kcp – Artblog

This is my book review for Problem Solving for Oil Painters (Recognizing What’s Gone Wrong and How to Make It Right) by New York Artist Gregg Kreutz – The book is available here at amazon.com.

I must admit that by getting this book, I didn’t find the answer to what I was looking for. However, I’m still glad that I got it and I did learn a few things from it.

Unlike several other oil painting books, the author doesn’t try to impose his technique or to sell you anything. Rather, his book covers shapes, composition, values, depth, lights and shadow and other arrays which may have been overlooked and/or sensitize the beginner or intermediate painter with these various aspects of painting.

The advanced oil painter is not necessarily going to learn anything really new or any big secrets - This is not a book about technique, it’s a book about common sense. Regardless, it’s always good to have such book on the shelf as a reminder and source of reference.

Problem solving for oil painters features very many photographs of paintings by the author which are absolutely breath taking – That alone makes this book a must have.

Impasto experiment and landscape featuring ice skaters in Old Montreal

Now up at my Imagekind gallery, here are the pictures I promised of  “Les Patineurs” – I have mixed feelings about this painting – I’m happy about it and then I’m not happy – I guess that it just did not turn out the way I envisioned it – Also the style is very different than my other realistic/illusionistic form paintings – I think that’s what’s bothering me; I know that I can draw/paint better than that but impasto and the use of a palette knife doesn’t give the same finesse and details than with fine and soft sable brushes – Okay, okay, I’ll stop tormenting myself now; it was an experiment anyway, I tried it and that’s that. End of story.

So now here are some close-ups of the skaters – Like I said in my previous article, I selected skaters that I thought were the most representative of the different skaters typically found on a skating rink:

Here is the novice girl – With her arms spread, she’s having a little bit of a hard time keeping the balance:

And now here’s a young couple holding hands:

And here’s another older couple, perhaps in their 30’s or so:

In the far back here are the parents with their little one leaning on a blue construction cone to help keep balance:

This is the mischievous little boy with the yellow toque – I don’t know for sure if he’s really mischievous but he looks that way to me:

Finally here is the one I call Maurice Richard (a hockey legend) – If you go to any skating rink, you are bound to see at least a couple of those young boys (sometimes older) who speed skate through the crowd as if they’re heading for a winning goal on the last period of a Stanley cup playoff game.

At last, I must say that I’m really happy with the work I did of the Bonsecours Market dome and Montreal City Hall’s green roof (yes, that’s our City Hall) – These are perhaps two of the most stunning buildings in Old Montreal. There’s a lot of history behind them, look them up!

The Bonsecours Market dome:

Roof of Montreal City Hall:

Today I have completed “les Patineurs” – I’ll take a picture of it tomorrow and put it up here later – I’m not really happy with it but since it was an experiment I guess that it’s not bad. I guess also that I could have continued working on it for a little while longer but given that I’m unfamiliar with the technique and style, I was afraid of making it worst. For instance I thought of adding a little bit of shade on the ice under the skaters with glazing – I tried but it just looked awful and so I removed it right away – I believe that there comes a time when you must say it’s enough and stop adding to it or else you just end up making yourself go crazy and frustrated – I added a little bit of yellow ochre to enhance some of the details in the buildings and a little bit on the skaters too and that’s it; that’s as far as I’ll go.

What I really like though are the skaters in the far back. Just a few brush strokes is plenty to render their silhouettes – I been working with pictures such as these (above & below) and selected skaters that I thought were the most representative of the different skaters typically found on a skating rink; from the novice girl, the young couple holding hands, the parents teaching their little one leaning on a blue construction cone, this mischievous looking little boy with the yellow toque to the young boy speeding on ice with ease like he thinks he is Maurice Richard (More picture later)

 Although not on the painting, I am on the pictures (see cameo) – I’m the one with the sky blue toque and sunglasses – The person next to me is my friend Maryse; She also used to play tenor in one of my saxophone quartet which unfortunately ceased to exist about a year ago.