"Engagement" 9

However, with the fine nibs either worn or snapped, and having thus to wait until Friday to get replacements, have decided to go finish the grisaille - which is seen here....

the reason being that the back ground, being darker, does not need use of fine nibs, so can use the more sturdy ones still available...

"Engagement" 8

And the grisaille of the dresser is now done, leaving only the back ground to do after the dresser is layered in colors...

"Engagement" 7

Grounding everything... still the drawer and support yet to grisaille, then be on to layering the colors...

"Engagement" 6

Now y'all get to see what is engaging... like all the rest before, the stand and horseshoe were first grissailled in prussian blue, than layered over - the stand with sepia, then a swish of lemon yellow across the lit areas..... the horseshoe, seen in progress to show how was done, layered with black...

"Engagement" 5

Rock grisaille done - now, on to coloring it.......






which was done layering FW Flesh.......

"Engagement" 4

Having the daylight bulb blow out over the weekend, had a delay in getting more of this done - but now, with a working bulb in the lamp, am at it again - first adding a layering of lemon yellow to the lit areas, then sap green to the shade areas, with a spot of black in the eye for emphasis... further refining of this will wait until the rest of the rendering is laid out....

"Engagement" 3

First layering of color - light green [FW acrylic ink]...

"Engagement" 2

And the shading of the lizard is now done on the grisaille ... so - on to the layering of colors...

"Engagement" 1

The rest of the scales are now laid in, needing only the shading to finish the grisaille of the lizard, and be ready for the coloring...

"Engagement" WIP

And the inking on this has begun... the transfer was yesterday, but not posted as the graphite is too light to see well, so beginning with the ink - which is, really, where it should begin anyway]...

Hellboy - Commission

One more finished =)

Hugs
M.Ramos
www.pontilhismo.com

Variations on a Theme.....

As so often has been the case with me, as seen in all the cherry renderings and marble ones, variations of some of my themeworks just seem to keep flowing from me... and so it is again - "Engagement" is the next rendering-to-be and is another lizard one, but this time intend the lizard at least to be in color, and MAYBE the rest as well... size will be different, as am still working off old blanks, and have run out of the 24"x18" primed canvas sheets [finally] - so this will be a 15"x20" on illoboard.... the sketch is now done, but the transfer not - so will have that all up to go rendering tomorrow...

what will the lizard be looking at this time? ah well, tune in to find out...
[and remember, this IS, like the preceding, a still life]

Re-Presentation and the Decorative Arts...

An offshoot of the 'debate' regarding realism in Fine Art is the presumption of many that what properly belongs to Decorative Arts is being surreptitiously presented as Fine Art... in many ways, this is the consequence of interior decorators, who tend to treat Fine Art as just another aspect of the 'harmonious' desire to getting interiors to 'blend' together in their disparate parts, which include what goes on the walls as well as the wall color itself, to say nothing of matching the sofa colors... this is an unfortunacy, to be sure, but understandable in light of how interior decorators tend to look at things... forgetting that there is a difference between what the artist seeks, and what the decorators desire, and the lack of constructive understanding among artists themselves, many are deluded into the notion that by framing decorative constructs, one can therefore create Fine Art without having to bother showing anything of importance beyond conformity to design purposes - and further, fake it by pretensions to a nebulous 'view' that suckers in the unwary who never had known of the importance of the mindfulness of Fine Art and that emotions as such are not tools of cognition but EFFECTS, which can only come in consequence to the the preceptualness inherent in a Fine Art work [contrary to a number of proponents, whatever emotions may be garnered from particular colors, for instance, is only a tendency, not an inherent absolute, and is as much involved in context to whatever is around the said color, not just from the surrounding environment as in on a wall but as in one's own cultural background influences as well]...

Now, to be sure, this does not much pertain to pen and ink artists - by the nature of the medium they employ, they see the world cognitively, grasping percepts and employing them in dramatic fashion... but it does not hurt to have an understanding of some of the fashions around them that seek to demerit their insights and mindfulness of the works they do - not so much when employing the fundamental essence of black and white as when engaging color, where there can become a tendency to forgo the mindfulness and allude to specific places wherein the works is said to perforce reside ...

Remember, the purpose of Fine Art is to show, to present to others what the ARTIST has to say, visually, and the means of so doing is thru what can be perceived and as such grasped cognitively - that is, thru the viewer's mind, the reasoning faculty, for there is where understanding reside... remove that, the perceptualness, the cognitivity, and there is nothing being said, just babbling mindlessness... no, this is not, as some claim, 'spoonfeeding', any more than speaking of some information - but it is enlightenment, to the mutual benefit of both the artists and the viewers.....

Realism and Virtue in Art.......

Every so often am accused of pandering to 'convention' because my work is realistic - indeed, sometimes very realistic... 'if one wanted to see realism, take a photograph' is oft the comment... but this merely seeks to hide the real issue at hand - WHY the realism? for one, contrary to presumptions, realism is NOT imitating reality, a mistake which is why positing photography as a 'valid' replacement... there are several reasons why the error, some of which are innocent mistakes bourne of ignorance, others being deliberately crafted attempts to 'invalidate' realism in art... to begin with, until the invention of photography, art served at least a dual purpose, ONE OF WHICH WAS THAT OF A VISUAL RECORDER, something oft overlooked in art and realism discussions... it is an importance, moreover, which aids in seeing how art was served over the centuries, and why, after photography's invention, that serving no longer was of prime or even if of importance in terms of the nature of art...

the proper understanding of art is that it is a SELECTIVE RE-PRESENTATION of reality according to the artist's FUNDAMENTAL [or metaphysical, to be more precise] VALUE-JUDGMENTS... note - selective re-presentation, NOT imitation... further, to grasp at the issue of realism is to recognize that humans do NOT begin their viewing of the world thru mere sensations, but thru PERCEPTIONS, which are as automatic as sensations are in the lower animals - and it as such that seeing the world as percepts is the beginning of how humans see the world is why realism, which is based on perceptual concretes, is the basis for grasping whatever the artist intend to show [for that is the purpose, TO SHOW ]... to show - what? well, THAT is what the 'fundamental value-judgments' are all about - as those are what the artist considers as of PRIME IMPORTANCE... this ties back to the 'selective' re-presentation, since one cannot include all within the borders of the canvas 'universe', thus must decide what to include, AND WHAT TO EXCLUDE as NOT being of prime importance... further, such considerations of, say, colors or shapes, serve, as consequence, MEANS TO ENDS, of the perceptual concretes [the objects to be included within the work]...

note, too, that in dealing with the nature of art, one is utilizing one's conceptual faculty - the reasoning aspect of one's consciousness, which takes the perceptual concretes - those objects of reality - and make abstractions of them, so as to make sense of the world around us - and of the world within the canvas borders... this is why aspects of those objects, the colors or shapes, for instance, have no meaning aside from the objects, but serve only as means to particularizing those objects...

note further, that these objects themselves serve also as means to the end - of the THEMING, of which the work itself is the means - the what and why of the importance which is considered as so fundamental... in other words, there is no copying of the world about, but visualizing abstractions of that world to serve a theming end, abstractions that, because of the primal perceptual nature of our seeing the world cannot be reduce further and make objective sense [that is, sense applicable to any and all who would see the work]... which means that works claiming to be art, but which pertain only to the senses, avoiding the perceptual, are contradictions in terms - without the perceptual to show meaning, there is nothing to give meaning, and as such there is no art there [decoration, perhaps, but nothing more]...

The Idea of Theming...

[Sometimes it is worth re-saying something of importance, so it gets revived in attention - so it is with this, originally run near the beginning of the Society blog]

It was mentioned about 'upgrading' pen and ink rendering to Fine Art... what would this mean, and why be wanting to do this? the issue has to do with theming, something which most artists are only dimly aware of, and rarely ever having had any understanding of its nature, let alone of its importance... in visualizing the universe, the world around oneself and/or especially the world within the four corners of the canvas [whether actual canvas or not, but a convenient metaphor for the support on which the rendering is done], there is, for the artist, a necessity, whether consciously seen or not, to sift and choose among all the possibilities, what is considered by the artist of primary IMPORTANCE - indeed, within that universe of creation, by the nature of this choosing, everything which is deemed of importance enough to include is as such metaphysical in importance, precisely because in the choosing, whatever is included assumes fundamental values to the artist... why? as I see it, it is because in creating a work of art, especially Fine Art, an artist is involved in 'selective re-presentation', of necessity - because not everything CAN be included, thus what is, HAS to assume prime importance, whether consciously considered or not... further, the more an artist consciously is aware of this process, the more an artist deliberately strives to arrange and compose according to this premise - the more consistent the end result will be, and the greater the work will be in consequence...


This is, actually, a logical extension to the illustrating [which, of course, also dealt with theming, but from the standpoint of the story and not the rendering itself]... here, tho, it is raised to the work itself, for the work itself, so that one can contemplate the work and grasp that there are layers to it [like the proverbial onion], which in essence is what elevates it beyond mere fancy sketching, or even crafted drawing, to Fine Art - just as is the same with the better works in other mediums...

Further........

In showing, thru his/her renderings, what is considered of prime importance to consider by others in this contemplative measure, this means that even in doing scenes, there needs be more thought to placement of the objects within - their relative sizes, detail emphasis, and so on, so as to better being out the showing of the artist's intent... after all, an artist, a painter, like a writer, is communicating with others, the showing, the visualizing - it is the means of communicating, and if it is unintelligible, then there is a failure to communicate [and if there is a claim of not wanting per se to be communicating, then there is no sense in there being a showing]...

For pen and ink artists, this almost comes with the territory, so to speak, because of the conscious attrition of the unforgiving ink, requiring forethought before depositing, and thus forethought on where and in what manner is to be depicted what is to be deposited by the ink... this, in turn, fosters the creativity, which is an offshoot of this fore-thinking in composing... even in such renderings as portraits, both human and of animals and or/ objects like vehicles or buildings, how these are depicted owes much to the creative thinking, even if heavily taken from photographic references - which, for one, is why they are superior to photographs, for all the attempts of configuring character to the photographic images themselves... for many if not most, all this is more or less intuitive - but the more one is conscious of this and deliberately composes the rendering to this, the better the work and the more a pen and ink artist can claim to be doing Fine Art...