maiden portrait

[Jason Manley]

I have not done any fantasy genre art since last year and jumped back in for fun (cancelling cable tv service was the best thing I ever did)...its small...thats all the bigger she gets.

j

[morphine]

She looks like that girl from "That 70's Show"

Nice!

[Pontemonti]

Cool, Jason! It definitely has that good old Icewind Dale portrait feeling... (though there's something about her face that makes it look better than the IWD portraits...more detail, perhaps?)

oh, remember to cancel the cable tv service more often...I want to see more of your stuff!

[foster]

Hi Jason,

Very lush and beautiful! I sure wish you would send i more. I love your color sense and brushwork.

Jon

[keyth]

finally!!! alright here we go. can we now see more from you J? pretty please:p ?

[daarken]

yes! we demand more!

[Fozzybar]

Hey...we send the Cable Guy to you...or throw your tv out of the window...

Jason is back!..hmm...sounds like a title from a well-known movie...doh...

But i think this is a underdose of your art...you can increase the dose...don't worry, we will survive :p

[Loga4]

Yeah,we can withstand lot more,so give it to us
Your work have(I don`t know will I describe it right)
sense of ``I like to be there in that world somethimes``
and that feeling I like most in fantasy art,I hope that
you understand what I try to say,sorry I`m not that
good with English
Anywayz,good work,as always!

[Lono]

Warm...

very warm,, n good..

-Lono

[amphex]

WTF?!
NO cable?!
Id kill myself! Or draw a HELL of a lot....aaaahhhhhhhh...I seeeee =)

Well cool work Jason..and as morphine said, it does look like the girl from That 70s Show.
Keep it up =)

[Darrell Bowman]

nose highlight seems a little hot to me.
maybe it was like that on the photo.

draws me too it thou.

there are muscles in the lips
they seem a tad flat.

but this is picky stuff of a great
portait artist.

thanks for sharing
love your work.

[Jason Manley]

I was hitting the light on the nose hard so that i could pull the form out and keep the eyes soft..a mood thing I guess...perhaps I did not balance it enough...i wanted to keep the viewer on the expression of the eyes but rendering those simply changed the mood I was playing with...I went with a hard knock of light there and sharper eyebrows instead.

this head was painted from imagination. perhaps I need to do some more painting from life in order to be sure my formulas for subtle things are right.


j

[Blackhawk]

No cable? Brilliant. I need a TV first for that though My last television broke on me and I'm dead broke money wise. All the better I guess.

This is a great piece Jason. I love how you keep tossing us nuggets of great art here and there, but please unleash the flood on us. We want more!

[Darrell Bowman]

i quess the nose is not a very attractive feature
of the face.
not sure if hot spots are the key for a illustrator.
my taste lie in lighting the face and loosing the shadows
detail.
we do our life drawing with one light source and
all the lights off.

if the point of hot spot is look here.
like a arrow not sure why i would want to look at the
bridge of a nose.

i shut up now i feel im saying this to a master.

i like bernie fuchs lighting
it shot at sunset or sunrise
a movie called heavens gate used that alot.
ranking shadows.
that warm light of sun as it falls below the clouds.
get alot of details showing up.

back to sargent i quess see where his highlights lead
i know one is on the nose

maybe it that frontal light thing happening.
maybe if it was higher up on the forhead
thus the eyes and mouth would drop off.
i like to see it off more to the side as well.

im looking at franks stuff his head is slightly tilted down
painting called the huntress book 2
so the eyes drop into shadow highlight touchs the top of head
and then is picked up again on the nose.

[Jason Manley]

now darrell for you to crit this in the way you are you need to understand the devices and intentions that I am using from my perspective. I may not be balancing them properly which would be why you would question it..

however...If i did as you suggested and only had one light source and the shadows on the eyes the mood would tilt toward a darker edge...more contemplative...what you are suggesting does not make the painting better...just different in my mind.

you do not have to put light on what it is that you want to look at...you only need to put contrast in the area of the image that you are wanting to pull the eye toward... the eye will rest in that area and wander...after all it is not just the light that the eye is drawn to. ...the eye is drawn to contrast and not just lights or darks alone.

Once I was looking at a bouguereau painting and I noticed that he didnt put any darks on the figure at all..it was all lights...there were however darks in the area around the figure I am speaking of...you see, the figure I am talking about was baby jesus..and baby jesus was the focal area of the image. I asked myself how he managed to draw my eye to baby jesus when baby jesus did not have darks on him to hold the eye...its because he doesnt need to...everyone looks at the painting and sees what he wants them to see...unfortunately I am not bouguereau but it is the same intent. the beauty of his image was that baby jesus had no darks...he was almost emitting light..not glowing..the light was falling on him and the area around him..but the feeling was there...and thus bouguereu used symbolic lighting to suggest who it was that he was painting. That image taught me a lot.

In painting you can use fill lights where ever you choose. you are working the way you are with one lightsource on the figure because that is the traditional way of figure class teaching. it breaks the light into very simple patterns that are easy to analyze. however go outside that light and the patterns of light break up and become difficult to analyze unless one is very observant. I did my share of figure classes (15 semesters) and now I try to put the light wherever i want...not just the baroque way of above lighting.

I do however use a slight above light to describe form. I also wanted to make a piece that did not have many darks at all. My compositions have been very dark heavy in terms of their value range and tonal pattern and I decided to do the opposite for once...my painting is mostly middles with some lights and a bit of darks...all this is entirely intentional as I did not at all want a piece that suggested darkness...I lit her softly in order to suggest physical beauty. I could have easily drawn every crease and muscle under the flesh. I have done that in the past..however if i did so then the initial feeling of the piece would have been lost. the same technique is used in contemporary photography of women. Open any magazine and notice how they are lit. sometimes they are so soft that it looks unnatural..yet it looks soft..delicate...womanlike.

I think the weakness to this kind of painting is that when one paints from imagination and places lights where ever needed that other artists with training find the lighting harder to decipher because the information presented comes from memory and lighting theory rather than observed perfect light.

again..what you are asking would not make the image better in my mind..only different toward your own ideals. you like images with strong light...rich color...a fuller value range. I love that stuff too. However..it is not always appropriate for what you are doing.

for example...the impressionists used very little darks in their paintings often times...and they used no whites at all...most their paintings are of middle value range. we owe our twentieth century color theory to those people. Does the fact that their light is not of the baroque or romantic make their art less....I dont think so really...just different.

thats my two cents.


j

baby jesus having no darks but still being what the painting is about....examples...

notice in this image that I speak of above how the light is on the womans sleeve behind jesus in order to pull the eye to an area of the painting that is important..which is jesus in this case...if your theory was correct then he would have put the strongest light on baby jesus and not on the cloth behind him..however had he done that then the symbolism that having no darks suggests to the viewer would be lost...the mood would be different. take a look. do you agree?

http://artrenewal.org/images/artists...he_Harvest.jpg

the above image is a great example of visual lighting symbolism...there are no lights on baby jesus because christians believe jesus is of god and thus of "light"....then notice how he puts almost no darks around him either...except below him...do you see how the darks are below baby jesus in this image. I call that beautiful tonal symbolism.

what would happen if he put all the darks above jesus instead of below and far away?

what would happen if he put all the darks on and around jesus? what if his eyes were lost in shadows too....this perhaps??? http://artrenewal.org/images/artists...Compassion.jpg

the problem again with me...is Im no bouguereau. hahah...btw..this painting is one of the top two paintings I have seen in my whole life. in person it is very large and overpowering...the figures are near life size and the image is one of his masterpieces. it made all other paintings in the cummer museum of art look like trash. I was floored and deeply moved by what Bouguereau did with this painting in real life...every edge is cared for..every small stroke of color is caressed and carefully chosen...expertly chosen. the mood..expressions...go see it for yourself...it is in jacksonville florida. well worth the trip if you are in the area.


he uses this kind of device a lot...here are a couple other examples of his lighting based on what it is that he is communicating with this subject matter.

you can use this kind of theory whether you are painting religious subject matter or not...I try to keep this stuff in mind as I paint. It becomes subconscious at a certain point but it is also purposeful.



http://artrenewal.org/images/artists...rge_au_lys.jpg

http://artrenewal.org/images/artists...one_assise.jpg

[Darrell Bowman]

well okay let me say this,

in religion such as christianity.
the light is supernatural light.
kinda holy spirit decending on child.
child skin is pure as and holy like marble.
so the holy spirit is falling down on the child.
symbols.
same with paul falling off his horse.
this is light but super natural light of god
decending on paul from a artist that understood
those things in the church being taught.
symbols not really taught alot now adays.

man im amazed im having this converstation
with you i should shut up.

so with the magazines they are using a hassledlad
not my favorite camera but it inexpensive and
not alot of 4 by 5 or liecas being used.

maybe in europe.

so this soft camera saving on retouching list goes on.
so no shadow eh interesting.
lot more realism alot more work.
i like alex colville stuff for that.

kinda the differences between nc wyth and andrew
in terms of lighting.
thinking of movies.

anyways i thought the light was a bit hot
on the nose.

love your stuff
and thanks for responding to me.
were using banks to light objects with in studios for models
making it softer too.

i think if this woman was in a enviroment
why is she there
what time of day is it.
what her mood.
so out of this lighting of the enviroment
she is lit like a movie.

im nervous writing this cause i love your stuff
and i dont want to go the wrong direction with this.

im new here.

but jason love ya man
great work.

[Darrell Bowman]

In the compassion image,

in his white ist white he has info in it.
so no over exposing in this painting.
he spot on.
when i ajust my tv i pick whites and
tone tv down till i get detail info in it.
i back it back up when that get dull
with no light.

not sure why he doesnt blow away his darks.
he has a over cast sky.

my concern here is the portail of a christ
as soverign lord against nature.
kinda a selling of image of god vs this is
what it really looked like.

christ as a redemer at that very moment
he was selling a idealism of catholism i believe.
i think he has darks in thou he not neglecting the darks
he just putting air in the darks not sure why.

here again it might have to do with a holy light
adorning a perfect lamb.

or the two figures were from a photo he made and
in the development it got over exposed.
who knows just a studio set up.

[gekitsu]

wow, jason.

i love the limited earthly palette and the lot of variation you achieve with it. also, it's amazing to see how you kept things in a simple rough stage but they are undoubtedly there and well-defined enough even if they are just one or two strokes.

MORE JASON MANLEY ARTWORK NOW!
JOIN THE MOVEMENT!


one question i have, though:
jason, you often mention marks when talking about painting, do you have one or two pics to show that could explain me what exactly marks are?
:chug:

[McNallyism]

Hey Jason, beautiful portrait. The colors are really blowing my mind. She actually reminds me of Julianne Moore, with the eye placement, skin tone, and, of course, the red hair...

-Sean

[Jason Manley]

thanks guys....


darrell......

bouguereau used no photography in his work except for a few portrait commissions which he supposedly did not enjoy doing.

he worked from life and imagination only. he made detailed drawings of everything...if he did not have the information in front of him he would head to the museum to find the information about anatomy or form that he was unsure of.

read this... it describes his picture making process a little bit. just because you as an artist may be bound by the photographs you work from does not mean that it is not possible to paint anything you want from imagination using only life around you as your resource. here is the article..
http://artrenewal.org/museum/b/Bougu...k_walker1.asp#

bouguereau was purposeful in his mark making and picture making. every mark and value is carefully chosen...his marks, shapes..colors...forms...expressions...hands...fee t...all are drawn deliberately and purposefully..his symbols carefully chosen. if you see enough of his works in person you will see this for yourself.

he was not like bernie fuchs who simply traces his images from photographs and is a slave to the photographs information. bouguereau was a creator and fuchs is a tracer....a damn good tracer...but a tracer none the less. not even to be compared to bouguereau in my mind....not even close.

.....

if he blew away his darks he would not have the same success with controlling the symbolism and story with his tones. He is not a slave to nature and is not a slave to photographs..he uses his lights and darks where he needs to in order to communicate his ideas. he was free from the creative prison that a young artist experiences only because they do not draw and paint religiously like he did...and only because they have not been shown how to paint from imagination a high degree of finish. He doesnt care if the shadows would be slightly darker or lighter because of the time of day...the piece is not about the time of day..the piece above is about the light of christ and he suggests it in very subtle ways....that is one of the things I like about his image...he shows that without having rays of light blasting out of him...his craft is subtle...very subtle

you are right that his lightest light has info in it...that is the proper way to work I would say.

you dismiss his work as "just a studio setup" however not one figure painter alive today can do what bouguereau did and every one of them knows it. there is not one person on this site (professional or otherwise) that has the skills to paint figures like bouguereau...even if they use photography. Bouguereau's paintings have never been matched in terms of figure work and subtlety. if you dismiss him...I suggest you try doing an EXACT mastercopy. when you can do that..hahaha...haha...then i suggest you try to do an original yourself..IN OILS of course. no photographs....if its a painting of children you must paint like he did and have your little relatives running around the room as you draw and paint. you know what...go ahead and use photos. I dare you.

you see..his work is not just a studio setup...he puts his colors..lights...darks...and such all where he wants it to be...not where it is in nature always and not from photographs. he uses nature to show him how he can use his light...he knows the laws of light and color and can thus bend those laws and theories to tell the story.

this is something I suggest you start asking your teachers about. someone there teaching you is obviously unaware of such things. the problem I found in school was that most of my teachers had no idea how bouguereau painted...not even the slightest...I found a couple who did know how to create to a good degree. I also found that those that did not know could only teach what they did know and often times that was not enough to help me.

RH Ives Gammell once said something like "a teacher can teach only what he or she truly knows how to do themselves....if a painter is learning from a teacher who has not learned to draw and paint fully, then that painter can only learn to the point where the teacher failed to learn."

beware of your teachers if they are telling you thinks like "bouguereau's images are just studio setups" Im assuming that is where you got such ideas from..either classmates or a teacher. keep an open mind...there is lots to painting that you dont know.

there is so much to painting that I dont know...the only way to do it is to keep pushing...studying...drawing...painting...growing.

bouguereau painted every day from dawn til dusk....do you?

I wish I had the fortitude to do that.


jason

[Darrell Bowman]

still think the area between the eyes
is too bright.

sorry jason

thanks for your response.

[Jason Manley]

well...if I darken it then the bridge of the nose will sink back in space to the same level of the inside of the eyes...the edges of those areas are too similar. either i could sharpen the edges..which goes against the mood I was trying to get...or I could hit some light in that area...going dark toward the shadow is the wrong thing for me in this case...a color change could possibly work but not to the degree that I wanted and would need an edge shift to assist in holding that level of space


all things were considered.

Im not changing it though...but you are welcome to your opinion.

I was at an art gallery today and they were using the light where ever they want...It was amazing...the artists were making choices and were obviously not being slaves to their resource material.

the light i put there is also to suggest the bone of the skull under the flesh..same wit the cheeks..same with the muzzle area...

point being...put the light wherever you want...and think about why you are putting it there...same with the darks...same with the color...doing so will give you more control of your work.


jason


j

[Darrell Bowman]

I am a 48 yr old designer/illustrator.

i studied too much design from Ontario College of Art
then to ever be a fine artist.

I have watercolor ...shows money goes to the
woman opera commettie for a student studing
opera singing. plus other galleries.

i have done thousand of rendering for every major
ad company there is.
was a art director for General motors promotional dept
canada. also a art director for Tip top tailors canada.

sometimes im given as little as floor plans for the toronto
skydome home of the toronto blue jays to help design
promotion material for skydome.

i sure Bernie Fuchs can paint in traditional manners
just but to draw 100 people around cars under
a september deadline has it problems he
decided there was no guilt for using a camera.

i dare you and ha ha ha is not nice.

sorry

[eggbeater]

Hmm.. you really need to work on your English, Darrell. I can't even understand your last post. Commas are a wonderful thing in successful sentence structure. I can't tell if you're angry, sarcastic, or what.

[el coro]

hey! good to see ya posting manley. i like. seems a little cropped to me, but as far as this bridge of the nose thing...i dont know about no baby jesus, but in terms of flattering lighting on the female face, i typically use the bridge of the nose as the lightest point. there are some rules in art that work just because they work. lightening the bridge of the nose is a very effective way to have a female face seem youthful and vibrant...i dunno why it works, it just does. as usual, your color is bangin'...lets see some more complicated shit, though, portraits from memory are too easy!

[Anthony]

Nice pic. I'm moving...soon

[MindCandyMan]

Really nice Jason! Looks great...I don't have cable either hehe. TV is such a time waster...when we could be drawing more!!!!

[Darrell Bowman]

Not angry.

just defending myself.
as soon as you say you cant do something
hahaha.
it get personal.

im not a kid.

i left normal school at grade 8,
and studied with Ontario Art College teachers till grade
twelve then was put into 2nd year OCA.
were i graduated with Honours winning the second
highest scholarship.

so im not a 13 kid saying,
not that some 13yrs arnt smarter them me.

looked at so many paintings over the years.
drawn so many. my instincts told me this was
a matter.
i only made a suggestion, least i had the balls
to mention it to a good artist like jason.
he defended his point and he happy.

I go out there and win 3 million dollar accounts like
harem walker with ad agencies so i dont care really.

[daarken]

wow, darrell sounds like such a big dog with all his awesome jobs and 3 million dollar contracts. heh, maybe jason should listen. but darrell, if you really want to impress everyone on this board (which you are desperately trying to do) why dont you do it with your art.

[Darrell Bowman]

no im not

he said i got the info from my teacher at school.

maybe he didnt read my resume.
on my website.

l love all you guys
and my only encouragement is to draw draw draw.

it was only a suggestion.

i dont have any more time for this thread.
want to see my art go to my site end of story.