Sunday in the Art Room SITAR

 Welcome to 

 

Above made by me with NightCafe. 

Today is for artists that create in ANY medium to come on by and just talk art. Write a post about what's on your mind in the art world. It's a place to ask questions on your blog where other's can hopefully answer. Or share your videos, your techniques, tools or even what type of camera you use. So, you say you can't draw but you can write.... that's art baby! AI creations are welcome as well. Since this type of art is taking off to main stream. Let's say you think you are in no way artsy. But you love art. Show murals, historical art, your friends or kids art and talk about it.  

I would like this to be an all inclusive way for artist to share, whatever. 

My only rule? Criticism with kindness. 

If someone asks to have their art critiqued it must be done with generosity and consideration. 

This is a place of encouragement and inspiration. 

 

I want to clarify something for the last portrait challenge on FFO. I had written "no photos" for the challenge, and then changed it. I really don't know what I was thinking. Portrait images have a long distinct history. I'm gong to skip a lot of the very start of the invention which started in 1717. By 1839 photography was announced to the world.  Louis Daguerre went on to develop the daguerreotype process, the first publicly announced and commercially viable photographic process. The daguerreotype required only minutes of exposure in the camera, and produced clear, finely detailed results. 

Richard Beard  set up a photography studio as a business speculation in 1843.  He purchased a license to use the daguerreotype process in 1841, and opened the world's first photographic studio. It was set up in a glasshouse on the roof of London's Royal Polytechnic Institution to provide all-round lighting, which was necessary to the daguerreotype process. There were huge profits from his studios in London and Liverpool and from the sale of license to take daguerreotypes. However, Beard was ruined by his many legal actions against rivals, and went bankrupt in 1850.

I believe this is Richard Beard. It was difficult to find.

It has been said that the camera is the most important invention of the 19th century. 

Yevonde Philone Middleton Portrait Photographer and suffragette is now my hero of photography.

She joined the suffrage movement around 1910, which inspired her to seek financial independence through a career in photography. 

Yevonde, also known as Madame Yevonde, was a London-based photographer of portraits and still life throughout much of the twentieth century. She was a pioneer in photographic techniques, experimenting with solarisation and associated particularly with the Vivex colour process, which she utilized to great effect in the 1930s. "If we are going to have colour photographs, for heaven’s sake let’s have a riot of colour, none of your wishy washy hand tinted effects." said Yevonde in 1932 in an address to the Royal Photographic Society.  

Yevonde Middleton, Yevonde with Vivex One-Shot Camera, 1937, © National Portrait Gallery, London

 

 “Color photography has no past, no tradition, no old masters… only a future! 

For Yevonde, Vivex offered a space not yet shaped by male-dominated conventions, a space where she could build a new, feminist visual language.

Madame Yevonde’s six-decade-long career is defined by her willingness to embrace new technologies and her commitment to women’s independence.  Her work aligns closely with the aims of Feelings in Common, offering alternative readings of photographic history and amplifying the voices of those often overlooked.

Madame Yevonde remains a key figure who used color, and imagination to expand what photography could be. 

sited here 

When we come to today we would not have the medical technology, such as, Diagnostic Tools combined with AI to assist in every part of our medical.  The camera and photography today has advanced immensely with mirrorless cameras, computational photography, and AI powered image processing.  This just touches on a very long list of what has advanced with the camera. For all of us armatures our phones and sure shot 

point n shoots allow us to take photographic portraits of family and friends and upload them to social media without a thought.

I tried to down load the 3 videos in this series but the owner turned off the use on other websites

You can watch this series on Prime, Apple, and Now TV. 

The series is excellent on portraits and explains how portraiture has evolved. The National Portrait Gallery in London, founded in 1856, holds 195,000 works spanning six centuries, covering famous British historical figures from the Middle Ages to the present day. 

I'm off to draw a portrait.

 

That's if for me. I look forward to seeing your art in 

Sunday in the Art Room

Nicole     

Sunday in the Art Room

 Hi Everyone!

A few weeks ago when the self portrait challenge was going on, I suggested that tracing is perfectly acceptable. Believe me there are times I want to trace too. LOL

I was on Pinterest looking at art and a short video came up on a tracing hack. It's new to me and maybe new to you as well. I found a youtube that shows the hack and well, I'm impressed.

All you need is paper, a picture of what you want to trace and a dark colored oil pastel.

check this out.

I feel like tracing will help beginners to learn how a face is structured. Trace enough times and you will be able to do it from a photo or life.

 

The other day I reported that I'm deep into art right now. The house is clean but not how I normally like it, because all I want to do is draw. Life right now is very stressful for Mr. M. and I and art simply takes me away. The concentration of it, how one line can change an entire expression on a face. Seeing how a drawing comes to life and the emotion that emanates with a few shading techniques. I mentioned once that I'm not going for hyper realism, but I do want my portraits to look like real people. With that said, the colored pencil portraits allow me my weird side. No, I'm not showing them here. Saving them for FFO. I do one graphite and one colored pencil. I have also started painting again. It's been a long time since I had the paints out.

 

These are older pieces that sold during an exhibition. Some of you may remember these.
 

 

this is highly textured with a sand medium.

 

This piece sold before I got it off the easel.

 

 

This is another very textured piece also that was purchased by a lady that lives back east. She sent me this photo to show me where it lives.  

I did several pieces that I worked with negative space. It was for fun but people like them and I sold all of them that were on display.

 

What I'm trying to get across is, just create! It doesn't matter how, or with what medium. Did you know that when people are productive in art their brain starts boosting and straightens connections between the right and left hemispheres?Also, increases gray matter and releases dopamine and serotonin. So why wouldn't you make art? To all my dear blogging friends, photography is art.

 

That's my spiel for today.

Have the best Sunday.

Nicole 

Sunday in the Art Room

 Hi Everyone!

I am very pleased with all of the self portraits that were shown on FFO challenge. We will have to do this again.  I have received a ton of emails with a lot of remarks and questions. First I want to clear something up. Baili, commented on how good I look for 60. 

Uhhh that is my first S.P. 

The second one is of me now at 73. Eekkk.

Enough of that. 

Disclaimer..... I am in no way an expert on drawing portraits. However, if I have some knowledge to help others I always will. 

 

More than several people talked to me about proportions on drawing portraits. There are SOOOO many ways to accomplish this. My Nan taught me, when I was a kid, to draw an egg shape then from the top of the head to the hair line measure 1/3, measure features in thirds. Something like this. In addition she would say, "Draw what you see."

 

The space between the eyes, is one eye size.

the outer part of the nose should line up with the corner of the eyes. The ends of the lips should line up with the middle of the eyes. The cheek bones should line up with the outside of the eyes. Something like this.

You notice that this person measures by fourths until the bottom of the nose and chin. Like I said there are so many ways to draw proportions.

There is also the square up or grid method. This always kind of confused me, and I have heard this form other artist who are dyslexic. You draw what's in the squares.

 

I want to reiterate that tracing is a perfectly acceptable form of getting started. You can see my post on this here

If you look on google you will find a plethora of information on how to get started. You just have to use what works for you. 

The measurements are the same if you are drawing a side view, or tilted head view.

 

 

There is also the circle method. Draw a circle for the top of the head and then sketch in the jaw line.

It works for profile as well. I could never do this because my circles are never correct. LOL

  

Once you have found the starting point that works for you. I encourage you to look at the structure of faces. Check medical images, oh and don't forget skulls. LOL Both of these will help you lay out bone and muscle structure. It's not like a study unless your are going for hyper realism. But to get an idea of what a face is made of so you can add tension in the face you are drawing.

When I first started drawing faces, I tried to make everything even. If this eye was round the other one had to be exact. However, it's almost impossible to sustain this. So for years I look at peoples features. No one has a perfectly symmetrical face. Unless you have some deformity you want fixed, really who wants a face like that?

OK, so there are a lot of people who do. I guess that's why plastic surgery is multi billion dollar industry. LOL 

For art though, a little normal off balance makes a drawing more interesting. 

Like this. ha ha ha

One of my practice pieces with colored pencil. 

Back when I first started drawing faces, an art teacher friend of mine, told me to draw at least one face a day for 100 days. The improvement was amazing. 

What I'm saying is draw with joy, make it fun, laugh at yourself when you make a mistake or you will give up drawing. 

If you are that person who can just free  draw, do it! Find your style. What is so wonderful about any art is that we are all individual. If I put 5 people in a room to draw the same face I will have 5 different drawings of that same face. I think that is the beauty of art. No matter what level of artist we are, there is a gift we give ourselves in every stroke we make.

I hope this has helped in some way.

Nicole