So long, my friends!

Since my energy is limited and since all things end at a time or another, I've decided to abandon (at least for the moment) this blog. Even if there were some favorable comments and some very faithful friends (Thanks a bunch!) there aren't usually more than 12-15 visitors per day. One cannot call this a blatant success...
It is not a totally loss since I made some friends and I had some good times. and I've also practiced my English... I will not delete the blog - so it will be still available for browsing and comment (and from time to time I'll check it and answer if any comments are made...) I will now say "So long, my friends!" and I'll hope you'll still visit me at:Van Gogh and I
As a farewell gift: this Quebec landscape I've painted sometime in September 2005...

Just a sunny portrait...

Drawn this summer, when it was warm and bright...Right now I look outside at 20 cm of snow and it gives me the chills... for a moment. White is, finally, a beautiful kind of color... This is Samuel, a nice, talkative young fellow. Nothing harsh, nothing sinister, nothing depressive. Simply a sunny portrait. I'll try to keep it that way. Of course, it's an acrylic ink & watercolor on Strathmore paper. Enjoy!

One eye Sarah

Well, not really one eyed...But it was a windy day out there, near the Lac des Nations, at Sherbrooke, where I was exercising my trade of public amuser (I'm not sure the term is correct; but how many things am I not uncertain (or is it incertain?) these days? You know already, I think, that I like the redhead (to paint, folks, exclusively to paint...), the auburn (now that's a nice word!)... This isn't a very very recent portrait but since I'm not interested anymore in being an (almost) daily painter, it doesn't count too much...

Very Alive Nude!

Since the "Dead fish" post seem to revulse the readers - my hit counter dropped almost dead! - I must do some-
thing... So here it is, Gabrielle again, very alive and kicking (even if she SEEMS - only seems! - angry with you, turning his beautiful back to you...) It's a not yet finished painting but a complete drawing - and I'm confuse about the frontier - of 38 cm x 28 cm. You can even buy it...

To sell cucumbers to the gardener...

The title is the approximative translation of a Romanian saying. When you put yourself in the ridicule (or, sometimes, favorable,prestigious) position to talk philosophy to Plato or religion to the Pope... The favorable, prestigious position being when Plato asks for your advice concerning the Ideas or the Pope asks you how he should formulate his next encyclical... Well, let me tell a (short) story... a full-time artist, who doesn't have "independent means" has to participate at all kind of exhibitions, symposiums etc. to try to sell his/her stuff... In 1993 (I think, it could also be 1994) I was taking part in an Art Symposium at Bromont (a small turistical town, renowned especially for its Chocolate Festival). All kind of artists were there - from the color photograph reproducers to the gestualist abstract ones... The Honorary President of the event (it was in August and was sleeping in my car, the 2 nights of the 3 days)was Michel des Marais, a very nice painter, specialized in Quebec landscapes with sheep (no sheep, no Michel des Marais original...) He's an artist who do very well for himself (especially since his wife seem to be the financial manager). A Mercedes SUV proved the thing without any possibility of doubt...

And, folks, Michel des Marais, nick-named The "Prince of the Sheep" bought the my above reproduced Portrait of a Sheep! I wasn't expensive, of course, me not being the Prince of anything (and owning, at the time, a 12 years old small Mazda 323) but still: to have The Prince of the Sheep buying from you a Sheep Portrait... not bad, not bad... So that's about it. One of my happy moments... Someday, when I'll be the Prince of something, maybe I can go arround in a new Roadtrack motorhome, doing the art symposiums in the vast Quebec or even in the even more vaste Canada. When I'll arrive in the US (Taos, New Mexico), I'll consider myself the Prince of Everything...

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, Cézanne or Van Gogh would have done with today art materials... acrylics especially...

Another nostalgia drawing...

I suppose that everyone has his nostalgia (usually it is more than one...) One of mine is the nostalgia of my children, when they were still children... Less than 8-9 years old... Especially, I have the nostalgia of my daughter when she was 6-7 years old. Very sweet, still willing to pose for me, sometimes (at least for photos) and still unshamed that I am not either rich nor famous... In fact, I do not know (nor have I the courage to ask) what she thinks (or feels) right now. She is a young woman, living her life apart, with very very few threads of contact with me or her mother... I wish I could help her more, I wish I could protect her from the harshness and dangers of life. But I can't... So, every time I draw a little girl of 7-8-9 years old, I think of her... How she was. How she changed... How we all changed (for some of us means growing up, for some other growing down... (Not sure that the expression exists but it's relevant.) This is just a pencil drawing of a beautiful young girl, with that grace and beauty my daughter had also...

I take comissions... I sell paintings...

Not that I want to very much... But, after all, I am a professional visual artist. Capable to do a lot in drawing (story board for cinema included...), painting (portrait, landscapes, nudes, weird stuff. you name it...) or photography and digital art (inclusively combinations of drawing&painting and digital manipulated images...) In a word, I can do a lot of things. I got talent, experience, imagination and plenty of other hidden talents. The problem is that almost nobody seem to care. Or to need my multiple talents... Do I sound to you dissapointed? Well, I kind of AM... there are a lot of other artists, good artists out there... but there are also A LOT much worst than myself earning wads of money... I wouldn't give a damn, in fact, if artist materials would be for free and if I wouldn't feel a bit under estimated, and not used at my true value... Anyhow, this painting was a comission. I just wanted to show you I'm able to do it, just like I did it with the portraits. La bohème continue anyway and, eventually, a new Ambroise Vollard will sign a contract with me the way the real Vollard signed with Gauguin, at the end... And I'll draw and paint all day without giving a rat's ass about whatever... Just pouring my dark soul onto paper and canvas...

Casandra's story

She was a little girl of 12. But when you look at her you wouldn't give her more than 7-8 years old. She was slim (not to say skinny). She had big, blue eyes (beautiful eyes!)and 2 big, too big, front teeth. In fact, she looked just like a skinny, very hungry, nervous she-rabbit. Put some big, grossly rim glasses on her nose and you have almost her portrait true to life... Final touches: a runny nose, a stressed, anguished mother-hen look (she had at least two visible smaller brothers, all ultra-extra agitated and hyper active, all with runny noses and beautiful blue ayes...) And, cherry on the cake, somebody inspired gave her the bad-fated name of Casandra... Finally, she spoke the parisian outskirts dialect - because she, and her brother and her father and mother (those last ones weren't visible for the moment; probably buying - and drinking - beer, somewhere in the Jacques Cartier parc in Sherbrooke, Québec) were Francais de France. She was the in-charge-"mother" and when me and my friend Clement propose her to make her portrait she wasn't sure, at the beginning. She looked for her little brothers and only when we proposed to do their portraits too (which made them less agitated, having on them a ritalin-like effect...) she accepted. To tell you I felt a warm compassion for her would be an understatment... Drawing her portrait - twice, in order to conserve one portrait: the one you are looking at...) we knew a bit more about her life... At twelve, she was remplacing the mother - I'm afraid in more ways than one! - of a large family of poor Frnçais de France immigrated to Québec. I don't think she had a lot of gifts - personal gifts - coming her way, lately (or ever) so she was very glad when she had the watercolor and the pastel portraits we did of her. Especially that I did my best (for once!) to embelish her a bit. Let aside the runny nose, ameliorate a bit her big front teeth and gave all the color to her truly beautiful eyes. That day I was pretty satisfyied with myself. A good deed is a good deed. At the Last Judgement, I hope, the Lord will take it into consideration to balance my numerous sins...

Irises 2

I don't paint a lot of flowers. Not that I don't like them... It's just that I find people (and nude ladies) much more interesting... But this Irises were different: first of all, they surprised me. I know Van Gogh painted some (probably one of the most famous painting of the National Gallery in Ottawa...) and that's really a major challenge and then, I stumbled over some Irises in the parc of the private Institution were I teach "artistical expression". In fact, some pupil of mine, told me about... I took some pictures (and I was surprised that they were living practically in the mud or even in the water)... I've painted a series of 3-4 painting with those photos as an inspiration. I've already let you see one (with a grasshopper in it) and this is another one.... It,s an acrylic painting with a few watercolor touches.

Another type of portrait...

A portrait without model to pose... An imaginary portrait... An evasionist portrait... A portrait called "Mustachioed Dracula", in which the author poured out his anger, his anguish, his fear...You can see that painting has a cathartic function, a letting go function, finally, an evasionistic function... It's a 9" x 12" watercolor and acrylic inks on Fabriano 300 g paper. Collection of the artist.

Marie Lou, the redhead

This is a portrait I did last summer in the main parc of Sherbrooke, Jacques Cartier parc. I confess I like readheads - they are an interesting challenge for a painter. Auburn hair could be quite difficult to paint... Toulouse-Lautrec has a few portraits and nudes with "The Englishwoman from Dover" (the legend says he was totally in love with that one...) Myself, I didn't have the time to fall in love - and neither did I have the inclination (being shamefully monogame - almost 26 years of marriage with the same woman...) but I liked her. Technically, no different than most of my stuff... I should maybe change the materials...?

Jackie has the blues...

This is, of course, Jackie, and she had the blues (I don't know if she still has it...) Posing for 10 minutes could be pretty tiring and if you are posing nude, in a provincial town like Sherbrooke, it means you really need the money... I'm just guessing... I've tried to "catch" some of this sadness and, surprisingly, I used more warm colors and not really the blue... It's a watercolor & acrylic ink painting, 9" x 12", on Strathmore 300 g paper.

An experiment...

Do we need, as artists, to experiment? I think we do. Even if it doesn't sell too well, even if it doesn't sell at all... I really don't think selling should be our aim in life...

This is a Romanian landscape. The original photo represents a view from Ocna Sibiului, a very old (ancient Roman like...) small village/town near Sibiu... It has some 8-9 salt lakes, one or too so salty you'll be pumped out like a quark and you have to be VERY CAREFUL and to moove VEEERY slowly in it, otherwise you'll risk to drown, face down, like a coackroach on his back which cannot turn... (Technical details: 8" x 11" acrylics and watercolors on paper)

Miss T

Since I'm showing you more than my usual, nice, beautiful, pretty stuff here it is this somewhat weird portrait of a young lady from Romania, the daughter of a friend... She was a very silent creature, gracile, with a long, gracious neck and green-blue eyes... Somewhat weird and not without some (maybe dark) secret... Modiglianesque and dostoïevskian character...It's just a 8" x 11", as usual, an acrylic ink and watercolor on Arches 300 g paper.

Modiglianesque...

Heck of a title, eh? (the "eh!" is my trying to be very Canadian, eh?) The story is this: when I lived in Magog (a little and very nice town, on the lake Memphremagog, about 30 km from Sherbrooke) I use to go to a small coffee shop downtown... order a coffee and sketch everything in sight, for hours... One day, I've sketched this beautiful young lady, with a very long and gracious neck, which, of course, reminded me of style="font-style:italic;">Modigliani's portrait... The portrait you see is what I've painted (acrylic inks and watercolors) using that sketch... Look at the back and you'll see something, maybe, interesting...

Nostalgia

I don't even know if the word exists, in this form, in English... Maybe it's more like melancholy ? (Well, I checked and it exist; meaning homesick...) In my meaning, it's more like a mellow sadness, a resigned regret that time passes and the youth with it... This watercolor (and acrylic ink) is a landscape of a very special place, for me: it's called something like the Village Technical Museum (whatever!) and it's situated in a large forrest near the city of my childhood and youth: Sibiu, in Romania. A great place with a few lakes and a lot of fire trees and oaks, etc. I've spent a lot of time wandering about that forest, in the summertime... Of course, in my nostalgic memories, it is even more beautiful than this painting...

I don't know why but it sems I'm not able to upload an image anymore... I'll try again later... Sorry, folks!

Digital variants...

It's funny what you can do nowdays, with the digital photography, scanning and such...Since 1998-99 I began to digitally archivate my paintings and drawings... They become, more and more, just pixels on a cd or DVD... A lot of advantages with that: you can have almost instantly the image of your stuff, you can even ameliorate it (usually I don't do more than amelioration of the contrast or a small re-blance of the colors...) And, of course, you can keep and use an imense number of images (yours or others, to use them as visual stimulii... Or you can keep track - in a very detailed manner - of your work, you can transform what will finally be your paintings in a multitude of "variants", of work steps... Sometimes, a sketch can be better than the "finished" work... sometimes (even quite often) what you do "a la prima" is the best thing you do... Here is an advanced "variant" of a painting I sold a few years ago, at the Bromont Art Symposium... It's just a digital variant...

The mean me...

I did not post a lot of drawings here... caricatures even less. This is a rapid sketch taken at a show I've participated. A show for artists 50 years old & +, in the basement of Sherbrooke Cathedral. It was the last day of the show & I was cranky since I hadn't sold a thing, not even to cover the registration fee (and there were some nice paintings there)! I kind of resented all the friends and relatives of some other painters who did go straight for their relatives paintings without even taking a look at my stuff... So I took revenge in drawing their wrinkled asses (sorry!) It didn't help much, but still... I could gather my unsold paintings with resignation... Van Gogh himself didn't sell much either, eh?

A recent nude of Gabrille

This is one of the nudes of Gabrielle (one of the best models I've had...) that I've sent in Romania, to my European agent. Still in sale, I suppose... It's a 9" x 12" acrylics and watercolor on Strathmore 300 g paper. Don't ask me what does mean the Japanese characters... I don't know. But they seemed to be fit there...