Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2018 i Artists Magazine

This issue of Artists Magazine raises the curtain on artists who take inspiration from the performing arts and who channel a sense of theatricality in their work. We meet the oil painter Melora Kuhn, whose tableaux exude a theatrical grandeur (page 58). We sort through the complex exhibition history of Degas’ Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen, which is a three-act drama unto itself (page 66). The performer Charles Busch discusses why he admires a painting by Toulouse-Lautrec depicting a less glamorous side of theatrical life (page 112). In our “Crossroads” column, we speak with a theatrical artist of a different sort, the award-winning set designer Christine Jones (page 16). Elsewhere in our pages, several articles focus on drawing and sketching. Gigi Chen offers an introductory lesson on floral drawing in graphite…

few colors provoke quite as visceral a reaction as scarlet. In the world of theater, the pomp and ceremony of performance are centered on the invocation and manipulation of heightened emotions, so it makes sense that many of theater's most iconic trappings—such as the plush seats and the all-important velvet curtain—are often bright red. The color helps to charge our imagination and anticipation, communicating that we've entered a space apart from everyday life, where drab colors do not exist. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's The Box With the Gilded Mask, originally designed for a play program, perfectly captures the emotional essence of the color. The profusion of scarlet lends the lithograph an almost macabre air, with the background all the more striking for being juxtaposed against its urbane subject dressed entirely in…

Basic Black—and More Black India ink is your go-to. It’s pigment-based, lightfast, permanent and waterproof. But if you want to go beyond black, cartridge pens let you swap out colors with ease. No need for an old-school ink well. An “oops” can be an opportunity. No Take-Backs With pen and ink, you can’t undo a stroke. Here’s what to do instead. Pencil first. DIY Ink You can make ink by boiling the fruits of oak or black walnut trees. 1. Look for the darkest fruits that drop to the ground. 2. Bring them to a boil in water and then simmer them for four to six hours, adding water as needed. 3. Pour the liquid through a cheese cloth to strain—twice. 4. Add a bit of ethyl alcohol (to kill…

As you work on a color study, you will probably build up so much paint that new paint won’t be easily applied. Should this happen, use your stand oil. Take a small container and pour a bit of stand oil in and then add a small amount of mineral spirits. The formula will be about three parts stand oil to one part mineral spirits. You may have to adjust, depending on your painting. Dip your brush into this mixture and then into your oil paint. This should allow you to adjust your colors more easily.…

Danny Gregory can remember the first critic he ever met—his seventh-grade art teacher. Given an assignment to draw a bird, Gregory had been inspired. He filled his paper with not just one bird but dozens. Around those, he drew a landscape, complete with trees and a river. Proud of his accomplishment and energized by the assignment, Gregory excitedly turned it in—only to see it returned with an F. The assignment, the teacher explained, was just to draw a bird, nothing else. Although Gregory may not have put much stock in the opinion of this particular critic, his lessons—that there’s a time and a place for art and that artists should just do what they’re told—stubbornly took root. It wasn’t until decades later, when he was in his late 30s and…

One way to support a studio practice is through illustration work. For those who have good drawing skills, illustration can be a natural next step, but be advised—drawing and illustration are different. Illustration may involve drawing, but it also serves a purpose beyond itself. A drawing may stand alone, but an illustration explains, explores or expands upon a topic or theme. KNOW YOUR STYLE Few illustrators can design for everyone. Notice the aesthetic in your work. Do you see yourself drawing warm, welcoming images for children? Do you like to make stylized pictures of shoes and jewelry? Do you prefer the chimerical world of fantasy? Do you gravitate toward accurate renditions of objects and events? Do you like to manipulate photographs and add decorative touches? Each of these preferences will…

“Jane Avril Leaving the Moulin Rouge perfectly expresses the feeling so many performers share of leaving the warmth and color of the theater and moving against the wind in the stark real world. I’ve always identified with the haunting figure of the dancer and chanteuse Jane Avril—pale, angular and devoid of theatricality when away from the safety of the spotlight.”CHARLES BUSCH Actor, Playwright, Director…

LEA COLIE WIGHT LESSON: “COLOR AND LIGHT” Lea Colie Wight is a realist painter and the author of the newly available book Foundations of Classical Oil Painting. Born in Philadelphia, she worked primarily in pastel and printmaking until the late 1990s, when she began to work in oil. Her work has received numerous awards, appeared in various publications and been featured at venues including the Butler Institute of American Art, in Ohio; the Customs House Museum and Cultural Center, in Tennessee; and the National Arts Club, in New York City. For more information, visit leawight.com. DONOUGH O’MALLEY BUSINESS OF ART: “THE DRAW OF ILLUSTRATION” Donough O’Malley, an Irish illustrator and designer with over 17 years of experience, is currently based in the United Kingdom. Working for clients and taking part…

“Edwin Austin Abbey [1852–1911]. He’s well known by aficionados of Golden Age illustration but not by the general art public. He was an American expatriate whose work spanned illustration and easel painting, and his originals are primarily held in the vaults of the Yale art museum. We need a big retrospective and a big book on his work.” JAMES GURNEY ARTIST “LESLEY DILL [1950–], MARIE WATT [1967–] OR JACQUELINE BISHOP [1955–].” CHERYL K. SNAY CURATOR OF EUROPEAN ART, SNITE MUSEUM OF ART, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME “Agnes Martin [1912–2004].” ELIZABETH OSBORNE ARTIST “AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS [1848–1907].” XAVIER F. SALOMON PETER JAY SHARPE CHIEF CURATOR, THE FRICK COLLECTION “The Pennsylvania-based pastelist G. Daniel Massad [1946–]. His still lifes are a kind of otherworldly cross between the somber works of 17th-century Spanish artists…

“Often one or more legs of my plein air easel sink into the ground, so I put plastic lids from peanut butter jars under the legs for a sturdier, more reliable surface to support my easel. I also keep spares in my kit for water dishes, mixing palettes and other uses.” For a chance to win a month of free access to Artists Network TV, email your favorite art hack to info@artistsmagazine.com with this subject line: “Art Hacks.” Submissions may be edited for length and clarity.…

STEP 1 Start with an outline of the basic shapes. Think of the rose as petals bursting from a tightly encased bud. Draw from the middle with smaller petal forms, gradually making them larger as you continue outward. Avoid even rows and overlap the petals. The stem should be sturdy and thick, and the leaves should be randomly spaced, facing different directions. The outline for this rose is Tuscan red; the leaves and stem are leaf green. STEP 2 Lay down a base color of cream, saving some outer edges for highlights. Keep your pencil sharp, and stroke in a uniform direction for each petal. STEP 3 Begin adding depth by gradually darkening the rose with dark chrome yellow. Remember to keep your pencil sharp and stroke in the direction…

These days most illustration work is submitted electronically. That requires illustrators to be adept at photographing or scanning work. Once the image is properly digitized, you may need to make color corrections in Photoshop or another program because colors alter when moving from analog to digital configurations. Also, most businesses have size specifications for printing, which often require altering the file size while maintaining the necessary dpi or ppi. The abbreviations dpi and ppi mean “dots per inch” and “pixels per inch.” Both terms refer to the printer’s output resolution and, for practical purposes, are interchangeable (the term “dpi” remains although, these days, “ppi” is generally more accurate). The higher the number of pixels per inch, the greater the clarity and resolution of the image. Typical size for print-quality images…

Contrapposto describes a category of pose that artists have favored for thousands of years. Even though “contrapposto” is an Italian word, the earliest sculptures that depict the human body posed in this specific stance date back to the 5th century B.C. in classical Greece. The typical contrapposto pose shows the counterposing of various segments of the figure: The pelvis and rib cage are tilted in opposite directions, and one leg is straight while the other is bent. This deliberate counterposing can contribute various expressive qualities to a figure. It can aid the artist in achieving a sense of movement and elegance, and it can also help to reveal the psychology and emotional life of a subject. NOT CONTRAPPOSTO To better understand contrapposto, we can start by looking at an example…

As a subject for artists, the rose never seems to lose its fresh appeal. Viewed with an eye to shape and form, it’s a lovely bundle of petals that splays outward and upward from the stem. The base looks almost like a rounded cup or bowl. Moving away from the base, the petals open wider, with the stem holding up the whole structure. Every rose is unique, but when depicting any particular rose, some common principles apply: • I recommend drawing roses from the inner petals outward, but you must remember to consider perspective; unless you’re looking straight down at the rose, the center of the bloom should be off-center in your drawing. Even with a bird’s-eye-view, real-life variations will tend to push the innermost petals off-center.• Details are important.…

1 Picture a bicycle leaning against a wall, a rubber ball in the grass, a half-eaten cupcake. All those images convey human (or animal) presence. Compose a painting or drawing that sets the stage for live interaction without actually showing it. 2 Studio models simply cannot hold certain poses—for example, diving into a pool, leaping from a dance floor, jumping to shoot a basket. That’s where photographs come into play. Shoot at least 20 action photos of a particular activity that you can refer to for a painting or drawing. 3 A gesture drawing emphasizes the pose and action of a figure. Google "gesture drawings by masters" for inspiration—then make your own gesture drawing. Limit your time to enhance freshness and spontaneity. 4 Cueva de las Manos (Cave of the…

Subject Who are some people (or pets) whose appearance you know as well as your own? Choose a few as subjects. Pose List some activities you can picture your subject engaging in. Will you try to catch this person or pet in a candid pose or have them sit for you? Materials and Gesture Manet's back-and-forth pencil strokes convey gesture as well as the values of the fur. What drawing implement and what kind of strokes will you use? STROKING THE CAT Although Édouard Manet (1832–1883) made waves with the stark shading in his paintings, his combination of light and dark pencil strokes in A Cat Curled Up, Sleeping displays a more conventional balance of values.…

SURFACE: • stretched canvas OIL PAINTS: • magenta• permanent rose or quinacridone red• cadmium red deep• cadmium red medium or cadmium scarlet• cadmium orange or cadmium yellow deep• cadmium yellow light or cadmium lemon• cadmium green light• viridian or phthalo green• cerulean blue• ultramarine blue• dioxazine purple• cobalt violet deep• yellow ochre• Indian yellow• burnt sienna or burnt umber• black• titanium white BRUSHES: • Silver Brush No. 1003 size 6 extra-long bristle filbert• Silver Brush No. 1034 size 4 long bristle filbert OTHER: • nitrile or vinyl gloves• odorless mineral spirits or Gamsol• stand oil…

The line between the shoulder and the arm is broken by a ridge, and the collarbones are gone. Her stance is relaxed, her hips tilted and her shoulders slightly askew. A bronze cast of a wax sculpture by Edgar Degas (1834–1917), Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen, produced by Adrien A. Hébrard’s foundry in 1922, was recently on view at the Met Breuer in New York City. A few additional casts from this wax statue reside in museums and private collections around the world, and the actual wax sculpture of the dancer can be viewed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. In the museums, passersby stop and stare, gazing at the dancer’s rigid body, but the statue’s history might not be what they think. As in a carnival funhouse…

Viewing a painting by Calvin Chih Hao Teng is like seeing two distinct works of art in one. Stand close, and the work is full of texture, with fluid lines merging into larger organic shapes, flecks and splashes of color. Soft white mists obscure faint forms adjacent to bold, high-contrast strokes. Stand at a distance, and the painting becomes a sweeping vista of jagged peaks emerging from dense clouds. Teng’s vistas radiate an authenticity equal to realistic depictions of actual landscapes, but they’re entirely abstract, emanating from the painter’s imagination. “My work, which is heavily inspired by nature, is figurative, yet abstract,” says Teng. AMBIGUOUS NATURE The artist’s rural studio lies in a peaceful mountain area near Taichung, Taiwan. “I can’t live in the city,” he says. “It possesses too…