Discouraged...

He is staring at me with his unseeing eyes. I´ve been so discouraged thanks to this figure.

I´m working on a drawing of this head; front, side and 3/4 side view. I thought it would be easy.

I was wrong.

My teacher Farigh has studied at the Repin Academy in St. Petersburg, that is where he picked up this figure. He told us about his Russian professor who almost NEVER used an eraser, he was so skilled in drawing. I use my eraser ALL THE TIME. It´s really hard to get the proportions right (I even have a hard time spelling the word "proportions"). 

It´s not a pretty sight. Yet.

My other project is this Bargue drawing. It´s killing me as well.

I left" the Russian head" and the Bargue drawing and went to

Folkkulturcentrum. The models for the day were two opera singers who is performing in an opera for children, "Hans and Greta". 

Hans and Greta (Margareta and Pernilla) and Bosse.

The models take their seats, in the background you can see the gingerbread house.

My sketch of Margareta, pencil on paper

A good painting always starts with a good drawing so even though I sometimes feel discouraged when I struggle at the drawing board I know that, step by step, I will master the

art of drawing if I´m diligent.

“One must know how to draw before one becomes an artist. It is because the ability to draw is the basis for the art. These skills should be developed from early years so that the artist as soon as he starts thinking and feeling, could express and convey his thoughts accurately and without any hindrance, so that the pencil could run at an artist’s will and thought.”                          

Karl Pavlovich Bryullov , Russian artist 1799-1852                                                                                                     

Talking about the Russians, one of the biggest museum collections of Russian art in the United States is found in Springville, Utah. To read about how this came click on this link http://upr.org/post/utahs-famous-collection-soviet-art . I visited the Springville Museum of Art in January this year.

Yuri Stanislavovich Podlyaski (1923-1987)

Portrait of Masha Surtukova Reading (Yellow socks)

Oil on canvas, 79x52 cm

Akmed Abadullovich Kitaev (1925-1996)

Miru Mir (Peace to the world) May Day, Red Square, 1964

Oil on canvas, 96 x 194 cm

Nikolai Ivanovich Ulyanov (1922-1990)

Invasion: Enemy at the Door, 1965

Oil on canvas, 200 x 100 cm

During the 1960s it was a fashion in Soviet painting to attempt to create suspense for "the next moment". In this painting we see a German soldier during World War II, who has come to the house to plunder whatever he can from the house. Or will he just shoot the sickly grandmother and the toddler? Or give them some chocolate?

Evtikhi Aleksandrovich Konev (1914-2008)

Sunday Picnic, 1962

Oil on board

I love the way the artist with very few strokes with the brush has described the shape of the woman in the white dress and the yellow wrap she tied around her head. Simple but totally convincing.

Yuri Petrovich Kugach (1917-2013)

Wedding Dinner Study, Girl in Polka-dot Dress, 1959

oil on board

Fedor Vasilevich Shapev (1927-    )

Country Doctor, 1967

Oil on canvas, 105 x 140 cm

This piece depicts a physician making rounds to the villages in her region. During Soviet times most doctors were women, because medicine was not the prestigious profession it was in Sweden or the United States. The artist says it is his quest to make the figures speak to the viewer and reveal their best attributes.

Arkadi Akeksandrovich Plastov (1893-1972)

Village Girl in the Snow, 1950

Oil on canvas, 60 x 46 cm

Tatyana Nilovna Yablonskaya (1917-2000)

In the Artist´s Studio, 1954

Oil on canvas, 70 x 90 cm

Eriska Thereski Arneskaya (1961-    )

Figure Study with no 

Trace of the Russian Method or Knowledge of the Traditional way of Painting

Oil on Canvas, 2011

One thing I learned during my first year as an art student, is that the whites of the eyes are not white. It´s a globe and the color should indicate just that.