"why are all of your paintings naked?!?!?!?!"
Its really a very simple answer.
Back when i starting finding my own art path, i would draw anything i could.I would wander the art institute down town with my Buddhist friend Al and sketch everything. we would bring our medium sized Bristol sketch books with charcoal in hot little hand. wind through the rooms and floors,gathering crowds of people peering over our shoulders to see how our attempts at capturing the great works was going.
we would make huge days of this, at that time you could get in any day for free but with a donation sum of your choosing so we would compile all our money for that and food pack up and head out to our second home.
Al was an amazing artist. He could wield his stick of charcoal and capture any class portraiture with speed and elegance. It was always so awe inspiring to watch him work.He would glance at me and there i was nose almost touching Bristol trying to get shadows and achieve some assemblance of contour.He knew about my vision and a the time i was about 19 or 20yrs old , i was losing vision but hadn't lost all my central yet and had some color.He would help teach me things to work around and help explain what i couldn't see so i could try to fake it.I tried very hard, and kept at it with persistence.
I went out one night and bought Windsor newton oil paints and everything id need to get going. my first attempt was at Pierre August Renoir's "Cristantamums". i spent my time working the paint creating his visually texture trying to match colors and tones.As i finished my rendition he was very pleased."some one could touch that and really feel what you painted, its not really dimensional but i like it".I took the compliment and tried another piece, Peter Paul Reuben's"Infant Christ and John the Baptist". I had always loved the this piece and decided to put what i had learned to undertaking it.I stressed and cried, no matter how i tried i could not match the colors, i couldn't fake the perspective i layered and layered feeling cartoonish and defeated. AL viewed the unfinished piece me tears on my face" its OK someday you'll learn from this piece finished or not".
I decided at that point i didn't want to paint and i was going to stop, got rid of or sold for small profits to friends the other pieces and packed up my paints.
I walked out onto my porch and begun watching the people walking up and down my city block.I went back in and started just drawing there faces, not the whole body but the profile, the faces.This struck a chord in me, i went inside sketched faces from art books, masters paintings, strictly portraits from the art institute.The next art play date Al turned to me" hey we never go to the sculpture garden i know its 3d from but would you like to try to sketch it?".Of course! it was a Greek statues they were gorgeous i figured why not. I started with on circular statue of4 figures and made my way around sketching all the figures. Al walked over and noticed something "oh your not sketching just the faces anymore huh?". Hmm i wasn't,.I was sketching the full nude form.
I continues sketching nudes and now in the present painting them. now i have learned from that painting and now i understand my i do it,
You seen that painting was a whole landscape with figures in perspective and surroundings, with my blind-ishness i could never really focus or see enough to re create that,painting in real colors was far too much of a stretch.When i focused on the nude form it became easier to see light and shadow and form, clothes were too 3d for me to grasp i could never get the texture right, hair was a lost cause too.
this is why all my partings but a few are naked, its the most simple way to paint someone, the most beautiful as well.I'm working on a few with clothes or fabrics like the one on this page, its always a challenge but i well never stop attempting to capture the simple beauty of human form, in all shapes and sizes.Now in the latest series and how light sensitive Ive become letting the light and shadow play on my figures its so stunning i try my best to capture it on canvas, painting the shadows now and letting the figures emerge.
I will continue to let my paintings run naked :)
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