Lines and Colors art blog
  • Eye Candy for Today: William Henry Hunt ink and watercolor interior

    Interior of Bushey Church, William Henry Hunt
    Interior of Bushey Church, William Henry Hunt

    Pen and brown ink and watercolor, roughly 17×13 in. (42x33cm)

    The link is to a zoomable version on Google Art Project; the original is in the National Gallery of Art, DC. The NGA has downloadable files, though you need a free account to access the largest one.

    This piece by the 19th century English painter William Henry Hunt — known primarily for his watercolors of still life — is tremendously satisfying just as a drawing. The touches of watercolor carry it to somewhere between drawing and painting.

    The Rembrandtesque pen lines, slightly wavering but solidly controlled, unerringly define the space, and the washes give it soliditiy and light. This is essentially done in two colors.

    Look at how sure Hunt is of his values as he defines the vaulted ceiling, wooden structures, and multiple areas of relative darkness and illumination.


    Interior of Bushey Church, Google Art Project
    My recent post on William Henry Hunt

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  • Alexandre Reider

    Alexandre Reider, landscape Sao Paulo, Brazil
    Brazilian painter Alxeandre Reider is based in São Paulo, where he was born where he studied at the Pan American School of Arts. He also added to his study of painting with several trips to Europe.

    Reider’s landscapes are often given a dramatic feeling of depth by his use of atmospheric perspective, at times creating several distinct planes of value and color changes. His evocations of the Brazilian landscape range from sweeping vistas of mountains to intimate glens and wooded paths.

    His muted, controlled greens are sometimes punctuated with higher chroma passages of spring blossoms.

    Reider’s website has galleries of his finished landscapes, smaller works and studies. Though in Portuguese, the site is easy enough to navigate, Galeria de Obras is his gallery of work.

    Reider teaches classes and workshops in São Paulo, and also highlights them on his blog.

    There is an article on José Rosário’s blog, in Portuguese, that also features additional images of Reider’s work.



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  • Kelly Carmody

    Kelly Carmody, portraits and still life
    Kelly Carmody is a painter based in Waltham, MA, who focuses on portraits and still life.

    In her still life, Carmody works in a painterly, immediate approach, and has an interestingly different common theme of dead birds along with the more expected florals, food and vessels. Not a completely unusual theme for artists, particularly going back to Baroque still life that features game birds, but Carmody’s approach is different enough to make you take notice.

    In her portraits, she appears to work with more refined brushwork. Her subjects — captured either as bust or full length portraits — have an interesting variety of personality types, though in several, particularly those of young girls, Carmody has brought out their defiant side, as though confronting both the painter and the viewer with an attitude of “I’m who I am, whether you like it or not.”

    A number of her portraits (for example, those in ovals, above) are done at small size of roughly 5×7. Carmody calls these “Portraits in Little” and has a separate website devoted to them.

    Carmody conducts regular classes in her Waltham studio, as well as occasionally conducting workshops.

    Kelly Carmody’s work is currently on display in a solo show at the Sloane Merrill Gallery in Boston titled Kelly Carmody: Evocations that runs until December 9, 2015.

    [Via Leo Mancini-Hresko]



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  • Eye Candy for Today: Alma-Tadema’s Vintage Festival

    The Vintage Festival, Lawrence Alma-Tadema
    The Vintage Festival, Lawrence Alma-Tadema

    Link is to zoomable version on Google Art Project; downloadable file on Wikimedia Commons; original is in the National Gallery of Victoria.

    This is another of Alma-Tadema’s stunning evocations of life in classical Italy, in this case, a festival in Pompeii prior to the eruption of Vesuvius. The enlarged versions show Alma-Tadema’s technique, more textural and painterly than one might assume.

    ALma-Tadema painted two versions of the painting at the same time, a larger one, now in the Kunsthalle Hamburg (image on Wikimedia Commons) was placed on display; and this one was used by engraver Auguste-Thomas-Marie Blanchard to create a popular engraving.



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  • Eileen Goodman

    Eileen Goodman, watercolors
    Eileen Goodman is painter well known over her long career here in Philadelphia for her naturalistic watercolors of fruit, flowers and gardens.

    Whet’s not obvious in images of her work is that she often works at a somewhat larger scale than is usually associated with watercolors, sometimes 4×3 ft (122x92cm) or larger.

    Goodman explores the subtle cast of light on her subjects, often keeping her colors subdued in favor of studying delicate value changes.

    I can’t find a dedicated website for her work, but she is represented by the Gross McCleaf Gallery.

    There is a nicely done short video by John Thornton about Godman’s work and inspiration, with close-ups of her paintings, on YouTube.

    Eileen Goodman’s watercolors are currently on display in a show at the Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill: “The Weight of Watercolor: The Art of Eileen Goodman“, that runs until March 14, 2016.



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  • Annie Stegg Gerard

    Annie Stegg, fantasy art and illustration
    Georgia based Annie Stegg is an illustrator, concept artist, character designer and gallery artist who works in the vein of fantasy art. Her clients include Ballistic Publishing,  Apple, Android, Hi-Rez Studios, Tiki Games, Addicting Games, and SPIL Games.

    In her personal work, Stegg appears to take inspiration both from Golden Age fantasy illustrators like Rackham, Dulac and Parrish, and from the 18th century Rococo artists who incorporated intricately detailed design elements into their paintings.

    Stegg’s take on folklore and mythical themes often revolves around female characters in lavish dress, surrounded by lush idealized vegetation and the kind of storybook animals who interact with people in fairy tales.

    She works oil and acrylic, as well as colored pencil and watercolor. On both her website and blog, you will often find images of work in progress or in her studio environment, in which you can get an idea of the textural aspect of her paintings and the variation in scale at which she works.

    A number of Stegg’s paintings are currently on view at Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra, CA, in a show she shares with her husband, fantasy illustrator Justin Gerard. Some of the works are collaborative. The exhibition runs until November 29, 2015.

    There is an amusing 2013 interview with Stegg, conducted by Gerard, on Muddy Colors, and a video interview with both Stegg and Gerard for One Fantastic Week on YouTube.



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Vasari Handcraftes artist's oil colors

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Charley’s Picks
Amazon

(Amazon.com affiliate links; sales go to a larger yacht for Jeff Bezos; but I get a small percentage to help support my work on Lines and Colors)

John Singer Sargent: Watercolors
John Singer Sargent: Watercolors

Sorolla the masterworks
Sorolla: the masterworks

The Art Spirit
The Art Spirit

Rendering in Pen and Ink
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Urban Sketching: Understanding Perspective
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World of Urban Sketching
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Drawing on the right side of the brain
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