Apotheoun (Tom at Eleven)
 

Hi Everyone,

Here is my first unveiling. I would be interested in any thoughts or reactions to this work. It was begun near the time I joined this forum, a few weeks back in March. This forum has really inspired me.

Apotheoun, oil on linen, 30 1/2 " x 35 1/2 ".

This painting is a reinterpretation of another work I painted in 1994, which refers to the source image I photographed back in 1981. I like this new version much better.

This painting is part of a special exhibition which opens tomorrow, Sunday April 4, 2004, and runs though April 25, at the Philadelphia Sketch Club. The exhibition is in honor of one of the finest instructors in the history of the Pennsylvania Academy of the fine Arts, and is entitled: "An Instuctor's Legacy: The Pedagogical Work and Students of Arthur DeCosta." I feel fortunate to have been one of his students, as he taught me most of what I value in painting. I also feel fortunate to be among the 27 exhibitors which include Bo Bartlett, Brett Bigbee, James Brantley, Vincent Desiderio, and Stuart Shils.

I know this is an unconventional approach to a portrait, but I felt free because it is not a commission. In this painting I was mainly focused on the tonal qualities of the imagery, especially in the play of sunlight accross the boy. Developing the extremely close tonal values was a tricky challenge for me. Toward the sfumato, I used a number of very subtle hazy velaturas , as well as lightly dragged scumbles.

Thanks, and if you are in Philly, stop by and see the exhibition.

Dear Garth,

I am not sure where to start in conveying my reaction to this painting. First, I find (again) the composition to be original and daring, and completely, to my view, satisfying. Your ability to understate, yet beautifully depict, the subtlest of color, value and edge transitions is completely delightful. And wow , the reflected light and color on the boy's torso -

When you get a chance, would you post some close-ups and some extreme close-ups?

WOW Chris,

Thanks so much! I wish I had extreme-close-ups, but unfortunately I was in such a hurry to deliver the painting, that I only shot a few general pictures like those above. I will attempt to shoot some more at the show opening later today.

Actually, the closer you get to the painting, the more it appears as a blurred image. The canvas texture is the only giveaway that a photo of the paint surface is in focus. Maintaining a soft rendering, and not getting pulled into all the nit-picky detail of the photo, was the toughest part for me. I repainted everything over and over until it began to look about right, with just a slight understatement, if possible. Sometimes the less said (in paint) about a nuance, the better.

Beautiful!

Thanks for reminding me just how high the bar is that I'm aiming for. Makes me want to go up into the studio right now and get back to work!

Garth -- wow! Stunning. Feels like we're right there with them. Scuffed espadrilles and all.

Geez Michele, That is exactly the reaction I had about this forum when I started this painting. I was quite intimidated by the height of the bar myself!

Garth, I'm looking forward to the close-ups.

Jean

Congratulation, this is really a fine example on how to subordinate values to the "Big Picture".

I recognize it as a detail from your "Apotheosis of the Chunnel"
You just proved that photos can be used, unless you have an extremely long memery for color.

Allan

Garth,

I love your original composition, and it is so well painted. I would love to see closeups of the forms of the bodies, they're rendered so beautifully. It is a treat to look at!

Thanks !!!
 

Thanks Everyone, for this unexpected positive response!

Chris: Again, Thanks! Color adjustments and edge transitions were in a constant state of flux and reassessment. Change one thing and everything else needs an according adjustment. The yellow reflected light in the torso was changed at least six times, being dictated as the chroma levels of the towel were modified.

Marvin: Thanks! You are also a great teacher, reminding me of my own.

Michele: The scope of talent in this forum has truly been inspirational to the way I approached this painting.

Terri: Thanks! I never knew what espadrillles were before!

Jean: Thanks, I will attempt some close-ups in the gallery this afternoon.

Allan: Thanks! Hopefully I have grown as a painter. I see big changes to the way I approached the same subject ten years ago. Photos can be very unreliable resources for paintings. I chose to accept that the final look of the painting would have a very tonal photographic effect; - it would seem super-human in my mind to get beyond that reference limitation. The color seemed to be of lesser importance with the tonal qualities dominating. One also has to use common sense when interpreting color out of a photograph. The colors are always wrong; in my case there was a strong blueish cast. I aimed for the color effect I thought should be there, and then constantly readjusted it until everything just clicked.

Holly: Thanks! The composition was determined through careful cropping. This meant tweaking the canvas stretchers until they were half an inch off of their original intended length.

Shees Garth! This is one fine piece of work. I like the different use of space, unorthodox viewpoint, and tanned legs alongside the boys blond haired, fair, less sunbaked skin. That's a nice touch that is very well done. Of course I also like the other things mentioned as well. :) You have good reason to be proud of this one.

Garth, great work and composition. Do you have a link giving more information on the exhibition?

Garth -

I love it, just love it.

Great piece.

Linda

You all seem too high with your praise, but believe me, I appreciate it!

Carl: Thanks! I had an unexpectedly good response at the exhibition opening today. At first it seemed everyone walked by it, but gradually it became more noticed. Perhaps this was partly because it was hung next to Vince Desiderio's blockbuster triptych, which I felt was the most important work in the show. There were a lot of encouraging comments.

Jimmie: Thanks! As America's oldest art club (1860), The Philadelphia Sketch Club still feels heavily grounded in the past (Thomas Eakins began his teaching career here, before PAFA). This place is well worth a visit. It is full of charm and is burrowed deep down a very tight alley, off the ordinary beaten path.

Here is some pertinent info from their leaflet:

The Philadelphia Sketch Club
A Regional Art Education Center, Library, Museum and Historic Site.
235 South Camac Street (one-way south, between 12th, 13th, Locust and Spruce streets)
Philadelphia, PA 19107
(215) 545-9298
Open M, W, F, Sat, and Sun. from 1pm to 5pm (and its free!)

http://www.sketchclub.org

email: [email protected]

Linda: Thanks!!!

Superb Garth!

You you have masterfully captured the warm fuzzy feeling of a sun-soaking, lazy day. I love the fact that it's photo realistic in nature but without the "plastic look" around the edges that a lot of that style has.

This makes me want to fly out from Seattle to see it. :sunnysmil Excellent painting!

-Geary

Super close-up details
 

As requested, I will send some posts of painting details:

More details:
 

More details, but some are less close up.

And finally, the painting with its frame, which I think helps to unify the composition.

ps........ Garth....I just saw your extreme close ups and I'm amazed at how little tone and color is needed sometimes to make a huge difference in getting the most realistic nuances. I think Mr. Bouguereau said it best when he had a sudden manifistation come to him during a time early in his career:

<< "During that period of my studies -- around 1846 -- when progress was slow or almost nil, and when no one was willing to provide the explanations my soul craved for, I experienced (it was just after my arrival in Paris) many discouraging weeks.
**I was in this state of mind one day when, strolling through the Louvre, I saw the casts of the Parthenon pediment. How can I describe the emotion I felt? A veil fell from my eyes. Never had I experienced such a deep and intense joy. What was it I saw in those wonderful plasters? I understood that the subtlety of accents, in contrast with large planes, is what makes a drawing great. This truth, which I have yearned all my life to express and which still drives me on, is the secret of art. It applies to composition as well as to drawing proper. It is the principle that must guide both the young beginner and the fully developed artist."

Garth .

Thank you for posting the close-ups! I'm just in awe.

Looking at the softness of definition when you're that close, I'm wondering at what distance from the painting does it all come together visually? 4 or 5 feet?

Thank you so much, Garth, for posting those super close shots. It's very helpful. (You can always recognize the artists at a museum. We're the ones who stand with our noses just millimeters from the canvases.)

Can you tell me how large a canvas area is represented by, for example, the first closeup of the boy's face?

Also, did you paint these subtle tonal variations by scumbling on top of dry paint?

Thanks again!

WOW Geary,

You should teach! Thanks so much for the excellent Bouguereau quote. I know so little about his thinking, but this quote certainly seems to shed light on his magic (Now if I only could find that Bouguereau catalogue that belongs to my wife). The subtle shifts of tone and color in his work are what I really admire.

And one more question, Garth:

Greek: apotheoun, to deify. Care to tell us the story behind the title?

Fabulous painting!

Now THAT's what a little boy without a shirt should look like when painted!

Thanks Terri, and Michele!

Terri: I think the painting comes together closer than 4 or 5 feet. It seems okay to me at 2 feet (but maybe I need glasses).

Michele: The figures are exactly life size in the painting, so the boy's head is also. I have had a long habit of working life size, but never larger. I guess this stems from my former practice of making life size standing cut-out portraits on birch panels (with the edges beveled back, like a traditional dummy-board of the 17th century).

I was in a hurry painting this so I was not particular about how wet the paint surface was when scumbled over. Often I strove for a wet into wet technique to maintain better control over subtle tone and value shifts, but after the wet surface had set up, I could work in a gently dragged scumble. Generally the paint was applied very sparingly, but this can be a fault, although it dries faster. If I was applying a carefully controlled velatura (which to me is like a glaze, and is very different from a scumble), then the under layer of paint should seem dry so that it will not be etched or lifted away with brushing and wiping manipulations.

Hope this helps!

Oh Garth... I really didn't mean to imply that it wasn't 'okay' at any distance, it's amazing, --rather was trying to get a sense of how far back you were needing to 'dance' to assess how well all those beautiful subtleties were working together as you painted?

(So sorry, I should've phrased the question more clearly the first time!)

Apotheoun
 

Oh Michele,

I was afraid that title topic would come up to haunt me. The painting from 10 years ago was "Apotheosis of the Chunnel" which was really a rather arbitrary and mindless title. I was reading about the completion of the English Channel Tunnel (Chunnel), and I visualized the stretched out boy bridging the edge of the pool to the edge of the grass, with his mother's legs completing the bridge. It seemed a metaphore for the Chunnel to me. When I was sculpting Leonardo da Vinci's Horse a few years earlier, Capt Dent (who financed the Horse) was always extolling the apotheosis of this and the apotheosis of that, and the word just grew on me. So I needed a different title for the new version of the painting and Apotheoun seemed to work because the paintings are related. I did not want a more descriptive tiltle like Mother (or Madonna) and Child. Besides, when we all paint our portraits, are we not deifying our subjects somewhat?

Hi Terri,

Your point is well taken, and I was not paying close attention to your intent. I do need to stand as far back as my cramped studio room will allow to see how all the compositional elements are coming together, or not. It is often helpful to leave the room and come back after a moment. Sometimes I will turn the painting all directions in a hand held mirror to see what's going on.

I don't know.... I think a comfortable viewing distance for display can be anything over four feet, or so.

Thanks Kimberly! (Although, probably everyone is unique; some people have more flesh and some have more bone).

This painting is so far beyond what I can grasp, yet I can't stop looking at every shot of it you have posted here and I keep rereading every comment and piece of this discussion. Being the pure novice, uneducated, beginner I stand in awe. I LOVE this painting and wish I could stand before it.

Thank you very much for posting this beautiful work and sharing your thoughts and your knowledge. There is so much to learn, and I am made hungrier by the quality of art here and the discussions which take place.

Garth, what's a "velatura"? And how would you say that was different from a glaze or a scumble? Thanks!

velatura
 

Hi Michele:

My understanding of a velatura or my understanding of a scumble may vary from others in this forum, because I have seen a number of posts that seem to lump the two together as the same technique. I do not have an art dictionary in front of me to back me up, but here is what I think I was taught at PAFA: We all know what a glaze is, usually a somewhat transparent thinned pigment in more medium overlaying a lighter underpainting layer. For me a velatura is treated the same way, except that it is a translucent lighter colored pigment suspended in medium over a darker underpainting layer. Velatura is equated as a "veil", putting an atmospheric haze over the painting. There will be a cooler color temperature shift, varying in degree according to how thick the veil is. One can think of it as the same effect as flakes of cereal in a bowl of milk; the brown flakes suddenly appear blueish as they dip below the milk.

Using only white in a velatura may make the painting more blue than you need. It is amazing to see how one can use a light orange tint (as an extreme warm example) over a darker brown, both being very warm colors, and acheive a sort of cool optical gray effect when covering the darkest values (actually, if the orange is intense enough it will effectively be a cooler chromatic yellow). If this veil is thicker, then it will be more orange than gray. Over white, of course this velatura would then be like an orange glaze. I am not really advocating the use of "orange" in a typical velatura. This is an extreme example, and there are a whole range of subtle possibilities in between. A velatura just may need to be formulated warmer than your target color you are looking for. If a painting becomes too dark and too warm, in its color effect (like mine sometimes do), or the contrast is too strong and jumpy (or too photographic), then a velatura may be the remedy.

For me a scumble can have a similar effect as a velatura, but I think of a scumble as a drier, more opaque consistency of paint being dragged over the texture of the canvas.

Hope this helps!

Patricia,

Thank you! I am in awe of your comments.

For some reason, I think the painting looks much better when viewed firsthand in the gallery than it looks in the posted photographs. This is probably true of everyones posted photos. Some qualities get lost in the translation.

I am as awed as you when others post their works, and I am hesitant to post mine because their photos seem to look better. I wonder how much better their works look in life. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.

By the way, you sure can draw!

Thanks, Garth, that was very helpful!

Hi Garth,

Did you know that Velasquez used the velatura a lot ? Using white or light grays to unify his colors.

Allan.

Allan, That must be true. Many of the color effects he acheived are impossible to arrive at without the use of velaturas.

Thanks!

Garth,

I am so happy you're posting here at the forum. Your work is a joy to behold. I love this one and am studying it!!

Denise

Bravo Garth, I can honestly feel the sun the pavement when I look at this. I also love how you have broken the composition predictability with the ladies feet.

And the edges...well that is another gushing story! :thumbsup:

Thanks for the closeups Garth! They are fascinating. I'll print this one out for future reference. I love this painting, it's so inspiring to see all the new talent here, glad you joined us.

Jean

Garth,

Amazing,original, daring and beautiful!
I was up in Boston today arranging for a piece of my work to be exhibited in a portrait show. From what I could gather it was going to be same old, same old, figures with vase of flowers and other old chestnuts. I wish your painting was going to hang there!
It would make me work harder.

Sincerely,