Hi to all from Paul

[Sharon Knettell]

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.

[Paul Foxton]

Originally Posted by Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco

we normally work in natural daylight.

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.

[Sharon Knettell]

Originally Posted by Paul Foxton

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.

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.

[Paul Foxton]

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?

[Sharon Knettell]

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.

[Paul Foxton]

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.