Tag Archives: inspiration for artists

The artist’s role in society

30 Thursday Jun 2016

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queen-victoria-1842-1 by winterhalter

“Queen Victoria,” by Winterhalter, 1842.  Victoria’s job was to lead her people well.

Recently I’ve been thinking about professions, pay, and service.   Why do some professions pay more than others? For instance, why does a doctor get paid more hourly than a barista?  This has nothing to do with the worthwhile efforts of either of the people holding these jobs.  You could be the best barista on the planet, make the best cup of coffee in the world and serve it with pleasantness, with a design in the foam of your own making.  However, as long as you stay a barista, you will not be compensated for your time and expertise in the way that a doctor will.  Why?

Because people need doctors.  “But I need coffee!” you may exclaim.  You may feel that you need coffee, and you may be addicted to coffee, but you do not need coffee to survive.  However, if you had health issues that needed fixing, you would need a doctor.  A doctor meets a need that the world has.  Many times, a very urgent need.   There is also the skill level that is necessary to become a doctor, one that takes into account years and years of intensive, difficult study and exacting practice.  Enough practice that the doctor can then do what they do best, whether it is general practice or surgery, and feel confident enough that they will not mess up.  You can’t just wake up tomorrow and be one.  It requires decades of planning and dedication.  This service they provide to mankind makes them valuable.   No offense to Baristas here–I love coffee! 🙂

This got me thinking about art and the profession of an artist.  Why would someone become an artist?  At first glance, it seems that making art serves no direct purpose to mankind.  Does it make you healthier?  Safer?  Smarter, calmer or wiser?  Perhaps a little.  Is it simply to amuse?  To inspire?  To send a political message?  There are too many kinds of art to say that all art is for one purpose and one purpose alone.  As varied as there are people on the earth, so are the many kinds of artworks and motivations of the artists that make it.  But the highest paid artists are usually the ones with the strongest vision and best work–so in the same way that doctors are compensated for their service, artists are compensated for their vision.  The more compelling the vision, the greater the contribution to mankind.

Proverbs 29:18a of the Bible reads, “Without a vision, the people perish.”  Perhaps it is we as artists who take our profession too lightly.  It’s a lot of fun to paint, to sculpt, to create things out of your head.  This enjoyable aspect of creativity has given some artists guilt over making a profession out of something they enjoy so much.  But have we as artists ever truly stretched ourselves to find out what the capabilities of our creativity are?  Most of us are capable of far more than we imagined.  It is the job of artists, and creatives, to make this vision in the culture we live in today.  Because it’s vision, hope, imagination that make life worth living.  If you look at it that way, an artist’s job is one of the most important jobs in society of all.

Do you feel called to be an artist?  If you feel that it is a calling, then what if you thought of it also as a responsibility to the world?  That you, not doing your best, would be taking away something great that mankind would otherwise have without you.  Are you truly doing your best?  As Lera Auerbach states in her book Excess of Being: “The gap between good and great is much larger than between good and bad.”  What if you created not for the fame, accolades, fortune or respect, but out of a duty to give your best to the world?  To not think of it as an indulgent thing, but in a service-minded way.  Your art serves a purpose, a unique purpose only you can fulfill.  It is up to you to discover what exactly that is, fulfill it, and give it to the world.

What are your thoughts? Leave a comment and start the conversation!

By Jessica Libor, June 2016

 

 

 

On Rest

07 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by in art, In My Studio, Inspiration, Journeys, Uncategorized

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Vista, oil on panel (1 of 1)

Vista, oil and butterfly wings on panel, 8″ x 8″, Jessica Libor 2015

Last week, the snowstorm Jonas raged around the Northeast and I found myself trapped for 4 days, unable to move my car out of 3 feet of snow.  Most of my neighbors were in the same situation–living on a street that the city doesn’t plough!  I had my milk and eggs, and was stocked up for the storm, so I embraced the time to really spend some time painting in the studio.  For the first couple days it was great.  I was able to spend some quality focused time painting and creating new artworks, without having a time limit of having to be done by a certain time or making it to an appointment.

However, I noticed that by the 4th day my hands were tired of doing the same thing–painting all day, every day.  My eyes needed a rest from looking at the surface of a canvas so close to me.  My body needed to move around and explore past the bounds of my house.  I was stir crazy, but the desire not to waste time made me keep painting and creating.

By the time  I could move my car down the road, I couldn’t paint without pain.  I had overdone it in my zest for using every moment.  Therefore, for the next week, I had to take a rest from painting in order to get my hands back in working order.  It reminded me of the importance of balance.  In order for something to be sustainable, there has to be balance.  Life cannot be spent entirely in the studio, or else what is there to paint about?  You must experience life to paint about it.  It reminded me that rest is just as important a part in the creative process as creating is.  Rest allows the mind to be at peace, which brings unexpected creativity.

However, I find too much rest dull…my mind seeks something to accomplish, figure out, challenge itself.  And  I believe each of us is put here on earth with something great to do that only that individual can do.  The thing is to decipher what that is, what that thing is that you want to do.  Usually it has something to do with our interests and passions.  To find that passion, to corral it, and to make use of your interests in order to add value to humanity, that is a great thing.   As Lera Aurbach writes in Excess of Being, “Without desire, nothing is possible.”

 

Painting in Progress

21 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by in In My Studio, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

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This week I’ve been painting away at a new work.  It’s got lush folds and fabrics that are delicious to paint, and some mouth watering fruit that’s nestled in the hand of a figure that’s not seen in the picture.  It’s been fun playing with the different textures and colors in the painting, bringing the fabric, flesh, and fruit to light.  It’s 10×12 inches, oil on board.  No title yet.  Still got a little ways to go on it.

Work in progress by Jessica Libor, 2014

Work in progress by Jessica Libor, 2014

The Genesis of the Butterfly

03 Saturday Mar 2012

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Blue Morpho Butterfly created 1864, artist unknown

My inspiration for the next art piece strikes me, usually, when I am concentrating on what I am struck by visually or emotionally.  Sometimes, however, a beautiful inspiration strikes when it is least expected.  It could be triggered by a song, a person, a moment or memory, a story, an object, or a conviction.

Chasing Butterflies, by Berthe Morisot, oil on canvas

Ballet Dancers in Butterfly Costumes, by Edgar Degas, 1880

 Recently, I’ve begun to think about different variations of the butterfly used with the figure.  It started when I was in a flower shop a few weeks ago, and came across the most beautiful replica butterflies, each handmade with beading, shimmer, and handpainted paper wings that glistened in the sunlight.  I have a few images in my mind that will no doubt turn into a painting or two by the Spring.  While researching the topic, I came across this beautiful poetry by Victor Hugo about the fanciful origin of the butterfly:
The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers
That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings,
That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide,
With muffled music, murmured far and wide.
Ah, the Spring time, when we think of all the lays
That dreamy lovers send to dreamy mays,
Of the fond hearts within a billet bound,
Of all the soft silk paper that pens wound,
The messages of love that mortals write
Filled with intoxication of delight,
Written in April and before the May time
Shredded and flown, playthings for the wind’s playtime,
We dream that all white butterflies above,
Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,
And leave their lady mistress in despair,
To flit to flowers, as kinder and more fair,
Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies
Flutter, and float, and change to butterflies.
-The Genesis of The Butterfly

My Conversation with Steven Assael

05 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by in Artist Profiles, Inspiration, Journeys

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Homebound, by Steven Assael, oil on canvas, 60"x72"

Last year, I attended a visiting artist lecture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where Steven Assael, a New York native artist, was the guest speaker.

I was electrified at his presentation, and sat eagerly forward on my chair throughout the entire slideshow.  Seeing his work blown up large in a darkened theatre brought a new intensity to it.

D, oil on canvas, 62.5x92.5 inches, by Steven Assael 1998

What struck me about Steven’s work was the emotional pull of it.  In each of his characters that he paints, it is as if he put thier very soul into the image.  He is unflinching in depicting the relationship of the sitter and the painter, and lets you in to see the vulnerability and inner workings of his subjects.

There is also a drama, a sweet strain of sadness and mystery that runs through his work.  It seems as if he purposefully chooses unusual subjects physically, so that through his paintings he can give them a dignity and humanity that many people overlook.

Drawing by Steven Assael

After the lecture, I spoke to Mr. Assael about his work.  He was truly one of the kindest artists I’ve ever met, with a humility and quiet gravity to him, much like the work he produces.  It struck me how much you can tell about an artist by simply the work that he or she does.  In most cases, you are very much what you paint, for it comes out of the deepest place in your soul.

Nicole and James, oil on canvas, by Steven Assael, 32x20 inches, 2005

For more information about Steven Assael, check out this documentary on his work here.

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How to Paint Like the Masters: Part 6, Painting the Ebauche

03 Friday Feb 2012

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Almost-completed Ebauche stage by Joshua LaRock 2011

This post will continue our journey we began several posts ago, picking up where we left off at the last stage of rendering the drawing.  We are beginning this post with the assumption that you have in front of you a canvas with the transferred drawing on it, the very correct drawing that you’ve been working so hard on!

These are notes that I am sharing with you again from that particularly helpful workshop led by Joshua LaRock that I took at the Grand Central Academy of Art this past summer.

I remember when this day came at last, it was the beginning of the second week, and a Monday.  I was so excited to begin painting!  However, the teacher lectured for a while before we could begin…which was exactly what most of us needed.  I gained a wealth of information, without which my painting would not have improved.

We began the morning with some basic definitions, and built from there.

The Ebauche: Layer 1 of paint, a thinned down value study with mostly turpenoid and a few drops of oil.

Beginning the Ebauche, by Joshua LaRock 2011

Value: the lightness or darkness

Hue:  Color (red, yellow, green, blue)

Chroma: the intensity relative to neutral (gray)

All skintones are a mixture of yellow and red.

The plane most perpendicular (most facing) the light is the most chromatic (the most color, ignoring the hightlights).  As a form turns away from the light, the color gets darker in value and less in chroma.  The highest chromatic (color intense) colors are straight from the tube.  The hightest chroma paints are the cadmium colors.  When painting shadows, remember that black is actually a very dark blue.  On a one color object, keep the HUE (pure color) at all costs, no matter how light or dark things get.

shapeimage_6

Mandarins, 11″x14″, Joshua LaRock 2009

When setting up the pallete, try to stay organized.  Your pallette is a reflection of your mind.  Start out to the left with the yellows, then go to the reds, then the greens, and lastly blues.  Below is a list of the exact paints we used for the full pallette, in order of how they should be laid out on the pallette.

1. White

2. Lemon Yellow

3. Cadmium Yellow

4. Naples Yellow

5. Yellow Ochre

6. Raw Sienna

7. Raw Umber

8. Cadmium Orange

9. Cadmium Red

10. Venetian Red

11. Alizarin Crimson

12. Burnt Umber

13. White

14. Cadmium Green

15. Sap Green

16. Viridian Green

17. Cerulean Blue

18. Ultramarine Blue

19. Cobalt Blue

20. Violet (Dioxazine Purple)

21. Ivory Black

22. VanDyke Brown

25% Raw umber, 25% burnt sienna, and 50% black make a perfect neutral, that you can make lighter or darker with white.

As far as a medium when you are painting, I personally use Walnut oil, because it’s so environmentally healthy you could theoretically eat it and be fine.  However, the traditional method is to use linseed oil or poppy oil to mix with the paint to make it more buttery.  Poppy oil doesn’t yellow as much as linseed oil, however.

Either way you go, you DO NOT need to use an oil at this point while doing the traditional Ebauche (underpainting).  If you use too much oil with your paint at this point, then in subsequent layers, your paint will bead up.  When doing the Ebauche, use paint thinner to thin the paint, or an odorless turpenoid (natural substitute for turpentine).

When beginning painting the Ebauche, keep in mind that it is to get the overall general effect of the painting, with colors, values and feel of the work.  Don’t lose your drawing at this stage.  You can start correcting your drawing if needed.  When you paint a dark over a light, you get a chromatic rise–this is what happens when you glaze.  So overall, your ebauche should be a little lighter in value than what you want your painting to look like at the end, if you’d like to glaze over it.

Start painting the ebauche with the lights, the highest in chroma and value (for instance, typically the nose and forhead), and go darker in value and lower in chroma in the shadow from there.

Mix up a separate mixture for the shadows, and use a separate brush to keep the painting as clean as possible.

Also, mix up a separate mixture for the hair.

Protect the hight value, high chroma parts of the painting!  Get all the lights and darks established before going into detail.  For example, do a section on the forehead, side of cheek and shadow and hair, then do the rest of the face, using those sections as keys of light or darkness on the form.

Sometimes, when two complementary colors are set next to each other, they both appear brighter.  This is a similar optical effect to simultaneous contrast.  Don’t let your eyes deieve you!

Think again of sculpting, same as the drawing!  You want the picture to leap out of the canvas into life.

The legendary William Adolphe Bouguereau painted in for layers, and this was the first.  Only three more to go!  Below, check out his unfinished painting, where you can clearly see the ebauche stage showing through.

Unfinished painting by Bouguereau

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How to Paint Like the Masters, Part 5: Advice on Rendering Details in Drawing

23 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by in How To, Inspiration, Journeys

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"Antique" by Megan Byrne, Angel Academy of Art

While I was taking this workshop at GCA, I was ready to be done with drawing at this point.  I wanted to get to the fun part…painting!  There’s something so freeing and satisfying about the brush tip making marks on your canvas, and the ability to manipulate it.  However, I disciplined myself to stay on task one more day, and was surprised at how much my drawing developed in just one day of adding details.

As you work on rendering the correct values for the shadow shapes, remember that there should never be a harsh line.

At this point, you’re allowed to think about reflected light, like the kind you may see underneath the chin, or on the side of the nose, or above the eyes right below the eyebrows.  Reflected light helps support the volume you already created with your lights and darks.  Once you pass the terminator (the point where the form turns away completely from the light), all light in the shadow comes from reflected light.  This is particularly helpful to know if painting, when the reflected light may be a different color tint than the direct form light (for instance, the form light may be coming from a lamp, and the reflected light is a natural light from a window.  In that case the reflected light would be blueish, and the form light more yellow.  But I’m getting ahead of myself 🙂 )  Back to drawing!

"Maria" Final stage drawing, graphite on paper, by Jessica Libor 2011

You shouldn’t have as much information such as details and variation in value in the shadows as you do in the light.  Put in LESS reflected light than you want to.  You have to make sacrifices as an artist.  Model twenty percent of what you want to in the shadows!  It’s all about self control.  Resist the urge to exaggerate favorite details such as eyelashes.

Layer from softer pencils to harder.  The harder the pencil, the more light and precise you will be.  Compare every value.  Ask yourself, should this plane be lighter than this plane?

When rendering hair, think of it as a shining object, a single thing, not the millions of hair strands that it is.  When seen in light, it functions like a satin ribbon.   The hightlight actually runs in perpendicular to the way hair grows.  Notice the hair in the piece below.

Study of a New York Woman, by Graydon Parrish

10 Inspirational Quotes for Artists

20 Friday Jan 2012

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I thought we could take a break from the technicality of the last few posts to step back and be filled with inspiration.  These are some of my favorite quotes that get me going when I’m feeling sluggish about my work.  I hope you enjoy them and that they inspire you as well!

1.  Art is not what you see, but what you make others see. –Edgar Degas

Yellow Ballerinas by Degas

2.  Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.  –Salvador Dali

3.  Creativity takes courage. –Henri Matisse

Matisse

4.  The position of the artist is humble.  He is essentially a channel. –Piet Mondrian

5.  To be an artist is to believe in life.  –Henry Moore

6.  Every good painter paints what he is.  –Jackson Pollock

7.  An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision. –James McNeill Whistler

Whistler

Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket by Whistler

8.  The job of the artist is to deepen the mystery.  –Francis Bacon

9.  We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.  –Aristotle

10.  The way to gain a good reputation, is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.  –Socrates