Leon Golub was an awkward man who made ugly paintings. They’re about power mostly. Violence, war, and other unhappy things. I learned about Golub in art school, around the first years of the internet. What impressed me more than his large scale work and hard edged process was his collection of reference images. Golub had file cabinets full of organized reference photos. I started a file cabinet of my own, and anyone who knows me knows I don’t do things just a little bit. Like Golub, I filled several file cabinets full of potential reference photos from magazines, sketches, photographs, and a lot of stuff printed off the internet. Those files became their own goliath art project, and taught me to make time to prepare, and to organize. My work relies on intention, and until I can draw entirely from my head, my work relies on a collection of images. It also was the beginning of a continuous long lesson that eventually I need to stop collecting ideas and actually put that brush to canvas.
To put things in perspective, I spend 99% of my time thinking about a painting. I don’t mean procrastination, although that happens too. I mean before I start a painting I work out what I want to say, how I want to say it, how big it’s going to be, what colors I’m going to use, what process and style will be implemented, and where it fits in with my other work. I no longer use the internet and magazines for my references. I take photographs. I take lots and lots of photographs. For every 1 image I use as a reference photo there are 500-1000 (I’m not exaggerating) that didn’t make the cut. I work all this out, prepare, and then as soon as the brush hits the canvas the Unplanned parts begin, and Things happen. Without all that prep work I’d feel lost, but because I have something to work with (references and a set intention) I can let myself get blown around a little, and trust it will work out.
I like to overlap figures, and use the shadow shapes to carve out abstracts within the body. This doesn’t just introduce abstraction, it also introduces a sense of time, and movement within a static image, in which I am fascinated. I asked my model how she felt about having her head cut off in …
[image_with_animation image_url=”11320″ alignment=”” animation=”Fade In” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Belinda Del Pesco, drypoint of someone making a drypoint Drypoint, a rather scratchy nails-on-chalboard kind of word, is a printmaking technique in which an image is incised into a plate with a pointy thing. I’ll get into more academic V.cabulary about this later, but for now I’m just …
She studied the pattern and repetition of the pieces. She examined each character in the painting, and figured out the bride was the one with her orange hair out, and in black. Black clothing dye, as our resident textiles expert Lucy Garnett points out, would have been very expensive at that time, so appropriate for …
[image_with_animation image_url=”10682″ alignment=”center” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] If there is a collection of feet in art, I don’t know about it. I’ve been looking. In ten toed optimism, I ordered an art book called “Feet.” I was quite excited to see different ways these difficult subjects are represented across time and cultures. I was disappointed. Once …
Leon Golub and Painting from Photographs
Leon Golub was an awkward man who made ugly paintings. They’re about power mostly. Violence, war, and other unhappy things. I learned about Golub in art school, around the first years of the internet. What impressed me more than his large scale work and hard edged process was his collection of reference images. Golub had file cabinets full of organized reference photos. I started a file cabinet of my own, and anyone who knows me knows I don’t do things just a little bit. Like Golub, I filled several file cabinets full of potential reference photos from magazines, sketches, photographs, and a lot of stuff printed off the internet. Those files became their own goliath art project, and taught me to make time to prepare, and to organize. My work relies on intention, and until I can draw entirely from my head, my work relies on a collection of images. It also was the beginning of a continuous long lesson that eventually I need to stop collecting ideas and actually put that brush to canvas.
To put things in perspective, I spend 99% of my time thinking about a painting. I don’t mean procrastination, although that happens too. I mean before I start a painting I work out what I want to say, how I want to say it, how big it’s going to be, what colors I’m going to use, what process and style will be implemented, and where it fits in with my other work. I no longer use the internet and magazines for my references. I take photographs. I take lots and lots of photographs. For every 1 image I use as a reference photo there are 500-1000 (I’m not exaggerating) that didn’t make the cut. I work all this out, prepare, and then as soon as the brush hits the canvas the Unplanned parts begin, and Things happen. Without all that prep work I’d feel lost, but because I have something to work with (references and a set intention) I can let myself get blown around a little, and trust it will work out.
Ok. Time to paint!
-Ruthie V.
Related Posts
Some Pretty Paintings: Horus
I like to overlap figures, and use the shadow shapes to carve out abstracts within the body. This doesn’t just introduce abstraction, it also introduces a sense of time, and movement within a static image, in which I am fascinated. I asked my model how she felt about having her head cut off in …
Reading About Drypoints of People Reading
[image_with_animation image_url=”11320″ alignment=”” animation=”Fade In” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Belinda Del Pesco, drypoint of someone making a drypoint Drypoint, a rather scratchy nails-on-chalboard kind of word, is a printmaking technique in which an image is incised into a plate with a pointy thing. I’ll get into more academic V.cabulary about this later, but for now I’m just …
Dancing Cod-pieces
She studied the pattern and repetition of the pieces. She examined each character in the painting, and figured out the bride was the one with her orange hair out, and in black. Black clothing dye, as our resident textiles expert Lucy Garnett points out, would have been very expensive at that time, so appropriate for …
Feet in Art
[image_with_animation image_url=”10682″ alignment=”center” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] If there is a collection of feet in art, I don’t know about it. I’ve been looking. In ten toed optimism, I ordered an art book called “Feet.” I was quite excited to see different ways these difficult subjects are represented across time and cultures. I was disappointed. Once …