quoting Picasso and enjoying a Beckham eye candied weekend!

Pablo Picasso quoted "The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls"

Talking of washing,  the washing machine at home broke down.

our 20th floor sky garden roofing almost flew off with the kind of wind one can imagine blew Dorothy of the Wizard of Oz into the kingdom of the 2 witches of East and West!

All golf games were rudely interrupted …..

Day in and out, households in flood prone areas pray they wouldn't   have to seek refuge in storm shelters! 

Oh The skies have been pounding us with thunders and merciless onslaughts of pelting rain non stop! 
Oh my besotted rain watching brain cursed at the skies and went muttering, pleading to Mother Nature to hold off her washing for awhile! 

.....until that is I came across a most captivating photo of David Beckham online and all thoughts of the weather flew off to cuckoo's nest and David mania took over michelles' ipad ~ LOL

Isnt he just such a hunky dory eye candy  for the weekend ? :

                               

so yes Picasso was so very right when he said  "The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls"

brilliant aye aye. 

link to michelle's Beckham attempt process at Picasa

Study of Proportions with William L Maughan~ michellechoongkhoo

Very interesting and after checking it out…….oooooh, it does compute….heh heh heh

My understanding of his writings on pgs 60-64 as summarized:
1. placement of the eye is ½ way measurement from top of head to chin
2. the distance from chin to bottom of nose, distance from nose to brow, distance from brow to hairline are all equally spaced 1/3rd of the face

armed with that guideline…..I just had to draw a profile of eddie reading his newspapers….not sure he liked my faithful renditions of all his lines but hahahaha he wouldnt know anyway that the photo is based on him ~

For trying to get the facial anatomical proportions right is one thing, getting the realism correct,,,,,hahahahaha, now that is entirely another long journey ….

" ……Often it has been noted that the more a person does a particular task, the easier that task becomes. This is not because the task becomes any less difficult but because the person's ability to do more increases……" William L Maughan in his book THE ARTIST'S COMPLETE GUIDE TO DRAWING THE HEAD on chapter putting it all together, pg 121

So I will drink to that cheerful optimistic advise~ and plod along into the 2nd month of my 2011 Project……still going strong, hee hee

Happy City Day to KLites and Malaysians…..

next is to study anatomical proportions of nudes….daddy darling, dont worry I wont attempt frontal shots….too shy for that, hahahahahah

here is where I had some fun fooling around with a dear fren Poh Ai's funny FB photo shot where supposedly her darling Hugo was the star….but as she pointed out, I certainly didnt draw Hugo at all well…..

I mean dont blame me, who can when there is this perfect tush buttock to focus on ?

a prelude of new found joyful adventure to discover over the chinese new year….heh heh heh

Nothing is original?~ michellechoongkhoo

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photos, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: ‘It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.”

- Jim Jarmusch

And so on such a rainy cool Sunday, what is the best thing to do?
Copy from H EDWARD BROOKS'S SHORT POSES, CHARCOAL ON TONED PAPER
and back study with drapery….. huge thanks indeed for his detailed instruction~
An excellent and generous artist ……..If he is here in Msia, I would jump at the chance to study with him~

After all the exercises above, what is the next step?
Of course some dramatic self portrait….hahahaha
Note to self, always choose a photo that is a side profile or 2/3rd turn for pencil work!

learning from William L Maughan~michellechoongkhoo

after 2 days practising with my 2B pencil…..it is time to open up William L Maughan's book "The Artist's Complete guide to DRAWING THE HEAD" which I bought from Amazon.com a few months back……

Amazing stuff, simple instructions….
I wanted to improve on my edges and shadows because I notice that with 2B alone, despite trying to incorporate tonal values, it does not quite give me the effect I wanted~

This is today's effort from learning how to use 3 charcoal pencils of dark, medium, light and following William's instructions on page 26 "The Shadow Shapes and Their Edges"…..

What a great investment it was to buy the book…..

what with all the online tutorials, books, blogs, youtube… it is so much easier to find art tutorials that way than it is to find advertisements for local art teachers!

I sometimes wonder why art teachers dont embrace modern technology to really reach out to their prospective students? 

profile w pencil~michellechoongkhoo

I always use a camera to check my work….bec it never lies!

A quick check before uploading made me realize that the eyes were a tad off alignment!


This was after making the corrections~

This was before making the corrections~

The story behind my portrait of the girl by the candlelight~michellechoongkhoo

It all started with this video by Jean Pederson on how she add layers n using dry brush technique to "lift " paint off to demonstrate the most dramatic eyes in watercolor I hv ever ever seen.

WOW….WOW…WOW isnt it?

And so the quest started for me to find a suitable image that I can practise on….

I found this photo of a very mesmerizing girl in red with the play of light from the candle~

I only realized how much I adore doing portraiture after completing the above painting.

I also discovered , much to my surprise that I do have the patiance after all, to continually work on one single piece of art, examining each layer's work, poring over the nitty gritty details again and again and yet again!

I almost didnt want to stop rendering and editing, re-editing.

The whole process took 4 days, in between waiting for it to dry, adding, taking away shades, rubbing out, fine tuning the eyes , the skin tones, the hair….I could not believe that the tedious process did not even deter me, on the contrary it inspired me.

I even found it artistically challenging~ spurs me to push myself…hahaha

I also found that it is so true that in watercoloring, one only needs the 3 primary colors to create subtle shades of almost any other possibilities of colors.

And I am beginning to realize that I do have favourite colors after all….permanent rose, cadmium yellow, raw umber, teal and cobalt blue are a must have staple colors in my palette now.

Today, an ex-colleague asked why there is any need to do research online when I am already attending art tuition ….

Aaaah, my dear Teresa…

because there is such a vast world of art genres out there to learn from...

because there so many techniques available to experiment with once we found out about them ….

because there is unlimited unimaginable new stuff that varous other artists have done and are generously sharing online...

because I am in search of artful expressions…in a hurry to reconnect with my inner artistic soul…and I cant sit still twiddling my thumbs what to paint only once a week…

plus because it is so much fun and I experience eye opening joy to stumble across new refreshing perceptions, new refreshing ideas~~~~~~~>>>

Lastly because I wouldnt have discovered that I could do portraiture if I had not chanced upon Jean Pederson's video and admire Harold Edward Brooks art pieces~

so with a wide smile, dear dear Teresa….I browse alot online for art inspirations all the time ;D

Life is simple, Life is Good

its a wonderful world

♥ michellechoongkhoo