BEN LAUGHTON SMITH
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Advice to Artists

22/12/2014

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Frank Weston Benson (1862 – 1951) was an American artist from Salem, Massachusetts. Benson was known for his portraits, landscapes, watercolors and etchings.  His advice to aspiring artists is available online here and is really worth a read. His thoughts here contain has many insights which are relevant to those studying in modern ateliers today or are following a broadly classical programme of self-study.

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Three favourite artists: Bilińska, Casas and Wendt

19/12/2014

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Bilińska-Bohdanowicz

This self-portrait by Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz was painted in 1887. I love her soft, brushy paint application and the subdued, but not sombre, use of colour. The way she has caught her posture is very pleasing, situating her somewhere between repose and imminent action.

Born in 1857 in Warsaw, Bilińska travelled to Paris studying at the Académie Julian and participated in the Paris Salons many times.

Bilińska interests me because of the insight she manages to convey in her portraits and also, from a technical perspective, because a number of her painting are not highly finished, which gives a window onto her working technique. I enjoy how personal and sincere her paintings are and the contemplative atmosphere that they often have.

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Ramon Casas

Catalan artist Ramon Casas was particularly known as a portraitist, but he was also an accomplished graphic designer and contributed to the development of modernisme in Barcelona and the wider Catalan region.

Casas's painted portraits are very different from Bilińska's. They are brighter, more joyful and his painting somehow has more self-confidence. I find they lack some of the psychology and depth of Bilińska work.

Casas studied for a short time with Carolus-Duran in Paris. In addition to portraits, he painted crowd scenes ranging from the audience at a bullfight, to the assembly for an execution to rioters in the Barcelona streets. Casas enjoyed considerable international prominence during his own lifetime.

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William Wendt

I love this painting by American landscape painter William Wendt. Like all of his paintings, his use of colour here is so striking and luscious. The freshness of his handling, combined with that amazing colour gives an impression of the scene so vibrant that I almost feel I can breathe the air and feel the breeze on my face. 


Born in 1865, Wendt was based in California and most of his paintings were mountain scenes, like this one. These often remind me of the views is the English Lake District, which I have great fondness for.

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End of term at LARA

15/12/2014

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Here's my final figure drawing of term. It's probably the best I've done so far. 

This figure pose was an excellent opportunity to study the anatomy of the back. Not having a portrait to grapple with gave me more time than I've had on previous drawings, which meant I could spend more on the gesture, contour, values and edges. I'm pretty pleased with the result. 

As is so often the case, some drawing and proportion issues emerged late on in the drawing. It became apparent there was too much mass to the skull and the left arm was rather too long and heavy. The skull was an easy one to rectify, but because of the complicated arrangement of the arm with the hand and the pelvis and the articulation with the shoulder, this was a more difficult area to correct. In the end I settled for some minor 'fudging', rather than major surgery. The result is ok, but not great.

My focus for next term needs to be on really chasing the drawing, in order to avoid these kinds of problems in future. There's always more to look for and it pretty much always pays to keep looking and checking before moving on to the later stages of value and modelling.
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    Ben Laughton Smith

    Contemporary works of art in the classical tradition.

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