Kenney Mencher: original painting

Showing posts with label original painting. Show all posts

Wednesday

Rembrandt, Self Portraits and Me

Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes, 1634. Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669). Oil on wood; 70.8 x 55.2 cm. Private collection, New York

The exhibition Rembrandt in America will be at The Cleveland Museum of Art through May 28, 2012, It is a rare opportunity to see many of the Rembrandt pieces that reside in American collections, all in one venue.

This exhibition and my own art history class made me think about the tradition of self portraiture. One of the wonderful things about Rembrandt's self portraits are an insight into his biography in which he goes from hedonistic libertine.

To middle age.

To financial ruin and his life on the margins of society.

Alright, I'm no Rembrandt but I did do a series of self portraits and maybe my self portraits give a little insight into me. At least they helped me to learn something about painting!

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Similar blog posts about technique and the use and misuse of art history:

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Saturday

Caption/Fiction Contest: Ends August 24th

Write a caption (one to several sentences) or a short story (under 1000 words) about this painting and and the best entry will win the watercolor.

Nearness of You 24x30 inches oil on canvas

watercolor on Rives BFK approximately 11"x8.5"

Purchase the oil painting above

This is based on the The Thematic Apperception Test, or TAT, is a projective measure intended to evaluate a person's patterns of thought, attitudes, observational capacity, and emotional responses to ambiguous test materials. In the case of the TAT, the ambiguous materials consist of a set of cards that portray human figures in a variety of settings and situations. The subject is asked to tell the examiner a story about each card that includes the following elements: the event shown in the picture; what has led up to it; what the characters in the picture are feeling and thinking; and the outcome of the event.

So watch out what you write or maybe someone will think you're nuts!

Enter in the comments section.

You may want to e-mail me with your contact info so I can send you your prize.
kenney.mencher@gmail.com
Let me know if you want a catalog!

More contests on this blog and my website:
http://www.kenney-mencher.com/

Tuesday

Preliminary drawing and step by step progress on a recent painting

The preliminary sketch, water soluble marker and watercolor on cold pressed watercolor paper.

Payne's Gray oil paint thinned down with Galkyd Painting Medium and the drawing is done with burnt umber.

I wiped out some of the lights with a rag soaked in Turpenoid.

Burnt umber with a sable brush (a big flat.)

Darks are made of lamp black, alizarin crimson and scarlet.

Flesh tones are cadmium orange, white and various mixtures of burnt umber and some of the black I mentioned above.

Potchking and working out details.

I don't like the face on the figure on the right. I wiped it out and started again much looser.

The finished painting, oil on masonite panel 11"x14"

Saturday

My Use and Abuse of Photo Reference

People always ask me if I work from photos. I sure do. I've actually had to develop my skills as a photographer but it also helps to look at the pictures in Photoshop on the computer screen. Here's my painting called "It is What it Is" oil on canvas 36"x48"