I had planned a lot of foliage in the background, as most of the pictures that I used for the reconstruction of the portrait of this young man (who died 15 years ago) showed him in nature, in the garden. And in one that I  particularly  liked, he is sitting underneath a beautiful plumtree that I from the beginning thought I would add.

But after I painted the first wet-in-wet background wash, with diffused, transparent colours (green and blue tones) it looked so beautiful and calm that I didn’t feel like I needed all that detail anymore…

So I have stopped, and if my client (his widow) wants the foliage I will most certainly add that. (And show it to you). Yet I have the feeling that she will, just like me, go for this poetic version…

Until soon!
Marina

But as it turns out there is so much resemblance! It is amazing what you see when you truly dive into another person… The mouth, the look in their eyes, the stillness around them.

They are beautiful, the little girl and her dad.

I have finished the basic structure and colours of his face (including beard shadow and very thick eyebrows) and worked hard on the shirt (always love doing the fabric and patterns).

To do: a couple of details in his face then his fantastic blue-black, curly, thick hair  and last but not least - the background.
All with the other painting in mind!

Soon I’ll present the finished painting…

There’s a bit of detective work and the end result is often based on that, combined with pictures and sketches. To me, a great aspect of these reconstructions is that I am limited to working from photo’s, and I like limits. Also lovely is the fact that you are creating a memory and a monument. Working from photo’s is not at all bad by the way: they are often spontaneous, they are very patient, they don’t move and they are strictly two-dimensional.

After a couple of talks, where we determined his pose, and sketches for the colours (the one shown here I made to get a feel for his contrast (he’s very dark haired with a light skin) of Chris, who passed away 15 years ago, on a very young age, I have now started the first washes of the actual aquarelle:

They are now in their forties and when they were 5 or 6 years old, portraits were made from their two sisters. But before it was their turn, the artist died and their parents never found another one with the same style…

Until they met me, thirty years later. With the help of lots of old photo’s (all yellowed, sepia, black and white) and interviews combined with sketching sessions with them and their parents, I ‘reconstructed’ the portraits. It was very interesting and challenging, the difficult part is of course that the input is partly from memory and descriptions and partly of photo’s of often vague and unclear quality… But I could also meet ‘the portraitees’ in real life and although they were older, their ‘colours’ were still the same.

I finished the job and the two are now in a beautiful composition with their two sisters!

The reconstruction I’m working on now – and will write about in coming posts – is even more challenging, the person I am about to paint, has passed away. Luckily I have his wife as great source of information -as well as his daughter, who looks like him.

If you want to know how it will go – keep watching this space!

Anyway, since my last post I worked on the cooler floor and the rug and the warmer wall and chair (window basically left white!) and after that I adjusted the reflections in the glasses…

 
The ‘after’ picture has much more likeness to the real person – his cleverness and perceptiveness are much more visible

At this point I stopped working on it and handed it over to the new owners, who by the way are very content. But they will have to return it for the last strokes when I am in the finishing stages of number two, so I can align the rug, and the window. But that will take a while. I will keep you posted!

Still some tweaking is needed, for instance I am not yet completely happy about his glasses, but I will wait with that until the background is done, because then I can work with a reflection, based on something that is actually there.

Right now I am working on the chair, which is coming along fine. Main colour used for that W&N burnt sienna.
The most important colour for the background is going to be W&N Payne’s Grey. It will probably have green and red tones.

And on the right there will be lots of white – but that is a true timesaver in aquarelle, the parts you don’t have to paint!

very thin , with a HB pencil on the Arches torchon, so that the drawing will hardly be visible on the painting when it is finished.

And then the first wash  of his face, without much detail and contrast – but definitely with a likeness to, euh… my muse!

She is currently recording and producing her first solo album with all songs composed by herself – and guess who is going to design the cover! I am delighted that for the time being  she has produced a jazzy album with covers of great songs for marketing reasons – and that she chose my ‘Green Rose Bud’ for the front as a try out…and by the way, the cooperation went very well!

To check out her photo and her music you can check out http://www.catherinetaylordawson.moonfruit.com/ or google her name…

You can listen to her music via internet… It’s definitely worthwhile!!

Today I started with a new portrait commission and as I am creating a ‘Making of’ book anyway I thought it would be a nice idea to use my writings to keep you posted on how it goes, the  materials, the details, the challenges and things I learn on the way…

After  sketching, studying, discussing and taking a lot of pictures (spread out over several days) I started with choosing my paper.

In this case (the protrait is head to feet and pretty big, hard to stretch on a board) I chose a sheet of heavy Arches paper, 640 grams rough grain Torchon, with those wonderful ‘bords frangés’ that only hand made paper has. And a beautiful watermark on all corners.

And then work on the perfect basic drawing – important because using transparent aquarelle watercolours makes it very hard to repair mistakes…

by: Loredana OPREA
Date of publication: 17/01/2012

The Holotropic Art exhibition is opening today. The works can be admired until 20 March.

Professional artists from four continents – Europe, USA, Asia and Africa – will exhibit at Iasi. Their creations will be presented at the third edition of the exhibition “Art holotropic Annual International”. The opening is scheduled today at 18 o’clock at Dana Gallery in Str. Prof. Cujba.

The exhibition brings together paintings by artists from France, Denmark, Switzerland, Romania, USA, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Nigeria and Algeria. Among the exhibitors this year are painters who participated in previous editions: Attika Boubezari (Algeria), Muriel Desgardin (Switzerland), Marina Kulik (France), Edi Apostu, Zamfira Birzu, Gabriela Drinceanu, Ana Gabriela Dulgheru and Dorin Lehaci (Romania). For the first time participating artists Wale Ajay (Nigeria), Helle Antonsen (Denmark), Smaranda Bostan, Sabin Drinceanu, Roxana Irina Odobasa, Lucian Sebastian Radu (Romania), Nadine Bertulessi (France), Anton Buttler (South Africa), Dumas Hufreesh (India), Damaring Ferasmara (Indonesia) and Dave Dazzlin Peterson (USA).

In making their creations, participants used inspirational music composed especially for this event by the initiator of this artistic trend, Edi Apostu. In his opinion, holotropic art is the art which is the result of transpersonal experiences and which can transpose the beholder into states of overconsciousness.

“His music influences my work: usually I let myself be inspired by a combination of my mood, sound, the light, the weather and the behavior of my paint, transparent aquarelle, which is thin as water and mixes, blends, drips and flows. The “look and feel” is organic, natural. For this project I concentrated mainly on music, which is new to me and cannot be compared. In order to express what I experience with Edi Apostu’s music I have chosen a mixture of smooth oil and opaque acrylics, which give me more control, and deeper tones. The transparency and the suggestion of depth and volume that I use in my “regular” paintings appear in this work too – the music requires that”. says artist Marina Kulik.

The exhibition will be presented by Edi Apostu and will be hosted by Dana Gallery until 20 March.