Contemporary Realist Painter
The Naked & Nude Art Prize Exhibition is on till Sunday, 15 October at the Manning Regional Art Gallery, Taree. Still time to make it if you can. It’s a wonderful exhibition!
I have a digital oil painting “See Me” in the exhibition, and you can view the exhibition booklet here showcasing all the paintings.
I was at the opening night and it was jam packed and wonderful to have been there to see all the paintings in person.
Shane is a local life model in Sydney. He’s also an artist and filmmaker. I recently had him in the studio posing for myself and another painter. On the day I did a small colour study of him. As I took a reference shot of his pose, and really liked his spectacles and how they reflected the light, I decided to do a quick charcoal tonal study. Below is the result.
The paper I used is Canson “C” a grain – which has a slightly grained texture that allows one to quickly achieve subtle effects of depth as well as shading between shadow and light. I do like the texture the paper provides, though in photography it does come across as slightly more grainy than it is.
Dilara is a life model and I painted the below oil sketch from a recent portrait painting class I taught at Sydney Art School.
The oil sketch is the result of a couple of sessions demonstrating to students how to paint predominantly Alla Prima (a direct painting approach where paint is applied wet on wet without letting earlier layers dry).
I have a direct style of painting, where I prefer to block in the colours that I see and immediately cover the canvas so none of the white from the background shows through. This approach also aids me to establish colours and values in the early stages of the painting, and providing a solid foundation for consecutive paint layers.
Thrilled that I’m a finalist in the Naked & Nude Art Prize with my digital oil painting “See Me”!
Congrats to all the finalists and looking forward to seeing the exhibition at the Manning Regional Art Gallery. The exhibition runs from 2 Sept – 15 Oct.
Artist Statement
I created See Me in April this year after a 1.5 year period that was extremely difficult for my family. I had to let my art practice go while I managed the situation.
See Me is finally having the time to refocus on myself and my art practice. I was ready to create and focus on what I love.
It was very important to me that the model have a strong and direct gaze, drawing the viewer in and challenging them to see “her” – directly.
The nakedness of the model represents confidence – but at the same time guardedness. Yes, I want you to See Me, but I will choose who I let “See Me”.
The video recording is now available on the Colour Society of Australia YouTube – NSW Division channel, and like all of the webinars from our Creating Colours series, it will remain permanently available to the public.
Jean produced and presented a wonderful presentation discussing how oil pigments work and the challenges we face as oil painters working with them.
We had an amazing response – with registrants from 19 countries. Topics covered outlined below:
This webinar is the first of a new series of educational webinars, Creating Colour, intended for ambitious beginner painters through to professional artists who want a better understanding of the technical properties of their media, including both traditional and digital media. This first webinar in the series will provide a general introduction to the pigments and binders used in paint making across many categories of paint, and how the‘ingredients of any given paint affect the properties of that paint and therefore the ways in which artists can use them.