86th Grand National Exhibition at the Salmagundi Club in New York City

My oil painting A New Ophelia has just been accepted into The American Artists Professional League 86th Grand National Exhibition 2014 at the Salmagundi Club in New York City.

The exhibition will be held at the Salmagundi Club, 47 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003 from November 10 through November 21 and will be open to the public 1-6 pm Monday to Friday and 1-5 pm Saturday and Sunday.

A New Ophelia is a new take on the story of Shakespeare's Ophelia.  Ophelia, struggling across the sharp stones of the path of her life collapses before her final hurdle, a large wall of rocks separating her from peace.  Red poppies trail in the water behind her, a request to the viewer not to forget her.  

A New Ophelia, Jaime Cooper, 2014, oil on linen, 21 x 18 inches, copyright Jaime Cooper

How to Create a Painting Part 1

I am working on a painting of Ophelia.  I will go more into the "story" of the painting once I post the finished version, but I wanted to walk you through my process for creating a painting.

The first step behind any painting is to have an idea or story that you would like to tell.  One of my students has been working on a master copy of Milais' Ophelia.  I wanted to do a modern take on Ophelia, so I started thinking of compositions.  I was walking to my studio one morning and the design popped into my head.  I could see it clearly, which for me is always necessary before I begin a painting.  If I don't know where I am going, I can't get there.  I need to know how I would like the painting to look.  A few years ago I traveled to Kaaterskill Falls and I explored the top of the falls.  There is a beautiful little glen there and I have been wanting to use it in a painting for a long time.  I am going to change it for this painting, but it will serve as the inspiration for the setting.

Next:  the preliminary drawing and value study.

Robert Liberace Red Chalk Workshop

I recently took a Robert Liberace workshop at Studio Incamminati in Philadelphia.  Rob prepares drawing paper (Canson Mi-Tientes or Twinrocker) with a wash of a warm yellow brown (yellow ochre or some derivative) watercolor.  He lets this dry, then adds some additional sizing to the paper with a solution of amber shellac diluted 1 to 5 with 90% isopropyl alcohol.  He then uses Verithin terracotta pencils to execute the drawing.  This gives a gorgeous finish to the drawing which has the appearance of a da Vinci or Michelangelo red chalk drawing (well, when Rob does it at least...).

Below you can see two drawings I completed under Rob's tutelage:

Carol, pencil on paper, copyright Jaime Cooper, in Robert Liberace's class

Roger, pencil on paper, copyright Jaime Cooper, in Robert Liberace's class

Rob has some fantastic instructional DVDs available on his website, including one where he utilizes the method above (the figure in motion drawing DVD).  

Salmagundi Club 2014 Non-Members' Exhibition

One of my pieces, Hope, was selected for inclusion in the Salmagundi Club's 2014 Non-Members' Exhibition.  I attended the closing reception last Friday at the Salmagundi Club, 47 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY.

The Upper Gallery, Salmagundi Club

A closer view of my piece, Hope, copyright Jaime Cooper

Robert W. Pillsbury, President of the Salmagundi Club

the Lower Gallery and Billiard Room

Good Art

"Good art rarely imitates; it usually only describes or explains…Good art always consists of two things:  First, the observation of fact; secondly, the manifesting of human design and authority in the way that fact is told.  Great and good art must unite the two." 

John Ruskin, The Two Paths

Drawing a Better Cat

I just read this article about a "transcranial magnetic stimulator" which interestingly enabled the reporter who experienced it to draw a cat from memory much better when it was operating then when it was not.  The article unfortunately didn't include pictures which would have been interesting.  Anyway, it is a fascinating read.

Book Review: Classical Painting Atelier by Juliette Aristides

One of my favorite art instruction books and one of the most helpful to me in my own journey is Classical Painting Atelier by Juliette Aristides.  My favorite beginning exercise, and one I start my new students with, is found on page 10, warm-and-cool studies.  Simple paintings are executed with ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, and white.  This allows the student to focus on value with the simplicity of having only three piles of paint to contend with.  She also has an excellent, easy to understand explanation of color basics on page 79 and some step by step demonstrations that I highly recommend all my students work through.

Colors for Underpaintings

A little bit ago I did a post on underpaintings for oils.  You can use whatever color you wish.  Burnt umber and raw umber are my favorites, but I will occasionally use burnt sienna, terra verte, or even purple.  Awhile ago I was doing a portrait of a gorgeous lady and I wanted to capture the character of her hands.  I did a study with a purple underpainting (a mix of ultramarine blue and alizarin crimson) to see if this would help me. 

Study of Hands, Jaime Cooper, copyright Jaime Cooper

I decided that it actually created more work for me, so I stuck with a burnt umber underpainting for the final portrait:

Nurse, WWII (detail), Jaime Cooper, copyright Jaime Cooper

What is Art?

I have been reading The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist by Francis Ames-Lewis.  I am not very far into it, but it promises to be interesting.  In it Ames-Lewis gives an account of the evolution of the artist from a craftsman/tradesman to an artist with socially elevated standing during the early Renaissance.  He traces the change of paintings from functional objects (stimuli for devotion or decorations for furniture and interiors) into objects that are ends in themselves, with "no self-evident function [and which] appear to serve in an abstract way as visual stimuli to intellectual activity." (p.3)

I think this is a crucial part of the answer to the question What is Art?  It must be a stimuli to intellectual activity. 

Lady with an Ermine, Leonardo da Vinci, Czartoryski Museum, Kraków

John Ruskin expands on this definition in The Two Paths.  Ruskin was writing in 1859, almost one hundred years after the very infancy of the first industrial revolution and in the middle of the second industrial revolution.  It was a time of great technological advancement and an enormous shift in society from agriculture and local production to large scale mass production of manufactured goods.

"It would be well if all students would keep clearly in their mind the real distinction between those words which we use so often, "Manufacture," "Art," and "Fine Art." "MANUFACTURE" is, according to the etymology and right use of the word, "the making of anything by hands,"--directly or indirectly, with or without the help of instruments or machines. Anything proceeding from the hand of man is manufacture; but it must have proceeded from his hand only, acting mechanically, and uninfluenced at the moment by direct intelligence. Then, secondly, ART is the operation of the hand and the intelligence of man together; there is an art of making machinery; there is an art of building ships; an art of making carriages; and so on. All these, properly called Arts, but not Fine Arts, are pursuits in which the hand of man and his head go together, working at the same instant. Then FINE ART is that in which the hand, the head, and the _heart_ of man go together. Recollect this triple group; it will help you to solve many difficult problems. And remember that though the hand must be at the bottom of everything, it must also go to the top of everything; for Fine Art must be produced by the hand of man in a much greater and clearer sense than manufacture is. Fine Art must always be produced by the subtlest of all machines, which is the human hand. No machine yet contrived, or hereafter contrivable, will ever equal the fine machinery of the human fingers. Thoroughly perfect art is that which proceeds from the heart, which involves all the noble emotions;--associates with these the head, yet as inferior to the heart; and the hand, yet as inferior to the heart and head; and thus brings out the whole man."

John Ruskin, A Dalmatian Pelican

And finally, the Art Renewal Center and Fred Ross further codify the definition of art here and in their whole collection of the philosophy behind art:

"Just because something causes you to have a feeling of aesthetic beauty does not make it a work of art.  A work of art is the selective recreation of reality for the purpose of communicating some aspect of what it means to be human or how we perceive the world."  --Fred Ross

Premier Deuil, William Bouguereau, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Creating Depth in Paintings

A few days ago I posted about William Holman Hunt's work and his use of color.

William Holman Hunt, Isabella and the Pot of Basil, private collection, 1868

Compare Hunt's work to the piece below, A Fair Reflection, by John William Godward.  Both have similar subjects, in similar settings, in similar poses and lighting conditions, with a similar use of extravagant color.

A Fair Reflection, John William Godward, 1915

I like Godward's piece much better and I think this has to do with his control of edges.  I did a post about kinds of edges here.  I have not had the pleasure to see it in person, but I suspect Godward made better use of the contrast between hard and soft edges.  The details of that get a little lost in a smaller reproduction, but they still come through in a heightened illusion of space and atmosphere when you shrink the painting down.  Notice how flat Hunt's painting appears compared to Godward's.  Godward also uses the cool trick of her foreshortened right elbow and a more zoomed in view to increase the amount of depth in the painting.  Cover her right arm and see how much shallower the painting appears.  Hunt had the same opportunity with Isabella's knee, but doesn't quite master it.

Check this out:

A Fair Reflection, John William Godward, 1915

By converting both images to black and white we can more clearly see the device that Godward used.  Notice how he clearly defined the two planes of her upper and lower arm with a strong change in value (and therefore direction) at the bend of her elbow.  Changes in direction of planes = changes of value.  Notice the alternating value arrangement on her left arm as it changes direction.  Also notice how her right arm is darker than the background, except for that very well placed darker accent in the marble behind her forearm.

Now, compare this with Hunt's piece again in black and white:

William Holman Hunt, Isabella and the Pot of Basil, private collection, 1868

See how Hunt misses the opportunity on Isabella's left leg to use the same device as Godward?  He uses a light spot on her knee, but the upper plane of her thigh and the lower plane of her shin are on average the same value.  The value next to her left leg is universally dark.  This all serves to make the depth of field surrounding her leg much shallower than that surrounding Godward's subject's right arm.

William Holman Hunt: Painter, Painting, Paint

131 Color Paintings of John William Godward