Reading material for the summer.

I am busy putting pile of summer literature together.  My objective for these holidays is to take some hand-picked "work" books away with me.  To work without working! The drawing board will be staying in my studio but my sketch pad, books and camera will be all be packed with loads of TLC.

Another cool new feature I've added to the right hand margin is on my bookshelf.  All the books I have featured on this bookshelf are actually physically present on my real wooden (crowed) bookshelves, some I have read. The ones I haven't are being packed.

The other part of my cunning plan is to share them with you over the coming months. Many of you may have remembered I started with Rien Poortvliet back in May. (Great news: The Gnomes is most definately still available despite rumours of the contrary... Tried and tested: I ordered an extra copy just to be on the safe side...and it arrived safely.)  

So, when I've finished the first books I will most definately post my reviews here.  

My summer pile is currently made up of 8 books directly related to art, all of which will be read with great delight.  I love reading and never seem to have the right amount of time for it. I am so looking forward to this mission...

Before saying cheerio for today, I wanted to share a photo of my next canine commission.  

Here is Anton. 

"Anton" is a stunning 4 year old Rhodesian Ridgeback with a great sense of humour and a big heart.

He's the chap in the back, the lass in the front is Gypsy.  For the wee story: I drew her 12 years ago (unfortunately before I had a good scanner... sadly no decent image of the original drawing available, sorry!)  

It was great meeting up with her again. She was 2 when I did her portrait. Had a lot more black hair, was still as tiny and still posessed the same (huge) amount of spunk!  A great lady!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Frederic Edwin Church THE 19th Century American landscape artist.

Image
Mid-term has set in and my drawing board has been cleared away until Monday next week. The time for drawing and creating seriously diminished. The time for discovering and relishing in what others have done with a mastery strangely enough increased. I'm not one for landscapes...well not until I  (virtually) saw Churches' 7 foot wide Aurora Borealis. This masterpiece is anchoring the To the Ends of the Earth, Painting the Polar Landscape  at the Peabody Essex Museum. (Runs from 8 November through 1 March, 2009.) I had to dig further. I did and... found a master.  The purpose of this post is not to bore you with my interpretation of his work, or the impact it has on me, or even to tell you that he was born in Connecticut on May 4th 1826 and died 74 years later in New York his reputation  firmly established and incredibly well respected.  The purpose is rather to let you enjoy in silence the magnificence of his work. However, before I bring on this silence, let me just throw i
Read more

Mathieu Kessels: le Deluge.

Image
One of my vivid summer memories comes in form of a neoclassical sculpture. Discreetly posed ( in Brussels' Royal Art Museum ) between Jacques Louis David's Death of Marat and the grandiose works of Rubens , "Le Deluge", by Matthieu Kessels, stopped me in my tracks. Hypnotised, I circled this work of art. Encompassing every detailed fold, hair and muscle. Desperately trying not to intrude on the intimate pain so present. Unable to look away. A sculpture so powerful and beautiful its image burned my memory . The strong balanced composition, the fluidity of the lines, the interwoven movement, the raw pain, the simple drama all quite simply... set in stone. Mathieu Kessels was born in Maastricht on the 20 May 1784, he died in Rome in on the 3rd of March 1836. A sculptor with a low profile but incredibly hypnotic works. ( b Maastricht, 20 May 1784; d Rome, 3 March 1836). Flemish sculptor. He gave up his apprenticeship as a goldsmith in Venlo to attend the Ecole des B
Read more

Rien Poortvliet, Dutch artist and illustrator well worth remembering.

Image
I proudly present Rien Poortvliet (1932- 1995) Rien was born in Schiedam, Holland. (His name may not ring a bell straight away but mention the word Gnome and bells sound, resound, loudly, happily...) Rien's "shortish" Biography His parents were strict Dutch Reformists. They had Rien's future firmly mapped out and were quite opposed to the idea of their oldest son going to study art. Rien's talent was apparent at a very early age. After finishing his primary education he went to work for an advertising agency. (Where he was able to let his talent mature and learn the "in's and out's" of the publishing world.) Poortvliet's heart really lay in illustration and it was by the end of the 1960s that he felt it was time to resign from publishing and change career. He became an independent illustrator. Not having enough work when starting out on this new journey (rings loads of loud bells for many of us out there!) he made ends meat by publishing a
Read more

Rembrandt's drawings and sketches: powerful strokes.

Image
"Elephant" . Albertina, Vienna. Black Chalk, 230x340 mm by Rembrandt in 1637. "A woman Sleeping". Brush and Wash in Bistre, 245x203 mm by Rembrandt in about 1655. Have you ever wondered who this lady actually is and (now) what the link could be with the elephant? Both are rendered by Rembrandt back in the 17th century, and through pure coincidence, I discovered who Rembrandt sketched sleeping back in 1655. This beautiful figure is very likely Hendrickje Stoffels, Rembrandt's second wife and mother to his daughter Cornelia (born in 1654). The original can be seen in the British Museum in London. Last week, a nasty virus (our youngest was its victim) kept me away from crossing my studio's threshold but luckily not from catching up on some long overdue reading. One of the books I picked up and couldn't put down was: "Rembrandt Drawings - 116 Masterpieces in Original Color" . 2007, Dover Publications, Inc. Mineola, New York. I loved it. This hardc
Read more

Grey as in grey stallion

Image
Sometimes (well actually most of the time!) my mind will ponder and "sit-on" an image, a concept for years, waiting until the time is right. Nothing different with this drawing. I shot the references back in 2011... After 5 years of pondering, my pencils have been on active duty for the last 2 weeks, working hard to get this big-new-in-between-commissions-drawing of Cornado NRW (super good German Warmblood show-jumping stallion) out of my head, on and off the board and into the world. The hard work and the strange facial expressions have paid off! All of us here in the studio are relaxed and grinning with the sweet sense of a job well done. Think I'll go and start another one ;) Grey 40x34 cm graphite on paper
Read more