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...

Alec - just a portrait

Anna

If you like milk in your coffee, you'll like Anna's color: a superbe light Burnt Omber. She is a superbe model, too. Not only beautiful but gifted. There are models whom are beautiful but nor gifted, yes. Models who do not know where to put their hands, who just lay flat on their back (I don't say some foot seen in perspective is not an interesting problem to draw but finally all the rest are flat...) So, when you have a model like Anna, you thank God for his mercy (or generosity, whatever) and draw...and paint... I would say such models, rare, are a blessing and get me inspired. I hope you'll think the same think looking at my painting (or drawing, whatever). As usual, it's a 9' x 12' Strathmore paper, acrylic ink and watecolor.

Welsh corgi commission

This is a painting I was commissioned to do by some young friends of mine... I've combined a Québec landscape and the Welsh corgi image (he was the star of the thing; a present for the anniversary of the father who owned the dog...) I've used a lot of "fire orange" and it seems that the father liked the present. Sometimes, I feel like Real Lessard, le québecois who was, along Van Meegeren and David Stein, a grand faussaire... He had a billionaire who quite regularly came to him and tell him his dreams, his visions... And Lessard, who was also a great artist not only a faussaire (it takes a lot of talent to be a faussaire, you know...) put the billionaire's vision on big canvases... and that one paid him 100000 $ or 200000 $... I could do the same, given the right conditions. But ou sont les milliardaires d'antan?

Orange Fire

Do not call for the Firesquad! This is the name of a Daler-Rowney color, a very strong one, a quite devious one... A wonderful one if you come to master it... In this Karin nude I don't really know if I did... But the color is there and I like it. Van Gogh - they say (and he says it himself in one or two letters) loved yellow chrome. Me, I like fire orange or orange fire. Of course, I'm not Van Gogh but in the sense that anche io sono pittore. My paintings are not, in all probability, to be ever sold with the record 75 (or 82 in other sources) millions USD as The Portrait of Dr. Gachet did, bought by Mr. R. Sato (or some other japanese name soundin like it)... By the way, the record sale was topped in 1994 by The Boy with a pipe (a "periode rose" painting) by Picasso... Tough luck!
Even if I will cut both my ears and even do a Bibitt thing, I won't succed in egalizing Van Gogh posthume fame. People are kind of accustomed with all possible atrocities, after the 2 world wars, a Holocaust or two, not to mention the more recent wars and atrocities. A cut ear AND a suicide will bring you, MAYBE, a small article in a local newspaper (about the same attention Van Gogh ear got in Arles). So I better keep my ears and continue to love fire orange... At least, the possibility is not totally excluded I'll "fire"up the heart of some collector...

Sherbrooke landscape

This is the Blanchard Park, where I used to come with my friend Clement to draw portraits... When there where no humans willing to pose I usually exerced my brushes on the surrounding landscape. This is one of the results: an acrylic ink and watercolor, on Arches paper. The season was early spring, on a windy, crisp afternoon...

Imaginary landscape

Why an imaginary landscape when there are plenty of real ones? I don't know. Really. I just feel like "it", sometimes... This is a pretty old one, a 2004 landscape. When I was experimenting a lot (good habit I've kind of lost, for the moment...but it will come again, I hope). I hope also I did not show you this already... I was wondering when it will happen... anyhow, in my opinion it's a nice imaginary landscape. And nice things are rare this day... I used acrylic and non acrylic inks on a highart board. Nothing better came along when I've searched...

Travis & Jackie

It's not often but it happens... We have the chance to draw couples. This time it was Travis & Jackie. To draw a couple - in the same or almost the same - amount of time as a single nude is not easy. II did my best. The technique is the same: acrylic ink on Arches watercolor paper. What should I say more?

Nelida of Ecuador

Nothing more sophisticated that a portrait of one of my "pupils"... To keep it up with the sunny disposition. Acrylic ink and watercolor, of course.Strathmore paper, also.

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!

Just a sunny landscape

No more, no less, as Shakespeare said... Just a sunny, vacation like Québec landscape, somewhere near Baie St. Paul (je crois)... In a painter's cuisine this would equivalate to a "soufflé", quelque chose d'aerien, de light, just a quick watercolor to match a beautiful summer day and a sunny disposition. Since outside the winter winds are hauling, as Sting said, it seemed appropriate to encourage myself a bit with some sunny summer images...The rich québecois are now flying off to Miami or to Caraibes, to Cuba... The ones not so rich brace themselves and "monte le chauffage"... And it seems, the meteorologist predict, that it will be one of the coldest winter in Canada in the last 15 years... so much for global warming...

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...

The almost Minotaur

Most things are nowadays, for me, a kind of...or almost...something. This is "almost" a Minotaur - looks like something like that, anyway - since, technically, a Minotaur is half torro and half human... This one seems more like a torro... I can tell you one thing: it must have some devilish in it because a very nice woman (the wife of a friend where I exposed some paintings) just wouldn't have it in the house... and I did get it out, being a well-mannered (when I remember to be) person. The technique used to make it is very special and I didn't exploit it to the full extent. So I won't give any details, Internet being what it is, full of good things but also full of idea-thieves and con-artists...

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...

Dead Fish

No mystery that these days everything I write and do (like, for instance, choosing a reproduction for this post)has some dark touch... Even this 2004 fish looks more dead than normal on that plate... But, what can I do? I am who I am and I do what I do... A very intelligent and perceptive Romanian writer (usually that means that nobody but some Romanians have heard of him...)said once: "Do not EVER say something good about yourself because nobody will believe you. And do NOT ever say something bad about yourself because everybody will believe you..." (Garabet Ibraileanu) So, it's not very clever to say that I'm depressed, maybe bipolar? True, almost everybody's depressed these days - c'est "à la mode" - and even bipolarity isn't that rare... So, enjoy my dead fish - if you can - and do not be too harsh with me... Depression is for everybody and one day you'll try it too, maybe...

A Feast for the Eye

That's what Eugène Délacroix said: "A painting should be a feast for the eye." There are a lot of painters who agree with that. Some are great names, like Renoir and Matisse, to mention just two. Some are just quasi-anonymous artists, like myself. But I believe it firmly. Why else should you paint if not to create a joy for yourself and for the eventual onlookers? (Of course, things are more complicated than that... as things have the bad habit to be, but essentially that's it: paintings are - should be - a feast for the eye...) I can understand the experiment and experimentations of the conceptualist and abstract artists but, let's be honest: what joy do you get from looking a black square on a white square?
This nude I post here is an small experiment in overlayered textures, a decoration experiment, if you want. Acrylics, of course.As always, I hope you'll like it. It's intended to be a feast for the eye...

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...

Bloody allegory...

A sample of what I did in "hostile" conditions... I mean, when the model (upon whom I have no control, being just one of the many sketchers...) took "ballet" postures... No comments...Of course, it's an acylic ink + watercolor on Strathomore 300 g.

2005 Nude...the beginning...

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).