Portraits of the Artists as Young Men and Women

Hello again!

Vincent, Age 13

Amidst my flurry of ink drawings (see blog published just prior to this one) - as I continued into my research of Vincent's work, I was very struck (again!) by a photograph of Vincent that was taken when he was 13 years old.

I printed off and taped up a copy of the photo on my studio wall, and little Vincent watched over me as I operated my own deadline driven art factory.  I kept on looking up at and really thinking about the young man with the intense blue eyes and careful, enigmatic gaze.  I observed his very prim and buttoned up suit and tie, which had obviously been quite carefully arranged in anticipation of the photographer's exposure, and I noticed especially how hidden he looked, despite the fact that the photograph was a complete reveal.

Of course I had seen the photo many times; I first ran across it quite early in my research for The Vincent Project.  Initially, I was struck - simply by what a beautiful little boy he was.  He seemed so different from the bearded, strange man of his adult self portraits, but you could still see - around the eyes, with their steady, even gaze - that he was indeed the Vincent he would grow up to be.

Although his life had already been difficult, with a strict mother who criticized his every action, the Vincent in the picture was still an innocent.  He had not been afflicted by failure and illness, nor had he experienced the rejection and banishments which were to come.

my Vincent, Age 13

What was he thinking about art, and beauty, and nature?  Did his hand doodle pictures while his teachers bored him with their lectures?  Did he think about color?

As I played with the pots of multi hued inks that were scattered all over my desk, I decided that I wanted to make my own portrait of Vincent, age 13.  I wanted to see if I could capture not only who he was, but who he was to become.  I wanted to spend at least a day thinking about the boy Vincent, rather than the man Van Gogh.

I did not trace.

I drew a free hand Vincent on some pastel paper, emphasizing his large and intelligent eyes.  I paid careful attention to the stiffly held mouth, which had undoubtedly been told to "hush" as he sat down in the photographer's chair.

At first, I did what was essentially just a line drawing, outlining the facial features, hair, and handsome polka dot tie.  I could have stopped there, and it would have been a fine and recognizable drawing.  But something made me press on.  The more I added to the portrait, the more I was thinking about Vincent, and what drove him to become an artist.  How was he transfigured from this insecure, yet supremely intelligent boy into the man who captured the sky, the sunflowers, the fields, the iris, and, most importantly, himself?

Picasso with his sister

How did he become Van Gogh?

After finishing Vincent's portrait, I decided to research photographs of other artists as children.  The first one I looked up was Pablo Picasso.  The great Spaniard was a beloved child of a father who was both a painting academy teacher and a fine artist in his own right.  Picasso's father nurtured his talented son, eventually giving the child his own paintbrushes when he realized that his son's talents were far greater than his own.

From the date of his birth, Picasso had been told that he was not only an artist, but a great one.

You can see in the portrait of Pablo and his sister, at right, that young Picasso's affect is (how to put this?), markedly different than that of young Van Gogh.

Little Pablo is absolutely chilled out, and completely dominates this image.  His sister adopts Vincent's posture - erect, polished and without a hair out of place.  Pablo is thumbing not only his nose, but his whole body at the photographer and any later viewer of the image.

Pablo's clothes are (seemingly purposefully, as if by his own hand) askew, his hair is a tousled mess, and he sits in a wide open, completely relaxed posture.  I doubt that many adults, even professional models, could achieve his attitude of nonchalance.

Pablo is looking directly, defiantly at the photographer, while Vincent's gaze is distantly focused.

Pablo's is the portrait of a baby lion.  Vincent's is the portrait of an entrapped mouse.

How did each of these very different boys grow up to become the most influential artists of their generation?

I tried very hard to do a portrait of Picasso from the picture with his sister, but ultimately I failed because the quality of that old picture was just so low, and I could not see enough detail in the image to capture a good likeness.  So I looked around for another picture.

There were many portraits of this imposing, confident boy, but I settled on one (at right) that was taken when he was around age 15.  In some ways, the picture does not look like him because his hair is closely shorn, and he has the serious, manly look that only a 15 year old boy can muster.

You may note that his clothes, like the clothes in the earlier portrait, are rumpled and sloppy; they look like he either slept in them, or at the very least, directed his maid to pick them up from a stepped on heap on the floor.  I do not get the idea, from this view, that a Mother was allowed to fuss or groom him before the shutter was snapped - I think that any such feminine hand would have been irritatedly swatted away.

The finished portrait of Picasso

I settled on the age 15 photo primarily because it was a clearer image, but I also liked the way his pose more closely approximated Vincent's.

For the portraits of both of these young artists, I decided to work on pastel paper, which can take a bit of wet application.  I did tape down my supports to lessen buckling, and I worked with my reed pen and colored, black and white inks.

At left, you can see my final portrait of Pablo.  I simplified his shirt, which was quite fussy and too out of focus for me to reproduce.

I inked Pablo in blue for his blue period.  Pablo is #43.


At right and below are two photos of a drawing that I started, but ultimately abandoned when I found the shirt too difficult to render.

I fussed and fussed with the shirt (which I think was actually a frilly, lacy, ascot type of garment) until I completely destroyed the drawing.

I was sad that I messed it up, because it was actually the better drawing than the one that you see above.

Honestly, I think I was so tired after doing all of those ink drawings en masse (see previous blog) that I just ran out of patience  to try to fix this drawing.

Regrets?  I've had a few.





So that was Pablo.  But what about other artists in their youth?
When I did the painting for the billboard competition, I included self portraits done by Vincent, Pablo, Rembrandt, Frieda Kahlo and Matisse. I knew that there was very little likelihood that I would find an early photograph of Rembrandt, so I started with Frieda Kahlo.

I knew that Frieda had a "look," and I wanted to see if she looked like Frieda Kahlo when she was just little Frieda.

The finished portrait of Frieda

She did.

You can see for yourself the strong, independent little girl looking with directness at the camera.

Her large and floppy hairbow is almost an exact match to one worn in a similar portrait of my mother.  I am also touched by the necklace, which presages the jewelry which Frieda made iconic.

I inked Frieda in purple because the color reminds me of Mexico.  Frieda is #44.

I looked and looked for photographs of other young women artists, but found only one other (the great portraitist Alice Neel).  Post photography era male artists were much better represented, a fact which I found very curious.  (For that matter, there were many, many more established male artists than there were women artists.)  What gives with that?  Why did nobody take pictures of these little girls, or were the pictures taken and then destroyed?  Why are there so few of them, and why is their record so sketchy?  This is something that will require much more investigation and thinking about.

So, I decided instead to find some other uber iconic artist to portray.


And who is more iconic than the original fine art pee-er himself, Andy Warhol?

So, back to Google Images for a quick look for young Andy.  Naturally, there was a wealth of well styled photos to choose from.  The early Mr. Warhol seemed to fancy himself a bit of a James Dean, and, with his narrowed eyes and swoop of blonde bangs, I think he actually was quite a handsome teenager. Looking through the black and white and ink tinted photos, I settled on the least self aware image I could find, a portrait of the very young Andy Warhola.

I set to work immediately, choosing a tomato soup colored paper, and a pot full of money green ink for the future very successful commercial artist.  For good measure, I tried to make my portrait distinctively "Andy" by repeating his image in it.  Painting two Andys simultaneously was such a good exercise to do - the two portraits are no where near exactly alike, and it was quite fun to see how different they were, even as I was painting them side by side.

I found the photo to be completely adorable, and I just loved the way that Andy's collar curled up on the right side.  He looks neat and conventional, just like a favorite son, but there is enough cheekiness and edge in the image to know that young Andy was up to something big.

I painted Andy's face and shirt with extra whiteness (as compared with the other artists) because I thought he would appreciate that exaggeration.  This portrait (Andy is painting #45) was brought directly to you from my own version of the Factory.

______________________________________

OK.  That's enough child's play.  It is time that Vincent and I began our last, most serious discussion.

Throughout the Vincent Project, I had always intended to reproduce several of Vincent's iconic self portraits.  Although I had dabbled a bit into this oeuvre...

For an illustrated envelope; this was instantly mailed away.

"The Conversation"
Rembrandt, Van Gogh, me, Kahlo, Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian
Not a complete portrait in the bunch.

...the truth was, that I was scared to paint Vincent's most iconic work.  After all, I wasn't really an artist.  I couldn't possibly even try one of his portraits before I felt like I was "ready." You know what I mean by "ready." Worthy.  Capable.  Good Enough.  A REAL Painter.


But it was week #51, and the time had come.  I couldn't hide from him, or from myself anymore.

I googled "Van Gogh self portraits, and came up with six that I wanted to do.  I will present my versions on the left; the originals are on the right.  (And I did my best to line these up, I just could not figure out how to do it.  Much thanks to the wikipedia article on Van Gogh self portraits, and much irritation with Blogger!)

#46

#47

#49

#50

#51

What was it like to paint Vincent 6 ways?

On one level, it was really just about the mechanics of each portrait.  I tried to pick both the more iconic portraits, as well as portraits that showed differing styles or periods.  The more I painted, the less scared I became.  I took things a dip and a stroke at a time.

I can tell you from having now repainted all of Vincent's work, that each original portrait was rendered in a very distinct fashion.  His eyes are a different color in every one of them, with some eyes being different colors within the single picture.  His nose, mouth, hair and beard were all similar, yet very different from portrait to portrait.  In looking closely at each image, you could tell how he thought about himself at the particular time that each was painted.

In each of the six images, I saw the little 13 year old boy.  In each of the six images I saw a lot of pain.

I will confess that I painted frequently during that week with tears rolling down my cheeks.  I felt both so close and so far from this painter who has moved me so much with his art.  Painting Vincent's portrait 6 times and in 6 different ways felt both very intimate and not intimate at all; it was like having 6 kind of drunken bar conversations with a stranger who, for at least an evening, had become a friend, but by the next morning you can barely remember a thing they said.  I feel like I know Vincent, but really, I don't know him at all.

My next blog, featuring painting #52, will be a summation of my experience with Vincent - how this project has changed my life, and what this has meant to me.

But for now, thanks for reading along and sharing this journey with me.  I will be posting within the week about my profound, tear filled, very public final experience with my favorite Dutchman, and how Vincent taught me to tell him good bye.

Have a beautiful, art filled day!

Catherine

Vincent and I race toward the finish line, toast each other with a large bottle of ink.

Hi all!

Author's note: I started this posting of the blog about three weeks ago, when I had about 22 more paintings to do in order to meet my project goal of 52 paintings in 52 weeks.  Because I chose to focus my time on painting rather than on blogging (because of my June 20th deadline), this blog is being written after the completion of the paintings.   

OK, so let me restate this, because it just sounds crazy as I look back on it: my deadline was June 20th, and as of the first of June, I had completed only 30 of the 52 paintings.  Thus I had tasked myself with completing 22 paintings in less than three weeks.  Yeah, that goal was indeed crazy! Maybe I was becoming more and more like Van Gogh.

I needed to find a way to paint faster.

Yet instead of diving into a frantic painting frenzy, I took a breath, poured a glass of wine, and procrastinated by perusing my books about Vincent.  After a few sips of white bordeaux, I looked down at my stacks and noticed the appropriately entitled: "Becoming Van Gogh."    OK, Vincent, I'll bite.

Published by The Denver Art Museum in association with the Yale University press, "Becoming Van Gogh" was a companion publication to an exhibit at the museum (October 2012 - January 2013) which explored the works and artists which influenced Vincent as he transfigured himself from the oft failed "Vincent" to supremely successful "Van Gogh."  I am horrified that I missed this exhibit, but grateful for the opportunity to have a make up session with this fine and insightful book.

As I leafed through the tome, I came across an essay by Timothy J. Standring entitled "Vincent's Progress."  This essay focuses on Vincent's prolific work using pen and ink on paper.  Standring explains that much of the foundation for Vincent's later success with oil painting came directly from the hundreds of ink drawings he produced early in his artistic career.  These drawings gave Vincent the confidence in his draftsmanship that he needed in order to take the risks necessary to produce his masterworks.

Then (God Bless Timothy J. Standring!), the essay goes on to explain just exactly how Vincent did it!

Standring describes Vincent using both reed and goose quill pens, and his method of working from light to dark in tone after first setting up the basic drawing in pencil.

The book also features numerous reproductions of Vincent's ink drawings, and describes how he later used some of these drawings as the basis for his paintings.

Because he wrote daily with ink pens, Vincent was very facile with this medium.  What artistic advantage is there to typing on a keyboard?

I had done some work with inks (both colored and black india ink) many years ago because, like Vincent, I found the inks to be both cheaper and less intimidating to use than actual paints for creating artwork.  You can see above a drawing that I did for my introduction to design class.  (When I first did this, the figure was very black, but the ink has now faded to brown; perhaps I need to get this out of direct sunlight...)  This experience of working with inks made me comfortable with them, and I knew that once out of the bottle, ink dried very fast, and I would not waste any time waiting for color to set.

I concluded that if I were going to have a chance to reach my goal, I would have to loosen my definition of "painting."  I figured if Vincent worked in inks, and his ink drawings counted as bona fide Van Gogh's, then it would be OK for me to do a few ink drawings in an effort to finish the Vincent Project on time.

I got out some bristol paper, and a pot of ink, some paintbrushes, water and an old nib and holder that I had, and I made a whole page of scribbles (above).

At left you can see my pot of ink wash, which a few drops of the full strength india ink mixed with some water in a little cup.

I do like the way you can see all of the images I have taped to the wall above the cup reflected in the inky blackness.  Cool!

You can see at right the nib holders and nibs that I was using.  The silver nibs just shove down into the plastic nib holders, making a pen with interchangeable "heads" for different effects.

Certain nibs fit certain holders; that is why there are different ones.


Standring's essay featured a detail from Vincent's View  of Arles from Montmajour, (below) which he drew in 1888.



I liked the drawing, primarily because of all of the different textures Vincent used in it.  There were puffy clouds, rough trees and rocks, cultivated land, and even factory emissions in the drawing, and Standring practically invited me to copy with his extensive description of exactly how he thought Vincent did it.

With a fresh piece of paper, working, as Standring suggested, from light to dark, I started with a wash for the sky.


I then added in a few horizontal lines, along with some texture in the foreground.



After loading up my nib with full strength ink, I started to sketch in the outlines of some of the buildings.  Everything was going well until I touched down with an overloaded nib and it released a huge blob of ink (below) right where I did not want it!

But the ink is so wet and easy to move, I decided to try just sucking it back up with a very slightly dampened paint brush.  I dampened the brush in water, then tapped it off onto some paper towels until it was the hair equivalent of "towel dry."  (I was worried if the brush was too dry, it would just smear the ink around; fortunately, the damp bristles worked exactly the way I wanted them to, so everything came out OK.)

You can see above and at left what happened when I touched the damp brush to the blob; the paintbrush sucked up the excess just like a straw!

I was able to incorporate the gray mark that was left, and I was glad that I did not have to throw out my painting because of the "blob."

You can see at the right that I liked this method of removal so much that I tried it again later on in the drawing.

I guess that was the sequel.

Summer movie season.

Nothin' but sequels!

And on I went.  The ink dried so quickly that there was not much time to take photos.  What you see at right is the drawing as I was nearing completion, and below is the finished drawing with the addition of some darker tones on the trees and in the clouds.

(I think I overdid this; what do you think?)

My drawing is above, and Vincent's is shown below (in the book).  So that was #31.

I liked doing the inks, and quickly (re)embraced the medium.  Below you will see some of the other ink drawings I did; I was averaging about one and 1/2 9X12 drawings each day, and in some cases I was even working on multiple drawings at the same time.  I am going to just enlarge these photos and let you have a look at the process:

I started with some penguins, which came from a photocopy I made from a Time Magazine article about animals.

photo

photocopy

this is the paper I used, it is called bristol or bristol board.

You can see that it is a little thicker than regular paper, but not as thick as cardstock.

Yes, I started by tracing - I had a schedule to keep!

I am ready to start inking it in, and will use my penguin magnifier for inspiration and magnification!

At about this point, I starting trying to think of a caption for what was starting to look like a "New Yorker" cartoon...

The bodies are filled in with pure ink.

I added in some washes for shadows, and some dots to make the birds look rounder.

The final drawing - please feel free to add a humorous caption if you can think of one!

That was painting #32.

I was feeling a little guilty because I was not painting with paints, so I decided to do a quick, small painting of a shoe, another image that I had previously cut out of my Time Magazine.

I started with a tracing of my image, then laid out some paints, below.

Along with some genuine reed pens and inks in lovely colors, I had picked up some exciting new Golden brand shades of grey at Asel Art supply near the UT Campus in Austin. I do want to encourage everyone to look to Asel, as well, when you want an excellent selection of art supplies, along with a friendly, and knowledgeable staff.  Really, genuine thanks to David Lamplugh (aselartaustin@gmail.com), who was a great help to me when I stopped in.  One of the coolest things about becoming an artist is getting to meet the really nice and interesting people in the art community.  David is high on that list.

OK, on with the SHOE!

Aren't these gray colors nice?  I wanted to use blacks and grays as I was really thinking in those terms because of the pen and ink drawings.  I had decided to render my shoe in black and focus specifically on the tonality of the image and the relationship between lights and darks, shadows and highlights.

the beginning

the middle

the end

some details

the heel

a really big shoe!

That was #33.

OK, what follows is some experimentation with inks, gouache (opaque water color) and transparent water color.  This was purely just playing around.  This work does not count on my list, but I am including it because I think there is value in following along to see where the end of my pen (or brush) leads me.  

EEEEK!

Dragging with the tail end of the nib holder.

I try painting with the leftover gouache on an old fragment of canvas with a cartoon of Vincent's face.

I turn him into the Wolfman!

this was an abstract experiment to use up my leftover gouache.

After reviewing some of Vincent's pen and ink drawings, I decide to use some of them as tracings for my own versions.  I know it is cheating, but I just lost a day "experimenting" (above) and I have got to get myself back on time.


To make up for it, I do a completely freehand drawing of Brio and Poco on The ArtDemiGod's leg in my sketch book (below).  Ah, sleep!  I wonder what that is like?

OK, the night cafe tracing is done, and I am beginning with some black india ink.  Notice how the edges of the paper are taped down to keep them from buckling when the paper is wetted.

For this, I used blue painter's tape (which I had on hand) but I am not recommending this because it left a sticky residue on the edges of my drawing.

I have since learned that there is a specific artist's tape that does what the blue tape does but does not leave a residue.  I will use that in the future.

At right is india ink soaking into the nib of my reed pen.  You can see that the reed pen is essentially just carved out from a stick of bamboo.  Although the pen was initially challenging to use, I quickly learned to love it, and delighted in the constant "scratchy-scratchy" sound that it made when I moved across the paper.

I cleaned my reed pen before I started using different colored inks.  The black that you see on the pen is a stain, and will not come off with the new color.

This also shows how the reed pen works - ink is drawn up the slit and rests in the little hole until it is deployed onto the paper.

COLOR!

Thanks again, Asel Art!

You can see how transparent the ink is on the paper toweling at right.  Isn't it a yummy color?

Stars.

Coloring.

Greens.

I decide to use some opaque yellow gouache.  The opaque, transparent and translucent principles are the same as when painting with acrylic.

the finished drawing

The night cafe is #34

I am going to do an owl (after Vincent's drawing) for my friend, Dawn, who was just elected mayor of Johnson City, Texas!

She is smart, and will be a great mayor!

She also really really loves owls.

This time, I start with a wash of brown ink.

To keep the paper flat, I cover the wet image with a sheet of waxed paper and lay on a heavy book while it dries.

Thanks, Vincent!

And now I am working on another version of the Sower.

I start this one with a yellow ink wash, which I set to dry while I resume work on the owl.

The owl and branch are defined in black.

And here is the finished owl.

The owl is #35 

Now back to the sower.  On top of the yellow, I add in some orange and cross hatch with violet.

I added some white gouache to the violet in my cup, along with a good mist of water to keep it loose and flowy.

The opaque mixture above is added to the figure's boots, and sketched loosely into the field.

Yikes!  The damn blue painters tape ripped the paper as I was trying to remove it!

A thin bead of paper glue, some protective waxed paper, and another press with a heavy book made for a seamless repair.

here is the finished sower

That one is #36.

Next, I am going to ink a moth, some trees, and a rocky hillside, all based on drawings that Vincent did.  I am starting to understand how a tattoo artist feels, and my studio is starting to look a bit like a production line. I have to pause just a moment to consider art on a deadline.  Are deadlines good for art? I have an inkling (ha!) that they are not.

OK, enough stalling! 

 I want to experiment by adding some transparent water color to my ink.  I have no idea if adding gouaches or watercolors is "allowed" in haughty art circles, but I just dipping a reed pen into ink and coloring in between the lines was getting a bit boring...


I had several tubes of old water color (I think I inherited these from my Mother; they are probably at least 15 years old.  I have no idea if freshness will count in this experiment.)

In the background you can see my cartoon of the moth.

Starting with just a few drops of blue ink, I suspended (see right) a blob of the green water color; I did it that way so that I could mix it in very sparingly and see what I got.



These stainless steel condiment cups from the restaurant supply are working pretty well for me.

And here we have the addition of a couple of fine mists of water and a tiny bit of the green in with the blue.

 You can see on the paper toweling the original blue ink on the left and with the addition of the green water color on the right...

Notice how my paper toweling is taped down so that I can rub against it one handed with my brush.

The moth is inked, yet not documented photographically.

For the tree drawing, I decided that the turquoise color was too bright, so I dulled it down with the addition of just a whisper of black ink.

These trees are also based on a drawing that Vincent did - mine will be in color, though.

I am keeping things really thinned down with constant mists of water.  This perfect little sprayer is a recycled eyeglass cleaner sprayer.

For the rocky landscape (which Vincent later made into a painting which I have visited many times at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston), I wanted very little color, so I used some white water color with a little black ink to make shades of grey for the rocks and scrubby trees.

I apparently decided that I had added too much green, so I scaled back considerably on the amount of white in my cup.

Because these ink drawings are fairly small, I am using a quite small angled shader for the application.

Here is the grey that I got.

At left is a shot of my work in progress on the rocky hillside.

I used blue ink for the sky.

You may note that the ink by itself is transparent; the leafy portion of the tree in the drawing still comes through the wash of ink.

And, like Andy Warhol's studio, here is my "factory" setting.

Like all artists that work with nibs, I keep them secured in a recycled altoids container.

Vincent's original Sower paintings can be seen in the book propped open on my table.

Here is the progress on the trees, at left, and below near completion.



You can observe how I had the drawings taped down to my desk so that they would not buckle.

OK, so here, in order are the finished ink drawings in this series:

#31 Landscape at Arles after Van Gogh (ink on bristol)

#32 Penguins (ink on bristol)

#33 Night walk (acrylic on board)

#34 The Night Cafe after Van Gogh (ink on bristol)

#35 Owl (for Dawn) after Van Gogh (ink on bristol)

#36 The Sower after Van Gogh (ink on bristol)

#37 Trees after Van Gogh (ink on bristol)

#38 Moth after Van Gogh (ink on bristol)

#39 Rocky Landscape at Arles after Van Gogh (ink on bristol)

#40 The Poppy after Dongen (MFAH) (ink on bristol)

#41 Poco in repose (ink on pastel paper) (Awww!)

unnumbered (bonus!) bee from my window (ink on bristol)

Thus ends that series with painting #41.  The final 11 paintings, a series of portraits, will be presented in my next blog.  Thanks for reading along, and inspiring so much of this journey!