X

I always like seeing the same subject painted by different artists. Very interesting to see what the artist chooses to focus on, and how he wants to tell his story. These are both portraits of Mme Pierre Gautreau. 
Left: John Singer Sargent, Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau) (1883-1884), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, oil on canvas, 208.6 x 109.9cm
Right: Gustave Courtois, Madame Gautreau (1891), Musée d'Orsay, Paris, oil on canvas, 62.01 x 58.5cm

Dean Cornwell

James Gurney: Imaginative realism:http://www.amazon.com/Imaginative-Realism-Paint-Doesnt-Exist/dp/0740785508

Norman Rockwell

High res verion of the painting can be found here:https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/fishing-trip-they-ll-be-coming-back-next-week/ZQGS3jWsjWsXqA?hl=nl&projectId=art-project

The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit

I love looking at art, I love great stories. I thought it would be nice to share some art and show what it is I like about it. In this painting: The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, by John Singer Sargent, we see a family portrait. Although the way the girls pose may look coincidental, it was all planned. If we look at the way Sargent places color accents, lines, light and color choices, it becomes clear that he is in charge of what he wants to show us. I love the way the girl on the left is framed, as if it is a picture within the picture. The White dresses stand out in the dark colors he used. A beautiful example of storytelling.

Anatomy

I've been working on my anatomy lately. Here some pages from my sketchbook.

Translating what you see into what you paint

To me painting is not just copying reality. You can even ask yourself if there is a true reality, because maybe we all perceive the things we see hear and feel differently.
With that in mind, I try to think of painting as putting my personal impression on the canvas, rather than trying to copy reality.
This goes for painting from life, but also when I am constructing a composition for an illustration.
Studying perspective, color, light, anatomy, using different media all help to be able to translate your experience to marks on the canvas, that, hopefully, communicates my concept to the viewer.

I added some examples of some works of great artists and how they use their references. None of them just copies what's in front of them. They use it to absorb as much information about their subject as they can, in order to create their personal version of it.

Monet:

Norman Rockwell:

  Gil Elvgren:

Steve Huston:

 Tom Fluharty:

Marc Dalessio:

Gregory Manchess:

James Gurney:

Character painting video

In addition to the previous post on sketching a character here's the gouache painting video.