Creating a lasting message through artwork

Just what exactly is art? As an artist, I’ve been asked that question many times by people who never studied art. I used to go to the modern art museums in different cities and watch the strange looks of curiosity on many visitor’s faces when they were looking at abstracts or cubism. Most people think only realistic pretty pictures is art. Is it a hand painted picture of a landscape, portrait, still life, abstract or city scape? Is it art because it is so well executed and visually beautiful? If that were so, then how is it Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, or Willem De Kooning are in the museums when there are so many great land scape painters at the outdoor shows whose paintings are far more beautiful? Though Norman Rockwell has recently been designated a fine artist, technically he was never an artist. He was an illustrator. The general public has had a hard time understanding that difference. I have tried many times to define art. I have also asked many of my artist friends to do the same. One friend told me if a person wanted to fry shoes and call it art, it was art to her. Another friend insisted art is art only if it followed the rules of good design, composition, and color balance is it art. The definitions of art seem to go from one extreme to another.

The general public thinks of an artist of having certain free hand drawing skills, painting techniques and color knowledge. Those skills are the artist’s God given talents. What the public may not realize is that those so called God given talents and skills can be easily taught and just as easily learned. As a long time art student I’ve learned the skills of one artist are about the same of another. Systems of drawing and painting are as common as handwriting. Then what, I asked my self is art. What separates one artist from another? In simple definition, I realized art is expression. It is simply pure, unadulterated expression. It is not necessarily the ability to paint over another’s ability to paint that separates artists but it is the artist’s emotional and philosophical point of view. In truth Pollocks couldn’t draw or paint but became a museum artist for the beautiful expression of energy and unique texture. Warhol was basically a commercial artist who became the father of “Pop” art for his portrayal of a Campbell’s Soup Can. Dekooning’s scribblings of overly large women with small heads simply expressed his low opinion of women. What they all have in common was the honesty and boldness of their expression. So what art is, is freedom in as many forms as can be imagined.

Biography: Salvador Dali – Part 4

A traditional description of Salvador Dali’s life would certainly have angered him. The usual reciting of dates, places and lists of his works would be too pat, too boring, too plebein to describe an unusual artist who spent his life distorting reality with his paint brush and outrageous behavior.

I discovered Dali when I was an art student in the 1950s, as his fame in America suddenly blossomed after he was brought over from Spain by art dealers and high society admirers. I had been studying the masters, the immortal realists of precise painting. My idols were da Vinci, Rembrandt, Ingres, David and Michelangelo, and admired the popular American super-realist illustrator of the time, Norman Rockwell.

I could barely tolerate the impressionists, such as Van Gogh, Monet, Degas and Renoir. And never could dig the abstractionists, including Picasso, Miro, Chagall and their ilk. Suddenly, upon the scene burst this strange, mustachioed extrovert whose surrealistic work seemed to combine all three disciplines. Or rather, lack of discipline, particularly in his public life.

However, I couldn’t help admiring his work, because whatever Dali’s paint brush distorted, ridiculed or blasphemed, the basis is always as realistically rendered as that of a da Vinci. Once Dali said, “Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is eithegood or bad.” His was very, very good.

Like all Spaniards with a touch of Medieval nobility in their family’s history, the painter’s 1904 birth certificate spells out the lengthy name of Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dali y Domenech. His father was an attorney and public official in the Catalonia region.

At age 18, Dali enrolled as a student at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid. Early photos of the tall, thin teenage Dali indicate he was influenced by the dress of other young artists of the day, with flowing black hair, billowing coat and Colonial-style trousers to the knee with long stockings. Later he added a gold-tipped cane and the upturned chin of a grandee.

His arrogant style was matched by his disdain for teachers, and he was kicked out of the San Fernanado school after three years. He was flunked because he constantly told his teachers they didn’t have anywhere near the talent he did. Apparently, history has proven him absolutely correct. Even at that early age, his paintings, including his well-known, “Basket of Bread”, indicated a mastery of traditional realism.

As his career

Portrait painting tips

In the year 2000, this author was the recipient of the American Society of Portrait Artists Foundation Scholarship. It is imperative that one find a comfortable space to paint in and if you have a sitter it is duly important that they are not only more comfortable than you, but that they stay comfortable for the duration of the sitting. One can paint from photos but it’s really much better to paint under the lights or diffused sunlight. I’ve known painters of 25 years, with no real life portrait painting behind their backs to paint portraits that are convincing yet lack the dynamic feeling one can get from real life. The idea is that once you learn how to paint portraits from life you can become a better copyist and exaggerate work from photos. There is a big difference in a painted drawing and a painting. I am here today to give tips on oil painted paintings, not painted drawings. Learning how to show light is one of the key ingredients aside from working briskly.

Again, once you get good at painting from life one can cheat a little and work from photos. Norman Rockwell did it, but he also had years of anatomical drawing classes to foster his representational art. Norman Rockwell had a gift for pictorial hyperbole, his characters were almost like caricatures. I will be giving tips on how to paint a bust/head under a warm halogen bulb from about 75 degrees above a person (from eye level) in a traditional, representational way. A quick tip on taking photos:

Have one camera on a tripod aimed directly at the sitter and one camera in your hand to take freestyle shots. Amuse your sitter by moving around and taking a couple of fake shots with the hand held camera. When your client relaxes that’s when you take a rapid succession of shots from the tripod camera. The idea here is to get the sitter when he or she is in a natural state. That’s why you want to trick the sitter. Another way to do this is to say that you are just testing your equipment. The client relaxes, you get a great shot of his or her essence. All of us have different ways of relaxing, capturing a relaxed look is imperative to a successful portrait. Even if the person you are painting is a CEO, it is still important to show grace.

Now that you have some preliminary warm up shots, offer your sitter a refreshing drink, sit or stand at eye level (or slightly below) and begin to mix your background color. I use 12 colors when I paint: naples yellow, yellow ochre, cad red