Happy Birthdays Dear Artists!

My section about celebrating artists birthdays is growing quite nicely.  There are lots of artists I want to write about but I don’t seem to have the time.  Those I do write about, I tend to make it brief.  I hate it when it’s an artist I really like and I’ve missed the birthday grrr!  You may  see ‘Happy Belated Birthday’ occasionally: I try to keep those to the next day.  Here are the one’s I have done so far;-

Rubens

Gauguin

Dali

Leonardo da Vinci

Hart Benton

Turner

Van Gogh

Morris

Pollock

Chagall

Kahlo

Modigliani

Degas

Hopper

Marcel Duchamp

Aubrey Beardsley

Pablo Picasso

Barabara  Hepworth

Man Ray

Happy Birthday Dear Artist posts 2

Here is a list of links to post I have made so far concerning artist’s birthday.  I have tried to make it a rule that I actually LIKE the artists’ work!   Some artists I do like, I have not included so far, as their birthdays have clashed with something else I was writing about. Some birthdays I have only found out about when it was too late to include them , I mean to rectify this at a later date.

Rubens

Gauguin

Dali

Leonardo da Vinci

Hart Benton

Turner

Van Gogh

Morris

Pollock

Chagall

Kahlo

Modigliani

Degas

Hopper

Duchamp

Happy Belated Birthday Dear Dripper!

pollock action-painting

Google informed us that it was Jackson Pollock’s birthday yesterday. Well, belated Birthday Greetings!  He was born 1912 Wyoming USA and would have been 97 yesterday if he hadn’t died in 1956.  He studied under Thomas Hart Benton (b.1889 – 1975 USA)

thomashartbenton-boomtown-1928

 He started pouring paint on his canvas’s in the early 1940’s after being introduced to liquid paint in a workshop in 1936.  Pollock used sticks, syringes and even hardened old brushes  as applicators with household paint for his ‘drip’ technique.  An example of Pollock’s technique  ‘Summertime’ Number 9A’ was made by pouring and dripping paint over flat canvas.  In ‘Action’ painting, the physical Act itself is as important as the finished work as it is a form of Expressionism: sometimes called Gestural Expresionism.

summertime-pollock

Willem de Kooning (b. 1904 – 1997 Netherlands) was another Abstract Expressionist, along with Franz Kline, Marc Rothko and Philip Guston amongst others.

kooning_woman_v-1952-53

When I am in my painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It is only after a sort of ‘get acquainted’ period that I see what I have been about. I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.

 There is nothing like really putting yourself into a really big canvas.  I like to use my brush tied to a long stick, and to dart in and out: going up close and coming out again.  Here’s one I did earlier.

aqua-sulis-

• If you fancy yourself a bit of a ‘dripper’, have a go here – great fun!

Here is a list of links to post I have made so far concerning artist’s birthday.  I have tried to make it a rule that I actually LIKE the artists’ work!   Some artists I do like, I have not included so far, as their birthdays have clashed with something else I was writing about. Some birthdays I have only found out about when it was too late to include them , I mean to rectify this at a later date.

Rubens

Gauguin

Dali

Leonardo da Vinci

Hart Benton

Turner

Van Gogh

Morris

Chagall

Kahlo

Modigliani

Degas

Hopper

Duchamp