Painting Classes in Amsterdam

Hi all,

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I've started offering private painting lessons in Amsterdam, right in the center of the city in my canal studio/house.

To satisfy lord Google's need for lots of text about my website, and also help you understand my approach in some more detail, I'll be creating some posts about the whole thing here in my blog and if anyone has questions, you can always call me with the contact details provided on my website:

www.juanpablobran.com/lessons.html

The painting classes I offer are not for everyone.  Many art enthusiasts think of painting lessons as a place where you go and explore things around.  This is no doubt a lot of fun and I've done it myself, but the results were not to my satisfaction.  The artistic results I mean, the socializing was great!

So these Amsterdam painting classes are much more focused and structured and the value you get in return is the ability to start producing art that you may not have though possible before.

One of the thing my painting classes do, and which may be disappointing is to start with the very basics of drawing.  So for those who want to waltz in and start putting brushes to a canvas, I do apologize in advance.  Not gonna happen.

Why?  Well, it was stated at the entrance of the old French Academy of Art in Paris:  "Well drawn is well painted".  Painting schools in Amsterdam may not have had this inscribed at their entrance, which may explain why there's lots of old masters and very few new ones!

Trying to paint while dragging around sloppy drawing skills is painful to do and painful to witness. So painting lessons begin with making sure your drawing skills are really solid.  Even if you have been drawing for some time, there is great benefit from learning the academic approach.  It provides you a foundation on which to fall upon when things are not going the way you expect.

My webpage on painting classes provides you with a quick glimpse of what this means:

www.juanpablobran.com/lessons.html

So what are interesting positive points of an Amsterdam painting class which is based on the classical methods:


1. It gives you a foundation to learn painting, which is easy to learn by anyone regardless of background, personality or talent

2. It breaks down the creation of an artwork into small and easy to execute steps which make it possible to learn to paint anything you like and do it very well

3. It demystifies art and allows you to look at it as a craft with tools, techniques and a language that every painting class should be teaching before anything else

4. The paintings of the masters will become more understandable to you, and not less but in fact more amazing and enjoyable

5. You will create the art you want, at the level you decide.  You will be able to become the best critic of your work, because you will know which aspects to look for.


6. You will be able to draw and paint any subject, in almost any style you choose.


Now, before I start to sound like a snake oil salesmen, I must say that learning the method and practicing it is hard work.  That is both good and bad news.  It means anyone who's willing to work at it can do it, but the work has to be done thoroughly.


So that's today's post about this.  My website contains some image examples of the art I produce thanks to this method, as well as some steps followed in their creation.

Come visit soon!

Master Copy of Jeremy Lipking's Danielle in Kimono

Danielle in Kimono, Jeremy Lipking

I've been following the work of Jeremy Lipking for a while and have become a big fan, so it was due time to create a master copy of his paintings. Danielle in Kimono seemed just right because it gives a nice challenge to try and learn his handling of flesh tones, edges and drapery.

Here are the steps, some notes on the challenges and the final result. In conclusion, the guy is an accomplished master, and there's lots more to learn before reaching his level, but still, an honest amateur attempt, and lots of stuff learned in the process.

The main drawing felt relatively easy, although as you see later, I made critical mistakes regarding the width of the head, the position of the chin, and the jawline :0( the lesson here is to spend more time measuring and get it right in the beginning stages.  The underpainting color was easy to choose, because Lipking's characteristic style is to leave large patches of it showing through in the final work.  

Here we start to have a go at some of the flesh tones, but to achieve the degree of realism that he has, it's necessary to navigate an extremely narrow band of values and color temperature, so this will be a mission-long struggle.

Here you see both the flesh tones and the background color varying wildly.  The reason is I'm using a photo on my computer as my original, and the ambient light around me keeps changing.  Sometimes the background looks to orange compared to my original, sometimes it looks to purple. So I have to decide for a color harmony and just stick to it, which I finally manage to do, as you see later.

The picture at the beginning of this series has fairly solid flesh tones on the face, and the one at the end is very patchy.  The reason is I was happy with the result at first, at least color-wise, but I realized that the paint was very thin and not satisfying in terms of texture when looking at it up close, so I painted over with thicker wet-on-wet brush strokes to try and make the painting more exciting.

Later on I will smooth things out.  I start to work also on the drapery, which is a challenge because it has slightly different dark colors and patterns that need to be just right, as well as spontaneous areas left untouched.

At this point I've nailed the ear (always a nice small victory!) and I'm working out the patterns on the Kimono.  Flesh tones are solid and the drawing has been corrected for a nicely shaped head.

And here is the final result!

Let's compare it to the original...

Some of my darks will probably become alive once I varnish and shoot the photo in better light conditions.  

Now I have a Lipking in my kitchen :0)

If you want painting lessons in Amsterdam, or drawing lessons in the academic tradition, get in touch!

www.juanpablobran.com/lessons.html

Happy painting!