#oilonpaper Archives - Veronica Huacuja

Let’s Get Inspired By Great Artists For Free

Welcome to another Art Post! My name is Veronica Huacuja. I'm a plastic artist, and an online art teacher. I have some good tips for your painting process.

As an artist or art practitioner, have you ever started your day not knowing what your next project might be? It occurs to most of us, and while this circumstance happens, we can turn to study the work of prominent artists, and practice with their work.

SOME PREVIOUS QUESTIONS.

Do you explore the work of other artists from different genres (photographers, sculptors, filmmakers, etc.)?
Do you find useful for your own work to do this research?
Do other artists’ artwork influence your own work?

I do these activities, and I recommend you to practice them. It enriches our work.

A PERSONAL ART EXPERIENCE. This time the oeuvre of the photographer John Coplans (1920-2003, United Kingdom) amazed me. I based the following artwork on his photograph, Self Portrait: Torso With Large Upper Arm II, 1985.

To exemplify the above, I add the following data from the piece I'm presenting:
Title: Body Study 62
Artist: Veronica Huacuja
Media: Oil on paper
Size: 28 x 21.3 x 0.1 cm
Year: 2019
Collection: Human Body

ACTIVITIES.
- Let’s explore and learn from the eminent artists of all times, and permit their influence on our work.
- Self-practice the art procedures I accomplished in "Body Study 62", which I describe in a video (1:42 min.) you can find at https://www.patreon.com/posts/practicing-our-30744058

MATERIAL.
-An oil paper will do the job just fine. I recommend the brand Fabriano, an Italian paper of at least 300 g/m2, which is a thick paper prepared for oil painting, or else a canvas. Always use material of excellent quality for your work. The size I recommend is the same as I used in this artwork: 28 x 21.3 x 0.1 cm.
-Thin, circular and rectangular brushes (half an inch wide, at the most). The size of the brushes depends on the size of your paper or canvas: bigger brushes for bigger areas and vice versa.
-Turpentine
-Oil paints

LET’S DEDUCE A SIGNIFICANT MEANING FROM THE ABOVE. Would searching and studying the prominent artists’ body of art be a worthwhile experience whenever the ephemeral “goddess of inspiration” is not around? Oh, yes, great masters can teach us so much!

Visit any time:

My ART SHOP: https://veronica-huacuja.pixels.com

My BODY OF ART: https://veronica.mx

I offer an ONLINE PAINTING PROGRAM in traditional or digital techniques: https://veronica.mx/online_painting_course

Other POSTS AND VIDEOS: https://patreon.com/veronicahuacuja

Hope you enjoyed the post. Thank you for dropping by.

Using Chiaoscuro In A Painting

Let’s learn new techniques from the masters of painting and include them in our art flow.

Welcome to another Art Blog. My name is Veronica Huacuja. I'm a plastic artist, and an online art teacher for individuals and groups. I have some good tips for your painting process. Hope you find them useful.

SOME CONCEPTS TO START. Chiaroscuro is an Italian word that refers to the lighting and shadows in painting. Who used this interesting technique were the great painters of all times, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Velázquez, among others.

This technique emphasizes light and dark, making out stand the most important figures in an artwork. “It was originally used while drawing on colored paper though it is now used in paintings and even cinema. It is very commonly seen in religious art, especially with the light emanating from the holy figure being painted. This process is used because it naturally draws the eye toward the focus point which the artist intends in a very natural way.” (1)

CHIAROSCURO AND TENEBRISM. I’d like to approach an interesting difference between these both techniques. Tenebrism comes from the Italian word “tenebroso”, which means dark. In this technique, shadow undergoes to black, there’s no intermediation between light and shadow. One of the great exponents of tenebrism is the Italian painter, Caravaggio (1571-1603, Milan, Duchy of Milan, Spanish Empire). On the contrary, chiaroscuro uses light and shadow to create depth behind the figures.

SOME COMMENTS REGARDING THE WORK I'M PRESENTING. As an artist, I’m concerned with abnormality and its effects on human life. To create this work, I read and watched testimonials of persons that have had the experience of an epiphany, which as we may know, is “an experience of a sudden and striking realization” (2), that can be mystical, religious, philosophical, etc.

In the work, I tried to embody this strange human experience using the chiaroscuro technique to add drama and three dimensionality to the piece. The data sheet of the work is:

In the work, I tried to embody the strange human experience which is an epiphany. The last by using the chiaroscuro technique, which adds drama and three dimensionality to the piece. — Epiphany 5

Title: Epiphany 5
Artist: Veronica Huacuja
Medium: Digital Art
Size: 9,448 x 8,740 px, 300 dpi
Year: 2020
Collection: Portraits

LET’S DEDUCE A SIGNIFICANT MEANING FROM THE ABOVE. We can study the body of art of the great masters of painting, learn their techniques and use them in our work, in whatever genre we manage. Also, we can keep in mind that our production, as artists, mostly come as if from dreams, where our experiences overlap in a delicate, ephemeral relationship.

1 https://artsandculture.google.com/usergallery/the-use-of-chiaroscuro/1AJCCI6Py2rgLA

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(feeling)

Let’s Mix Techniques In Our Painting Workflow

Let’s use in our art workflow a digital solution mixed with traditional techniques or the way around.

Welcome to another Art Post. I’m Veronica Huacuja, a plastic artist, and an online art teacher. I’ve some practical tips for your painting process. Hope you find them helpful.

A DIGITAL SOLUTION MIXED WITH TRADITIONAL TECHNIQUES OR THE WAY AROUND. As I’ve mentioned in some other blogs, I discovered Blender–a free and open-source 3D computer graphic software–on the Internet. I learned its basics in many free tutorials hosted on YouTube. There’re plenty enough for any learning need you might have of this software.

One incredible thing is that because of this software’s popularity, there are lots of developers, 3D artists, etc. that free share their work and you can download it. That’s what happened in this work of mine: I used a rigged human figure made up on this software. “What a rig does is define the way the various parts of a model will move in relation to its other parts.” (1)

To exemplify the aforementioned, I add the data sheet of the work I’m presenting:

Title: Body Study 65

Artist: Veronica Huacuja

Media: Oil on paper

Size: 20.8 x 21 x 0.1 cm

Year: 2019

Collection: Human Body

THE PROCESS. One important thing to achieve in drawing or painting the human body (or an animal's body) is the dynamism that the figure must have, no matter if it is at rest or in movement.

SOME GOOD DETAILS TO KEEP IN MIND. To get acquainted with the latter, let’s have a look at the body of art of the great masters of dynamic photography, that are Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904, British and U.S.), and Étienne-Jules Marey (1830-1904, France). By the way, they both born in the same year and they died at the same age! And, they got to know each other and each other’s work, but they didn’t establish a close relationship. Let’s not forget the boat made the transcontinental geographical distances in those years. This is because Muybridge lived and work in U.S. and Marey in France.

MY EXPERIENCE DOING THE ARTWORK. Why I used a 3D model when I could buy a nude artistic photo from commercial stocks or use others freely as an initial resource? The reason is that it's hard to find natural and dynamic poses in these galleries. So, having that in mind, I downloaded a free 3D Blender rigged human shaped model. Because it was a rigged, I could pose it in any position. I also defined the sources of light (casting the shadows). When I was satisfied with the results, I made a snapshot out of it.

PAINTING AND RECORDING THE PROCESS. The next step was to use, as an initial source, the cited snapshot. So, I sketched the figure on paper using a black crayon and painted it with an oil painting. You can appreciate the process in an 8 min video at https://www.patreon.com/posts/70780632

LET’S MAKE A MEANINGFUL REFLECTION FROM THE ABOVE. Have you ever mixed these two techniques: digital and traditional? If so, your creative process and initial resources expand.

Visit any time:

My ART SHOP: https://veronica-huacuja.pixels.com

My BODY OF ART: https://veronica.mx

I offer an ONLINE PAINTING PROGRAM in traditional or digital techniques: https://veronica.mx/online_painting_course

Other POSTS AND VIDEOS: https://patreon.com/veronicahuacuja

Thank you for reading. Hope you enjoyed the post.

Uncommon Initial Resources For A Painting

The artwork of other creators is an incessant source of inspiration for our artistic plastic work.

PREVIOUS COMMENTS. This portrait is an homage to the women that lost their lives in the hands of Jack the Ripper a couple of centuries ago (1888). Their names, as we may know, are Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly.

Since I began the work, I wanted to portray the troubled life and tragic deaths of these unknown (at the time) women. I created this artwork with deep respect towards them. So, I made a previous research.

This is the data sheet of the piece:

Title: A Whitechapel’s Woman
Artist: Veronica Huacuja
Medium: Oil on paper
Size: 33 x 28 x 0.1 cm
Year: 2017
Collection: Women

MY EXPERIENCE MAKING UP THE WORK. As I’ve mentioned on other occasions, I like to use innovative and various techniques in my workflow.

A PREVIOUS ACTIVITY. In this work, I made just like the grand master of painting Leonardo da Vinci, used to do when he searched in the homeless and impoverished people of his time models to paint their troubled faces. In my case, I did a similar task, but using the powerful tool that is the Internet. That's how I gathered information about the mentioned five canonical victims of Jack The Ripper.

On the other hand, I watched the American series, The Killing and found out an incredible scene performed by the actress Mireille Enos that I thought was just the exact initial source I needed at the time to make up the work. I made up various snapshots out of the cited scene, and selected one of them to work on it in a digital environment. In Photoshop, I deformed it, and changed the original source of light on the character's face based on the chiaroscuro masterpiece of Caravaggio (1571- 1610, Italy), David with the Head of Goliath (1607). To see some photos of-the-art process, head over to the following link.

After being satisfied with the digital results, I used them as initial resources for the work done with oil on paper, in a physical environment.

MATERIAL.
- The transformed image of Mireille Enos.
- A reproduction of Caravaggio's painting, David with the Head of Goliath.
- Adobe Photoshop and a digital tablet
- Oil paintings
- Oil paper

MAKING A MEANINGFUL REFLECTION FROM THE ABOVE. The historical research, referring to the artworks of the grand masters of painting of all times, and our personal and professional experiences provide us with enough information to make up an interesting artwork. Do you agree?

Visit any time:

My ART SHOP: https://veronica-huacuja.pixels.com

My BODY OF ART: https://veronica.mx

I offer an ONLINE PAINTING, DRAWINF, MODELING PROGRAM in traditional or digital techniques: https://veronica.mx/online_painting_course

Hope you enjoyed the work and thank you for reading.