La Natura Morta (The Still Life)

Ciao from Florence!! I realised I haven't been painting any Italian themed still life pieces, so here are three small studies of what I see a lot of around me.  I was told that you see more reds growing during the summers than any other time of the year. And since we're in the season, I should take the opportunity to paint what's typical of the summers here -  your orangey reds.  I must point out that watermelons are this summer's favourite for me.

Some of these paintings have a demo video link attached to them. So enjoy the not so still life clips while it's still free!! :) 

 Cocomero

(Watermelons)

Oil on Wood

20cm x 30cm

Pomodoro e Aglio

(Tomato & Garlic)

Oil on Canvas board

15cm x 20cm

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdIuv5AyAIE

Macina Cafe

(The Coffee Grinder)

Oil on Canvas board

20cm x 30cm

Video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onEr2WmvPRY

These original paintings are up for grabs. so message me if you are interested.

Copying Caravaggio

I am assisting in a couple of summer workshops for 2015. This one is that I am blogging about is called the Methods of the Old Masters, specifically focused on Caravaggio's technique of painting.  I chose to work on The Inspiration of St Matthew (1602), which can be viewed currently at the church of San Luigi dei Francesi (in the French quarters), Rome.  I was also fortunate enough to see the original piece a couple of months back before attempting this project. 

Here's recapping the process of recreating the masterpiece by Caravaggio:

First step is the drawing stage. Burnt Umber (Old Holland) is used to get the fundamental shapes down. Burnt Umber is also used to prepare for the black coat of paint later on. It keeps the blacks really black, and also prevents the blacks from excessive sinking in. Another layer of Burnt Umber is applied after the first is dried. 

White is added to the lighter areas of the picture to prepare it for colour application later. 

Here is a quick study of the flesh tones on another piece of canvas.

Finally, I applied a thin coat of colour to the opaque white base that I had before. Think of it as a stained glass, where the opaque white base is the sunlight, and the thin coat of colour is the coloured glass. The brilliance of the lighter areas seen on the angel above is actually luminance from the opaque white base. 

Finally, bringing the entire painting to a finish. 

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My Oily Summer Begins

I grew up in a place where it's virtually summer all year round. Also, where I come from, you only get 2 weeks of vacation a year, maybe up to 6 weeks if you are in school. Here in Florence, Italy, I have to abide by the rules of nature which constantly changes throughout the year. 

It's summer now! Something I am familiar with. The temperatures hover around 32 º Celsius in this month of June.  It's when many Italians head out to the beach.  For some artists like myself, we choose to spend our time painting in the great outdoors! There is no better way to learn from nature itself! I just spent 2 weeks assisting in a landscape workshop here in Florence. These are some of the highlights. 

Warm-up copy practice before the outdoor sessions began.

This is the Soltek Easel I use. No complains at this point. 

(Am I missing cast painting?)

 This view of Palazzo Vecchio is from the Bardini Gardens. 

I was tired of painting greens, so I painted one of the students instead.

This piece done at the big park in Pratolino reminds me of concept art. 

The sculpture in my painting is called Il Gigante.

Some of the participants right by the Arno river painting a sunset.

Painting a sunset requires a lot of anticipation or painting ahead of time,

 before the magic hour from about 8.00pm - 9.00pm.

To follow more of my plein air works, click the link below:

https://www.facebook.com/alvinmark.art

Spinning with DJ Jacob

Ah finally!! A full coloured figure in action! This one took a total of 90 hours to complete over a period of 10 weeks. Again I did the math. 90 hours is the amount of time used to create 1 second of the animation above. If we spend 24 hours each day working on a full length feature animation (90mins), it would take the twelve of us 55.5 years to complete it. Ehhh... no. 

But if you are interested to know, it's been done before. The Old Man and The Sea by Earnest Heminngway was adapted into a short 20 minute film done entirely in oil. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5ih1IRIRxI

Artists from the full figure painting studio (in order that they appear): 

Richard Davis, Richard Walker, Ashish Patel, Jeffrey Wood, Masako Kazue, Alvin Tan, Alice Atoniacomi, Rishabh Sud, Nancy Wolfe, Saara Kauhenen, Dianna Talib & Mahlia Qureshi.

Here are two more turnarounds which I was privileged enough to be a part of: 

1) http://alvinmarktan.blogspot.it/2014/02/animated-model.html

2) http://alvinmarktan.blogspot.it/2014/04/spinning-with-dj-rony.html

Still Life: Spring Picnic

Spring Picnic

48cm x 38cm

Oil on Canvas

Available

(This image shows a near to completed piece.)

Behind the Scenes
Setting up props for a still life set can take hours, days and even weeks. A good starting point as to go about having the idea is not to think of a narrative. "I would like to paint Grandma's sewing machine because it brings back wonderful memories for my mom" shouldn't be the way to start a still life project. One has to, in fact, think of the objects visually.  The first thing your audience sees would be the colours, then how the objects intertwine with each other.  Three seconds is all you have before your viewer decides to stay or walk away from your piece.

I began Spring Picnic with a traditional chinese thermal flask. The Clementines were in season at the local supermarket, and so were the plum branches at the flower truck parked outside school.  Slowly, an image of a typical Springtime scene in maybe China or Japan began to emerge. A schoolmate mentioned that the scene reminded her of her ice skating adventures in Canada. Go figure!! And thank you to another schoolmate from Japan who gave this piece its title!

To keep the Plum flowers alive, I attached wet cotton balls 

to the base of the branch and GLADly wrapped it.

The idea or gathering of items took three days. And the setting up, another 3 hours.  Here's the clip showing the set-up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtykGx4sSms


Drawing Stage
I spent about 3 hours getting the measurements for the main elements down.  Here is a sped-up clip of that session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LqgdLL-RgY

Dead Colouring phase is where a 2-tone colour is put in place.  

After which, I take the art to a full finish. 

A Very Short Spring Break - part 2

So what did I do during the 2nd week of the very short break?  Plein Air painting!! All thanks to the fantastic sunny weather we've been having. I'm gearing up for the landscape painting workshop that I'll be assisting this coming summer. If you've missed seeing these on my Facebook Art Page, here's a look at some of what I did. 

Me and my trusty easel

 At Piazza del Duomo

On Via dei Neri

 Skyline of Florence from Ponte San Nicolo

Me and my trusty easel

If you are interested, here's a playlist of some of the time-lapse videos I did.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfRZA5YoSyNWYzjl5QSnosJ5Njht3FEmv

Don't forget to subscribe and share! 

A Very Short Spring Break - part 1

The Spring term begins shortly. The 2-week break came and went. 

During the first half of week one, I did my fair share of museum hopping in 2 cities - Rome and London. There is a special Sargent show at the National Portrait Gallery in London which will end during the course of the next trimester. So best to go during the Spring Break. And the verdict? I'm glad I went! And I'm grateful that London is a stone's throw away from Florence - only 2 hours gets you there on Ryanair. 

I was reminded during the last lecture of the Winter 2015 term of how Sargent was privileged enough to travel around the world to see original paintings.  Back then, the internet was not available, so one would have to travel to see great works of art.  And even now with the availability of coffee table books and online jpeg images, none of these come close to viewing the actual works.  I wasn't going to let this slip by. It was my first Sargent show and I was absolutely thrilled.  

Titled Portraits of Artists and Friends, the pieces here were more loose and experimental. Different from his formal commissioned works.  This allowed me to see how far Sargent could push his style.

Here are the highlights of my trip:

I did part of the Roma Antica way. One of my favourite pieces is in 

St. Ignatius Church which houses the frescoes of Andrea Pozzo. 

 

Big Ben across from St James's Park. 

The National Gallery, London, has a collection of over 2,300 paintings from id 13th century to 1900. 

John Singer Sargent's Show inside the The National Portrait Gallery. 

This piece, Sir Frank Swettenham I, isn't part of the special show which 

explains why I am able to take this photo. This work is similar to the one inside 

the Singapore National Museum.

In the evenings when the museums are closed, I'm glad the theatres aren't. 

This is inside the elaborate Lyceum Theatre where the Lion King is about to start.

There was a Singapore-Malaysian restaurant in chinatown called 

Rasa Sayang serving South East Asian food that I miss!