Paul, thanks for your comments.
In fact I think my paintings are too different from each other!
The open studio work is interesting in the sense that it is like playing a sheet of music someone else has written. You can't choose the setting, the place, the lighting, you try and do the best of what you can.
I go to Heatherley's school here in town, I like it a lot there, even if there is perhaps too little "teaching", you are left learning on your own, but the flexibility of their scheme works very well for me.
I am really looking forward to the NG exhibition, but am not sure when I will be going, maybe if we organize an art school outing you could come along.
Forums... since I recovered a lost parcel with all my kids' Christmas presents through tips on ebay forum, I am more active then ever, I owe something back!
I.

The open studio course looks interesting - ten two hour sessions whenever you want to fit them in sounds like a very useful way to to do it. The fee is not too bad either, I guess, for working from a live model at your convenience, that's a shame that there's not more teaching though. I'll have a think about that for later in the year, I need some more drawing practice first.

How do you find the sittings, the lighting etc? is there usually good lighting or do they just bung them uder the room's flourescent lights like they used to at my old art college? I think I'd be really tempted to sign up if the sittings are nicely set up.

Thanks, let me know if you do a trip with your school and I'll come along if I can.

Paul, we normally work in natural daylight. The tutor changes every three weeks pose, some of them actually "teach" more and some less. They would never take a brush and show you how it is done, I mean there is no proper 'academic' training.

Now I am in the portrait three course, but when I used to go to open studio, up to last year, I chose which teacher to work with.
There is also an interesting tutoring program, where you just go in twice a term with all of your work and get one hour of discussion, I had Minna Stevens, who is amazing, but I am not sure if you can sign up to this program as an outsider.
I.

Paul,

Welcome from the former English Colony of well, New England.

I really like the sensitivity of your self portrait. You explorations into color and paint on your blog are quite enlightening.

I don't know why your ruminations made me think of Martin Johnson Heade, who mainly did florals, still lifes and landscapes. I once saw a very small canvas of his (small and unpretentious like yours) of roses in a Boston Gallery. They carried across the room. I can't find that particular one, but it is now in the hand of some lucky chap with 1.4 million smackeroos. He demonstrates how much can be done with so little.

Here is an example.I hope you find it useful.

Good news Ilaria, just what I was hoping to hear. I've come accross Minna Stevens work before, I like it very much. Very loose but still with a strong sense of likeness.

Hi Sharon, thanks for the welcome. I'm glad you found the site interesting. The still lifes I've been keeping deliberately small so that I don't get caught up in trying to produce highly finished work before I've got the technical know-how to do so. I'm hoping that by producing a number of smaller pieces I'll progress more without my internal critic putting me down too much. I think it doesn't actually matter what you paint, the point for me at least is still the same - to study how light creates colour, and defines form. Much work still to be done there.

I must admit though, all I'm doing at the moment is drawing. I see it kind of like a musician practicing scales, learning the language of their instrument. Its interesting to me that painting appears to be one of the few crafts where its acceptable to be taken seriously without putting in any serious effort to learn the basic skills, in some circles at least.

Thanks for putting me on to Martin Johnson Heade, I'd never heard of him before, but he was a very individual artist from what I've seen this morning. HIs paintings have an almost dream-like quality to the light, very lovely. I'll be investigating his work more.

On the subject of small still lives and light, I've been following the daily paintings of Julian Merrow-Smith for a while now, an English artist working in Provence. He has a very individual approach to light, too, very evocative. He's also a very accomplished portraitist, and has exhibited with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

It is incredibly silly. It is like letting an untrained dancer on the stage of the Royal Ballet.

I work in natural daylight as well.

Indeed.

Sharon, I tried following the link in your signiature, but was taken to a 'directory listing denied' page. Should it have a filename as part of the link?

Paul,

I had that problem too. Go to The Strokes of Genius main site and find my name and click on it. It is on the bottom of the Forum page. My site does come up.

I have more recent stuff on the professional unveilings site. This is what I am doing now.

Thanks Sharon, I found my way to your paintings. I see that you are most definitely not one of those people we were talking about earlier, beautiful work.

By the way, if you change your signiature link to www.portraitartist.com/knettell/knettell.htm it should work.


I'd like to say what a nice introduction to the forum this has been. I can put work to a few names now and am feeling at home already. I think I now have some idea of the high standards being set here.

As far as I can make out, the first post on this forum was in July 2001. If you'll all excuse me for a moment, it looks like I have a little reading to do.