Underpaintings: December 2011

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Max Ginsburg: New DVD and a Book-Signing

Streamline Publishing, the parent company behind Fine Art Connoisseur and Plein air Magazine, has announced the upcoming release of a new documentary on artist Max Ginsburg. The four DVD set, titled Max Ginsburg: The Legacy of an American Painter, features six hours of content, including interviews led by Peter Trippi and Eric Rhoads, a slideshow of the artist's work, a walkthrough of Ginsburg's recent retrospective at the The Butler Institute of American Art, and a painting demonstration by Ginsburg. The price is $127, but if ordered before the release date (January 31, 2012), a $30 discount will be applied to the order. Please visit www.ginsburgvideo.com for more information.

Also coming up this January, Max Ginsburg will be offering a lecture, followed by a book-signing, at The Art Students League of New York. The event will take place at 7 PM on January 9th in the Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery. Admission is free.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Ryan S. Brown: The Loneliness of Waiting

Ryan S. Brown
The Loneliness of Waiting (2009)
oil 40 X 70 in.

On his website, Utah-based artist, Ryan S. Brown, offers in-progress images for his painting, The Loneliness of Waiting, along with the following description:

The idea for this painting came at a time when I was experiencing some frustration with some goals I had set for myself that relied on other people to help them come to fruition. I felt I had done as much as I could to achieve the goals and I was left waiting to see if my efforts would yield the hoped for results. That is not a comfortable position for me to be in. During this time I made attempts to voice this frustration to a few friends and family, only to realize that it was impossible to explain to them what I was feeling. The thought came to me how lonely it can be to wait for things. In my case, the realization of goals. But for others it could be news from family, acceptance into school, a phonecall from someone you love, etc. So I hired this model, who always had so much expression in her face, and we searched around Florence together for the right setting to stage this painting. We settled on this spot in front of Casa di Dante in the heart of Florence. It was the perfect setting to isolate her and narrate that lonely sense. The old well anchored the painting perfectly and the mass of empty space around her isolated her in just the right way. And of course the emotion in her face was exactly what I was looking for.

Brown received his training at Brigham Young University, the Florence Academy of Art, and in an apprenticeship with artist William Whitaker. Several years ago, Brown founded The Center for Academic Study and Naturalist Painting in order to re-establish and promote the high standards of process-based art. CAS offers weekly and monthly classes, as well as workshops with representatives of some of the other top Academies in the US and Europe.

Katie Liddiard
Winged Victory
charcoal on toned paper
21 X 16 cm

One of Brown's students, Katie Liddiard, has just won a scholarship to continue her studies at CAS from the Art Renewal Center in New Jersey. Congratulations Katie!

Study for Waiting, 2008 (Casa di Dante, Florence, Italy)
oil 16 X 28 in.

After several preliminary sketches, Brown felt comfortable "window-shading," or working the
painting to completion section by section.

When Brown realized that the rows of stone blocks had begun to go askew, he used strings to help
re-establish the lines of perspective.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

From Russia with Love

After the recent post on 200 Russian Painters, artist - and self-appointed arbiter of machismo in art - David Gluck, recommended to me a site featuring the student work being produced at the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Ilya Glazunov in Moscow. The curriculum looks clearly laid out through the student samples, and though to some, the courses may look antiquated, for me, this is exactly what I would have hoped to learn in school - but did not. My university art training was nothing like this.

My apologies to the students; I cannot decipher the Cyrillic alphabet, nor do I trust the answers attained through online Russian translations, otherwise I would credit the few attributed works. (The third to last is by Oksana Pavlova, an artist who also appeared on the 200 Russian Painters site).

[December 20, 2011, 12:35 PM EST Correction- I originally listed the artworks as being created by students at the Repin Academic Institute of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. I have since learned how truly awful I am at navigating Russian websites. Though the Repin Art Academy is producing tremendous works also, these paintings are actually by students at the Glazunov Academy.]

Professor V.A. Mogilevtsev, a leading teacher at the Repin Institute has put together several books on the methods of training at the school with examples of student work. The books are available from Amazon.com. (Fundamentals of Drawing is in Russian, but purchasers get access to a PDF copy of the book translated into English. Academic Drawings and Sketches is published in both Russian and English; I assume this means side-by-side in the same book. Fundamentals of Painting has yet to be released.)

Gallery Nucleus in California also offers books on the student work from the Repin Institute. They are softcover, and imported from China. They also sell out quickly. Sign up at their site to be notified when a new shipment arrives.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Casey Baugh: Step-by-Step

Casey Baugh - Dusk - 9 X 14 in. oil on panel

This past summer, artist Casey Baugh began a blog so that he could keep his admirers up-to-date on his current projects and activities. So far, his emphasis has been on offering beautiful, in-progress photos of his recently completed paintings and drawings. Only one set of photographs, that of an older work, includes descriptions by the artist, but this gives a good indication of what to expect from his "art-unlayered" series, a parallel project by Baugh which video-documents his work with hi-res photos and full audio commentary. These video tutorials (4 in all) are available for download from Baugh's site for $15 each. There you can also watch a free sample of his self-portrait video before deciding to purchase the other lessons.