Castle

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NZ Art World

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Haven't  posted any blogs for far too long. Everyone has migrated to Facebook these days. Does anyone still read blogs?  I posted this rant on FB last night and someone suggested posting it on my blog. So here it is in it's alcohol fueled verbatim:   The visual arts got hijacked by the pretentious pseudo intellectual elite in a way that none of the other arts have. Im not quite sure why. As a working painter, i have come to realise that i possibly have just had the ill luck to experience my formati ve years in the worst possible climate as far as painting goes. The demise of modernism and the rise of the institutionalised museum and gallery system. The big names in the nz art world now, are largely the ones who broke into the scene when it was relatively easy to get work shown inthe, then newly burgeoning dealer galleries, and get work acquired in the important collections, and written into the art history books. Its quite a different story now adays. But things are ch...
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Portrait Of Anne 7th Sitting

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Another session yesterday. I started by applying some thin glazes on the left side of Anne's face trying to add a bit of depth to the shadow areas. Then I worked into that, using slightly more impasto paint. Last week I was struggling so much in bad lighting conditions that I turned on an electric light to give a bit more ambient light to her right side, and I quite like it so we've decided to keep it. I've added cadmium orange to my palette. It is a strangely cool orange that I've never been able to duplicate using cadmium yellow and red and as a tint with lots of white it makes a good colour for flesh lit by electric light. The same goes for alizarian crimson or rose madder tints. The left side of her face is picking up the natural light from the windows on that side and I'm using terre vert, raw umber, mars violet and ivory black. I was still not happy about something and I came to the conclusion I had the eyes too close together. Much to Anne's const...
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Anne Sat in a Chair - 1st Sitting

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I have made an initial start on the large portrait of Anne Sitting.  As is usual when painting, your present work will spawn new ideas for further work and exploration.  While I was painting Anne's portrait last year, I realised that a more complete picture with her sitting in the chair would be a truer and more compelling portrait.  She habitually wears many layers of dark clothes and has these lurid orange plastic shoes. The shoes became a problem for me on the last portrait as they kept distracting my eye, and I asked her to wear different ones.  It became something of a joke between us, and we both agreed that for this painting she sh ould wear them. I began our first sitting by making a few preliminary drawings.  Drawing is always a good way to get to know a subject.  It doesn't matter that they are rough or crude; they are not intended to be finished artworks.  They are working drawings and you start to get a feel for where potential p...
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