Have you ever tried doing a painting or drawing ?

[The Duke]

I can only do technical-type drawings.
Art is not for me.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Painting is a great hobby. It's relaxing (as long as you don't push it too hard) and after the painting (or drawing) is done, you have something to enjoy seeing on your wall, and be proud of. Maybe in the beginning, it might take some practice. Trial & error gets you to higher levels, and you can progress each time.

It's not really too expensive a hobby. The only thing a little expensive is an easel, but even that you can get for about $30 (Tabletop), and some even come with an attached storage drawer. I would recommend getting acrylic paints which are easier to work with than watercolors or pastels, and acrylics dry faster than oils too.

I've been painting for 75 years. Started when I was 4, and never left it. It's great for retired people especially, who have the time to devote to it.
As for what to paint, you could take photos with your cell phone, print the pictures, and use them as models. Just paint THINGS though, and not abstracts, which are really paintings of nothing.

 

[EdwinAMartin]

I just hope they didn't sell for millions of $$$, like the ridiculous Jackson Pollock things.

Well, they do sell well, if you owned one; I think the museums own most of them now, and charge people to see them.

On edit, yes, they sell for many millions.

https://www.christies.com/en/artists/wassily-kandinsky?lotavailability=All&sortby=relevance

I can't even afford a decent litho print. But my PC and printer do well enough.

 

[EdwinAMartin]

Have you tried learning the Loomis Head? I do not like portraiture but I can do Loomis.

My heads always turn out to look like bad cartoon heads. Same with body proportions. I rely on a light board and tracing when I want a posed figure.

Turns out a lot of artists did it that way, even Da Vinci, who used 'magic lanterns' for many of his drawings and murals.

 

[EdwinAMartin]

I paint peoples' bodies & clothes OK, but I do struggle some with faces. In the painting, "Happy Guitarist", I started it as a painting of the all-time great guitarist & dancer Chuck Berry, and gave up on that after about 10 days & decided to just have it be a painting of some guy playing a guitar on stage. I'm OK with how it turned out.

View attachment 1253949
Happy Guitarist...by Bert Emanuel

fineartamerica.com/profiles/bertemanuel

Pretty good.

For somebody who hates abstracts, though, you use them a lot for background. Just an observation, not being snarky.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

My heads always turn out to look like bad cartoon heads. Same with body proportions. I rely on a light board and tracing when I want a posed figure.

Turns out a lot of artists did it that way, even Da Vinci, who used 'magic lanterns' for many of his drawings and murals.

The magic lantern today is the camera lucida. The best one is the Drawing Lucy. I want to get one but the model I want is $300.

 

[protectionist]

Have you tried learning the Loomis Head? I do not like portraiture but I can do Loomis.

The What ?

 

[protectionist]

Well, they do sell well, if you owned one; I think the museums own most of them now, and charge people to see them.

On edit, yes, they sell for many millions.

https://www.christies.com/en/artists/wassily-kandinsky?lotavailability=All&sortby=relevance

I can't even afford a decent litho print. But my PC and printer do well enough.

The art world is one of the world's worst insanities, and Christies is among the worst offenders. These art sales (or auctions) put prices on art that have no real justification whatsoever.

And that includes paintings by the so-called "Great Masters". Van Gogh, Renoir, Mattise, Picasso were no better than thousands of painters who belong to fineartamerica.com right now.

The most marvelous works of art ever produced (and should be most expensive), are in that website, this minute.

 

[protectionist]

Pretty good.

For somebody who hates abstracts, though, you use them a lot for background. Just an observation, not being snarky.

If it looks that way, I can assure you I was not using abstract art in any way. Also, I just looked through my gallery and I didnt see anything that looks like abstract art (nothing real) except one painting > "Angles & Curves in Color", and even that one has some real things (angles and round shapes + a half moon)

 

[Cellblock2429]

Painting is a great hobby. It's relaxing (as long as you don't push it too hard) and after the painting (or drawing) is done, you have something to enjoy seeing on your wall, and be proud of. Maybe in the beginning, it might take some practice. Trial & error gets you to higher levels, and you can progress each time.

It's not really too expensive a hobby. The only thing a little expensive is an easel, but even that you can get for about $30 (Tabletop), and some even come with an attached storage drawer. I would recommend getting acrylic paints which are easier to work with than watercolors or pastels, and acrylics dry faster than oils too.

I've been painting for 75 years. Started when I was 4, and never left it. It's great for retired people especially, who have the time to devote to it.
As for what to paint, you could take photos with your cell phone, print the pictures, and use them as models. Just paint THINGS though, and not abstracts, which are really paintings of nothing.

/—-/ I’ve taken oil painting classes for a decade. It’s not relaxing but rewarding. Landscapes and still life are my forte. Portrait painting is a challenge. I paint oil on linen. Here are a few. Times Syat midnight and I spotted a what off of Long Island. The small ones are still life studies.

 

[protectionist]

/—-/ I’ve taken oil painting classes for a decade. It’s not relaxing but rewarding. Landscapes and still life are my forte. Portrait painting is a challenge. I paint oil on linen. Here are a few. Times Syat midnight and I spotted a what off of Long Island. The small ones are still life studies. View attachment 1254395View attachment 1254396

Nice. I used to paint with oils, but I switched to acrylics, because of how long it takes for oil paints to dry (sometimes a week)

The long-drying of oils can be useful if you're doing painting that requires a lot of color blending (to blend 2 colors together when the paint is still wet)

Acrylics dry within a few minutes, and I like that, except when blending a lot of stuff in the picture.

 

[Chuz Life]

I have repetitive dreams of levitating sometimes. Some are very vivid (lucid?). Anyway, they are pretty easy to describe but hard to illustrate.

One in particular is a dream where I am levitating above a waterfall with the water flowing away from me.

I sketched the images in my head from the dream several times (kind of like the guy sculpting the mountain out of mashed potatoes in Poltergeist).

Finally, I decided to paint the image, and this was the best I could do.

 

[protectionist]

I have repetitive dreams of levitating sometimes. Some are very vivid (lucid?). Anyway, they are pretty easy to describe but hard to illustrate.

One in particular is a dream where I am levitating above a waterfall with the water flowing away from me.

I sketched the images in my head from the dream several times (kind of like the guy sculpting the mountain out of mashed potatoes in Poltergeist).

Finally, I decided to paint the image, and this was the best I could do.

View attachment 1254403

I like it.

 

[Chuz Life]

I like it.

Thanks!

I took advanced Art in HighSchool but lost interest for the most part. That painting was from around 87' 88.' I can't imagine having that much free time on my hands again.

Hobbies take a lot of time, and the more you indulge, the more it robs other things.

It's maddening for me because I have so many hobbies and interests. I can't stick with any of them because of that realization.

Unsolicited info, I know.

 

[Cellblock2429]

Nice. I used to paint with oils, but I switched to acrylics, because of how long it takes for oil paints to dry (sometimes a week)

The long-drying of oils can be useful if you're doing painting that requires a lot of color blending (to blend 2 colors together when the paint is still wet)

Acrylics dry within a few minutes, and I like that, except when blending a lot of stuff in the picture.

/—-/ You can add a drying agent to oils that speed up the process. I’m in no rush to have the painting dry. Acrylics aren’t for me except to prime the canvas quickly.

 

[toobfreak]

Have you ever tried doing a painting or drawing ?​

Here is a bit of a twist for you. You have mainly showed paintings of terrestrial scenes and things done in oils and latex. Here's a bit of a twist for you.

These are all digital "paintings" done on my computer taken from memory of views seen through a telescope:

This first one is a drawing of how the 'Dumbbell Nebula' (Messier 27) in Vulpecula looked using a 14 inch Schmidt catadioptric telescope in narrowband Hydrogen Alpha light:

The next one is a drawing of the 'Ring Nebula' (Messier 57) in Lyra done using a Gen III nightvision image intensifier. It is a star that exploded, died, and in doing so, threw off a shell of gas:

 

[EvilCat Breath]

The What ?

The Loomis head. The foundation of portraiture. In all your drawing classes, did you never come across Loomis?

Go to youtube and search? DRAW LOOMIS.

 

[Chuz Life]

The Loomis head. The foundation of portraiture. In all your drawing classes, did you never come across Loomis?

Go to youtube and search? DRAW LOOMIS.

I don't recall Lomis (by name). Is that the technique of like geometric spacing?

I remember that from school and some drawing books.

Now I have to google it.

Edit. Yep. LoL, I remembered the techniques but not the guy or gal it's named after.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

I paint peoples' bodies & clothes OK, but I do struggle some with faces. In the painting, "Happy Guitarist", I started it as a painting of the all-time great guitarist & dancer Chuck Berry, and gave up on that after about 10 days & decided to just have it be a painting of some guy playing a guitar on stage. I'm OK with how it turned out.

View attachment 1253949
Happy Guitarist...by Bert Emanuel

fineartamerica.com/profiles/bertemanuel

That's Chuck Norris!

 

[The Duke]

Thanks!

I took advanced Art in HighSchool but lost interest for the most part. That painting was from around 87' 88.' I can't imagine having that much free time on my hands again.

Hobbies take a lot of time, and the more you indulge, the more it robs other things.

It's maddening for me because I have so many hobbies and interests. I can't stick with any of them because of that realization.

Unsolicited info, I know.

I see Oscilloscopes.