For the last two weeks I’ve had the benefit of learning from Carlos San Millan. He is a generous painter. What took a while for me to grasp at first is now coming into form, and soon will be a V. Note. In the meantime, I wanted to send out some new painters. In the workshop, San Millan listed “Velázquez, Turner, Vermeer, Hammersöi, Edward Hopper” as his influential painters for interiors, and “Antonio López García, Lucian Freud, Euan Uglow” as masters of ‘diaphanous painting’ – for the way they portray surfaces and representation of matter.
“Definition of diaphanous. 1 : characterized by such fineness of texture as to permit seeing through. 2 : characterized by extreme delicacy of form : ethereal painted diaphanous landscapes. 3 : insubstantial, vague.” – Merriam Webster
Although I appreciated the list, I was hoping for a little something more, so I asked him for a list of painters who were a little less famous. He responded enthusiastically, and sent me 12 less well known, fabulous and challenging artists to learn about.
These are not the painters who shaped San Millan’s paintings as they are today. These are the painters that give him ideas for where he might like to go next. These are painters who do things that make San Millan dizzy with admiration. These are painters who abstract matter, flatten it into color shapes. They’re doing things that he would like to reach towards.
Green Planks
As luck would have it, the first on San Millan’s list of favorites is an artist I had just recently learned about, and was getting all swoony over. I’d already started a V. Note for him. The local painter Amy Scherer had showed me his work last week, and I fell instantly in love. He’s clearly from a realist background, with formalized processes of measuring and color theory, but he’s using the process to abstraction, moving farther and farther away from realism.
Notice the fragments from earlier layers, the flatness of color shapes, and the pencil sketch on the wall. I am infatuated with the process illustrated in this painting.
For those of you who are in my Thursday class this quarter, you might notice some of the techniques and effects we’ve been talking about regarding how he records changes in a painting over time, and how he leaves some fragments from drawing and measuring; a trail of breadcrumbs for us to follow the path of his process.
I’ll note that most of these works are from Majumdar’s earlier series, and he’s gone more abstract since. Good for him. And also, damn.
Art Walk 2nd Friday, Jan 13 6-9pm Art Activity: Japanese Calligraphy Special Guest Star: Kiki MacInnis, Intro to Ink Instructor JOIN US! We have art, and we have beer
Exercise your creativity This SAL Challenge is a vocabulary based creative challenge every day for January. Materials are artist’s choice. You can draw, paint, sew, collage, sculpt your food, anything you want. See below for today’s creative challenge. Set the timer for 20 minutes and see what happens. AGASTOPIA n. – admiration of a particular …
I chose these sketches specifically to look at how vine charcoal can be used in a drawing to talk about change, movement and time. Vine charcoal is a lovely medium. It’s just a simple burnt branch, and it allows the artist to make a line, smudge it out, and make another. The dark lyrical lines …
Hopper is known for his oil paintings, but he also made etchings… Hopper was not initially successful as an artist, so he made ends meet with freelance illustration work… Frank Rehn gave Hopper his first solo show in 1924. Hopper was 42. The Seattle Art Museum expected to receive Chop Suey after the death of …
Sangram Majumdar
For the last two weeks I’ve had the benefit of learning from Carlos San Millan. He is a generous painter. What took a while for me to grasp at first is now coming into form, and soon will be a V. Note. In the meantime, I wanted to send out some new painters. In the workshop, San Millan listed “Velázquez, Turner, Vermeer, Hammersöi, Edward Hopper” as his influential painters for interiors, and “Antonio López García, Lucian Freud, Euan Uglow” as masters of ‘diaphanous painting’ – for the way they portray surfaces and representation of matter.
“Definition of diaphanous. 1 : characterized by such fineness of texture as to permit seeing through. 2 : characterized by extreme delicacy of form : ethereal painted diaphanous landscapes. 3 : insubstantial, vague.” – Merriam Webster
Although I appreciated the list, I was hoping for a little something more, so I asked him for a list of painters who were a little less famous. He responded enthusiastically, and sent me 12 less well known, fabulous and challenging artists to learn about.
These are not the painters who shaped San Millan’s paintings as they are today. These are the painters that give him ideas for where he might like to go next. These are painters who do things that make San Millan dizzy with admiration. These are painters who abstract matter, flatten it into color shapes. They’re doing things that he would like to reach towards.
As luck would have it, the first on San Millan’s list of favorites is an artist I had just recently learned about, and was getting all swoony over. I’d already started a V. Note for him. The local painter Amy Scherer had showed me his work last week, and I fell instantly in love. He’s clearly from a realist background, with formalized processes of measuring and color theory, but he’s using the process to abstraction, moving farther and farther away from realism.
For those of you who are in my Thursday class this quarter, you might notice some of the techniques and effects we’ve been talking about regarding how he records changes in a painting over time, and how he leaves some fragments from drawing and measuring; a trail of breadcrumbs for us to follow the path of his process.
I’ll note that most of these works are from Majumdar’s earlier series, and he’s gone more abstract since. Good for him. And also, damn.
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Art Walk 2nd Friday, Jan 13 6-9pm Art Activity: Japanese Calligraphy Special Guest Star: Kiki MacInnis, Intro to Ink Instructor JOIN US! We have art, and we have beer
SAL Challenge 16: AGASTOPIA
Exercise your creativity This SAL Challenge is a vocabulary based creative challenge every day for January. Materials are artist’s choice. You can draw, paint, sew, collage, sculpt your food, anything you want. See below for today’s creative challenge. Set the timer for 20 minutes and see what happens. AGASTOPIA n. – admiration of a particular …
Matisse Sketches
I chose these sketches specifically to look at how vine charcoal can be used in a drawing to talk about change, movement and time. Vine charcoal is a lovely medium. It’s just a simple burnt branch, and it allows the artist to make a line, smudge it out, and make another. The dark lyrical lines …
Did you know this about Edward Hopper?
Hopper is known for his oil paintings, but he also made etchings… Hopper was not initially successful as an artist, so he made ends meet with freelance illustration work… Frank Rehn gave Hopper his first solo show in 1924. Hopper was 42. The Seattle Art Museum expected to receive Chop Suey after the death of …