Author: Je

The April 2022 issue of Monocle Magazine wrote a story, League of its own, about Art Students League of New York. The article describes the league and includes cool interview commentaries from executive director Michael Hall, and two instructors, one of them being no other than my instructor and mentor Sharon Sprung.

What’s also cool is that the magazine highlights a few photos of our Studio, including a pose of Maria that resulted the featured painting.

Related Links

Monocle preview: April issue, 2022 – Monocle’s April issue features our annual retail survey, a report from France ahead of its presidential elections, an interview with Fiat’s CEO on his electric ambitions and a visit to America’s oldest independent art school, plus much more.

One More Painting – My post from the time that we painted the highlighted photos from the magazine

So I have been thinking. While it is easy to start painting with oil medium, it’s incredibly difficult to become great at oil painting, especially from life. They’re simply so much to learn, not to mention the need to master the draftsmanship required to attempt painting from life models. Then comes a series of oil colors that have all different properties.

And, hundred years of tracing from photos or other mechanisms have ruined—or have enhanced—the entire experience of painting from life.

The pandemic have allowed me to work using digital tools. I have to say I had no desire or inspiration to paint from life before, but I learned that many great artists used photo references to paint, which I found interesting.

Now that we are back in the studio, I now have renewed enthusiasm and appreciation for painting from life and live interaction with professional models and the entire experience.

This particular pose was super interesting, not only because it was all completed from life, but using natural light. You see, because of construction, our studio skylight had been closed for a few years.

I have made some significant and noticeable—more from the perspective of how I paint—improvements since coming back to paint at the league after a month long break from it.

I have decided to focus all my attention to become the best painter I can be in shortest time possible. What’s the secret sauce? My answer: Paint more & fail quicker.

The shown portrait, titled ‘Peekaboo’ (Good reason why it is named the way it is, but I am not going to get into it now) was painted in 2 separate sessions. I probably could have finished on the first day, but I didn’t like some of the changes that I placed at the end of the first session. Next day, I fixed majority of it from memory, but I ended up looking at the live model for the last mile.

This pose began the Monday after when Russia invaded Ukraine. Three weeks into the crisis, I completed this portrait, but the conflict hasn’t.

I titled this painting Blue & Yellow—the colors of the flag of Ukraine, which happen to be the 2 dominating colors used to paint the background and the sweater.

My heart goes out to all the people that have been impacted by this conflict. While it doesn’t seem likely now, I hope for a quick resolution to this conflict.