Female Nude Reclining on a Divan

There is a manifest sensuality to this dreaming woman with her body offered up to the spectator’s gaze, and we know from the Journal that Delacroix’s relations with his models often went beyond the pictorial; but there are also traces of the influence of Bonington in the presentation, and perhaps of Delacroix’s desire to emulate Ingres’ nudes.

Diana and Callisto

It portrays the moment in which the goddess Diana discovers that her maid Callisto has become pregnant by Jupiter.

In the Tepidarium

The tepidarium was the warm Roman bath. This painting shows a girl holding an ostrich feather and a strigel used for scraping the skin after soaping and oiling it. Alma-Tadema generally contrasted archaeologically accurate detail with aggressively modern figures and attitudes. He was also the most gifted exponent among Victorian painters in rendering exactly textures, surfaces and colours.

Phryné before the Aeropagus

The story tells about Alcippe , the daughter of Ares (God of War) and Aglauros. She was raped by a son of Poseidon. Ares immediately killed the rapist, and was brought on trial by the other gods. It was the first murder trial. After the facts were laid out, and they heard what happened to Alcippe, Ares was quickly aquitted. Alcippe was also called Phryne.

Danaë

Danaë being impregnated by Zeus, who comes to her in the form of golden rain (see Danaë for the explanation of this Greek myth) was a subject for several well-known paintings.

The Fortune

The Fortune

Female Nude and Pianist

 The Sleeping Venus

The Nude Maja

The identity of the Nude Maja has been the topic of many discussions. Theories range from Pilar Teresa Cayetana, the Duchess of Alba, to Teresita, sister of a priest. Some critics believe Goya had no model at all, but painted his “ideal” woman.

In the Tepidarium

In the Tepidarium

One Second Before Awakening from a Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate

The painting depicts a woman (Dalí’s wife, Gala) sleeping while sunbathing naked during a calm day on rocks floating over the sea, possibly at Port Lligat. An elephant with incredibly long, extremely thin legs walks across the sea’s horizon while carrying an obelisk. Near the woman float two drops of water and a small pomegranate. From a larger pomegranate comes a fish that spews a tiger from which comes another tiger, while in front of that second tiger a rifle’s bayonet touches (or nearly touches) the woman’s right arm.

Cleopatra

Venus Anadyomene

Venus Anadyomene offered a natural subject for a fountain: the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC has a lifesize bronze plumbed so that water drips from Venus’ hair, modelled by a close follower of Giambologna, late sixteenth century.

The Birth of Venus

Chloe

She has graced magazine covers, had wine named after her and poems written to her. She has experienced fame and adoration and has won high acclaim from critics. Her career began, like the many models after her, in Paris but she was created and moulded by a Master. She is a Melbourne icon, mascot for the HMAS Melbourne, an extremely fine work of art, she is an ingenue, a nymph, a celebrity. She is Chloe, the famous nude portait which has graced the walls of the Young and Jackson Hotel since 1909.

The Source

Reclining Nude

The Three Nymphs

Overflow

Actaea, the Nymph of the Shore

From Above The Clouds

 

From Above

acrylic on paper 

20" X 7.5"

On a recent trip to New Orleans I had some great art conversations with a friend. One of the subjects we touched on was Georgia O'Keeff's clouds. I have seen them and I love the pattern that she created.
On the way home, we were in the air for only a few minutes and traveling over the Mississippi coast when I saw this. I saw several patterns in the clouds. It interested me very much and had to remember it till I got home.
I do not think I have ever painted clouds from this view.

Have you ever thought about all the new views we have in our lifetime, both very large and very small. This is one. All the people that ever lived up to 1960, never saw this! Think of Galileo, in prison for "believing" that the world looked like this.

Scary Wash Over

One of the techniques I use is a transparent "wash over".  It can be done as a oil/medium wash and then paint right into the wet, or as in this one above, a turpentine wash with some ultramarine blue added and then let it dry.
The goal is, first to drop the value down a step or two. Second, and really the most important, to create a color edge that will stay with the painting and harmonize all the tones, in all the areas.
The scary part is that I can, for a while, completely hide (or ruin) the entire painting and I just have to trust myself that I can get it back.
In the last few years, I have also been working in acrylic, it's just so easy to wash over, wait 20 minutes and start painting again, but oil washing this way means that I do it at the end of the day and go home. UGH!
The reason I did it this time was to get a "depth of darkness" in the forest.

Two at a Time

This is the first day at the easel, working on these roosters. They are in oil on 36"sq. canvases.

They are a combinations of sights that I have seen several times while driving around the area.
I live in the woods. This area was once completely deforested for farmland. Then when that industry declined the land was left to regrow the trees. Now the entire area is a fractured forest mixed with horse farms. Most of the back roads have trees growing right to their edges and in the late afternoon the light comes through the trees. It can look like a strobe that keeps your eye from completely grabbing the scene.
Some people keep chickens and work small farm plots This maybe closer to the way it was when this area was first developed in the mid 1600's. Many properties, including my own, have stone walls, some that date back to Dutch, and then English settlers.
There is great enthusiasm for "free range" chickens and eggs. I love the eggs and we will buy my friend's Blue Moon Farm eggs even at 3x the price.
Free range poultry like the edges of the woods and fields since they must worry about foxes, coyotes and hawks.

Flying

 

This is the second of the two paintings, posted below, that I started simultaneously. (60"X36" acrylic on canvas)
One was a commission and as I got closer to completion I asked my client to chose one of the two paintings and I put the contrail in that one. The contrail was a requested element.
I live in an area where there is a contrail in the sky all the time, most of us do. In the evenings, right now, as I write, there are a half dozen.
Since having these commissions I have paid closer attention to these contrails and the fact that they are a consistent element in my visual landscape, so in this second painting I have included one, but not without the juxtaposition of another flying element.  
When I look up at a contrail I often think of the people on board, and all the things that they are planning to do on arrival to wherever!
I have a similar thoughts when I see my local hawks soaring. What are they thinking, so high in the air? What does it feel like to really know the wind?

Summer Treeline

Today the sun is out again after three days of heavy rain. This is the view that I have again today.
I believe that these last two paintings are the closest I have come to capturing this summer sun. It has become an obsession, similar to Edward Hopper's desire to paint the light on a wall.  In that desire I have tried to add, in this painting, something beyond the classic compositions. To add the mundane and the repetitive! Not very positive words for a painting. Maybe someday I will have someone who can write something more eloquently, but I hold to this idea.
There is something interesting and even visceral about our new view, our 40-60 mph, out the window view of life.    

White Pine in the Summer Sky

 

It is a great summer, some are complaining that it is too hot, but this is how I like it!  I should post some of the gardening work I have been doing. We did finally need help and hired a guy to weed the 200' of rock wall.
This white pine is one of my favorites in the yard. I actually chose this portion because the top was so damaged in the winter storms, but I can already see that it is repairing itself and does not look so bad anymore. My local crows hang out in some of the lower branches and I have shared some winter paintings I did of them. The crows have gotten very comfortable with me and  they have even brought the new young ones to the lower yard when I am outside.
I have been following all my blogger friends and enjoying all your efforts. If it ever rains again I will visit and comment.
Enjoy Your Summer

On The Way to Dublin

Here is the finished and selected painting, 60"x36".
This is a commissioned piece and I chose to do two at the same time. Now I am pulling it off the stretcher and putting it into a tube and flying to Ireland to give it to him... and then I am going to travel down some canals with my son-in-law and family on his boat. This could be the ultimate Pub-Crawl!

Adding Contast

With A tree

Some Progress

In-Process

Getting Green

This is a panoramic photograph I put together, in PS  of the farm where I have my studio. I do not have to go too far for a view! Today I spent a half an hour watching a Fox mousing in the field in the upper right corner. Several time he did the hop, hop, dive into the dried grass and came up with a mouse or vole.

Figure Drawing Night

I have works in progress in the studio and nothing is finished enough to post.
It felt good to work in the studio all day and then go and draw for three hours.
We had a very "Voluptuous" model tonight. Interesting to look at, but a challenge to draw.
She kept wanting those easy reclining poises, when Botero style poises would have been much more dramatic.

We're moving

The Google AdSense Team has sent me an email warning me that this blog has pornography and/or adult content. As an example, they referred me to the 1932 label, where one may find these two paintings:

François-Emile Barrauda, La seance de peinture, 1932, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Adamo ed Eva di Tamara de Lempicka, originally uploaded by Giacomo Momo.

I was told that unless I remove those images they can not continue to allow me to display ads on that or indeed on any other of my blogs that also contain images of nudity - which is perfectly possible, seeing as I love art.

I would have liked to contact whoever is the decider in the AdSense team, to inform him/her that neither Tamara de Lempicka nor François-Emile Barrauda were pornographers, nor did they produce anything other than quality content (not to say there is no quality porn) - but the same mind that could not tolerate the sight of these works of art understandably will also not tolerate to be contacted. They appear to be spooked by many things with no rational motive.

In this the AdSense team is not alone. For example, the team in charge of supervising the content of blogs has become sadly known for its tendency to feel upset over gay sites (including those that, like mine, are not pornographic) deleting them without justifying so to their authors - which makes perfect sense for, in truth, how does one justify a morally indefensible aversion? How does one justify a prejudice?

Seeing as it's not possible to talk to these people, nor would they understand me if I did, and they'd just get emotionally stressed for nothing if I were to do so; and seeing as I would not wish to cause any more emotional distress to people who already worry themselves so much over things that don't matter, I thought it best to simply transfer all my blogs to Tumblr, something which was very easy to do and not a bother at all.

The new address is Old Paint and there I will continue to do much the same that I've been doing here. So if you've liked it so far, just follow the link.

I'd like to thank Blogger for having served me so well throughout these years and I hope those responsible for these reprehensible decisions stay on the meds. See you soon! :)

Giovanni Battista Langetti, Samson, c.1660

Giovanni Battista Langetti - Samson [c.1660], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

gandalfsgallery.blogspot.com/2011/04/giovanni-battista-la...

Giorgio Bonelli, Papavero Negro Poppy, 1772-93

Giorgio Bonelli, Papavero Negro Poppy, 1772-93, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Via Still Life, Quick Heart

N. C. Wyeth, Still Life with Pipe, ca. 1910

‘Still Life with Pipe' ca. 1910 by N. C. Wyeth, originally uploaded by Plum leaves.

Via Flickr:
N.C. (Newell Convers) Wyeth [American Golden Age Illustrator, 1882-1945]

Patriarch of three generations of Wyeth-Hurd artists, including son Andrew Wyeth and grandson Jamie Wyeth.

Oil on canvas.

Brandywine River Museum brandywine.doetech.net/results.cfm?ParentID=366739&St...

Pia Valentinis, Strega

strega, originally uploaded by pia valentinis.

http://piavalentinis.blogspot.com/2011/04/strega.html

Hiroshige

Hiroshige, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Ling Jian, Sweet Bitter, 2007

Ling Jian, Sweet Bitter, 2007, originally uploaded by kraftgenie.

Juliette Aristedes, James

Juliette Aristedes - James, originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

Via Flickr:
gandalfsgalleymodern.blogspot.com/2011/04/juliette-ariste...

Jansson Stegner, Sarabande, 2006

Jansson Stegner, Sarabande, 2006, originally uploaded by kraftgenie.

Jacques le Moyne de Morgues, Dragon Arum with Butterfly, 16th century

Jacques le Moyne de Morgues, Dragon Arum with Butterfly, 16th century, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Via Flickr:
Via Still Life, Quick Heart

John White Alexander, Study in Black and Green, 1906

John White Alexander, Study in Black and Green, 1906, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Via Flickr:
John White Alexander (1856-1915).

Via My old world

Julian Alden Weir, At the Piano

Julian Alden Weir, At the Piano, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 579 x 699 size.

Kenneth Frazier, Woman with a rose

Kenneth Frazier, Woman with a rose, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 500 x 677 size.

Via Unreality Art

Konstantin Andreevich Somov

Konstantin Andreevich Somov, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 640 x 471 size. Via Lonely Indian.

Konstantin Andreevich Somov (Russian, 1869-1939).