Caravaggio Rocks

I'm currently reading about the Italian Renaissance artist, Caravaggio. I've always admired the dramatic pictures that he made. He created emotional religious scenes, lusty classical themes of pagan gods and most of them included beautiful young men as featured subjects. I always put him in the same classical category as Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, etc. As a matter of fact, he was almost a contemporary of those guys. Lived just slightly afterward. What I'm just beginning to learn is that he had a rock star personality that rivaled his artistic talent.

The painting featured here is obviously an interpretation of Bacchus. He has the toga, the grape leaves wreath on his head and the obligatory cluster of gapes in hand. All that's missing is the bloated, gluttonous physique. However, I personally prefer this younger more muscular figure. I've seen this painting in art history books, encyclopedias, the Internet, for years. But, until I recently read a biography of Caravaggio I didn't know the whole story. This painting is actually a self-portrait. The drunken Bacchus in this picture is the face of Caravaggio himself.

It seems that Caravaggio was a real wild man of the art world. He got into a lot of trouble during his lifetime. He was always drinking, feuding, and brawling. It was only due to the fact that he had influential patrons that respected his work that he was able to avoid a lifetime of prison. He did spend his share of time in jail. It seems that he was always pulling a knife on someone, throwing rocks at them, you name it. It sounds like he was the Russell Crowe or Naomi Campbell of the art world. It didn't help things that he was frequently intoxicated and sick from drink.

I regret that because of his undisciplined personal life that Caravaggio died way before his time. His painting career lasted only 15 years. But I've been so glad to hear that this guy was a "real" person. There is no way to force him into the idealized role of academic Renaissance artist. He was perhaps one of the most original, talented, and creative of his time. But, he was just a regular guy.

The Man, The Myth, The Pseudonym

Last week I signed my latest painting with my pseudonym, "Gemini Art." Its the second or third piece I've attached that signature to. It was a surreal experience. Since the creation of this blog and the establishment of my web gallery I feel as if I've developed to distinct personas. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not admitting to any type of multiple personality or dissociative disorder. There's no pathology going on here. I just have two major parts of my life that are compartmentalized from each other. For the most part I have a mainstream, conservative, "bread & butter" career. But, for recreation and a very meaningful hobby I am an amateur artist, art critic, blog author and an increasingly openly gay man.

While I am dedicated to my daily professional career which I have enjoyed for almost 20 years now, it pigeon-holes me into being little more than a bureaucratic drone. I follow the rules, I enforce the rules and never breathe a whisper that might resemble self-expression or individuality. So, I guess Gemini Art has become my personae that represents everything that is "not that". (Read the works of Jung if you don't get the personae and archetypes I'm talking about.) As Gemini Art I can give my personal opinion freely. I can admire and appreciate beautiful artwork (and beautiful men) without fear of persecution. I can be imaginative and creative. As Gemini Art I experience that incredible lightness of being that I have observed in other gay people but had never experienced for myself.

I've questioned a few times if its "normal" or emotionally healthy to subdivide my life in this way. After long reflection I recalled that some of the most admired creative minds of our time have lived and worked under pseudonyms. The first that comes to mind is Samuel Clemmons who wrote under the name Mark Twain. A juvenile Ben Franklin had the audacity to write as a middle-aged woman named Silence Dogood. Even Stephen King has written under a pseudonym.

What can we learn from this? I believe that most creative or intellectual people use pseudonyms for two reasons. First, they use the name to protect themselves from persecution. Secondly, they use the pseudonym to hide a personal history that might not be as prestigious as their writings suggest. For instance, Clemmons wanted to be known for his literary work, not as an uneducated river boat pilot (he had great contempt for the public education system). Franklin knew that his scandalous words would get him in trouble as a teenage boy. As a puritanical and respectable widow of a minister, he was given more credibility.

Am I suggesting that by assuming a pseudonym I am hiding from persecution? In my profession and locale, YES! Am I suggesting that I'm hiding a less than adequate academic background? NO! My masters degree is just as good as the next guys, and most of my friends would probably say that, if anything, I'm too smart for my own good. Am I comparing myself to intellectual giants like Sam Clemmons or Ben Franklin? No, but I guarantee you that Gemini Art is a helluva lot more interesting than the other guy that lives in this skin.

David Kawena Does Disney

It seems these days every major male celebrity, model and athlete has to promote himself with the obligatory “fashion photo shoot”. You know who I’m talking about, David Beckham, Ben Affleck, Ashton Kutcher, Mark Wahlberg, etc. The list goes on and on. They spend more time on the cover of GQ than they do on the movie set. It’s not enough that an actor can act. He now has to market himself in some Abercrombie-esque fashion because that’s what appeals to the demographic that goes to movies, i.e. the adolescent teen/young adult population (and gay men). Not that I’m complaining. You know the type of photo I’m talking about. It’s real “artsy”. The photo is usually in black and white or sepia toned with dramatic high contrast lighting. The model is almost always styled in a manner to emphasize his “physical fitness” wearing little more than accessory items. Apparently, even the leading men of Disney’s animated features have gotten into this new A-list actor fad.

I recently saw the latest Walt Disney animated feature, oops I mean romantic comedy, Enchanted. As usual it was amazing. It has great music, a fun story and was a real visual fantasy. While I watched the handsome Patrick Dempsey and the very pretty James Marsden, it reminded me of just how adorable Disney’s leading men are. They come from a long tradition of perfect princes such as Eric in Mermaid, Philip in Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin the Prince of Thieves and even Tarzan King of the Apes. I laughed at myself when thinking about how attractive I thought each of those characters is.

While I was thinking about it I began to realize that the first crush of every young gay guy is probably one of those charming Disney cartoon men. I mean, we feed that stuff to our children as if its American mythology. In a perfect world we want our lives to turn out the way a Disney plot concludes, right? The Disney heroes are beyond perfect. They’re strong, brave, handsome, kind. You can always depend on the guy to come charging to the rescue no matter what. What’s not to like?

For young gay guys who are just starting to feel that they are a little different (yes, it does feel different even in grade school) the Disney hero is a safe first crush. It’s safe because he’s not real. It can be explained away as fantasy, hero-worship, love of Disney cartoons, whatever. The Disney world is so welcoming to young gay kids. When real boys are being mean to the gay kid and calling him names, the Disney fantasy world is so much more appealing. The gay community has a lot to thank Walt Disney for.

So, it’s not surprising that when three worlds collide, the Disney world, the art world, and the gay world, a new and interesting creation is born. I’m leading up to an introduction and explanation of an artist I recently discovered. David Kawena is an artist/illustrator working in Israel. I had been searching blogs and links related to the Enchanted movie and found a link to him. He had written briefly about the movie and segued into a discussion of his admiration of other Disney heroes and his interpretation of them.

I was fascinated that Kawena is located in Israel. I sent him a note asking about what it was like to be a gay artist working the Middle East. I’ve always considered that to be such a religiously and culturally volatile part of the world that it would be dangerous to be a gay artist there. Kawena responded,


“Actually being (a) gay artist, or straight artists who deals with ‘gay’ issues
is pretty much a cool thing to be in Israel! Israel is very open minded and very
narrow minded too - it's (a) mix of a place. We have a lot openly gay artists
here, most of them are on prime time television - actors, fashion designers -
and many singers who are openly gay are at the top of the national charts all
the time. I do most of my work outside of Israel, but that's a different
subject. I could very well be categorized as a straight artist who dose gay
work, or vise versa... You know?!”

As you can see, Kawena’s work is primarily digital media. While the Disney Heroes pieces are a somewhat cheeky pin-up spin on these fairytale characters, I found other pieces of great sophistication. His digital rendering of the late Heath Ledger is breathtaking. So, for those of you art snobs out there that might “poo-poo” the digital media I ask you to reconsider when looking at this work. I certainly couldn’t do any better job with this portrait in watercolor, pastel, acrylic, oil, or finger-paints.

I hope you enjoyed the work of David Kawena. Leave a comment if you did.

Seated Faun

Here's the latest. I hope you like it. I'm calling it "Seated Faun with Lilac." It's a very pretentious title, don't you think? There are things I like about it and things I don't. We'll get into that later. What most of my viewers are going to be shocked at is the NUDITY. My apologies if you're offended. What you art lovers should be shocked at is my continuing lack of oil-painting technique.

This is an oil painting. As you know, I have worked mainly with acrylics. I'm also mostly self taught. So I'm learning from my mistakes. But, I'll explain what I was going for.

I've always admired the old Renaissance works of Caravaggio. You've seen some of those works with the dramatic chiaroscuro effects. His paintings of John the Baptist and Dionysus have inspired me. Basically, they are paintings of young men in pastoral settings. They usually feature dark backgrounds and golden skin tones with dramatic high contrast lighting effects. I know I can't match the quality of those masterpieces, but I wanted to see how close I could get.

I wanted the painting to have that same "Old World" look about it. So, I chose a photo reference taken in the mid-1800's by Wilhelm von Gloeden. I've previously painted a portrait using one of his photos as reference. I called it "Youth with Lillies". At that time I was painting with acrylics and didn't get the blending that I wanted. I was also trying for a Pre-Raphaelite style that I admire quite a bit. I fear that my mixing of styles and techniques may have been a hindrance for me in this painting. But, I'll let you be the judge of that.

I began with an oil sketch in umber. Bougereau called that a frottie. During this stage it was all about composition. I love using oil paints during this phase. Its so easy to wipe out and redo anything that's not going right. It's not necessary to commit to anything early on in a painting. With acrylics, they're dry within minutes. There's no way to wipe out, just paint over. That leads to a very unpleasant build-up of paint unless you're very accurate with what you're doing. Oils seem to be much more forgiving. I'm starting to realize why the great masters have always loved the oil medium.




Next I worked up the frottie with an opaque grissaille. Here's where I began to model the forms and refine the values in the painting. I like to think of this phase as "injecting light" into the painting. The frottie is a very transparent and "washy" stage. White paint, either titanium or flake white, acts like a light reflector under the colors. If its not obliterated by the subsequent layers it lends a painting that glowing effect that seem to mystify the viewer. I love working on this layer. Its such a challenge to establish a sense of realism using nothing but light and dark. You also have to be careful not to lose the original composition as you work this up.

The next layer is the first application of color. I don't like using black in my color layers to modulate value, so I try to work with compliments to create various neutrals. I've experimented with a couple of techniques with color and I've decided that this method works best for me. As a matter of fact, I tried a different color process on my current painting and I'm not getting the results I want. So, I'm going back to the primary and compliment process.




Since I wanted to get a "classical" look, I put the background as a deep ultramarine blue with viridian and sienna to intensify it. The old masters did this because blues were so flattering as a compliment to golden skin tones. I started my colors with a pale white and ochre skin tone with dioxazine violet as my shadow. It really makes the contrasts pop. But, we all know that skin doesn't really look like that. So I needed successive layers. I started to refine the details of the face. I'm also experimenting with leaves and bushes for the background. Its not very imaginative at this point. The flower in his hand is the focus of his gaze. I know I'll eventually have to do a good job on that or it will seem unimportant. I'm beginning to see already that I've lost the structure of the hand and feet. That's always a danger when overpainting as many layers as I do.





In the subsequent layers I begin to work the contrasting values and more intense hues. I use more opaque white in the color to get the high points and a transparent smoky gray created from ultramarine blue and sienna to deepen the shadows. I decided the background lacked interest so I inserted a tree and couple bushes with more reflective leaves on them. I decided to make the flower in his hand a lilac because that's kind of easy. Its a bushy purple flower that can be splotched in without a lot of expertise. There was no way I was going to detail that dainty little thing he was holding in the original. I'll learn to do that some day but not for this painting.






I began adding more pinks and oranges to the skin tone. After a few days of drying time I detailed the hair and face and added a few bright white highlights to the forms. I'm happy with it. I feel its pretty successful for an amateur such as myself. Look at the close up of the face detail and you can see for yourself how much TLC I gave to this painting.




All that's left now is the signature and the varnishing. I hope everyone is pleased with this. I can tell you there were times I became very frustrated with this painting. But, every time I thought about throwing in the towel on this, I would think about the model. No doubt, it was very scandalous in the mid-1800's when this young man posed for von Gloeden. We think that our culture is homophobic now? Just think about what it must have been like then. Out of respect for the model and photographer I wanted this to be a classy piece of work. Both the model and photographer have been dead for almost 100 years now. I hope this little painting will serve as a homage to their work.

New Guy in Grissaille

Hey everyone. This will be brief. I promised that I would post more work soon. Here it is. As some of you may remember from previous posts, I have just recently started dabbling in oils. I've painted exclusively with acrylics for years. But, as I've studied and experimented I've discovered that I probably won't get the results I'm after unless I learn the oil medium.

This first picture is the initial graphite sketch of a subject that I thought was appropriate. I've had so many positive responses on this blog and on the Flickr site of the Blue Towel guy that I decided to return to the "towel" theme. Just so you know, I feel I missed on the likeness of the model terribly. However, the focus of this painting is not necessarily to create a portrait but to learn oil painting technique. But, I feel I got the body proportions fairly accurate and the hands and forearms may be the best I've drawn (except for blue towel guy).

The second picture here is the actual painting. It's a 16 x 20 black and white grissaille. I apologize for the quality of the photos, as usual. The lighting in my little painting room is terrible. My wall color really gets into the photos terribly. The pencil drawing is actually photoshopped and color corrected because the light was so bad.

Now, because I would rather point out my flaws rather than have someone else do it, here's the critique. I did a pretty good job with manipulating values and getting the forms modeled correctly. However, the light source is really unclear. I think the reference photo was probably lit with multiple light sources. But, it still created enough deep cast shadows to make an interesting composition. My backgrounds are usually pretty lame but I'm happy with this one. The towel is still very unrefined. I've intentionally left a lot of soft, lost edges throughout the work so that I won't have to commit to final decisions until later layers. I'm not happy with the face. I'm going to live by that artist motto that perhaps it will just "work itself out". If you get a hint of brown in this when you enlarge the photo, you're right. The underdrawing is a raw umber frottie. Let me know what you think of him.

Are You Kidding?

Is it just me or does anyone else see the humor in this?

For pity's sake, do they actually have editors at this newspaper? Do they not realize just how this headline can be taken out of context? Especially if the reader is possessed with a quirky sense of humor and is given access to his blog machine after drinking a little too much wine.

Now, just so all of you in Blog'o'land won't think I'm a complete idiot, I understand they're talking about money. But, comedy writers could have a field day with this little headline. Such as: "Whose endowments are being examined?", and "Who is examining the endowments?" Of course, more importantly, "Why do the endowments need to be examined? What's wrong with the endowments?" If you ask me, we just need to take the word "endowment" out of the English lexicon. I mean, what do you think of when you hear the word endowment? "Trust-fund" or "perpetual philanthropic financial contribution." Yeah,........sure you do. Me, too.

Oh, well. Enjoy your St. Patrick's Day. I guess the newspaper and I both felt the need to write about "Shillelaghs" on this most esteemed of Irish holidays.

Award Winner

Can you believe it? I actually won an award for this simple little picture I took while standing on the porch in my PJs. I posted it on Flickr yesterday right after I wrote the blog post. This morning I checked my email and checked my Flickr account. Lo and behold, I had an invite to have this picture placed in a fancy schmancy nature photography group and they had given me this cute little sticker to attach to it. Gosh, I'm all misty now. "I'd like to thank the Academy, Mom and Dad, my high school english teachers...."

Gee, if any of my work (photos or paintings)would actually sell for money that would be even cooler, don't you think? You can email me your compliements now...... I'm waiting.