Technical drawing II

Hi, last time I said something about the materials but anything about its uses. Well, I'll start with charcoal, that one is wich I usually take the first to do the sketch (proportion and bassic things by way of guidance). I use charcoal because it'i easy to rub out, so I can correct my mistakes easilly. Then, when I have done the sketch, I take the charcoal again and draw some lines to mark the shades. After, I take the chalk and the drawing pencil; with the chalk I color the big spaces and shades and with the drawing pencil I color the small spaces and details. Finally, I take the stump and shade off the painting, but remember you should use the stump on circular way.

See you and remember: "Don't be afraid of art"

Technical drawing

Last Monday, my art teacher tell me something about technical drawing which I'm starting to practice. That day she tell me about charcoal, chalk and what hear is called "Lápiz compuesto", its translation is "compound pencil" or "drawing pencil", but I don´t know the speciffic word in English, excuse me.

Well there I show you photos of that instrument :

Drawing pencil

Chalk

Charcoal

See you and remember : "Don't be afraid of art"

Tate modern

This last summer I traveled to London and I visited the Tate modern. That museum is the 3rd most-visited in the World (more or less). The gallery is housed in the old Bankside Power Station, that was restructured and opened as a Museum on May 2000. Usually, the entrance is free, but sometimes you must pay for some speciffics temporal exhibitions.  There I saw things that surprised me : sculptures very different to that I have seing before, some of them with very very big sizes, photos that express clear ideas,very different paintigs, games, optical effects...and the shop the shop was amazing! The experience there was incredible, I really liked it.

For more information, the official web site of the museum: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
and a map to go there:

Ver mapa más grande


See you and remember : "Don't be afraid of art"

Lenore's Characters

Hi again! I'll put some more information about Lenore as I said last time, I love it!

Well, just start with something more about Lenore. 

• Lenore is a 10 years-old undead girl (zombie) who lives in a mansion with her strange friends. The girl gets very ill and dies, so her parents decides to embalm her, but she doesn't know that she is dead at all. She loves animals (especially cats), but she usually kills her pets by "accident". 

• Ragamuffin looks like a rag doll with worms for hair and polyester filling, but his story is very interesting. That "rag doll" is  about 400 years-old, he was an inmortal vampire but one night he attaked a young woman and killed her, that woman was the sister of a very powerful witch that cursed and transformed  him into a doll as a revenge. Ragamuffin is not very sure of some of Lenore's crazy ideas, but he is loyal and very protective of her. 

• Mr. Gosh is in love with Lenore and very mad and obsessive with her, but she have kill him once and again.

• Taxidermy is the strange neighbour.
• Muffin Monster likes muffins, but we don't know much about him.
• Kitty is a dead cat, and also a pet of Lenore. It wasn't dead when it met Lenore, but as we kown, she accidentally kills every pet she takes care of.

Lenore with  kitty

Mr. Gosh

Lenore also have motion films on the Internet :



See you and remember: "Don't be afraid of art"

Lenore the cute little dead girl

 As I said last time I'll tell you some other things about Lenore, my favourite comic. Lenore is a character inspired in the E.A.Poe's work with the same name. That comic is about the adventures of Lenore and her friends and it is characterised of its black humor and its twist endings. The story takes place in a small town called Nevermore (taking its name from another of Poe's work: The Raven). In any case Lenore isn't a malicious character and she often thinks that she is doing the right thing. Next time I'll put some information about its characrers.

See you and remember: " Don't be afraid of art"

What comic is?

Hierogliphic

I usually read comics, they're nice and nowadays there are a lot of types to choose (horror, comedy, necrophile, sadic, manga, black humor, historical, superheroes,etc). But comics were on our lifes so many years ago, even Egyptians made hierogliphics wich had a lot of relations to them. Monks also made miniatures in books a lot of years ago.

Miniature

Some people consider comic as 8th art due to its essential role in the appearance of photography and cinema (6th and 7th art).

Bunny Suicides

There are two comics that I really like; one is "bunny suicides" by Andy Riley that is really funny and the other one is "Lenore the cute little dead girl" by Roman Dirge, that is my favourite! Next time I'll put some more information about it. 

Lenore the cute little dead girl

See you and remember: " Don't be afraid of art" .

Shapes and sizes of paintbrush

Flat with circle end

My art teacher also told me about shapes and sizes of that instruments. According to their shapes we can find many types of paintbrushs, but I have only used a few of them so far, those used in oil paint (made of pig hair, as I explained it last time ). There are flat paintbrushs with circle (these can be used to detail or to paint big areas) or straight end. They can also have a circular shape, with their internal hair longer than the esternal (very useful for outlines, details and things like that). Finally I use those with a fanned form to shade off the picture. There are many others but nowadays I don't use them, I'm still learning.

See you and remember: "Don't be afraid of art"

Fanned shape

Circular shape

Types of Paintbrushs

Paintburshs are essential for painting like some other things that I usually use (palette, cloth,  water, solvent, easel, palette knife, liseed oil...). Last week my art teacher told me about two types of diferent paintbourshs and its uses:


For watercolors we should use those made of poney or horses hair and are usually soft and malleable paintbourshs.

For oil painting we should use paintboursh made of pig hair which have a stiff and rough touch.

Next time I'll talk about different shapes of paintboursh. See you and remember "Don't be afraid of art"

Julian Beever

Some days ago, a friend sent me an e-mail with some paintings of that artist and I really like it. Beever is another unusual artist, but that one, usually paints in the street and he makes very nice optical  effects, they look like reality, they don't look like a painting...it's incredible. Julian creates optical effects that confuse our eyesight, littles tricks that produce very big things.
See you ! and remember..."Don't be afraid of art"

Juan Francisco Casas

This unusual artist was born in Jaen, Spain in 1976. Casas was graduated in Fine Arts in 1999 and he won a prize because he was the best student of Fine Arts in Spain that year. He has a special talent for drawing realism, Casas usually paints in a very big paper with a blue pen (bic), that produces a magic effect in his paintings. That artist takes photos of his daily live with a camera, not a very good ones, then he takes a pen and stars drawing, due to the low quality of the camera he changes a little bit the picture and releases his imagination.

 

It's difficult to belive that they are done only with a blue pen...
Next time I'll talk about Julian Beever, he is very unusual too ! See you and remember: "Don't be afraid of art"

Graffiti: art or crime?

Graffiti, have you ever seen one? They're everywhere, I'm sure that you often see them. Graffities appeared last century, about 60's in New York. At the begining they were only tags of people with their nicknames
and usually with the number of their streets like Taki 183 and Kilroy.

Some years later, other types of that urban art emerged, those had more colours and less letters. They were painted in underground stations, then with  Hip-Hop motifs, and nowadays they're also used to decorate places (private graffiti), others called slogans that espress a personal opinion etc...

In any case, graffiti is an art that usually needs a very big wall to be done and that fact prevents that some artists can practice it. Therefore, they are forced to paint in private properties and commit a crime. There are some places destinated for that but no many yet.

Next time I'll talk about a unusual artist call Juan Francisco Casas. See you and remember... Don't be afraid of art ;)

Hi !

In "A little bit of art" I'm going to talk about some artists, kinds of paint, techniques, etc. But do you know what art means?
I'm sure that you know something about it: the name of an artist like "Picasso" or a painting such as "Gioconda" or sculptures like "The thinker", who dont't know that things?

 

The thinker

Gioconda

 

Picasso

But art is not only the names of dead people or boring paintigs as some people think, graffiti is also art, a film can be art, and a song too, nowadays a lot of things can be art. A few days ago, I saw an exhibition of contemporary art and there were some interesting things, it was very original. For example, there was a room with a lot of red fumes and it was easy to come in but, inside,  you couldn't see anything and it was difficult to go out; that is art.

Next time I'll talk about urban art. See you ;) .