Bargue Exercises - an ongoing experience

[Patricia Joyce]

Ngaire,
I too have used the Bargue course and am always copying from it. It is an invaluable tool and your drawings are very good. With your level of dedication I am sure your will be completing beautiful portraits and we here on the forum will be fortunate to watch your progress!

Please keep sharing your work. It is fun to see!

Enjoy the process!!

Patty

ps you may want to invest in a mahl stick to help with working on a vertical set-up. I don't know what I would do without mine.

[Ngaire Winwood]

Thanks Allan and Patty for your support.

Patty, as I am late starter into art, I am hoping these exercises will quicken the process and teach me what I need to know to become a portrait artist, hopefully within a five year range. I sometimes think this adventurous plan might be out of my reach as there is so much technical stuff to learn and I haven't even started on the technical side of colour yet. How beneficial did you find them the plates, other than developing ones artistic eye? Thanks for the tip for a mahl stick also.

You are so fortunate to have the opportunity to workshop with Marvin.

[Patricia Joyce]

Ngaire,
We are on the same path! Hopefully, Marvin's book will come out before too long. I know he is working on it. My plan was like yours, draw for two to three years and then learn to paint. And paint, paint, paint. I figure it will be a few years before I am at a level and have enough sample pieces to market my work - we'll see! In the meantime I am eliciting my nieces and nephews to sit for me. This will keep me busy for quite a while!!

Marvin talked one evening about the Bargue drawings. He believes they are very beneficial to study, even if you don't draw every plate. I use the book for reference allot, if I don't understand an angle of a particular feature.

[Claudemir Bonfim]

Originally Posted by Patricia Joyce

I figure it will be a few years before I am at a level and have enough sample pieces to market my work - we'll see!

Well Pat, there are many people marketing their work and they don't have the same quality as yours. You shouldn't be afraid of that. You're last post was really good. Believe me.

[Patricia Joyce]

Claudemir,
Thanks for the moral support!! I just know that my first priority has to be to paint allot! And to get paintings hanging in peoples homes where others will see them and may want to commission me to do a portrait.

[Allan Rahbek]

Ngaire,

I have made a "Ps." to my first post ( with the drawings ), have a look.

This first drawing is made with a combination of reed pen and brush and bistre.
The lower drawing is only brush and bistre.

I would say that these drawings are impossible to copy without using the same tools and talent that he had.

But it does

[Ngaire Winwood]

Pat, thanks for sharing also, that's what is good about this forum, we all grow together.

Allan, your copywork is gorgeous and sensitive. Are reed pens available generally or is it homemade?

I have come to a halt with my exercises for a week or so as I am shifting house once again. I have been asked to move out as the owners want to reclaim it for their use. It is a nuisance all round and costly. I am half way through Plate 2 at present.

[Ngaire Winwood]

Allan, I forgort to mention that 'A Woman Sleeping' is my all time favourite drawing, it certainly is an exquisite masterpeice and it is by my favourite draughtsman, Rembrandt. Thanks for sharing.

[Allan Rahbek]

Originally Posted by Ngaire Winwood

Are reed pens available generally or is it homemade?.

It is homemade. Reeds grow in marshy areas all over the world and certainly in Holland.

Use a sharp knife and point the reed like an old time feather pen. Remember to split it from the pointed end. The pointed end can be different sizes, like 1 - 3 mm wide.

Best, Allan

[Ngaire Winwood]

Thanks Allan, I thought so, I have never seen one. I am wondering if I used bamboo would it do the same trick?