Festival de Peinture à Mascouche 2015

This year being one of the administrators I only showed several works at the festival de peinture a Mascouche. Lots of work running around making sure everything is going smooth. I was in charge of the life drawing session on Saturday afternoon.

wonderful weather we had on the long weekend. Lots of sunshine but a little bit of the hot side.

Life drawing session saturday afternoon.

full house, all chairs were taken!

winners and prizes for the kids category.

Alexandre, our pianist for the weekend. She is the son of our secretary, Martine.

Master class given by Alain Massicotte on Sunday.

Pastels portraits by Alain Massicotte

Claude de Lorimier giving a demo outside on plein air painting.

Richard Belanger, our invited artist giving a demo on watercolor.

one of the artists working on a piece for the silent auction.

works for the silent auction. All benefits goes towards the festival.

my contribution to the silent auction

Jacques Sevigny in full determination. photo taken by Jean-Philippe Leroux

PSEC portrait challenge 2013

I was invited again this year to participate in the PSEC portrait challenge. This is year has the same line up. Master pastelliste Denis Jacques, master pastelliste Juan Cristobal, last year's grand prize winner Ann Rochefort and me. I feel tiny among giants...hehe. Butterflies are coming back...Oh! its this Friday November 1st at Ogilvy's (5th floor) in Montreal. Pastels starts flyin' at 4pm and finishes at 6pm. Then its the PSEC exhibition opening or vernissage at 7pm. Oh I cannot wait! For details...pastelsec.com

I wonder who is our next victim?

raw vs jpg files

I was looking for a way to calibrate my monitor, or find a way to capture or color correct the pictures of my paintings that I took. There is xrite passport colorchecker which is a handy tool to check and adjust the color of your pictures. But the pictures have to be in raw files in order to do the adjustments efficiently and correctly. I remembered that I have raw file mode on my Canon G2 camera. So I decided to do a test. The 2 pictures are taken in the same light conditions (under flourescent light). The left is raw, middle one is jpg and the right one is the color corrected jpg. From comparing the color of the painting, even without adjustments I see the difference in accuracy color-wise. With the raw file I could do adjustments in Photoshop CS or Lightroom.

When I color corrected the jpg for the skin to be more reddish or orange, the lips which is red became even more red.

Workshop on Classical Portrait painting

Geest comparison - original vs copy

This is a side by side comparison and you can see that there is things quite off. DOH! Ok, not to be discouraged. The purpose of copying is to learn and in learning mistakes are made. The reference I have was a printed copy of the painting and here are some of things to fix. 

• overall color of the skin is much too yellow.
• lips are too red and saturated. (the hard copy ref was that color I swear! lol)
• Some shadow areas need to be punched up.
• frills or ruffles value need to be toned down and detail added.
• Hignlight on the nose needs to be toned down.
• transition tone between the left eyebrow and forehead.
• Hair details needs some tweaks.
• cast shadow under the nose.
• ears needs more modeling.

Cornelis Van Der Geest - wip06

Here is an update. I did the hair. The bulk of the 1st painting is done. There is still some color issues on the ears, left cheek in the shadow side and the ruffles which is too white or too light in value. The next stage after the 1st painting is the 2nd painting. I will repaint the 2nd time around but with greater attention the color values making sure they are the same or very close to the original painting.

Cornelis Van Der Geest - wip05

Here is an update. I completed the mouth/chin area and started on the frills. I tell you the frills are tough and time consuming. I just have to be a bit patient. :) I will complete the hair next.

Cornelis Van Der Geest - wip04 Color Correct

I noticed the color of the photo I took seems to be off. So I check it and YES it is off!

 Color corrected (above)- notice the skin color is more reddish than uncorrected one which is much more pale.

uncorrected

Cornelis Van der Geest - wip03

Continuing through the forehead...just slowly filling the empty spaces.

Cornelis Van der Geest - wip02

I painted in the dark background and started the 1st painting. I started with the left eye and went across to the right then the nose. Paint I use is very lean using only the oil in the paint and sometimes added to make the paint flow from the brush better. The colors I am using are Titanium white, yellow ochre, terra rosa, raw umber, burnt umber, ultramarine blue and lamp black. I try to stay with the earth colors since these were the colors available at that time. Cadmiums were not used or discovered yet.

Cornelis Van der Geest - wip01

I just transferred the drawing and dry brush the basic tone of the painting. I am using raw umber but I realise that Van Dyck might be using Burnt umber. Its because see some of the burnt umber showing through in the background. The support I am using is a gessoed (acrylic) wood panel.

William Bougueareau Catalog Raisonne

Wow! I am so excited.  I just receive my copy of William Bouguereau Catalog Raisonne. Its is a 2 volume set. I have been waiting for this catalog for a couple of years. I will be sleeping late tonight for sure. If you have a chance to get hold of this book, do so and its a must-have for the contemporary representational artist or student.

By the Brook - after W.A.Bouguereau

Finally. This painting has been in storage at my brothers house for the last 10 years. I did this painting as a study. With digital photos and internet, I have resources to really great references and I think I will continue working on it. William Bouguerau is one of my favorite artists of all time. His attention to detail and color is just out of this world.