Month: December 2022

Categories
Figurative Paintings Mastercopies

The Denial of Saint Peter: Woman, Life, Freedom – Week 8

This was my last painting session at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It has been incredible eight weeks of copying a painting by Caravaggio.

Thank you The Met, Thank You to those running the Met Copyist Program, and Thank You all the Met Staff and Met Security for this opportunity to copy and learn from Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. THANK YOU.

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art – November 28, 2022

So much has happened while participating in the Copyist Program at the Met—continuing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, intensifying inflation concerns, escalating Iranian Protests, and much more.

From all the news, though, the events that had been in my mind the most is the worldwide protests that have begun following the death of Mahsa Amini in September.

To capture and to remember this time in history, I titled my version of my mastercopy as follows:

The Denial of Saint Peter: Woman, Life, Freedom

Leading up to starting the copyist program, I had finished a portrait of an Iranian Woman who informed me of the protests there because of the way wearing hijab is enforced by the ‘morality’ police.

  • Coincidentally, I had already selected to copy the Denial of Saint Peter, which includes a lady with a head covering
  • And, when the protests made use of the words ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’, it reminded me of three times that Peter denied Jesus, and how that is represented in this painting.
Oil on Canvas – Completed Painting – The Denial of Saint Peter: Woman, Life, Freedom

The Final Push

It is incredible how fast 3 hours passes by when painting. For the first half of the session, I worked on refining the portrait of Peter and the lady—this time paying special attention to the light hitting the original compared to my copy.

The second half was spent on placing lightest highlights throughout the painting, ending with the highlights on the soldier’s armor.

And just like that, I finished mastercopying at the Met.

Thank you for reading my stories, following and sending me encouragement via Instagram (@jesoundkeepers). I hope you have enjoyed reading my weekly updates. I hope my stories and experience at the Met has perhaps inspired some of you to join the copyist program at the Met, or simply take a leap of faith to pick up a paint brush and paint.

This is me, the day that I decided to copy this painting by Caravaggio

The Art of the Copyist

Je was honored to be selected to painting with Jazz and 8 other artists after The Met reopened the Copyist program as Covid restriction was lifted.
Categories
Exhibitions General Announcement

2022 Annual Students Art Sale

This is probably the coolest art sale happening on the Billionaires’ Row, located in Manhattan. Come and support Emerging Artists for a chance to invest in art works that may go up in value—exponentially! Just in case you didn’t know, the league has a good reputation for educating so many established artists: Ai_Weiwei, Georgia O’Keeffe, Norman Rockwell, and the list goes on…

Each year, I try to sell at least 1 painting at the annual student exhibition and sale. All the paintings sold at the league will support participating artists and the league.

The Art Students League of New York
Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery, 2nd Floor
215 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019

December 9 — December 23, 2022 

Gallery Hours: Monday–Friday, 10 am–9 pm
Saturday-Sunday, 10 am–4 pm

Exhibited Works by Je

9 x 12 inches, oil — Lady with Elephant Earrings
9 x 12 inches — A scene from the Adirondack Mountains
Categories
Figurative Paintings Mastercopies

Mastercopying Caravaggio at the Met – Week 7

With only 2 days left in the copyist program, today is the day to make any major changes. There are still a lot more to do, but I decided to prioritize my attention to the Woman and Peter.

Matching Colors when master copying at the Met was one of main challenge. For those of you taking on mastercopying at museums in the future, here is my advise: Try matching colors near the original—the lights hitting your canvas might be completely different than the one on the original. I only came to realize this when lights abruptly changed in week 5. Fact: The new lighting in much of the European Wing at the Met has been completely redone during the pandemic.

In today’s session, I mixed up a few major color tones in front of the original, and painted with those colors instead of the colors that I actually see on my canvas. Result was warming up of skin tones. I pushed this as far as I can take it. After that, I had to rework Peter’s hands and other areas that needed at least one final layer of paint.

Mastercopying the Denial of Saint Peter after session #7

Then it was time to go after carefully measuring and making the best use of 3 hours.

And, in preparation for the final session, I painted a small head study from another painting by Caravaggio…