilot?) shoots in, wearing enviable phosphorescent Metro vest, with walkie-talkie shrieking garbled phrases about "stuck train just outside Van Ness". Or some such. Alas. We all hear it. Oh, woe.
Found on Darren Rowse's ProBlogger.net, this is a guest post from Robert Bruce (@KnifeGunPen), entitled 27 Thoughts on Blogging for the Artist. It's dated April 17th, 2008 but still very meaty.
. Though tempting, you’ll never crush your own mediocrity working only four hours a week.
One: Tall kitchen garbage bags. Avoid damp trowser bottoms if you have to sit on a dew-covered bench. Fold into a pad to add insulation between you and a metal bench. Use to cover your pochade box (or you) if you get caught in a shower. Spread below your easel if you are in a location where you have to catch your pastel dust. Use as a sled on snow-covered slopes.
Two: Bug spray or bug repellant of some kind, chemical, electronic, or magical. There is nothing that will drive you, shrieking, out of a field more quickly than a swarm of gnats. Well, maybe a swarm of mosquitoes. Other uses for chemical version: bear repellent (works at close quarters only), after-hike cologne, solvent for underpainting, auto fuel. For electronic version: gag gift. Alternative use for magical: pick up line repellant. You wish.
Three: Binoculars. Keep compact binocs tucked away in the car at all times. There are numerous occasions when your eyesight will need a boost or when you think you see something very interesting way out there but just can't be sure. Besides, mavens say that you can't really do justice to a plein air scene until after you have taken the time to walk all over it, through it, and around it. If restrictions of mobility, distance, barriers, or the imaginary lines of "private property" constrain, binocs can get you there. Or help you pretend you're there.
Four: Duh! A roll of paper towels. Use for: Picnic napkins, wipes, and placemats. Soaking up spilled coffee. Cleaning fingers covered with pastel dust. Dry wipes for panpastel applicators. Blotter for watercolor painting. Lumbar support. Lens-less telescope.
Five: Stash of small bottles of water. Anyone who lives or has car-toured in the Southwest knows about always keeping water in the car. Your life may hang in the balance. Other more everyday uses: dampen paper towels to wash pastel dust off hands, to dip your brush for watercolor or gouache underpainting, to help swallowing asprin, to slake thirst at picnics, to soak neckerchief and tie it around your neck on warm days, counterweight for the tripod easel, etc.
Six: Windbreaker, lightweight, hooded, and neutral-colored. Protects when the weather double-crosses. Hood (along with the beanie, see below) keeps your brain from losing essential heat when it's chilly. Neutral color won't reflect untoward hues onto your painting surface. Dress jacket up with a shining bow tie for white-tie-and-tails events. Dress jacket down with a neckerchief for hoe-downs.
Seven: Hats. One big-brimmed sun hat and one beanie for the colder days. Invert the big-brimmed one and place at the base of your plein air tripod; you may make coffee money. Place big-brimmed one on building and hire mariachi band. Invert the beanie to hold harvested raspberries.
This is done plein air! It's about 8" x 10" (cropped down from 9x12) on PastelMat paper, done entirely with soft sticks.
Every time I looked up from the paper, the water looked different. It was a LOT of fun.
This is iteration #4 of this piece. It's 9" x 12" on PastelMat paper. About 85% panpastels and 15% softies. And just a touch here and there with pastel pencils. (Discuss.)
This is 9" x 12" on a base of beveled museum board. I glued a thready, fibery-looking piece of crumpled rice tissue paper onto it, using Colourfix primer as the "glue". I put another coat of primer on, once the "glue" coat was dry.
Crusty Tennis Chicken
About 8"x10" on Hahnemühle velour with keeeewel spiral patterned rice paper glued (using clear Colourfix primer as the "glue") to the lower 2/3 of the sheet. On top of the velour.
This is 9" x 12" on PastelMat paper, in the "Sand" color. I used about 75% panpastels and 25% my new Mount Vision Thunderstorm Greys set, which is way cool. And I also used one very scratchy, very impasto, very lush DT Thin Line white stick, for the hard cloud edges.
This is 9" x 12" on reverse beveled foamboard. I glued down some cut-open bouquet garni bags and then sealed the whole surface (including down the bevels all the way to the edges) with clear Colourfix primer.
This is just a scribble test sketch on the new (to me) PastelMat paper from Clairefontaine, the fancy dancy Euro paper manufacturer, paper color "dark gray". It is like shaved-down velour paper. Interesting, but I think I will survive it.
This is 9" x 12" on one of my new "reverse beveled" supports, this one the archival foamboard*. There is a rectangle of cheesecloth glued in the center and I do like that look a lot. Why? I don't know. I think because it is distracting.
This is a view of Lava Falls taken in 1872 during the Second Powell Expedition. Lava Falls usually drops about 13 feet in about 1,000 feet of river today. I wonder what is was like in 1872.
This message was recently posted in one of the forums that I look at: " . . so tell me what y'all do or get or whatever with your sketches. :D ~Kirby"
of artist is the one that does it in order to produce a painting. (Or a sculpture, or a ceramic pot or a drawing or whatever.) These aren't necessarily always the pros, the crank-it-out folks (like Mr. Robert Genn) who have to sell their work to eat. The amateur version of this artist spends a lot of time talking about 'talent', often as a lament or a complaint. They're delighted when folks say "Wow, our drawing looks just like a photograph!". They are thin skinned and take a critique poorly. They get frustrated and seem not to enjoy the process of creating. It's a wrestling match. Big struggle.
She (?) is Jordanian, about three and a half feet tall and is about 8,500 years old.
This Ed Degas painting here is an excellent piece to study to see the effects of hard and soft ("lost" and "found") edges. The black shape that Degas has merged right into the ballet master's body there in the middle foreground? What is it? Those are the scrolls at the the top of two cellos or double bass viols! Where do those scrolls end and where does the ballet master's body begin? Well, there you are! The picture engages me too.
Figs on Hahnemühle Premium Velour Paper. Jury's out. Discuss.
Whazzup?
