Friday, November 16, 2007

Raw Nude

What a nude of mine looks like before I work it over? I already showed you one or two... Here is another one, of a model called Marie Lise, not a perfect one, physically (some small spine defect and getting fatter) but nice and with sad eyes and a nose that French call "un nez retrousé" (snub-nosed?)... In all, a pleasant enough model to draw - and then to paint...

Right now, I'm experimenting with mixing acrylics, watercolors and oil pastels (I made a hole in my budget and bought a few Rembrandt and Holbein oil pastels) but the results aren't yet that conclusive (they usually aren't at the beginning... You can see one sample at my other site "Danu's Small World" This combination, acrylic colors and inks, watercolors and oil pastels (or dry pastels - but with then it's a bore to fix...) is a very promising one and I think Degas would have loved it. I often fantasize what some great artists like Manet, Renoir, Monet, CĂ©zanne or Van Gogh would have done with today art materials... acrylics especially...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

A very good idea, Danu, to show us how you work. I'd be very interested in seeing Stage Two of this “raw” figure—to see how you start with the colors (though I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't stop yourself to take a picture).

Ion Vincent Danu said...

I could G., I certainly could...No problem...But it can take a while since I work a bit random-like...

Anonymous said...

I can't see it is raw. Can't see what is missing.

(I have just been thinking of you because I spent more than 50 precious minutes formatting a single paragraph on my Churchill page, and this morning I spent more than 2 hours formatting the new Spain page. I hope you go and see it. Great photos, but of course not made by me. -- You have never formatted any page. It is a very tough thing to do on those "pages" that are maybe made only for plain text.)

Ion Vincent Danu said...

Of course, a drawing like this one can be considered as a work in itself, complete (if you accept a certain dr=egree of unfinisheness...) but what it's missing, eventually, would be color...

I don't know much about formatting and it seems complicated (which is one thing I run with all the speed I'm capable of... not too fast, I'm afraid) I have never formatted any page and hope not to have to it...

A big (I mean voluminous) book by William Manchester about the young Churchill was at the to sell section of my public library... the 900 pages (or something like that) discouraged me to buy it - it was $ 1 only, a price I can afford... always running away from complications (and hard work...) Sorry, I am who I am...

Anonymous said...

In nude we trust...

Ion Vincent Danu said...

We trust in whatever we can. We get drunk with whatever we can. It's a cruel world out there...

Anonymous said...

ma uitai la fimeia asta si vazui negru in fatza ochilor larg inchishi

Ion Vincent Danu said...

Foarte subtil, rasucitule! Si e umbra arsa, nu negru!