Diattaart Blog

The artist was born in Peru in 1963. He has traveled all around the world and I just now found out about him after seeing prints of his work many times. He is a wonderful painter of light specializing in coastal scenes in Europe with superb touches of color in the flowers he paints.

He grew up in very artistic family as his parents were a concert musician and an operatic composer.

The family moved to the U.S. only in 1976 after living in England and Vienna.

Despite his teachers and professors encouraging him to follow a career in art, he chose to do business management instead after attending Rutgers University.

Has studied with Anatoly Ivanov and Ovanes Berberian and numerous other artists at the New York Art Students League.

Opened his own gallery in 1988.

His style is described as Romantic Realism.

I enjoy this artist’s work because just looking at his paintings makes me want to walk into them. The sunlight is perfect, the flowers are in full bloom, and the water still and quiet. Ahhhh! If one can’t be in Europe, settle for one of his originals or prints!

Below is a slide show with the works of the artist, incredible coastal scenes!

Another slide show featuring works by the artist.

Have a great day and at least draw something!

regards,

D

I wanted to remind everyone that the Richard Schmid Fine Art Fundraiser is coming up soon! Its your chance to get some great art and a cheap price and support a great cause. The artists receive a small portion but the majority of the money goes to the Rist Canyon Volunteer Fire Department. Richard used to live in the area and started this auction 16 years ago selling artworks auction style out of the back of his truck.

Now auction takes place in an empty farmers field with plenty of parking and has the atmosphere of a small carnival with a few cars to look at, some great individual food stands selling everything from turkey legs to bbq to sugary snacks. Usually a few dancers and other live entertainment. Its really a great event, I have been going since 2006 and look forward to it every year. Most years Molli Schmid is there, sometimes Nancy Guzik(the wife of Rich Schmid) and sometimes Richard is there himself.

This artist Lori Forest is a great painter of the landscape and animals of Colorado.  She has a painting included in the auction and I can’t wait to view the painting in person. Art always looks better in person as you can see the buildup of paint and textures.

The Richard Schmid auction takes place this coming Sunday and I hope  to see you there!  If you can’t make it you can sign up to bid online however.

Here is the link to the auction’s site.

http://www.richardschmidauction.com/

The artist has lived in the state for 25 years. She studied both art and geology at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. The artist says her greatest teacher has been just observing and painting from life. I really enjoy her portrayal of wildlife and mountains in various lights.  An awesome painter of horses. Horses can be tough to draw and paint, sometimes looking a bit stiff, hers are full of life and explode across the canvas.  Very similar to other great equestrian artists like Howard Terpning, Frederic Remington, or Charles M. Russell.

This artist makes me want to get out and paint the wonderful sunsets and mountains of Colorado!

Hope to see you Sunday at the Richard Schmid Fine Art Auction!

Below is the painting the artist has entered for Richard Schmid’s Auction, the play of light and composition are excellent! The painting is titled IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT.

CREATE!

D

This artist thinks of himself as a narrative painter concerned with nailing down the emotion of a scene rather than a likeness. He is more concerned with tone and color rather than having the painting be technically perfect.

The artist spent most of childhood growing up in Belgian Congo in Africa and was born in 1952.

Earned his BFA  from the Minneapolis Institute for the Arts and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Also has received two fellowships. Studied also at Oxford in England.

The artist considers his work a mixture of German Expressionism, French modernism (in a style of Picasso paintings from his Blue and Red period) and lastly a Renaissance style of painting.

Starts most paintings with a warm undertone and then adds muted color on top.

Loves patterns, especially in clothing (my favorite aspect of the artists’ work) , and its easy to see he was influenced by Gustav Klimt for the flat abstract patterns exhibited in the clothing he paints.

Below is a clip of the artist giving a brief watercolor demo.

Another clip from a figurative show the artist was in during 2010. It features himself as well as other artists.

Have a thought, paint the thought, then form it into a narrative. There is far more to painting than just getting a likeness.

Happy creating!

D

Still looking for artists who make the usual subjects extraordinary I really enjoy the use of glass in this artists’ work. Glass is perfect for water is it shows both translucency and reflective powers of the glass. The artist uses a variety of glass and layers it to create special optical effects.

As a viewer the grey pieces remind one of a calm day out at sea just relaxing, perhaps waiting for a quiet rainstorm. In contrast the pieces with dark shapes at the bottom and light or white shapes on top remind of a wave splashing and show tremendous movement. And that is on computer screen, imagine looking at the work in person with the various light sources reflection it must be like a live sculpture.

The artist is in museums in Australia, Denmark, as well as England.

She is inspired by her native Australia and thinks glass is perfect for capturing the vast space and distance. Very similar to the works of Rackstraw Downes whom I just wrote about. Just looking at the design gives the viewer a sense of vast space.

Went to University of Australia at Canberra majoring in visual arts and more specifically glass. She also has done several residency programs.

I applaud this artist for her sense of design and for taking landscapes to another level. Glass seems to be a fun medium and the fact that you can make such moody ideas come to life makes me want to explore the medium.

Always create!

D

This artist is another very creative person that started out in the animation industry and has blossomed into a fine painter of urbanscapes. Many of his paintings have no horizon line.  He also loves to exaggerate color. For an artist who paints almost the exact opposite check out my earlier post on Jeremy Mann from the John Pence Gallery in San Fransisco, Mann uses mainly muted greys with no hard edges. Both achieve great paintings but with different moods.

The artist was born and raised in New York City. He also attended college at New York City University . These experiences have led him to love the city, so that is what he paints. Vivid color and fun patterns make the boring lines of straight buildings pop from the canvas or paper. The artist paints in oils but also uses gouache as well.

He now lives and works mainly in the D.C. area and has received many commissions.

Another great painter who makes boring buildings come alive is Francis Livingston. Try a cityscape today using greys and blended edges, or  vivid color with flat patterns and see the differences you can make in painting  two versions of the same building. Its remarkable the difference in mood the painter can make.

Regards,

D

were used to make this piece. I used photos and newsprint from 3 books, womens magazines, and entertainment magazines. Sophia was the IT woman back in the day starring in many pictures as a sex symbol.

As you can see included in the photo montage are some images of her when she was very young and even a photo of her at her first communion.

It is glazed with triple deck by art deco. On other large pieces I have used famowood glazecoat but its far too toxic and messy, I highly recommend this product which you can buy on ebay or amazon, I haven’t seen it art supply stores. You just spread it on, I used a polyester brush, and it dries within 1 hour. Very nice and gives photos that super glossy look you might see in a magazine.

Again this piece took some time as I first drew the caricature in charcoal and then added the circles one at a time until I felt I captured her.

Nearly 5,000 circles were used, to be exact 4,950!

Long live Sophia Loren and it was a pleasure to learn more about her. I always thought she was born overseas but she was born in Chicago. The newsprint for the background are all from magazine or books about her!

Keep creating!

D

this artist is great because he makes the extraordinary art. A junk yard full of tires, it can be a great work of art in this artists’ hands. Also his compositions are many times from a worm’s eye view.

The artist was born in Kent,  England in 1939 and attended Oxford University. Later he moved to U.S. and attended Yale at New Haven, Connecticut.At Yale he studied with master painter Alex Katz whom I have written about before, painter of very large heads on very large canvases.

The artist has won such awards as the genius award, a quarter million dollar paycheck for the winner.The fellowship is called the MacArthur Award.

He paints in oils and watercolors.

From a design standpoint I also love his panoramic paintings.   Its such a wide view that he uses and it makes his works seem larger than the canvas. Not much greyed out area, in fact just the opposite, but the paintings are so wide that the viewer doesn’t feel that the space is crowded. Plenty of room for the eye to move around.

He worked as an art critic before finding himself as a painter.As a critic he worked for publications such as the New York Times and Art in America.

Over the years he was worked at various colleges such as University of Pennsylvania and Parson’s School of Design.

Artist shows at the Betty Cunningham gallery and the link is below. It changes pictures every few seconds but you get the idea of how vast his picture plane is and how he tricks the viewer into seeing multiple wide views merge into one.

http://www.bettycuninghamgallery.com/get_artist.aspx

Artist is in the Museum of Modern Art Collection.

How about trying to merge your favorite 3 landscapes together in one painting. See the imagination and creativity that is necessary to produce just one work in his style.As I mentioned before he makes junk piles seem extraordinary!

Happy Painting!

D

trying to take a look at some artists capturing centuries old ideas in new ways. I really enjoy the seascapes full of mood and atmoshphere of Miya Ando. The artist tries to create quiet and abstract environments that let the viewer meditate using metals. She loves simplicity in her designs as it allows the viewer more room to interpret her dreamlike works.

Much of her seascape works include mediums like lacquer, patina, pigments, and steel.

Her is a link to the artists’ website.

http://miyaando.com/

The artist keeps a studio in Brooklyn. The red and metal piece was very unique and was  a commission given to the artist from the city of London. It was done to commemorate 9/11. She used some pieces of steel that were from the disaster that took place. Some of the steel was sanded and finished to give texture, but some of it was left just as it was found that day. Read a great PDF interview that the artist gave about making the piece below.

Click to access 11-Memorial-NY1.com_.pdf

Below an interview the artist about a piece made for Bev-Stey Soup kitchen in their meditation room.

Some footage of the artist working with steel in her studio.

A 3 minute film collaboration done with the artist titled the return of gratitude of the crane.

Try painting on metal or copper and see what you can come up with. Without color, for example Robert Longo artwork, you can get very emotionally involved. Use the steel or metal and paint on top. So you could have the silhouette of someone looking out over a bridge or just a person’s silhouette against a wall trying to get people to think about massive disasters such as the atom bomb. Alive one minute, and then burnt to a crisp in the next instant.

Happy painting!

D

When you look under her art profile at askart.com it says urban other landscape. Her studio is right in downtown New York City and she looks out over the entire city. When looking at her paintings you get the feeling of being up high. Great controlled greys to give the viewer an idea of what the New York City landscape looks like on a very sunny day.

She was born in 1958. Attended college at the State University of New York at Purchase, New York. Got a MFA from Brooklyn College in New York.

Has won many awards and grants for wonderful landscape paintings.

As an artist/ viewer I would say the best thing to learn from this artist is how she uses aerial perspective.  When viewing any of her paintings that overlook New York you get the feeling of being up very high and looking out. All done thru the use of controlled greys and blues to push things back. Also the artist doesn’t go into much detail like a Raphaella Spence, whom is a great painter, but whose work is void of emotion.

How about snapping some photos when you are up in a plane next time. Or visiting a location where you can shoot some photos to work from later. Maybe looking at the landscape from up higher will get you to try something new a la Richard Diebenkorn and his seascape/ ocean paintings. Sometimes just looking at something from a different angle will give you a fun shape to use.

Happy painting!

D

As mentioned before I would like to take a look at artists who make normal things in not normal ways. This artist was born to Italian immigrants in California and grew up working in her fathers wood shop. She has been a high school writing teacher, floral designer,  a lawyer as well, but always found time to make and create items.

One day at craft fair she saw a woman carrying a wooden bandsaw box as a purse, and her idea  was then formed. After years of making the normal wood turned bowls from large trees, ( a great show about this craft is on Martha Stewart’s Show and website) She now spends her artistic time thinking and making purses out of wood.

As you can see by her career path, she is ALWAYS LEARNING, and trying new ideas and processes. What she loves about making the purses from wood includes wood turning, designing leather, and designing metal. She constantly drawing on her sketch pad new ideas for her art which is both fantastic to look at, and like the last post Wendell Castle highly functional.

The artist is featured at http://www.circlesandsquaresf.com .

This artist should be a favorite of everyone since her art is highly functional, individualistic, and one of a kind creations that involve multiple processes of creativity.

D