Historical Portraits

These are some examples of Historical Portraits that I am asked to paint from time to time. Before the Impressionists, most portraits were painted using a grisaille method (i.e., underpainting). Because I use the old methods, techniques and the Old Master's earth palette, it isn't hard for me to recreate these historical artworks.

I guess word is getting around because I find that I am getting more and more requests for this kind of portraiture.

The particular client whose paintings I show below, "lost" the originals to another branch of the family. So he asked me to re-create them. The research for this project was a heckuva lot of fun.

Because of the poor reference materials that are usually available for these paintings, I usually have to "make up" the colors.

I don't "fake" paintings - I sign and date them - but I do take the time and make the effort to have them appear as if they were painted by different artists - each in his own time.

Oil on Linen 16" x 20"

"Bodley" was painted from a black and white old photo of a much larger painting - artist unknown. The client wished only a head and shoulders detail and requested that the coat of arms be added.

Oil on Linen 20" x 24"

I had a "not-very-good" photo of the original "Shortridge" - but I copied it and "made the same mistake with the mouth" that the original (unknown) artist did. It was a huge effort for me to not correct it.

Oil on linen 24" x 30"

"Pennicott" is my favorite. The original artist was Sir Thomas Lawrence and I had a lot of fun re-creating this one. Originally all I had was an engraving by a not-s0-good artist who had copied the Lawrence original. Later, thank heavens, I found a copy of the original is a book and relied heavily on that image to paint this.

The Secret Revealed!

Solving the mystery of making those dratted rolls of clear plastic wrap (and/or aluminum foil) work for you.

      

I've been using this in the studio (mostly to cover paint) and in the kitchen (mostly to cover foods) for more years than I care to remember. 

Great stuff, but sometimes it can be a pain. You know, like when you are in the middle of doing something and you try to pull some foil out and the roll comes out of the box. Then you have to put the roll back in the box and start over. The dratted roll always comes out at the wrong time.

Well, I would like to share this with you. Yesterday I went to throw out an empty Reynolds foil box and for some reason I turned it and looked at the end of the box. And written on the end it said, "Press here to lock end". Right there on the end of the box is a tab to lock the roll in place.

Check the ends of that box!

How long has this little locking tab been there? I then looked at a generic brand of aluminum foil and it had one, too. I then looked at a box of Saran wrap and it had one too! I can't count the number of times the Saran wrap roll has jumped out when I was trying to cover something up.

Heavens! Am I the only person that didn't know about this?

Sell a Painting, Make a Loan, Change a Life

When I sell a painting I make a loan to someone in the developing world using a revolutionary new website called Kiva.

Each pre-screened entrepreneur is hard-working and hopes to maintain a sustainable livelihood. All they need is a small loan.

You can go to Kiva's website and lend to someone in the developing world who needs a loan for their business. There are lots of people who need loans and it is fun to read their business plans.

I like to work with people (mostly women) who like to work with their hands and/or are involved in creative endeavors. I get reports from all the people pictured above and enjoy following their progress.

When the entrepreneur pays back their loan I get my money back or I can pass it on to another person who needs it.

I can loan as little as $25.00 if I wish and 100% of every dollar I have loaned will be sent to my designated entrepreneurs, and will be used by them to build their businesses.

I even get updates letting me know how my entrepreneur is doing.

It's finally easy to actually do something about poverty - using Kiva I know exactly who my money is loaned to and what they're using it for.

And best of all, helping them build a sustainable business will provide income to feed, clothe, house and educate their family long after my loan is paid back.

Please consider joining me in changing the world - one loan at a time.

And you can do it instantly through PayPal right from your PC.

So who is it, Albert or Marilyn?

Close up this picture looks like Albert Einstein. Blink or peek from a little distance and she looks just like Marilyn Monroe.

Who would have guessed they could ever be mistaken for each other? Wacky, eh?

I adore a little visual trickery and in any event I think that "reality" is highly overrated and for people who lack imagination.

So here are some great thought provoking quotes from my favorite theoretical physicist (Albert, not Marilyn, of course) who thought that "Mathematics is the Music of the Universe"...and I tend to agree.

"Two things inspire me to awe -- the starry heavens above and the moral universe within."

"Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty."

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18."

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education."

"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts."

All the quotes in blue above are from Albert Einstein

"Here's to the crazy ones..."

"Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in a square hole, the ones who see things differently. 

They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo.You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. 

About the only thing you can't do is ignore them, because they change things. 

They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, and are the ones who'll do it." 

From an Apple Computer TV ad

"It's kind of fun to do the impossible." 

Walt Disney 

"...that enthusiasm is half of the journey to success, and

all of the journey to joy.

If you're going to do something, do it with gusto. Don't

do anything half-heartedly. That dishonors the doing

and the doer. So go for it. Hold nothing back. In life.

Or love. Or anything at all."

Neale Donald Walsch

"Mickey Mouse" Copyright Bill

Pix of Mickey Mouse, presumably laughing at the current Orphan Works Act? 

This is explained so well by Robert Genn in his Twice Weekly Newsletter that I have quoted his entire letter below.

It arrives in my email inbox twice a week, it is free and I look forward to each and every one of them.

Book (cover shown above) by the multi-talented and very clever Robert Genn.

May 6, 2008

Dear Karin,

The principle of post-monetization says that nothing is worth anything until somebody wants it. Those of us who make art for a living--outside of commissioned work--essentially operate on this principle. We make the stuff and put it out there. When somebody decides, for whatever reason, they want it, then the amount they are willing to pay is exactly the value at that time. If we choose to resell, reproduce or replicate, that's our business too. We still own the copyright. 

The convention of putting a little c with a circle around it became redundant in the U.S. in 1976. In current copyright law, every drawing, painting, photograph, poem or play is simply owned by you the author. If somebody swipes it, or uses it without your permission, you have the law on your side to chase them down and get paid.

That's why the current Orphan Works Act now being considered by the U.S. Congress is particularly baffling. Promoted by dough-head non-artists who are obviously listening to big-time lobbyists, this bill says that you the artist must now officially register every single work you wish to protect. The on-line registries, presumably fee based, haven't yet been established.

Big boys like Disney have always felt the necessity to register copyrights. Can you imagine what's involved in owning and protecting Mickey Mouse? That's why I'm calling this the Mickey Mouse Bill. It continues to protect Mickey but leaves little guys like you and me with another layer of paperwork and expense. While in the guise of a last ditch attempt to locate 

and release unclaimed (orphaned) work, it's my opinion this is very bad legislation indeed. If someone can tell me the possible value of the Orphan Works Act, I'd really appreciate it.

Post-monetization is our life blood. The choice to defend an extant work should always be in the hands of the creator or his assigns. That's why the current law works so well. A few years ago a car company decently asked me if they might use one of my (already sold) paintings in the background of a car ad. I named a reasonable fee and they readily agreed. We used a "one time only" contract and we didn't even use a lawyer. If the Orphan Works Act becomes law, without an author's prior registration, Mercedes-Benz could just help themselves. No ask. No pay. Nutz.

Best regards,

Robert Genn

PS: "The problem is that very few of the billions of images will ever be registered. No artist that I know of has the time to pull out every work of art they have ever produced and register them with all the upcoming electronic databases." (Mark Simon, artist advocate)

Esoterica: The advent of the Internet has been somewhat responsible for this turn of events. Some pundits think we're about to enjoy the sunset of copyright. As it is, Chinese artists are ripping jpegs from the Western Internet, cloning and reselling our stuff like crazy. We can't get at them because they're in another jurisdiction. Now the U.S. wants this in their jurisdiction? Nutz. In the meantime the big boys like Google and Microsoft would like to see Mickey Mouse 
happen. They've got the deep pockets to get what they want. I don't know about you, but I haven't, and besides, I don't like filling out forms.

This is the back cover of Robert's book (above). If you click on the picture, it will be big enough to read.

Creative people worldwide appreciate the level of informed inspiration and information provided by Robert Genn's Twice Weekly Newsletter. It arrives in your inbox every Tuesday and Friday morning - and best of all it's free.

His website has something for everyone - demos, videos, links, and a whole lot more. 

Be sure to check out Robert Genn's archive - it is a rich resource of creative content...and fun to read. 

Absinthe's Mind-Altering Mystery Solved

Proof positive: High alcohol content responsible for psychedelic effects!

By Charles Q. Choi

LiveScience, April. 29, 2008

Albert Maignan's painting of "Green Muse" (1895) shows a poet succumbing to absinthe's mind-altering effects. Credit: Courtesy of the Musee de Picardie, Amiens

An analysis of century-old bottles of absinthe - the kind once quaffed by the likes of van Gogh and Picasso to enhance their creativity - may end the controversy over what ingredient caused the green liqueur's supposed mind-altering effects .

The culprit seems plain and simple: The century-old absinthe contained about 70 percent alcohol, giving it a 140-proof kick. In comparison, most gins, vodkas and whiskeys are just 80- to 100-proof.

In recent years, the psychedelic nature of absinthe has been hotly debated. Absinthe was notorious among 19th-century and early 20th-century bohemian artists as "the Green Fairy" that expanded the mind. After it became infamous for madness and toxic side effects among drinkers, it was widely banned.

The modern scientific consensus is that absinthe's reputation could simply be traced back to alcoholism, or perhaps toxic compounds that leaked in during faulty distillation. Still, others have pointed at a chemical named thujone in wormwood, one of the herbs used to prepare absinthe and the one that gives the drink its green color. Thujone was blamed for "absinthe madness" and "absinthism," a collection of symptoms including hallucinations, facial tics, numbness and dementia.

Prior studies suggested that absinthe had only trace levels of thujone. But critics claimed that absinthe made before it got banned in France in 1915 had much higher levels of thujone than modern absinthe produced since 1988, when the European Union lifted the ban on making absinthe.

"Today it seems a substantial minority of consumers want these myths to be true, even if there is no empirical evidence that they are," said researcher Dirk Lachenmeier, a chemist with the Chemical and Veterinary Investigation Laboratory of Karlsruhe in Germany.

Lachenmeier and his colleagues analyzed 13 samples of absinthe from old, sealed bottles in France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the United States dated back to the early 1900s before the ban. After uncorking the bottles, they found relatively small concentrations of thujone in that absinthe, about the same as those in modern varieties.

Laboratory tests found no other compound that could explain absinthe's effects. "All things considered, nothing besides ethanol was found in the absinthes that was able to explain the syndrome of absinthism," Lachenmeier said. (Ethanol is a word for common drinking alcohol.)

The scientists are set to detail their findings in the May 14 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Fine Line Revealed Between Creativity and Insanity

By Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer. 

Originally published in September 2005

History suggests that the line between creativity and madness is a fine one, but a small group of people known as schizotypes are able to walk it with few problems and even benefit from it.

A new study confirms that their enhanced creativity may come from using more of the right side of the brain than the rest of us.

In the spectrum between normal and insane, schizotypes generally fall somewhere in the middle. While they do not suffer many of the symptoms affecting schizophrenics, including paranoia, hallucinations and incoherent thoughts, schizotypes often exhibit their own eccentricities.

Near infrared spectroscopy brain scans of schizotypes, schizophrenics and normal controls during creative thinking tasks. Photo Credit: Vanderbilt University

"They may dress or carry themselves in a strange way," says Bradley Folley, a graduate student in clinical psychology at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee and the lead author of the study. "They're not abnormal, they live normal lives but they often have idiosyncratic ways of thinking. Certain things may have special meaning for them or they may be more spiritually attuned."

Problem solving

The link between creativity and psychosis has largely been based on anecdotal evidence and correlation studies. The Vanderbilt study is the first to investigate the creative process experimentally using brain-imaging techniques.

The researchers defined creativity as the ability to generate something new and useful from existing products or ideas.

"Creativity at its base is associative," Folley told LiveScience. "It's taking things that you might see and pass by everyday and using them in a novel way to solve a new problem."

The researchers conducted two experiments to compare the creative thinking processes of schizotypes, schizophrenics and normal control subjects.

In the first experiment, subjects were shown a variety of household objects and asked to come up with new functions for them.

For example, all three groups would be asked to come up with possible uses for a needle and thread. While the normal and schizophrenic controls came up with pretty typical responses like sewing or stitching, one schizotype said that if a person was poor but wanted to get engaged, he could use the thread to make a ring and use the needle to write "I Love You," in the sand.

Picture this

In the second experiment, the three groups were again asked to come up with creative uses for everyday objects, but this time their brains were monitored using a brain-imaging technique called near-infrared optical spectroscopy.

The scans showed that both sides of the brain in all three groups were active when making novel associations. However, in the brains of schizotypes, the activation of the right hemisphere was much higher compared to brains of the control subjects.

Folley speculates that what may be happening is that schizotypes may either have more access to the right hemisphere than the average population or there may be more efficient communication between the two hemispheres.

How To Save Your Oil Paints *

So you're done painting for the day and you have a ton of paint left over - mixed to exactly the correct color and shade. What to do?

At the end of a painting session, I save my oils in an old ceramic pie plate, filled with plain water. 

I use a spatula to scoop the colors off the palette and store them under water in the dish.

When you're ready to paint again, scoop out the colors and put them back on your palette. Since oil and water don't mix, the water drops will evaporate and will not affect your paint or your painting.

The water seals off the paint from the air and I can keep my colors fresh for up to a week...and sometimes even longer.

I do not keep any mediums I have used.

When you "forget" and leave your paints until they harden (tisk tisk) - but you have used a ceramic or glass dish to store your paint - you can clean up hardened paint easily with a single sided razor blade.

My paint storage dish, shown above, needs a razor blade clean up as soon as that dish isn't in use - and I have nothing else to do in the studio.

* Note: You cannot store water-soluble oils under water.

Or...

If you need to keep paint even longer, you can store your piles of paint (without the water and covered of course) in your freezer.

Be It Ever So Humble....

At first I thought, "Home Is Where The House Is" makes a lot of sense if you're the sort who has moved around a lot. 

However, the old antique sampler's message directly above - thanks to Photoshop - is so much more tailored to "me."

But seriously, there's more to a "home..."

“Is a home merely a roof to keep out the rain?

Four walls to keep out the wind?

Floors to keep out the cold?

A home can be so much more than that.

It can be the laugh of a baby,

the song of a mother,

the strength of a father,

the warmth of loving hearts and lights from happy eyes,

Kindness, loyalty, comradeship live here.

Home is our first school,

where we learn what is right, what is good, and what is kind.

It is where we can go for comfort

when we are hurt or frightened;

where joy is shared and sorrow eased;

where family and friends show tolerance and are loved and loving.

It is where all children are wanted;

where the simplest food is good enough for kings;

where money is not as important as love, kindness and respect for our fellow man

that even the tea kettle sings from joy!

This is the home that lives in our hearts and a place we create for ourselves.