On 6 Aug, 2011 With
A French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist. Odilon Redon was born in Bordeaux, Aquitaine, to a prosperous family. He started drawing as a child, and at the age of ten he was awarded a drawing prize at school. Aged fifteen, he began the formal study of drawing, but on the insistence of his father he changed to architecture. His failure to pass the entrance exams at Paris’ École des Beaux-Arts ended any plans for a career as an architect, although he briefly studied painting there under Jean-Léon Gérôme in 1864. (His younger brother Gaston Redon would become a noted architect.) Back home in his native Bordeaux, he took up sculpture, and Rodolphe Bresdin instructed him in etching and lithography….
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On 5 Aug, 2011 With
Henri Fantin-Latour (14 January 1836 – 25 August 1904) was a French painter and lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers. As a youth, he received drawing lessons from his father, who was an artist. In 1850 he entered the Ecole de Dessin, where he studied with Lecoq de Boisbaudran. After studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1854, he devoted much time to copying the works of the old masters in the Louvre. Although he befriended several of the young artists who would later be associated with Impressionism, including Whistler and Manet, Fantin’s own work remained conservative and classical in style. Whistler brought attention to Fantin in England, where his still-lifes sold so well that they were “practically unknown in France during his lifetime”. In addition to his realistic paintings, Fantin-Latour created imaginative lithographs inspired by…
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On 29 May, 2010 With
Having spent several years painting – and making just about every mistake possible – I wanted to compile a list of tips and tricks to help others enjoy painting as much as I do. So here it is! Most of these tips come from my own direct experience or from students I have worked with in the past. Certainly, there are enough tips out there to fill an entire book, but I wanted to focus on just those that are helpful for the real beginner. 1. Be Yourself What kind of an artist do you want to be? I encourage all my students to explore different techniques and various styles on their journey into art, but usually there are one…
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