Innholdsfortegnelse for December - January 2021/ No. 136 i International Artist

Welcome to the 136th issue of International Artist magazine, which was started by founder Vincent Miller in 1998 and is in its 22nd year. This magazine is written by artists for artists, and it has never lost its direction. In this issue we have five demonstrations with techniques and tips from artists around the world. International Artist has helped introduce to the world many now-famous artists. Our features with Harley Brown, John Lovett and James Gurney are an all-star lineup seen nowhere else. Our dedication to the Art of the Portrait every issue is a testament to our longstanding partnership with The Portrait Society of America. With every edition, a renaissance occurs in the pages of this magazine from masters to students. We are thrilled to be the new stewards of this magazine…

A continuing series of art competitions designed to encourage the best talent working in the world today open to any painting or drawing medium. ENTER OUR NEW ART COMPETITION CHALLENGE No. 122 People & Figures See your work published in International Artist magazine and also receive a 4-page Editorial Feature in American Art Collector, the prestigious magazine read by collectors and galleries looking for new art work in the world’s biggest art market. Winners and Finalists in our competitions don’t just win awards to hang on their walls. The real value of entering and being one of the winners is that your work will not only be seen by hundreds of thousands of readers worldwide but also by leading galleries and collectors in America, the biggest art market of all.…

Exhibitions are an opportunity for artists to make multiple sales. There is really no alternative, which makes exhibitions important. This opportunity should not be forgotten by an artist or their agent! Usually the artist is present at the opening, because the public should know you and your activities. The main way to do that is through personal appearances, which your agent can generate. Personal appearances don’t have to be at your exhibition. Theycould be a shopping centre, movie premier, car shows or public event. Themost successful “personalities” even get paid for these appearances. Whata great situation and you could do it too! A guest appearance on TV it doesn’t matter what kind of painting you do. Itdoesn’t even matter if what you do is not a high standard for this…

My home state of Tennessee is known as the “volunteer” state, which means volunteerism is in our DNA. Those who choose to volunteer understand that the giving of their time and energy not only helps others, but also, leads to great personal rewards. For instance, the Mayo Clinic has reported that volunteering decreases the risk of depression, helps you meet others and develop new relationships, and teaches valuable new skills, as well as gives people a sense of accomplishment and purpose. Many nonprofit organizations depend on volunteers to carry out their mission and goals. The fact is that they simply could not exist without volunteers. This is very true of the Portrait Society, where we have always relied on the many generous artists and educators who volunteer their time and…

Of all the things that inspire me, I am mostly drawn to painting people—portraits, figures, figures in a landscape, etc. There is a personal connection that is shared and my goal is to paint them as if you could see them breathe and feel the environment around them. I want the viewer to see them as I see them, feel the energy in that moment. When I start a painting, I don’t have a clear idea of how it will turn out. The outcome is like a blur to me and that is the exciting aspect of it. When deciding on a pose, I will look for subtleties in the transitions from shadows into the light, the play with edges as well as the color temperatures and the overall mood…

It was March and I was just starting to paint a new work. The project was ready, and it was time to start to draw on the canvas and then paint. Meanwhile, something that has been gaining momentum had just reached my country of Poland. Over night everything changed. Th is influenced my work and my painting started to change too. I paint what I feel. Everything that surrounds me has an influence on my projects, feelings and thoughts. Even what music I listen can have an impact on the painting. The pandemic found me in my small apartment where I had just built my minimalist art studio. In that 3-squaremeters I gathered everything I needed to create. Isolation was continuing, the world was changing, my painting was changing wiTheverything.…

STAGE 1 TONING THE CANVAS My canvas is toned with a wash of burnt sienna. I’m now ready to paint with the drawing in place and sealed with a thin coat of Liquin. The size of the painting is 36 by 24 inches. STAGE 2 FACE FIRST I start with the face. The entire painting’s success depends on it, so I take my time. Then I move on to the areas surrounding it, making sure that the next areas I paint are touching painted areas. STAGE 3 THE BLOCK IN Broad masses and accurate values are what’s important during the block-in stage. Details will come later. Colors can be adjusted along the way, values are much harder, so I do my best to get it right. STAGE 4 REFINEMENT The…

I consider myself a traditionalist when it comes to watercolor. I prefer to work with transparent color and let the layers of color shine through. I use a three-step process to build my layers. When working with students, I introduce this process early on. It gives them a framework with which to work. So often, we get to the middle of a painting and feel stuck, or don’t think that it is going well. The problem is, with watercolor, the layers have to be built in order of their value, and the shapes and values have to be built before we can add detail, so the painting does not look as we expect it to. This process helps to move us through that stage and complete the painting. I always…

California, USA Lunch at the Grand Bretagne, oil, 30 x 24" (76 x 61 cm) Expressive Brushwork As a contemporary realist with a career spanning three decades, Thalia Stratton’s artwork reflects her world and captures moments in time and place. Often she focuses on her travels, particularly to her ancestral home of Greece. Many of her works are also interior paintings revolving around food. “These themes lend themselves well to the creation of art, which merges my appreciation for architecture and architectural design sensibilities thereby allowing me to depict interior settings based on a culinary theme,” explains Stratton. “As a former illustrator, I am naturally drawn to the narrative; my process begins by recording a specific moment, a specific place and then transforming it into a fictional scene in order to…

Tennessee, USA Daddy’s Home, oil, 40 x 30" (102 x 76 cm) My Inspiration I love birds and I love to paint them! With feeders and birdbaths surrounding my home and painting studio, I have a daily cast of winged characters to inspire me. One beautiful day, I opened the doors to my painting studio and birds began flying inside, landing on my easel, couch and light fixtures. I felt like I was in a Disney cartoon! The idea for my popular Trespasser series was born—a series of paintings depicting birds who build nests in my canvases. Daddy’s Home is this series’ newest painting, a clever trick-of-the-eye with complicated shadows, intricate detail and passionate colors. In true Trompe l’Oeil fashion, I suggest that a pair of northern cardinals have created their…

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NANCY SANDS This is my type of painting. I’ve had the Salmon River on my bucket list of stuff to float and paint for years. Great sense of space due to effective rendering of the atmospheric and linear perspective. The distant water looks great, where it is smoother and more reflective. It loses its watery effect as it gets closer due to overworking it a bit. With water often less is more. A layered rendering is best, and for this reason requires some forethought. Just as in the video, I set things up, then do the white water, white caps or surf last. Look for a slight gradation across the surface, a green to deeper green or blue to deeper blue, keeping the gradation slight, but obvious. Then place white…

I remember not long ago when I’d have to take one of my original art works to a professional photographer downtown who’d make a costly transparency of the work. I’d get the transparency a week later and for more money airmail it to a gallery or publisher. Those receiving the transparency then had to go through their own complex stages of reproducing the image for a catalog or magazine. Now, we live in “future times” when I can take my own photo of my work while it’s just finished on the easel and have it “delivered” anywhere on Earth within minutes. And the image is much better for reproduction. What will we have 10 years from now? I’m sure us artists will still be part of the process. Getting Started…

Vincent Miller, founder of International Artist magazine, is our Chief Judge for our challenges. He has judged art for more than 40 years worldwide, including in the USA, Singapore, Australia, Canada and the U.K., to name just a few countries. In addition, he is an artist and sculptor himself. Mr. Miller works with many of the greatest living artists and art schools. He supports great art by judging our challenge program. If your art is selected you are among the elite in the world to be selected by Vincent Miller. We welcome you to submit your entries for the next challenge judging.…

Raymar’s mission and passion is to make the finest quality painting panels for professional artists. A second-generation family business, Raymar has been dedicated to the craft of fine art for more than 20 years. As a company of artists, Raymar knows quality materials are essential to advance an artist’s work and their Watercolor Aluminum Panels are no exception. Raymar’s Watercolor ACM panels are a dream come true for artists. The panels are crafted with Fabriano Artistico 140 lb., mould-made paper from Italy. The paper is mounted to Raymar’s rigid ACM panels (aluminum composite material) with a conservator’s grade pH neutral adhesive. The result is an archival watercolor support that does not warp or buckle. Mounting watercolor art can be a difficult and time consuming process. With Raymar’s watercolor panels, artists…

Alex Venezia is an artist whose portraits radiate both love and longing, in quiet scenes that find an exquisite balance between serene stillness and rousing emotion. Inspired from an early age by the work of Caravaggio and a poster he saw of John W. Waterhouse’s Lady of Shalott, 1888, Venezia’s own poetic compositions are an unmistakable nod to such historical figures, as well as other masters of intimate scenes, like the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi, whose subdued, haunting interiors reflect similar emotions of longing and loneliness. Yet, Venezia’s portraits are distinctly modern, both imaginative and full of emotional storytelling, and often inspired by the love and affection shared with his family and friends. As a rising star in the world of representational art, last year proved to be a very…

STAGE 1 ACRYLIC UNDERPAINTING I can control the main tone of the painting by using a specific tone for the underpainting. The theme of my work is mostly the human figure. I choose the colors that are easier to use to get a good skin tone—warm earthy, greenish colors are perfect for this task. Sometimes, when I want a different shade to dominate in different parts of the painting, I draw abstract geometrical figures and fill them with dominant colors. I transfer the drawing using the grid method and using watercolor pencils on the prepared foundation. STAGE 2 THE FIRST LAYER First, I focus on showing light and color, leaving the details for later. I always start my paintings similar: iris, eye, then the other eye and finally the rest…

When International Artist kindly offered me the opportunity to invite its readers into my studio to have a peek at what I was working on, I was thrilled it hadn’t come a month earlier. I was just finishing up my sixth book cover that depicted stampeding longhorns, range wars, rustlers and lots of gunplay. I was ready for something a bit different. Then, one of my Texas collectors contacted me to paint something of my choosing, as long as it was an action scene or a Native American. These assignments are what every artist in the Western storytelling genre lives for. So, I did three concept sketches for him. First was an Apache tracking scene, second a cowboy action scene and the third was a peaceful Plains Indian moonlit scene.…

I enjoy painting a variety of subject matter to stay sharp and constantly learn new methods, colour mixtures and explore different compositions. Interior scenes are a good challenge as the lighting is such a crucial element when painting an image that is convincing to the viewer. The light also adds an additional element of interest and can evoke emotion in subtle ways. In this particular piece, The Great Debate, I tried to capture the play of strong luminous sunlight streaming through a window illuminating the dark room, washing away some colours while contributing to the vibrancy of others. Th is scene has a wide range of light intensities from sun drenched to very dimly lit areas. The sunlight completely changes the colours and even at times, the shapes of objects…

Essex, UK After You, oil, 48 x 36" (122 x 91 cm) My Inspiration I’ve been working on this painting during long weeks of lockdown isolation. Obsessive questions were swirling in my head: What if we all are wiped off from the Earth by this pandemic virus? What will be left after us? After you? An empty wooden stretcher with no canvas on it because there is nobody left to paint a new work on it? Your phone charger? A daylight bulb from your studio? Sunglasses? For how long are we here? Is there any time left to paint a new work? With no answer I just kept working on this painting…If a world disaster comes and mankind disappears, then powerful nature will take over empty places and assimilates any elements…

WHERE DO YOU LIVE? WHICH READER ARE YOU? FOR OUR BEST DEAL ON 6 ISSUES SUBSCRIBE ONLINE IN YOUR LOCAL CURRENCY AND SAVE 1. Which country/region? Our Homepage will ask you to confirm your country/region from the drop down menu. 2. Which currency? Once you have confirmed your location our site will show you prices in the currency for your region. 3. Register your subscription. Click on the subscription area and enter your details 4. Your account. Once you have subscribed you’ll be able to revisit our site and look up the status of your subscription. you can get 6 issues a year of the Digital Magazine with all the same amazing content as the printed version delivered to your inbox wherever you live in the world. MONEY BACK GUARANTEE…

Connecticut, USA Lily on Pond, oil, 24 x 24" (61 x 61 cm) My Inspiration This picture is full of my longing for my hometown and reminiscent of my childhood. Since I left my parents at the age of 10, I lived with my grandparents. For me, at that time, homesickness was a child’s secret. When I was homesick, I would go into nature to see the clouds gathering and dispersing, and I would get closer to nature as if the weeds also understood my homesickness. With my parents, I would sit by the pond full of lilies, putting my feet in the pond, feeling the water and chatting while admiring the lilies. I often dream about my childhood, so this work is more a mental image than just a…

FULL COLOR DIGITAL PRINT-OUTS Use the Official Entry Form over the page ONLINE Visit our website to upload digital files of the images you want to enter and pay for them using our secure server. www.internationalartist.com To upload your entries you need to prepare your image files to be at least 400 pixels at the shortest edge. Once you are in the Official Online Entry page simply select which challenge you wish to enter then follow the prompts and finally pay the entry fee via our secure server. There you can also see other entries received along with past winners of our competitions. CHALLENGE ENTRY FORM SCHEDULE AND CLOSING DATES HINTS FOR PHOTOGRAPHING YOUR ARTWORK Set your camera to the highest quality available. Shoot your paintings dead square on and…

Louis Carr Sunday Shoes, oil, 33 x 24" (84 x 61 cm) INSPIRATION The model for my commissioned painting, Bailey, is quite a precocious child with bright curiosity and an elegance I don’t often see in children. During our sessions, she maintained a bridled excitement and gentle confidence in anticipation of posing for her portrait. Classic child portraits challenge me the most; there is a difficulty in portraying beauty that feels truthful to the tradition without being contrived or cliché. Part of my inspiration is rising to this challenge. My goal is to have the viewer feel this gentle confidence and reconnect to their childlike spirit that, perhaps forgotten, still exists in the core of our identity. ARTIST PATH At a very early age I wanted to become an artist.…

Part 3 6 PAINTING PITFALLS TO AVOID IN STILL LIFE Any genre can have a blah look if you don’t know how to get more impact in your painting, but still life could be the hardest to make interesting. It’s critical to choose the right combination of objects and have a strong design. In this demonstration, I’ll walk you through all the steps I took to avoid pitfalls to get the most impact in this painting. WHAT OBJECTS TO SELECT FOR MORE IMPACT When selecting my objects I was thinking about contrast because contrast provides the most visual impact. I chose to stack my objects from the back to the front going from tall to small. Having the tall slender vase in the back contrasted with the scale of the…

I love color! Love, love, love it! Bold, saturated, luscious color! It can have such a positive impact on people. Combine color with design and contrast and that’s the essence of my artwork. Even as a child, I was fascinated by optical art and the hippy-dippy flower power art of the 1960s. As I grew older, I learned about fractals and mathematical designs that had a major impact on the type of art I am known for now. Most people are surprised to learn that I started out as a portrait painter. Even though I had all this color and design stuff running around in my head, I was urged to paint realistically and led to believe that my abstract creations were too colorful and whimsical to be considered serious…

GOOD REFERENCE Work from life when you can, especially if you’re a landscape artist. Painting in plein air will benefit you in so many ways to become a better artist. It will stretch your ability to make quick decisions, improve your compositions, learn to deal with distractions, simplify your values and simplify the entire scene. Squinting will help you immensely to simplify. When you work in the studio composing a painting, work from photos that you’ve taken yourself. Move things around to create a work of art, don’t just re-create a photo. SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY Take out as much of the extraneous detail and break down your painting into masses. Not to worry, you can add all those lovely details down the road…they’ll wait. Get your masses to read with…

When I was a kid I loved to draw cars and my favourite part was the wheels. I’d draw around a coin and they always looked so good! Unfortunately, the more I drew the more I realised drawing around a coin had its limitations. One of the most useful drawing techniques I was taught was to draw a circle in perspective. We will go over that technique here, and then examine its application to our paintings. So after all this you might wonder, why bother learning to draw circles in perspective at all? The answer is to understand just how perspective affects the shape of a circle. Once you have drawn a few circles that way, you will understand and remember how perspective influences the shape of a circle. You…

Australia Capital Territory, Australia, Colleen in Blue, oil, 24 x 16" (61 x 41 cm) My Inspiration This portrait is part of an ongoing series of portraits inspired by the women around me. Colleen in Blue is a portrait of my younger sister, Colleen, a very talented Australian figurative artist who is a constant source of inspiration and support. My intent with this piece was to portray Colleen’s love and academic pursuit of classical art, drawing inspiration from 17th-century Dutch influences after we saw a Dutch Masters exhibition together at the Art Gallery of NSW. Colleen has been such a positive influence on me. I truly admire her work and her tireless dedication toward her growth and practice as an artist. I hope with this portrait to communicate the special bond…

We’re here on the Californian Coast at the northern end of Big Sur at a beautiful spot called Garapatta. We’re going to do an 8-by-16-inch oil painting, which is very achievable in a single session. I utilize this light direction sphere pen, which is a little invention of mine to help determine the exact angle of light and the way patterns are being created by the light, the form and my viewpoint. The angle of the light changes more than you’d think, even over a relatively small distance across the landscape. I start with a preliminary value sketch where I use incremental grey markers to map out my painting. This is really useful and I encourage all my students to sketch before they paint. I start with pen, drawing a…

The Virtual Art AcademyR Apprentice Program A structured four-year program of 192 lessons that will help you systematically build up your foundational skills from the ground up to help you master painting. A key element of this program is series of 350+ assignments specially structured to help you build your skills, and an Online Campus where you can meet other students from all over the world to share your artistic journey, and support you along the way. Each lesson includes an overview of the principle or technique, one or more short videos to demonstrate the skill you are learning, many examples of how to do it, and one or more assignments to assist you in assimilating the material. Lessons For All Skill Levels The Apprentice Program is designed for all…