Maybe this Nude is not the very first one where I started to mix acrylic inks with watercolor, where I've started to define my technique to paint the nudes... But it's one of the first...Rapid sketching was always, since my childhood, one of my greatest pleasures and if I did not have often the chance to draw after a nude model it's only because there weren't a lot of models in Romania of my youth... In fact, it was a very prude (apparently) country and to find a young, well proportioned "model" was very difficult even for the Art Schools (I remember that ours had to employ one of the young secretaries, who needed badly the money).Here, in Québec, after the "révolution tranquile" doesn't seem to be a problem and the models are almost always good enough and young enough. But in communist Romania, model would very easily translate into "whore" or "person of lewd conduct"...When I was in the last year at the ART School I remember that a group of us, preparing for the University, managed to convince (sacrificing a lot of our economies) a lady to pose. But she was fatish and oldish and not very clean and that wasn't an experience either of us - four boys and two girls - remembered with pleasure. Sure, we laughed a bit (cruel as teenager can be) but it wasn't a pleasant experience... Not even a good occasion to exercise our draughtmen/women talents since the lady was even more jumpy than ourselves and emphatically FORBAD us to draw her face... All we got were some headless (or faceless) sketches of a poor, scared, fatish woman...(Now, I understand her: I wouldn't wish myself to pose for 6 teenagers!!!) Something like the "Sorrow" Vincent Van Gogh did after Christine, the drunken prostitute... I will post something alike and a 2005 nude (where I started to use color in my nudes).
6 comments:
The young model looks cold. Makes me shiver to look at her. You said you had no say in her poses, Danu. But I wouldn't let models cover themselves with their arms like that (unless they're cold). They all have a tendency to lie deep in cushions or crouch or otherwise hide what you pay them to show. Or then come up with their idea of "artistic" poses (ballet, for instance)--when all you want them to do is stand or sit naturally. I'm sorry for the old lady in Romania. And sorry for you young artists too who had to feel bad about what you were doing.
100swallows
Very interesting entry, Danu. I love it when you tell us stories to your paintings..
Water under the bridge, G! water under the bridge... and yes, it happened here, in Sherbrooke, to have a not so young model (an artist herself) who come with all kind of sophisticated, academical, "ballet" posture... It get on my nerves, sincerely (I'll post one of the nudes I made after her, to show you... I really like simple, natural postures. but, as I said, I have no saying in that. Oh, how I envy Matisse and his models! or Picasso? To have a nice model and to be able to tell her (or him): just stay on that couch and relax... By the way, in Romania heating was (is) always a problem and I suffered (as everybody else) of cold. Here, in one of the - supposedly - coldiest coins of the planet, I never, NEVER suffered from cold!
Thanks, miki. Probably my painting (or sketching) stories are interesting for other artists, mainly... Not sure about others...
The stories are almost as wonderful as the art. Well, close anyway!
Moonbeam, you know what is your defect? You are too kind... Well, with me, anyway...
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