Classical Atelier at Home

[Darkside]

hey bjoern, great to see the progress, even if it is little
post some bigger images man, it´s hard to see something going on.

cheers

[bjoern3000]

Hey Darkside!

I have to disappoint you - this time I made the shot with my mobile phone cam - so this is the reason why it is so blurry. When it is finished, I promise to post a perfect shot of the painting

As you all can see I was not so hard working since my last post. Sometimes it´s not easy to find the time.

[AlexEh]

Thanks for stoping by our thread, you were our inspiration! We wont disappoint =) Ill go for perfection like you say, I am prepared for it to take as long as it takes. But one things for sure ill measure with my eye first then correct it with an instrument as emily g stresses.

Keep it up with your resent sight size study.

[bjoern3000]

I know:
- there´s not much progress
- the picture is really poor in quality
- the painting is nearly finished
- that the next picture will be the finished painting
- it´s really hot in Germany

SenEnd That´s a good attitude you both have! I´m curious about your progresses

[RaphaelMayer]

i can only agree, 37,5 °C here and its nearly evening.

Good that the lake of constanz is 150m far from my home

[AlexEh]

Looking good from what I can see so far. Looking forward to a good reproduction of the painting Got all the supplies ill need ready and setting up my bargue study now

[bjoern3000]

Raphael: finally it´s much cooler now! But you are a lucky guy with the lake close by!

SenEnd: here is a better shot of it cropped to the size I plan to finally cut the canvas. What is your Bargue doing? Last post in your thread is more than 10 days ago.

[Darkside]

ah man, that´s looking wonderful
now the only thing to crit would be: BIGGER IMAGES haha
give us some detail to look at, great progression björn.

looking forward to the buchmesse, hope to be able to attend it.
so long, cheers

[monsi]

I love to see this ! thank you for posting!

[MindCandyMan]

Keep up the hard work man this is looking nice! This is the difficult route but it will pay off trust me!

[thinairart]

Your still life is looking very nice Bjoern! I really like the texture on the ceramic pitcher. What kind of mediums do you use? Are you working in layers, or more or less directly (area by area) ?

PS - Your right, I did change my nickname from 'reidaj to 'thinairart' a couple months ago to match my website name. I'm glad someone noticed, I didn't think anyone would!

[bjoern3000]

Thank you guys!

Darkisde Hope this close up is ok for you Unfortunately this was made with my phone cam so the quality is crap. You need to be patient for the final photo which will be made with a professional cam.

monsi Thank you!

MindCandyMan Thanks for dropping by. Whats going on with your efforts? The last painting was the large back portrait but that´s long ago - at least your blog tells so.

thinairart Both. First I worked in the local color and rendered with the paint. Now in the final stages I strengthen darks or colors with glazes or scumbles.

Today I´ve worked on the glass which is called "geripptes" in Germany which means "ribbed" - you can see why it is called like this.
I also worked on the background, made the lights lighter. But the photo does not do it justice in comparison to the last pictures.

[JS Neo]

Awesome !!... I really like how it turns out. Ur months of effort paid off. I just have an opinion. Are u downplaying reflected light? I feel the blue cloth would cast a lot of cool reflected light on the objects in your still life. I think maybe abit more interplay of cool and warm colors can make ur painting more vibrant.

[bjoern3000]

JS Neo Thanks for your critique. I tried to stay as close a spossible to the real objects and there were no real blue reflected lights. Maybe it would be wise to do so to create something special. For the next still life I would choose objects that reflect more.



Ok guys - I consider this one as finished!

Here is a photo which I did not shoot with my phone cam But it´s no professional cam. And there are some close ups.

[hummel1dane]

Great work!!!
Sounds strange though if there are no blue reflected lights??? Usually it is so little that its almost impossible to see, yes I think many artists would create them for effect or because they theoretically would have to be there, also depending on the light source of course.
I would really recommend the vids by Johnnie Liliedahl, she explains and demonstrates all that still-life setup very well in the video on light and shadow.

[Black Spot]

That's rather lovely, especially the jug.

[Farin]

Hey Björn,

congrats to your new finished painting/ progress of your painting skills. It's great to read that you have found a mentor - im curious about your future work.

greetings aus dem hohen Norden

ps: it's a shame but I have not yet managed to do even a single drawing of the casts you send me the last year... the busy and also lazy bastard I am

[bjoern3000]

Thank you all!

Look how beautiful the frame turned out!
As you might know I painted on pure canvas pinned onto a board. So I had to give it to the framer store.
I superimposed several frames on the picture in Photoshop and thought a golden one would fit best but in the store I decided on this one wich is kind of a warm silver and has grapes on it if you look close.

I don´t know if it was a good decision to let the edge of the table show. I hope all of you watching this thread could give me your opinion on it. If the majority tends to not show the edge, I would paint over it.

[*ViRuS*]

the edge is nice. keep it in.

[Raffix]

really nice man. and yeah i agree keep the edge. the edge must stay!!

[Ccs]

This is freakin great work. Lots of work ethic on your part! Even better, your posts and replies on it led me to some super helpful topics buried in these forums. Thanks!

[The Pariano]

Keep the edge :]

[hummel1dane]

yep keep it! It looks great! The only thing thats a bit disturbing is the color of the wallpaper. I think the painting would look better on just a dark plane colored wall.

[bjoern3000]

Thank you guys!

I will keep the edge.

hummel1dane The painting is hanging on a different wall now - right beside the entrace of my home. I had it at an exhibition and one guy who teaches how to produce apple wine wanted to give me 800€ for it. I kept the painting

Ccs You should take a look at my second link in my sig. There I have some more links for you

[Ator]

this thread is truly inspirational. Your progress is phenomenal. I've only been drawing seriously for about a year and half myself, so I hesitated to offer any suggestions. But because I did cast drawing and still life painting for the first time last summer with instruction, I feel I could offer some thoughts with regards to what worked for me.

I feel like you're still going a tad fast on the cast drawing. I'm sure that there are many approaches to sight size cast drawing, but in mine, I spent the full summer, often 40 hours a week, of cast drawing alone. I did ridiculously extensive point to point measurement(heights and widths at every bump and divot), and my instructor would check my work frequently. in the end,I could still see so many mistakes that I felt I had surrendered to it, that it had beaten me. I would advise really prolonging each stage, exploring each shape etc. After all, what is the point of finishing a drawing? My current figure drawing instructor likes to say that a cat never catches a mouse to kill it, but to play with it. Try to enjoy it and learn as much as you can. I personally feel that, even more than the drawing practice, a conceptual understanding of light and edges was most the most valuable knowledge I gained from the process.

I also did still life painting, and i was required to use exclusively palette knives for this exercise. I would not wish this on anyone! but it did have the advantage of forcing me to establish the big relationships of the image from the immediate outset, almost as if I was making some strange mosaic, before engaging in any treatment of edges. rendering was impossible, but the finished result, purely through value and edge relationships were pretty believable. I noticed in your recent still life that you had rendered a lot of the fabric before even laying in some of the objects. remember that its really impossible to judge relationships of tone, hue, saturation, or edge before everything is on the canvas in at least some simple and schematic form. You are obviously very talented, so the picture came out great anyway, but I think it would be really helpful to start thinking this way.

Also, sight size is great, but I would consider doing some really gestural figurative work. If you can't find or afford life drawing classes, print out some master drawing and draw them using comparative measurement. i would go for Michelangelo. really try to analyze what he's doing with form. To be able to read shapes and tones is great, but when it comes to the figure, having only those tools is comparable to illiterate monks in medieval times copying bibles...they were incredibly assiduous, but there was no true comprehension in the process. In the same way that the essence of an A is not in its specific contours and angles, so too a figure's (or cast's) particular contours have only an incidental relationship to its form and structure. the same goes for light. I don't know what your goals or your artistic preferences are, but even painters like Ingres and Bouguereau made loose, structurally informative drawing. They did not spend 90 hours with a pose, and you can see contour changes and liberties, sometimes extreme, taken between the drawing and the painting. This is something that I am currently struggling with. I find it far more difficult than any cast or Bargue work, but I think it would be worth every new students effort to do some work trying to see the image they are drawing not as one bounded by definite contours but as something constructed of forms in perspective.

I intend all of this only as advice. I certainly cannot claim sufficient understanding or experience to really instruct someone else, but these ideas are transforming the way I both execute and look at drawing and painting, so hopefully they will be helpful for you.

[bjoern3000]

Thank you Ator for your words which enriched my thread with wisdom.
As to the life drawing recommendation: I´m going to life drawing class again (I went there during school time but for 1,5 years I didn´t do anything like that)
- you can take a look at the "The OFFICIAL Nude Figure Life Drawing Thread"


As you all can see, I have a new project in the planning. I´ve ordered a Beethoven bust and made a setup that you can see on the pictures.
I hope you all can accompany me on this.

[Lightpunk]

Hi Bjoern3000,

I found reading this thread very inspirational. I'm another person trying to teach myself art a bit later in life and your dedication and effort is a shining example. Very best of luck to you, will check back here regularly.

[ZombieMariachis]

Looking forward to seeing your new project progress!

[Ator]

Thank you Ator for your words which enriched my thread with wisdom.
[/b]

Thank you for sharing such hard work joy for drawing! Eager to see the next one develop!

[bjoern3000]

Thank you guys!

I can share yesterdays progress of 4 hours work.
I don´t exactly work sight-size - the height and width were taken with the thread but the rest is done with comparative measurement.

Maybe you can see a difference on the red fabric - I had to reposition it because I wanted it completely on the canvas for compositional purposes - a cropped fabric wouldn´t have looked well.