Everything in there is traditional work, nothing digital. For now they are studies and sketches. Hopefully it will lead to something more elaborate.
For now feel free to follow it. Whenever I join a life drawing session or make studies at home I post them there.

During these drawing sessions models pose in incremental amounts of time: 1, 5, 10 and 15 minutes. That’s why you might see some very quick sketches and others that are more complex. (I admit I have a preference for quick ones though; they have a sort of zen painting simplicity).

I always work with hard pastels on paper because it’s quick and spontaneous. I tend to prefer shading to line drawing, even though in the end I often add a few outlines with black charcoal.

I intend to play with other techniques too. I’ve done something with acrylics, but oils are still missing. I fear oils for the stinky turpentine. You have to know that I live in a tiny apartment where I don’t really have room to stack canvasses anywhere and where stenches spread through the house rapidly.
But who knows…I’m willing to try soon regardless.

I hope you’ll enjoy them and follow the page, especially if you do the same and I can follow yours back.

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It’s a reinterpretation of a rather sketchy painting by Pierre Bonnard in 1930. Despite being consider a post-impressionist, what struck me about his “Nude Bathing” was the strange reflection on the mirror, which didn’t seem to match with the pose in front of it. It looks like an expressionist painting for the intensity of that yellow and also surrealist for the image in the mirror.
Also, unlike other paintings by Bonnard where he paints his bathing wife and only model, this one seemed like a breach of the intimacy of bathing, as if for once he caught her in a moment of vulnerability and reluctant to pose.

My wish to paint it again isn’t at all an attempt at improving it (what an arrogant act would that be!), but to emphasise the elements that I found curiously hinted in it and made this a rather unique work for Bonnard, and close to the themes I enjoy to explore in my own work.

It’s called “Distill Life”. It started as a humble salute to Jan Mankes’ “Judaspenning in Japanese vase” and wanted to title it “Judaspenning in Indian vase”, since what you see here it’s a red indian vase I actually own and placed before me while painting.

Prints available at FineArtAmerica

Here are a couple of close ups.

This is a take on a major Chinese deity to this day celebrated yearly on the Mid Autumn Festival.
Her name might sound something like Chang E, but that depends on the dialect.
It’s commonly written 嫦娥, but I decided to use the alternative version 姮娥, because the first character is made of symbolic elements that are tightly related to the painting itself. It’s as if the whole story of the goddess were depicted within her own name, a fascinating uniqueness of Chinese language.

It’s not a philological attempt at depicting the myth, but a personal interpretation of its core, something I see as universally significant.

Prints and products featuring this artwork can be purchased through my account at FineArtAmerica. Worldwide shipping.

This one had a rather different kind of genesis compared to the rest of my work.

So far ideas for paintings came to me by drawing freely until I saw something intriguing I could develop figuratively and symbolically.
I never use reference nor photos, except in those cases where I’m completely unfamiliar with a particular subject or detail.
This is why I let images come to me first and allow them to take my mind away as far as possible.

I used to sketch with the tablet but I moved to sketching on paper because I found the process liberating and refreshing. Nevertheless  the process would be the same: I’d sit and draw until I really liked something.
Inevitably I discarded many drawings.

However this “Queen of Hearts” has a different beginning.

I started going to life drawing sessions quite regularly about three months ago.
My intention wasn’t to improve anatomy (even though that’s always an advantageous consequence of such practice), but to rediscover form and “seeing” by throwing myself out of my comfort zone.
Moreover I did it in order to get new ideas, except that this time I wouldn’t sit alone in my room sketching randomly, but I’d let circumstances help me in the form of a silent dialogue between a model, my mood of the day, my representation of it all and a bit of luck too.

This is how one of the many life drawings I did so far happened to look intriguing enough for me to develop it further.
I had to rework it several times until I was satisfied (all my latest works start as several sketches on paper).
In the photo below you can see the life drawing itself and all the studies I made before finalizing it (there’s even a little cameo of another idea I was considering developing).

It’s not at all apparent but the model was truly holding a Venetian mask I had no time to draw live.
The idea of the pose was entirely hers. I found it fascinating. There was much in it of the themes and symbols I enjoy to explore.

But why the bunny, you might ask? I’ll leave that discovery to you.

Anyway, once again I’m pained by how small it is here compared to the size I worked with (60cm wide on 300 dpi). Limits of digital displays unless you buy a print. Talking of which, you can get them at FineArtAmerica HERE, together with a selection of lovely products, in case you prefer those.
Check the link anyway because you’ll be able to use the magnifier tool to enlarge parts of the painting.

I’ll make a brief presentation of these three artists in three posts, to explain but also understand why I took them as guidance, but also to share the beauty of their work.

Paul Cezanne, Jan Mankes, Lucian Freud

Discovering Lucian Freud‘s work can make quite an impact.
I admit it’s not easy to present this artist, because I’d like to post many of the nudes he painted later in his life and constituting the largest body of work, but most might cringe at the sight of them.
I’ll let you discover them by yourself while showing you some of the most approachable ones he has made.

Lucian was Sigmund Freud’s nephew, but he lived and painted in England. He died in 2011 and he’s considered one of the major British modern painters.

Here I’ll be focusing on his latest pieces.
His work changed quite a bit since the 50s. The way he worked the human figure became more realistic and detailed.
And yet there’s something slightly caricaturesque in these large paintings that impose oversized human bodies onto the viewer with a bluntness that I’ve never seen before.

It’s not unlikely to feel repulsed by a raw nudity that seems to reveal much more than just a bare body.
Red knuckles, blue veins, livid spots, fat and bones are exacerbated and jump to the viewer with uncomfortable honesty.
We might even shy away from such exposure, as if the nude body in the painting were our own.

It’s then that I noticed the similarity between Lucian and his grandfather Sigmund: both of them adopted an inquisitive eye to discover the inner workings of the individual. The nudity of the psyche is projected onto the anatomical surface of the individual.
He lets us discover the models’ personality and sexuality through the various imperfections of the aged flesh.
Not even Kate Moss is spared: the artist strips her down of all the aura of the runway and shows us an imperfect woman. Unveiled truth. Body of the Real.

Moreover sex is evidently central in Lucian’s work as it was in Sigmund’s. He paints genital areas with great precision and yet devoid of any eroticism.

Lucian studies these men and women like a scientist with an x-ray pupil into the psyche. Even the way most models lay down on the bed or sofas like corpses to be examined or psychoanalysed can be unsettling to the viewer.
Eros and Thanatos go hand in hand in his work.

All the above is accomplished thanks to an impressive technique, especially the use of various colors and tones for the skin. It’s a painting lesson in itself. While he’s certainly not the only artist approaching flesh tone this way, his brushwork together with the subjects make it all the more striking.

I probably wouldn’t hang most of Lucian Freud paintings on my walls even if I could. I wonder who would? They are huge and generally unsettling. Even looking at them seems indiscreet, like spying someone through a key hole.
They are also so intimately connected to the models and their relationship with the artist that I can’t imagine them outside a gallery or Freud’s studio.
And yet, they are so powerful and masterfully done that we can simply admire their expressiveness and learn much from Freud’s technique while also taking his honest approach as an example.

The encounter with Lucian Freud’s art is a blow to the stomach and there’s no recovery from it. But it’s a fortune as well. It means that something has been redefined in the art of portrait making.
There’s always the need for artists who are able to pull a punch, because they might save us from the dangerous comforts of politically-corrected pop-corn “art”.

It seems appropriate to conclude this little journey with an acknowledgement to the artist who started it, Paul Cezanne. Lucian Freud’s made a painting entitled “After Cezanne”, a reinterpretation of “Afternoon in Naples”. It’s an important statement that I was glad to discover, because in our times without Fathers it’s vital to keep an eye to the legacy of that which is most valuable to us. We never travel alone.

Additional resources: vast selection of Lucian Freud‘s work and info at Artsy.net

I’ll make a brief presentation of these three artists in three posts, to explain but also understand why I took them as guidance, but also to share the beauty of their work.

Paul Cezanne, Jan Mankes, Lucian Freud

I discovered Jan Mankes accidentally and only very recently.
He was a dutch painter who sadly died in 1920 of tuberculosis. He was just 30.

I can’t remember which of his paintings caught my attention first, but I’m sure I was immediately intrigued by the mood permeating it. They all have a fairy tale quality even when representing the most mundane of objects.

Sometimes while sketching ideas for new paintings I struggle to get to the vision. I might insist too much on one aspect forgetting the rest, requiring me to start again to find the exact image. It’s part of the process and sometimes it’s smooth, other times it requires a longer warm up and trial.
That’s when looking at Mankes’ work became an instant way of tuning into a particular vibe I was looking for.
At times it was a color tone, often the way he lights the scene from behind, but generally it was the mystical aura he put into everything, even an ordinary vase of flowers.

He was one of those artists who could paint silence, the moments of solitude when life seems to vibrate out of the stillness. There is such an experience. To some it’s frightening, to others it’s magical.

For this reason he can easily be listed among the symbolists, even though labels don’t matter much. They are just a way to help us identify certain features we might not easily to put into words.
In simple terms: while a realist would paint a vase as it appears to the eye, in its most objective and empirically quantifiable features, the symbolist paints the vase as it appears to the mind, as a bridge into something else. The vase is not a vase.

Mankes achieved it by color tone, lighting choices, hazing the edges of all forms and reducing composition to the minimum, but mostly by being one with the entirety of his own perception.
What is not there becomes as evident as what is. Hence the sensation of silence.

He particularly liked to cast a very intense pale yellow light on the background, turning foreground figures almost into silhouettes. Another dream-like quality of his paintings.

Lastly, if there’s a more identifiable symbolist touch it’s perhaps this one: birds. He painted crows, owls, roosters and even eggs more than once. There’s something about these creatures that always catches the attention of the mythologically inclined.

I can’t imagine what would Mankes have painted had he lived much longer. It’s one of the tragic losses in art, together with other great artists I want to at least mention: the German expressionists Franz Marc and August Macke, who died in the first world war on the field. August Macke was especially talented and he was only 27.

I’m glad that, despite their short lives, the great work of artists like these can still be appreciated and be part of the legacy. These are names we should speak of more often.

I’ll make a brief presentation of these three artists in three posts, to explain but also understand why I took them as guidance, but also to share the beauty of their work.

Paul Cezanne, Jan Mankes, Lucian Freud

The first master I rediscovered is Paul Cezanne. Fairly obvious perhaps, but not to me.

I never quite remembered Cezanne’s paintings until recently.
I always preferred human figures and cubism, while he was mostly into still life and nature, which I found very boring in my 20s.
His work was at times sketchy and experimental, as someone saying “to hell with it!”.
He was an oddity during his lifetime and, to my surprise, he might still be.

But after all these years something attracted my attention, starting from his philosophy of art and an obsession that made me curious.

He was a grumpy solitary man who didn’t exhibit much in his lifetime and had his first solo exhibition well past his 50s. He didn’t even attend. He wanted to paint.
He was determined to unlocking the mystery of perception itself and finding a way of capturing nature into paint form.

The process gradually led him to distorting perspective and simplifying shapes, up to anticipating cubism and, I dare say, even abstract painting (his latest depictions of Mount Saint Victoire almost disintegrate form into scattered brushstrokes that leave much of the white canvas exposed).

The more I looked at his work the more I had the impression I could feel his determination and struggle. Maurice Merleau-Ponty even wrote a short essay about it, titled “Cezanne’s Doubt”.
But what mostly struck me was his brushwork: short and precise, as the post-impressionist he was, but done in such a way as to create a very unique texture that captivated me the more I looked at it.

At first his paintings might seem quite dense, but I recently had the fortune of seeing a few of his pieces and once I got close I was surprised to discover that they were rather flat for the most part.
What gave his work that texture were the layers of short strokes all of which rather dry, never fully covering the one behind. At times you can still see the white canvas and yet when you step back it all takes form and depth. Not to mention the use of black and dark areas.
He once said he wanted to make paintings that make you want to touch them. He completely succeeded.
Sometimes his work feels like wood carving with a layer of paint on top.

This made him one of my favorites, now after so many years. I observed his portraits more than once before approaching my own work.

After one century this man is teaching me and I can understand why Picasso said “he’s the father of us all”, “us” being the cubists. But I’d say he’s the father of all modern artists, whether they know it or not.

If you have the chance observe his paintings for a while and if you’re puzzled keep in mind that what you’re seeing was happening at the end of the 19th century on the hills of the french Provence.

I developed quite a sympathy towards Cezanne because he was a rugged countryman, with good principles and very much a recluse. He didn’t care about fame and fortune. He just wanted to unlock the mystery of painting. What a noble and yet impossible task! A modern Odysseus of art.

Even though his subject matter is not in line with my own, preferring the way of the symbolists (more to be said in the next post), Cezanne’s technique and existential approach to art and the nature of perception remain a great point of reference.

I’m sure that if this solitary, honest but grumpy man could come back and hear all the good that’s been said about him after his death he still wouldn’t care and would go on painting Mount Saint Victoire for eternity, probably rebooting modern art once again.