Tuesday, February 21, 2017

New Oil Pastel artwork; Still-life with nachos and Adam & Eve

Last week I was busy with my "Win an Artwork" raffle project, and also making some linocut greeting cards for St.Valentines (see here). On Thursday I went to visit a private art collection in Las Palmas City. This new art gallery "La Fundación Canaria para Desarollo de la Pintura", is a non-profit foundation investing on popular living artists (Peter Zimmermann, Ray Smith, Santiago Ydáñez, Marela Zacarias are a few names from their the collection). The owner is originally from Palencia and collecting contemporary art for more than 40 years. If you like modern art, it's highly recommended. I really enjoyed their guided tour. The actual exhibition is their permanent collection, called "Al Rojo Vivo". It can be seen til March 2nd. (It's on Calle Navarro 32, very close to Teatro Cuyás. Open to the public only on Thursdays and there is a guided tour at 18:00 pm)

Yesterday, BonFireCherry, a printmaker friend from Northampton, UK, published on his blog an interview about my linocut artworks. It was an entertaining conversation, If you wish to read it, you can do so here

Enjoying Colombian artist Álvaro Barrios's work "La multiplicación de los cuadros".

At the studio, I was working with a new still-life painting. This time, I chose a challenging composition using a very elaborated silk shawl with its flowers as background. This silk shawl is a typical accessory for a Flamenco costume. It was a gift from my mother-in-law, actually it is the first time I am using it cause there was not an occasion for it. Then there is the vintage German beer stein with a cannon on top of it. On the side, Adam and Eve, two miniature paintings, and the main object is Mexican nacho chips, served in a fish handled blue ceramic plate.

Well, my first step was painting the craft paper with Japanese black Sumi ink, (see pic below) leaving about 2 cm free space around the edge in order to hold the painting without touching. Afterwards, I brushed the free area with water to treat the paper against curling. When it was about to dry, but still moist, I put it into a very big and heavy book and left it there about a couple of hours.

I sketched the composition with graphite pencil, not worrying much about the details, just setting the proportions and basic shapes of the objects first. I put oil pastels softly with a few layers. Since my background was black it helped me to  bring out those difficult colors like browns without creating a muddy effect. I do not blend oil pastels all the way with each other on purpose. I completed the piece in three sessions, in each day with good studio daylight about a couple of hours. Enjoy it!

toning the craft paper with sumi ink

work in progress

detail

"Still-life with nachos and Adam & Eve" by Birsen Ozbilge, 2017
(Click on image to see in better quality)
11" x 8" (29 x 20 cm) Sakura Cray Pas Expressionist oil pastels on 
Acid-free heavy-weight black ink toned craft paper.
Available, click on SHOP


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