RAMA gets dead coloring

If yesterday was a battle, today was a victory.

It may seem flat and simple like a silk screen print but this is the very foundation that the painting is built upon, the dead coloring stage.

 I began the next step the drawing stage which follows the charcoal sketching stage. I outlined and created shadow areas for all the skin areas of the RAMA painting.This allows me to define the edges and a few of the details. Though it looks cartoony, it really helps to visualize the character better.

The paint used to outline the piece is thinned with odorless spirits. Though the reference is well lit and doesn't have super dark shadows I used this stage as on opportunity to play with the dark areas a bit. I cut back in some of the edges with red acrylic before proceeding to the next step.

The richness of oil cannot be underestimated, it is what makes me happy about the progress and quality of the work. I filled in the major skin tone areas with a medium value made from flake/lead white and red umber (Old Holland brand). I also decided that the background that was blocked in with red acrylic looked terrible! Actually the word I used was "shitty". Oil is so dramatically rich.  I used almost half a tube of Windsor and Newton Cadmium deep hue, but it was worth it! In this picture you can compare the top half in oil and the bottom in acrylic.

Here is the canvas, entirely painted over in oil. It is rich and full. I painted over the kilt with an even tone of the read. Now I am thinking about using gold design aspects to create visual interest for the piece. As in all art, more questions than answers are developing at this point, that's the challenge and  that's also half the FUN!

GANESH

my battle with the elephant headed god has begun

 At first I made a central horizontal and vertical axis on my 5 X 5 canvas. I used red and blue colorerase pencils to mark it out. I then created intersecting diagonals or radial lines. I used string to create a compass and created some circles to help plan out the sacred geometry used to create the image of deities.

 

 I had some reference images printed out and created a dark red grid to base the character on. My studio is so hot and has no windows, I'm drawing in my skivvies. That;s just an aside, don't imagine it unless you are female.

I used the central axis for the sternum and drew in the weighty seated part of the figure. I decided to drop one leg so it could also be in dance and to create a dynamic symmetry. I also used the second square for the third eye area of the elephant head. I tilted the head in to echo the leg angle.

I began t block in the tilted head and trunk. I am using vine charcoal and a brush to rub it out. My hands are black by this point. Hi five!

Constructing this image has been a real battle!  I decided it is necessary to enlarge the limbs and the feet. Getting the placement just right takes a bit of trial and error.

I finish off putting in the four limbs and sketching in a bit of material around the figure. I decided to get rid of the lotus throne for the time being. By the end of the session I gave it a spray of workable fixative which stinks so bad and is a carcinogen so I have to exit the studio and call it a night.

RAMA

 shoots his mighty arrow

 I began work on a painting of Rama after a fantastic photo session with the very ripped and handsome Mr. Jules Lloyd. It was hot in the lights and at my top floor studio so there was a healthy sheen on the both of us, by the time we were finished. I had to use a camera Borrowed from KT and it took a bit to get used to the low light aperture but some of the photos came out fantastic. But I had to pick only one to work from.

I spent some time selecting which image I would use and which canvas it would be painted on. I graphed out some lines to get it centered. I intend on raising the arm up so the arrow is not so linear and horizontal with the canvas to make it more dynamic.

This is the rough placement of the figure drawn in with charcoal. Afterward I gave it a quick coat with workable fixative so it wouldn't smudge all over the place when I began to apply paint.

The initial sketch is to rough in the placement, the next stage is where I will turn this into a more refined "cartoon" outline drawing.

It was getting on in the night. I was listening to Penn's Sunday school podcast. I didn't have the focus to do the line work and I had a good idea that I wanted to create a red field to work in. Who knows? I may make the background gold and have his clothing be red with gold embellishments. It really helped me to feel like I made progress to come back to the next day as well.

Sometimes you have to use a "Smart art making technique" rather than sticking to the original plan!

Full Frontal

NUTV (Episode 65)

University TV station grabbed some clips of me and my good friend KT in regards to animation.

heres the link:http://nutv.ca/shows/fullfrontal/65

Unfortunately you'll have to scan through about 30 min. into the program. And its only seconds long, that was two hours out of my day and all they take is the shortest sound bite=:| 



C'est la vie! That's show biz!

preparation for studio shots

I hung hooks and anchors into the brick and mortar. Then I strung up glow rope across and overhead in order to be able to hang accessories and flowing garments during the modelling sessions. 

To the left is the black canvas for my Shiva painting. Above is the glow rope strung at about 240 cm height. The black pelican case is where the models will stand, slightly raised off the ground. I have lights borrowed from Emmedia and a few of my own to set up for each session. After doing this I spent a few hours preparing the canvases with the sacred geometry layout.

I made a central vertical and horizontal axis and two diagonals. I decided not to use graphite because it can lift into the painted layers. Instead, I am using colorerase pencils to do my initial planning lines. In the past masters would have used chalk lines.  I tied a string around the pencil and held one end in the center axis. By doing this I could draw circles like a compass. I also made measurements from the center to create the two octagons. I created many lines flaring out from the center because this will be a painting of Ganesh and I hope to have a dynamic background.

Beside the large Ganesh canvas it is another identical size canvas where I went about the same process. I made fewer radiating lines and changed the pattern but did create a large circle in which the figure will be placed. This canvas will most likely be used for one of the female godesses lakshimi or saraswati. I also worked on creating the geometry on a number of other canvases.

busy bunny

making waves for MAR DE FUNDO.

This past week-end, I did some live painting at Inshala. I had a nice set up and experimented with my newest acquisitions, Chromadepth 3D glasses and an airbrush system.  The fun is over, all of a sudden things are coming to a head. Clients who haven't approached me in a month all of a sudden need work done. When it rain it pours. There will be plenty of work and catch up to do this week-end. Here is a project I completed before dinner today.

I had a day to make a 12 frame animation project titled MAR DE FUNDO out of Venezuela.
My good friend KT asked and it's headed up by Richard Reeves. So I said "I'm in for sure!"
The theme is water sea navigation tools. I figured whales are good navigators and the loop is meant to be a cycle. SO I designed a cyclical loop made up of 12 different species of Ceteceans at their relative scale to one another.

 I scanned the drawings into Photoshop then used After Effects to compile and align the drawings then output them to the various formats requested. I cant wait to see what they do with the various pieces made by all the participants.

We are the Champions

my friends.....

 I had to make myself wait until after the Versus show to share the piece on this blog. I started with a little bit a month ago but then stopped just to be fair. Hopefully you got out to the exhibit if you could. There were over 40 artists involved in the project and some amazing collaborations. The Gentlemen Destroyers made some cool walls in the front space to hang all the work and there was a good turn out while I was there.

A quick review. I ended up cutting out two different stencils back in may of the champ Batista, also a means to sign my piece since we share the same last name.

I had drawn out my anatomical heart which eventually became completely covered by my ballistic gel inspired victim figure. I started in pencil and painted in with acrylic on the re-stretched canvas.

Here is an early process shot after Ray got his Rich stencil cut and applied to the surface.

 So jumping ahead, I added the beam out of the characters mouth as an integration challenge to bring the two sides together. I have eyeballs popping out of the skull, they still need irises at this point. The blood is red but still too transparent. I splatter painted in the Batista Stencil and rubbed iridescent silver into the negative space then gave it a light sand.

I allowed a variety of browns to drip down the canvas to create more layers and depth. I cut a second negative stencil of Batista and splatter painted blues over the silver. I applied a thick pink to cover the blood and I was going to stain it red afterward but liked the interplay of pinks and blue so much I left it.  I painted in the irises in the eyes and blocked in the lower jaw.

A little further along and now there is a bit more back and forth between my collaborative partner. He added the laser rays to the piece. I decided to add a background of stars and rework the depth and shading on the skeletal elements. I created some star stencils and some tear drop stencils. I sprayed in some reflective gold spray paint and worked out some finer details.

Here you can get an idea of the detail and layering that went into the piece, this is after it is frames and varnished.

This is an angled shot taken the day Derek picked up the piece to bring to the gallery. You can see the frame job and the interplay of light on the reflective surface. ray stayed up for 2 nights working on a party binge to get the piece together with BONUS framing = sweet surprise to wake up to!

Here is the final piece to be delivered. I hand wrote the pieces title with my favorite gold paint pen. we gave it a healthy coating of outdoor vehicle clear coat. The piece has a nifty little write up explaining our process making it. Hopefully you get a chance to see our handy work in person =;)

Preparadness is key

Shiva +

I began working on the final canvases to be prepped for my upcoming show titled "Divine Inspiration" at the Stride Gallery at the end of October.

I put together this 72" X 54" frame with lumber that I found by the freight elevator and the cross bars were from a dismantled canvas. I had some repair work to do and a lot of sanding to get the frame fit for stretching.

This canvas just so happens to be the measure of man, this man, like a Leonardo drawing, that's sacred geometry that fits my person, just right.

I spent one evening stretching some of my 15 oz canvas over the frame and some additional frames while enjoying Penn's Sunday School podcast, God I love that show. lol. I game them the first coat of Gesso and let them dry overnight.

The next evening before hitting the studio, I went to see a buddy DJ a set at the Hi Fi. While there a beauty parade of gorgeous gals in artistically altered prom dresses joined me for some dancing. Afterward, I stretched two new supports, and primed them all with a pepto bismal like color, inspired by the no frills no gimmicks dress of a friend. I used the super sponge to give it a little texture.

I let that dry for a day and then came back  and gave a light sand with 100 grit. I then put a second and third coat on the canvases to create a little more texture. I added some blue to the pepto mix and coated the supports with some more texture. I am still not getting what I want, the soupy gesso seems to want to level itself out. I am trying to get it like the lead white we did in Martinho's class, except without using the poisonous stuff.

After being turned to mince meat in my martial arts class, I toughed it out and brought a jar of black gesso I purchased that morning after cutting mattes for my framed prints at Motion Gallery. I applied it with a brush in a way to create more texture on the surface.

I had some fun applying the black, it was so hot in the studio I painted in the nude.
True story.

Profitts studio visit

I had a great studio visit from some new friends of mine the Profitt family.
It was a good time and I'm glad they came by to ride the freight elevator and hang in my studio with me and see what a professional artist's work space is like.

Very quick to find the best seat in the house!

Miss SP chooses to focus her discerning eye up close and personal on my Vinegar Tasters.

Dad, Danny and I have a serious mind meld.

It was a good time and there was talk of Tubby Dog afterward but I was on a detox so now goodies for me. I cant wait until they can come back and see all the new work I am making.

With a name like Profitt, you cant loose ;D

Aesthetic pleasure and how we process it

 Here is something really interesting I came across..... 

^{A theory (see below which is basically saying that things that are easily understood and processed are experienced as pleasurable. We like simple harmonious things because they are easy to process. Hmmmm.} food for thought....

Order vs. Chaos.

^{What we individually experience as beauty is informed by our thoughts and preconceptions of beauty so it can inborn (evolutionary) or familiar/culture specific (acquired/ trained into our brains).}

^{Surprise sensation have a strong effect: The less we expect in the perceived object and with greater easy that we perceive it the more we enjoy it and the more it affects us.} 

^{Certain dynamics are perceived as beautiful because of our upbringing and biological evolution, the more complex the patterns and out understanding the less easily we perceive it as beautiful.}

^{Simple harmonic designs and symmetry are more easily understood immediately by the brain and therefore  complex design is more harder to perceive and understand easily and is thus less beautiful.}

<sup>So beauty is how we perceive a stimulus and what experience the effect has on us.


"</sup> In this theory, beauty is seen as an experience that has nothing to do with artistic merit: Beautiful works of art may be without any merit whereas good art is not necessarily beautiful."

----------------

Processing fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The processing fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure^[1] is a theory in psychological aesthetics on how people experience beauty. Processing fluency is the ease with which information is processed in the human mind. The theory is based on four basic assumptions:

1. Objects differ in the fluency with which they can be processed. Variables that facilitate fluent processing include objective features of stimuli, like goodness of form, symmetry, figure-ground contrast, as well as experience with a stimulus, for example repeated exposure or prototypicality.
2. Processing fluency is itself hedonically marked (that is, it possesses an inherent affective quality) and high fluency is subjectively experienced as positive.^[2]
3. In line with the "feelings-as-information" account,^[3] processing fluency feeds into judgments of aesthetic appreciation because people draw on their subjective experience in making evaluative judgments, unless the informational value of the experience is called into question.
4. The impact of fluency is moderated by expectations and attribution. On one hand, fluency has a particularly strong impact on affective experience if its source is unknown and fluent processing comes as a surprise. On the other hand, the fluency-based affective experience is discounted as a source of relevant information when the perceiver attributes the experience to an irrelevant source. This helps explain the inverted U-shaped function often found in research on the effect of complexity on preferences:^[4] very complex patterns are not judged as beautiful because they are disfluent, and patterns are judged as more beautiful when they become less complex. When viewers perceive a simple pattern, they are often able to detect the source of fluency—the pattern's simplicity—and do not use this experience of ease for judging the beauty of the pattern.

The processing fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure emphasizes the interaction between the viewer and an object in that it integrates theories and a wide range of empirical evidence that focus on effects of objective stimulus attributes on perceived beauty^[5] with those that emphasize the role of experience, for example by invoking prototypicality.^[6] In this theory, beauty is seen as an experience that has nothing to do with artistic merit: Beautiful works of art may be without any merit whereas good art is not necessarily beautiful.

The theory resolves the apparent paradox of inborn and acquired preferences. For instance, infants prefer consonant melodies. According to the fluency account, this is because infants share perceptual equipment that make them process consonance in music more easily than dissonance. When children grow up, they are exposed to the music of their culture, resulting in culture-specific musical fluency. This familiarization explains why individuals from different cultures have different musical tastes. In addition, the theory helps explain why beauty (in a wide sense; perhaps the term elegance is more apt) is a cue for truth in mathematical problem solving and scientific discovery.^[7][8]
The theory and its implications have influenced theory and research in the psychology of perception,^[9] cognitive psychology,^[10] social psychology,^[11] empirical aesthetics,^[12] web design,^[13] marketing,^[14][15] finance,^[16] and archeology.<sup>[17]

 -------------</sup>

References

1. ^ Reber, R., Schwarz, N., Winkielman, P.: "Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: Is beauty in the perceiver's processing experience?", Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8(4):364-382.
2. ^ Winkielman, P., Schwarz, N., Fazendeiro, T., & Reber, R. (2003). The hedonic marking of processing fluency: Implications for evaluative judgment. In J. Musch & K. C. Klauer (Eds.), The Psychology of Evaluation: Affective Processes in Cognition and Emotion. (pp. 189-217). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
3. ^ Schwarz, N., & Clore, G. L. (2007). Feelings and phenomenal experiences. In E. T. Higgins & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social Psychology: Handbook of basic principles (2nd ed., pp. 385-407). New York: Guilford.
4. ^ Berlyne, D. E. (1971). Aesthetics and psychobiology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
5. ^ Birkhoff, G. D. (1933). Aesthetic measure. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
6. ^ Martindale, C., & Moore, K. (1988). Priming, prototypicality, and preference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14, 661–670.
7. ^ Schwarz, N. (2006). On judgments of truth & beauty. Daedalus, 135, 136–138.
8. ^ Reber, R. Brun, M., & Mitterndorfer, K. (2008). The use of heuristics in intuitive mathematical judgment. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15, 1174-1178.
9. ^ Topolinski , S. (2010). Moving the eye of the beholder: Motor components in vision determine aesthetic preference. Psychological Science, 21, 1220-1224.
10. ^ Opacic, T., Stevens, C., & Tillmann, B. (2009). Unspoken knowledge: Implicit learning of structured human dance movement. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 35, 1570–1577.
11. ^ Rubin, M., Paolinia, S., & Crisp, R. J. (2010). A processing fluency explanation of bias against migrants. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 21–28.[View]
12. ^ Plumhoff, J. E. & Schirillo, J. A. (2009). Mondrian, Eye Movements, and the Oblique Effect. Perception, 38, 719–731.
13. ^ Thielsch, M. T., & Hirschfeld, G. (2010). High and low spatial frequencies in website evaluations. Ergonomics, 53, 972-978.
14. ^ Lee, A. Y., & Labroo, A. A. (2004). The Effect of Conceptual and Perceptual Fluency on Brand Evaluation. Journal of Marketing Research, 41 (2004): 151–165.
15. ^ Labroo, A. A., Dhar, R., & Schwarz, N. (2008). Of frogs, wines, and frowning watches: Semantic priming, perceptual fluency, and brand evaluation. Journal of Consumer Research, 34, 819-831.
16. ^ Alter, A. L.; Oppenheimer, D. M. (May 2, 2006), Predicting short-term stock fluctuations by using processing fluency, pp. 4
17. ^ Hodgson, D. (2009). Symmetry and humans: reply to Mithen's 'Sexy Handaxe Theory'. Antiquity, 83, 195-198.

Further reading

• Gazzaniga, M. S. (2008). Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique. New York: Ecco Books, Harper Collins.
• Song, S., & Schwarz, N. (2010, February). If it's easy to read, it's easy to do, pretty, good, and true: fluency effects on judgment, choice, and processing style. The Psychologist, 23, 108-111. [1]

A little bit of beauty goes a long way....

Man's drive to create and communicate is also a drive to surround oneself with beauty and harmony. For me beauty is not decorative, which implies it is superfluous,  but often times decoration is beautiful. An action, a sound, even a smell can convey beauty. Beauty is infinite, it can transcend space and time. 

I can recount an experience where art had an effect on me similar to stendhal syndrome. I love visiting art galleries in my travels. I was with a friend in NY at a museum. Enjoying walking through the galleries, I turned the corner and it was if a magnet dragged me toward a particular work by El Greco. I had not really seen his work or been a big fan. I am not a Christian and am not drawn to this particular iconography, however on this day, this image of Jesus Christ being lowered from the cross captured me and wrapped around me like a warm embrace. This image of suffering was so beautiful.

I was glued to the piece. It had felt that I had transcended time into some sort of divine space. I felt myself beginning to tear as happiness filled my entire being. It was as if I had traveled back in time to the 1500's and I was the paint on his brush being put on the canvas. It was like a brain aneurysm, each stroke was made by the artist tickled my brain, like I was there at the moment it was created, like I was paint on the end of his brush.

A friend saw me frozen there gazing, tearing up. I vaguely remember him saying "I'll leave you two alone". I cant say for sure if I was there for 2 seconds or two years, it felt as if a lifetime had passed. He said it was 20 minutes. I'm amazed if the gaze can be kept for two. This piece had me riveted, not because of its subject, not because of its color, not even the powerful application of paint, but because of its entire beauty, I was entirely captivated.  

When I returned home I had to seek out the image again. I looked at a reproduction and it wasn't the same. I had to experience it in person. And that is one of the things about art, it is a think, almost living, a copy or print is not entirely the same as the real thing.This work did what beauty is supposed to do. It change me and my life forever in a positive way. That is what I hope I can accomplish as an artist.

Beauty is only skin deep

- it is what is inside that counts.

I think many people think there is some uniform acceptance of beauty. An "ideal beauty" is an entity which is admired, or possesses features widely attributed to beauty in a particular culture, for perfection When we see beautiful people, in general we can agree that is beautiful, this is not. Supposedly statistically they get treated better, they are put on a pedestal, and hover close to narcissism. But who is really to say they are beautiful at all? Social norms, collective unconscious, universal truth?

It can be said that when we experience beauty we feel some sort of pleasure and satisfaction. There is evidence that perceptions of beauty are evolutionarily determined, that things, aspects of people and landscapes considered beautiful are typically found in situations likely to give enhanced survival of the perceiving human's genes. A generalized view would be that attraction is to get us to procreate more and spread our genes. Whereas disease signals weakness or unfit for survival and is thus considered ugly.

I have always found that beauty is more than that, it is not something on the outside. Truly, I am enamored by the beauty within. The former may catch my eye at first, but it has no lasting strength on my being. The latter, Inner beauty, consistently does. When I gaze deeply into peoples souls. When I establish deep lasting connections... When I see the purity and authenticity of peoples being their true true selves. Or when I am witness the innocence of children or the awkwardness and purity of newborn animals..... I am able to fall deeply in love, unconditionally. That is where beauty resides.

Why Beauty Matters

I made a post yesterday and by the end somehow it transformed into some sort of personal manifest.
A statement that says: This is how I see the world. This is how I choose to live.

It was empowering but there is more to that vision I would like to share. I spent the day working on stuff, during which I had videos on you tube about the lives of great artists like Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Leonardo Da Vinci, Velazquez, Manet, Picasso and so on. Many were from a BBC series titled "The Power of Art". Some were about their lives, others about the process of restoring their work. All captured my attention. For some reason these are the things that bring interest to my life.

 I'm lucky I know the things I like. I love the smell of the studio. I love collecting art books and artwork. I love learning more about how to make visual things better and more appealing. I love color, and art materials, and all the tools of creativity. I have an addiction to collecting this kind of stuff. It has been a life long process of discovery that continues each and every day. These are the things that fulfill me and make me happy. I can't explain why, but if it does it needs more pursuing. Making art is a question, a question the artist poses to him/her self. This whole thing is about life and self discovery.

So what is Beauty, and why does it matter?

I found this video that is just the tip of the iceberg, but it really caused me to solidify my purpose.  It made me feel those higher aspirations I have in order to transcend this world in pursuit of the sacred.

I have always felt a certain way about art. I am also appalled by most of what I have sampled in and around my city. I choose not to go to most openings because of some of the ways people behave but also because most of the art is not what I would consider art. Its lazy and cynical and pithy. Maybe its the current state of apathy or the inability of the artists to create a straight line. Do they have the fundamentals to create beauty or did modernity scrape that away in exchange for convenience and profitability? The state of art as a current definition is an empty slave to consumer culture feeding immediate appetites to gratify empty pursuits.

Fuck being poignant cynical or funny to make pithy post modern statement, I will not trade my dignity or integrity in the pursuit of  fame and fortune, or after simple selfish fulfillment. There is more to life than this. There is talk of a returning trend toward classical idealism and training. Even I am interested in pursuing these exalted goals. My interest lay in figurative work at the moment but any learning toward mastery of this craft is very appealing.

That is why I want to create, to fill this hollow void with beauty.



 A close up of Martinho's piece, he learned at John Angels studio in Florence, Italy.

So how does one go about learning this craft?

One route is libertarian academic training and getting a Master' degree so that one can have a stable job and teach. In a discussion with a good friend, he had me name those who I knew who had done this path. To my surprise, I couldn't name people I respected. And yet, they were the ones who attained a masters level. The second option, which has my interest at this time, is trying out the Atelier Method. This studio training is where artists are trained under a master in the tradition ways of making art. It is the old method or apprenticeship. I worry it is from the ideals of centuries past and I don't want to make photographic like classical works exclusively. I also don't want to fall into the trap of following old rules in a contemporary world. But then again, look how beautiful the work is.

I suppose the argument ends up being one of idea makers over skilled artisans and crafts people. I am going to continue contemplating these subjects.
What are your thoughts?

Portraits in Oils - Week 2 - FRIDAY

The final day, keep working + time to put some finishing touches

 We began the day slowly. I think the reluctance to start stems from a few areas, fatigue, was a major one, but mostly we didn't want it to end. We stood around as Martinho covered glazes, with a video from a surly guy from Brooklyn telling it exactly how it is, quite refreshing. A glaze is just thinned down paint used to tweak the tone if needed a the end.*

*With this style of painting that glazing is unecessary if you did it right the first time,  I need to make an additional clause:  VERMEER AMENDMENT! (glazing over a Grisaille under painting method.)

 I oiled in and then decided to rework the girls face because I like torturing myself. Mainly I felt the need to assert that I had in fact learned to understand the value system and to work with my palette. Plus I wasn't happy with it, I knew I could do better and when you have a pro who can give you feedback it helps, 'cause in the studio you have no one to help. So though it looks a little messy, I went back to the first stage of controlling the fall of light/big form modelling stage. Her chin area wasn't dark enough before and it was throwing off the whole relationship between values. This helped solidify some of what I had learned throughout the workshop.

Here are some examples of Martinho's work. The top is a copy he made from one of his teachers pieces. He has not only fantastic drawing skills to get the details and proportions right but also superb control of the subtlety of values and colour. That is a skill in my craft that I badly desire. In the bottom piece if you start at the feet you can see the beginning stages of the work, as you follow up the leg to the thigh you pass the dead coloring stage and get to the big form modelling stage. As you travel up the light side of the ribs and arm you see masterfully finished work, and for me, my jaw drops the the beauty in which he subtly renders the figure to perfection.

At the lunch break, I helped another participant, Darryl, with his HD camera. After the lunchbreak, We we introduced to the theory of colour for broken colur backgrounds. This is where if you look from a distance the background appears to be say greenish, but as you get close you realize those greens are mixed in your eye and in fact, it is made up of a variety of other colours. first there is th movement of tone in the background, from low to high value. With each of those colours you then mix a breakdown of each with low and high chroma. Green is made up of yellow and blue so you mix a yellow and blue of high and low chroma for each value that will go on the canvas. It may be equal to a day of work, but the effect is quite stunning.

 I revisited the work from the first week to play with the background. This piece was a learning lesson and will most likely be abandoned unless I really feel like making it into something, I hung it in my studio as a reminder. I barely got the legs to second stage painting but you can really see how this method lends itself to creating realistic looking figures, for me the legs seem to pop. Now I need to keep working on my craft and develop and loose sensitivity to applying the paint subtly like the masters.

 Here is a scene from the workshop, the craziness of an arts studio while we are in it creating. Now it site empty. The other participants were a joy, through the trials and tribulations. I kept thinking that this is what art school should have been like, the work ethic and the challenges making ti worth while to show up daily. Like the studios for training the masters back in the day. I learned so much in so little time. It renewed my vigor to attain artistic mastery. I asked myself, why hadn't I done this so long ago?!

Here are me and my half Portugeuse bretheren and workshop Instructor Martinho on the last day. Teh Bob Ross shirt is definitely tongue and cheek when you know the level of work and quality we hope to attain. It cant be done watching a half of an hour PBS TV program. I want to impart why this pursuit toward beauty matters to me so much. I feel vigorously renewed after this training, my goals in life redefined:

Beauty is my muse. 

It is the essential life blood of my existence.
 

I am an artist. 

I make beautiful things to look at. 

The job of the artist is to uplift the soul.

I must become the best at my craft so that I can do this.

If you see beauty in everything your soul is set free.

This brings me happiness.