I Banish the Black--Sorry Caravaggio!
I am in college climbing with bloody fingers towards a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree a BFA. It is a 5 year degree.
Part of earning that degree is learning how to draw and paint under various Instructors.
My main Instructor--the one I have learned most from-- has been Adam Growsowsky. He is an incredible painter and works in oil paint using a system that hearkens back to the old Masters; the Masters who laid down underpaintings, and then added glazes of transparent paint ( over the underpainting), before adding the final opaque paints as highlights and such.
This style points back to the glazing and chiaroscuro techniques of Caravaggio and Rembrandt. Adam Grosowsky points back to the past--to these old Masters and their techniques--yet uses presently in his own art, dramatic contrasts of light and shadow: chiaroscuro. This is also what he teaches his students.
In my own process I have not only learned from Adam but have learned what I like and don't like. I have learned which mediums I prefer and have found a faint trail leading ahead through the thickets of the Fine Arts. This is what college is all about--finding your own way while working toward letters to put behind your name.
Following this way has lead me to a preference of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist color theories. These theories are quite different from those that went before them. There cannot be a greater difference between how Monet and Cezanne used color and how Caravaggio and Rembrandt used color.
It was not in college that I learned Impressionist, Post-Impressionist color theories; it was in reading and studying and painting while on summer vacation from college. Aside from painting out-of-doors, En Plein-Air, the book that wooed me to these color theories was a book called, The Enjoyment and Use of Color, by Walter Sargent.
Every morning during the summer I read and studied and did the exercises from this book before going out into the searing soaking sun to paint.
I am leaning more heavily than ever toward Impressionist/ Post-Impressionist color theories and the use of oil paint and soft pastels.
Yet, I am still doing Independent Study with Adam and still learning from him. It is awesome to look back to what has been done, to what is being done, and what can be done.
Onward!
Here (below) is a photo of my latest pastel painting. I did not use black--something Monet banished from his palette.
Part of earning that degree is learning how to draw and paint under various Instructors.
My main Instructor--the one I have learned most from-- has been Adam Growsowsky. He is an incredible painter and works in oil paint using a system that hearkens back to the old Masters; the Masters who laid down underpaintings, and then added glazes of transparent paint ( over the underpainting), before adding the final opaque paints as highlights and such.
This style points back to the glazing and chiaroscuro techniques of Caravaggio and Rembrandt. Adam Grosowsky points back to the past--to these old Masters and their techniques--yet uses presently in his own art, dramatic contrasts of light and shadow: chiaroscuro. This is also what he teaches his students.
In my own process I have not only learned from Adam but have learned what I like and don't like. I have learned which mediums I prefer and have found a faint trail leading ahead through the thickets of the Fine Arts. This is what college is all about--finding your own way while working toward letters to put behind your name.
Following this way has lead me to a preference of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist color theories. These theories are quite different from those that went before them. There cannot be a greater difference between how Monet and Cezanne used color and how Caravaggio and Rembrandt used color.
It was not in college that I learned Impressionist, Post-Impressionist color theories; it was in reading and studying and painting while on summer vacation from college. Aside from painting out-of-doors, En Plein-Air, the book that wooed me to these color theories was a book called, The Enjoyment and Use of Color, by Walter Sargent.
Every morning during the summer I read and studied and did the exercises from this book before going out into the searing soaking sun to paint.
I am leaning more heavily than ever toward Impressionist/ Post-Impressionist color theories and the use of oil paint and soft pastels.
Yet, I am still doing Independent Study with Adam and still learning from him. It is awesome to look back to what has been done, to what is being done, and what can be done.
Onward!
Here (below) is a photo of my latest pastel painting. I did not use black--something Monet banished from his palette.
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