CONTEMPORARY PAINTERS RECOMMENDATIONS

Although history of art is the most studied field within the artistic panorama, we sometimes tend to leave aside our most recent artists which are more than a few. It is important to take into account the level of difficulty there is nowadays to innovate, since, to some extent everything has been already done. However, recently I have been investigating a bit more in search for new artist that can at least give a fresh touch to the artistic world as we know it and maybe make us discover some new pieces that can compare to nothing we have seen before.

I am going to list some of my favourite contemporary artists that I have discovered recently just in case you are interested. It is pretty sad how artistry is completely out of our everyday-lives nowadays and we are only focusing in the long-gone well-known artist that, of course, have nothing left to give anymore.

MARCO GRASSI

He has to be one of my all-time favourite painters, since I am a huge fan of realism and hyper-realism. I have never seen any painting as realistic as his works and it really blows my mind every time. His production is not very wide but he has just started his career so hopefully there is way more to come from this italian artist.

MARTIN WITTFOOTH

He has been a recent descovery of mine. I came across his work and I instantly fell for it. I think the main reason for my admiration is my love for animals and the way he represents them in such a magestic way. I believe his main themes are nature and animals so for anyone interested in the subject, I highly recommend you check his work out. Of course, his painting techniques are impecable and his use of colour is remarkable.

ROBERT GONSALVES

I discovered this artist thanks to my dad a few years ago when he showed me a video with a set of his works, but I completely forgot about him. I came across one of his paintings recently and now he is one of my favourites. Of course, his signature is the way he plays with your mind using all sorts of perspectives. It amazes me how someone can proyect such an illusion having such a perfect technique at the same time. The themes he uses for his works are also extraordinary.

PAULA BONET

This young artist was discovered to me through social media and I could not believe how talented she was. The aspect that first caught my eye inmediately was her particular technique, her brush strokes and her combination of colours. She has a lot of portraits among her work which of course are my favourite but she includes a lot of other elements which makes her production unique and admirable.

 

ERNESTO DE SALAS

I had to mention this artist because I have a close connection to his work, since his son is my cousin in law. As soon as I saw some of his paintings and artistic productions I was blown away. He sure is an alternative artist with a very unique style and theme selection. Some of my favourite paintings of him are resemblences of human cells and science abstraction.

AUTUMN

 

 

 Again, I have managed to make someone from my surroundings be my model for the day, in this case I have my sister. Since autumn is almost over, I decided to do some makeup on her representing my interpretation of this season. I did a quick rustic-looking tree covering her face and chest using very cool tone colours (I clearly have a thing for trees). For me, autumn screams brown and gold, but also cold, hence the white base. I made her features very defined because I thought the went very well with the whole theme. As you can tell from the pictures, it is a very simple and easy elaboration that I came up with and that anyone can attemp to do.

 

 

Of course, she wanted to take some pictures from the finished result since she loves being photographed and I thought I'd share them here. Now that winter is coming, I might do another interpretation of that season aswell, this time maybe a bit more elborated. Thanks for reading.

 

Enjoy

MANET, THE MASTER

    Impressionism is definetely my favourite art period of all time; together with the more recent hyper-realism. In most cases, when you think impressionism, you think Monet. It is crazy how just a single letter can make such a huge difference. I might agree in the sense that Monet really did set the bases of the style and characteristics of the period, but I personally don't find his work as appealling as Manet's. With that being said, I would like to show you my top picks of this artist's work, with my own interpretation of each one, and give you a breif introduction so that you can find how talented he was, he is. 

Monet working on his boat in Argenteuil 1874

I have picked this painting as the main example, since it is one of my personal favourites. As you can see, in it we find all of the representative characteristics of the impressionist style: abundant use of colour, short and quick brush strokes, undefined edges in the different elements, and, in all, a great explosion of magnificent art. Probably, one of the main elements that makes me like Manet's work better is the great deal of colour power he uses in each painting, whereas Monet tends to stick to less varied and more toned-down colour ranges. In this case, eventhough it is a sea painting, he still uses some warm tones to give the whole image a less distant and cold effect. This makes it much more appealing.

 Manet's name owns many sea paintings that are absolutely flawless, and I consider them probably the best of his whole work. Here are some other examples of similar paintings that more or less tend to have the same vibes but still variate depending on the represented environment. We can, for example, see some differences in the colour selection; some of them have a wider colour range, as he normally goes for, and others imitate Monet's tendency to cooler tones. 

Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama 1864 (?)

The banks of the Seine at Argenteuil 1874

The Port of Calais 1871

The departure of the Folkestone Boat 1869

I don't know about you but these paintings are brimming peace and calm to me. I have found that impressionism in general works really well with nature setting, specially if they involve water. In the first example you can tell that the colours are way more suttled and turned-down since the context of the painting is a war battle. On the other hand, the rest of them really have a cheered-up vibe by the use of warmer tones and a great election of blues.

My other personal favourite selection of paintings from Manet are his landscapes, in which I find there is a great deal of expression and an impecable naturalistic approach. It is obvious why these works are his most renowened. Again, the use of the colour still remains my favored characteristic, specially since the landscape itself allows him to experiment a lot more, which he does perfectly. Here are some of my top picks. 

The house at Rueil 1882

Fishing 1862-63

A path in the garden at Rueil 1882

Lastly, since portraits are my personal favourite artwork, I tought I'd include some exmaples of his approach to them. Though his portraits, and impressionist portraits in general, are not my cup of tea, they still can be very attractive since they are normally mixed up with the distinctive packed setting surrounding the main piece. This makes them very intense and naturalistic to a lot of people's prefefrence. The first example I'm including I do really like and I've also selected some others that I thought you might like aswell. 

The Railway

Spring

I hope that I helped you discover a possibly unknown artist for you or at least made you dive in some very interesting artwork for a few minutes. If you are interested in having a look at his complete work, click here. 

This was such a joy to make and to investigate about. I'm most likely going to write more about impressionism and I might attempt to elaborate my own version of an impressionist painting myself. Thanks for reading.

Enjoy

BODY DOODLES

Let me introduce you to my human canvas and my best buddy, aka Ainara. Today, I grabbed a few body crayons and decided to get creative on her back. 

Mandala designs are one of my favourites; I find their making very relaxing and therapeutic. This time I did something a little bit different and drew a mandala-style tree with a very detailed and more abstract crown and a darker and more realistic trunk. The roots, on the other hand, I made them finer and more blended at the very tips.

I've realized that the best way to build up a mandala design is to start off with very small and detailed figures and then move on to a bit larger and more spaced ones as you go outwards. Keeping a round edge can be the most complicated part, but try to use some sort of guideline to help you out and you'll have no problem.

I am actually very happy with the result, and so was my model. 

Body painting is such a naturalistic and pure form of art, and I highly recommend you to try it out if you haven't. I usually stick to the face and neck but I definetely want to experiment more, specially after having such a pleasent time with this piece.

One day I'd like to do something crazy and extreme and maybe cover a whole body, if I find someone willing to offer their skin as my canvas, of course. 

Skin can be a bit tricky to work on but the feeling you get by painting on it is like no other.

Hope you found this somewhat inspirational and you decide to give it a shot. Thanks for reading.

Enjoy

FRESH

I have no idea what I'm doing.

I guess I'll start off by adressing the reasons of this newly created blog-like site. I'm a 19-year-old girl who has been feeling rather overwhalmed lately, bored even. I don't know about you, but sometimes uni, work and life itself gets a bit too "real", and you feel like disconnecting. I am a very creative folk, and so I feel like I need some sort of creative outlet to express all of those things you cannot really let out on a daily bases. Not gonna lie, I don't have a clue on how I'm going to focus this blog; I might just go with the flow, as I always do, and post whatever I feel like posting. Hope it works. To let you know a bit about my interests, I pretty much enjoy everything related to art, nature, travelling and all sorts of self expression. Besides, I would like to cause some impact by writing about self acceptance and confidence, interior peace and life enjoyment in all shapes and forms.

To be honest, even if only two or three are reading, I'm content. I am basically doing this for myself, for expression purposes.

Thanks for taking your time and stopping by if you did.

Enjoy