Lines and Colors art blog
  • ImageS Magazine #13

    ImageS Magazine 13
    Rules, they say, are meant to be broken. I’m going to break two of my own rules, just so I can tell you about something special; then, I’m just as quickly going to glue them back together and put them back in place.

    The rules, as outlined in my information on Suggesting a Site to Lines and Colors, are that I don’t write about or link to Kickstarter projects — or Indiegogo or similar project fundraising campaigns (just out of self-defense, as I get too many requests as it is), and that I don’t link to Facebook pages, or other sites that require a membership or login to see major parts of the content (for this same reason, I no longer link to the New York Times of the Art Renewal Center).

    I’m breaking my rules to tell you about a Kickstarter project to make possible a new, possibly best ever, and likely last issue of the terrific magazine showcase for classic illustration, The Vadeboncoeur Collection of ImageS #13.

    I’ve written before about The Vadeboncoeur Collection of ImageS (back in 2008), and Vadeboncoeur’s JVJ Publishing (in 2011), through which the dyed in the wool illustration enthusiast has brought us superbly produced and printed examples of some of the greatest, and often long ignored, 19th and early 20th century illustration.

    Over the past 13 years, Vadeboncoeur has managed to come up with the funds to print the past 12 issues on his own; but it’s been three and a half years since the previous issue, and faced with particularly high printing costs for this special issue, he is asking for the community of those of us who love classic illustration to support him by coming up with half of the estimated printing and distribution costs for the new issue.

    Part of what makes the issue special is the effort Vadeboncoeur has taken the effort to painstakingly restore 8 beautifully ornate illustrations by Louis Chalon, originally printed in the December issue of the French magazine Figaro Illustré (images above, second and third down), in which the illustrator’s intention that the printed illustrations incorporate a gilt element that he designed was not properly realized in the actual printing of the time.

    It’s Vadeboncoeur’s goal that they see the light of day as the original artist intended, and he has backed that up not only with more than a year of his own work, but with a rounding out of the issue with a terrific selection of more great illustration art.

    There is a description of the project, along with a video of Vadeboncoeur describing his aspiration to do these illustrations justice, on the project’s Kickstarter page, along with a few images and some background on the magazine and his history as a publisher.

    There are additional images, both planned for inclusion in issue 13 (remaining images, above), and a from past issue that is out of print (#4), on the JVJ Publishing Facebook page.

    You can see more about The Vadeboncoeur Collection of ImageS, and order back issues, on the JVJ Publishing website.

    The Kickstarter campaign for ImageS Magazine #13 runs to May 29, 2014.

    The level of contribution at which you receive an issue of the magazine is just $25, which is the usual cover price for recent issues.

    The campaign is 40% funded, and if it goes over the $8,800.00 goal to a level of $10,000, Vadeboncoeur will expand the issue from 44 to 52 pages, with no addition to the price.

    I now return you to my previously enforced rules about not covering Kickstarter campaigns or linking to Facebook pages.



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  • Eye Candy for Today: Roland Wakelin landscape

    The fruit seller of Farm Cove, Roland Wakelin
    The fruit seller of Farm Cove, Roland Wakelin

    On Google Art Project. Hi-res downloadable version on Wikipedia.

    The original is in the National Gallery of Australia. The gallery’s website gives interesting background on the painting, and Wakelin’s approach to painting it with the same limited palette of Ultramarine Blue, Alizarin Crimson and Cadmium Yellow that I described in a post from last year.



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  • Degas/Cassatt at the National Gallery of Art, DC

    Edgar Degas, mary Cassatt
    At a point in her career when she was struggling to find her artistic direction, and had been refused at the Paris Salon for the first time in several years, American artist mary Cassatt was invited by Edgar Degas to exhibit outside the Salon with the new group of upstart painters who would come to be known as the French Impressionists.

    Degas saw in Cassatt a talented artist and a kindred spirit; and Cassatt, long an admirer of Degas’ work, found in him a friend an mentor. The two established a lifelong friendship and engaged in an ongoing dialog about the principles by which they wished to create art.

    A new exhibit opening tomorrow, May 11, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, seeks to explore that relationship, as well as showcasing the pantings, pastels and graphics of both artists.

    Degas often portrayed Cassatt, and several of those pieces are included in the exhibition (images above, top three).

    There is a small gallery of works on the museum’s website, and the exhibition brochure is available as a PDF. There is also a book accompanying the exhibition, available from the museum store, as well as other booksellers.

    For a broader overview of the work of the two artists, here are galleries on WikiPaintings of Degas and Cassatt.

    Degas/Cassat runs until October 5, 2014.

    (Images above: Edgar Degas, top 3; Mary Cassatt, bottom 4)



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  • Katharine Morling

    Katharine Morling
    Among other projects, ceramic artist Katharine Morling creates ceramic sculptures that are strategically painted with black stain to give them the appearance of ink drawings.

    [Via The Awesomer by way of Neatorama]



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  • Eye Candy for Today: Monet’s Walk

    Walk (Road of the Farm Saint-Simeon), Claude Monet and Studion in the rue de Furstenberg, Frederic Bazille
    Walk (Road of the Farm Saint-Sim&eacuteon), Claude Monet and Studio in the rue de Furstenberg, Frédéric Bazille

    As much as I admire Claude Monet at the height of his mature style, I particularly enjoy his early work, in which he combines the painterly immediacy of the plein air pioneers of the Barbizon school with a darker palette and subdued compositions in the tradition of the 17th century Dutch landscape masters.

    This landscape, painted at a time when Monet was staying on the Normandy coast with his mentor, Eugene Boudin, influential Dutch artist Johan Jongkind and Monet’s friend and later fellow Impressionist Frédéric Bazille, is now in the collection of the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo.

    Bazille included what may be a version of Monet’s painting in his view of his own Studio in the rue de Furstenberg (images above, bottom two). The thought is that Monet may have started the painting on location and then finished it in Bazille’s studio.



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  • Parka Blogs’ art tools and gears

    Jorge Royan, Audran Guerard, Shari Blaukopf, Khoo Cheang Jin, Ellis Nadler, Marvin Chew, Marc Holmes
    I’ve written before about a blog called The Tools Artists Use, which is based on the excellent concept of asking various illustrators and other artists about their primary working tools.

    The Tools Artists Use blog is taking a break, but the most recent post points out that Teoh Yi Chie of Parka Blogs (which I wrote about back in 2008), has recently added to his series of artist interviews a new sub-series tagged art tools and gears, in which the focus is on the artist’s tools. (I think native English speakers would say “art tools and gear“, but we get the idea.)

    Thus far the emphasis is on urban sketchers working in ink and watercolor, but there are also illustrators and concept artists featured.

    The interviews feature images of the artist’s work, photographs and discussions of their tools — sometimes in considerable detail — and occasionally photographs of the artist working on location. Some of the interviews also include short videos.

    I learn more about new tools from these kinds of interviews than I ever do from art supplier catalogs or manufacturer descriptions.

    A wonderful idea. I hope to see it continued and expanded (as well as looking forward to the return of The Tools Artists Use).

    (Images above, in sets of work example plus tools: Jorge Royan, Audran Guerard, Shari Blaukopf, Khoo Cheang Jin, Ellis Nadler, Marvin Chew, Marc Holmes)



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Vasari Handcraftes artist's oil colors

Charley’s Picks
Bookshop.org

(Bookshop.org affilliate links; sales benefit independent bookshop owners; 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
Rendering in Pen and Ink

Urban Sketching: Understanding Perspective
Urban Sketching: Understanding Perspective

World of Urban Sketching
World of Urban Sketching

Daily Painting
Daily Painting

Drawing on the right side of the brain
Drawing on the right side of the brain

Understanding Comics
Understanding Comics

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
Rendering in Pen and Ink

Urban Sketching: Understanding Perspective
Urban Sketching: Understanding Perspective

World of Urban Sketching
World of Urban Sketching

Daily Painting
Daily Painting

Drawing on the right side of the brain
Drawing on the right side of the brain

Understanding Comics
Understanding Comics