Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Alla Prima Oil painting time-lapse Clown Grock



I am sharing today an Alla Prima Oil Painting o the famous Swiss clown Grock.  "Grock", Charles Adrien Wettach (1880-1959). He was also composer and musician. Called "the king of clowns", "the greatest of Europe's clowns" and once the most highly paid entertainer in the world. 

At fourteen Adrien joined the circus career as a magician, acrobat and mansnake. He left this environment after some time to devote himself to various activities and to setup a Duo named Alfredianos, with a clown named Alfredo, during his expat experience in Hungary. This duo performed with the Crateil circus for two years. Adrien then went to France, in the circus Barracetta, to start with, and as a cashier in the Swiss National Circus. He became a master in every circus specialty (contortion, juggling, balancing, acrobatics, horseback riding) and revealed considerable musical skills learning to play a surprisingly high number of instruments: piano, violin, clarinet, saxophone, accordion, trombone, xylophone, etc. In 1903 he teamed with another eccentric musician, Marius Galante, a.k.a. Brick, and took his nickname, Grock.  

At the top of his career Grock purchased a magnificant 50 rooms house in Imperia,  Italy in the '20's for summer vacations and named it as "Villa Grock". When he retired in 1954 he decided to live in this house permanently and later on he died in this house. Today, his house is a museum called "Museo del Clown".

*At the moment I won't be able to sell the original artwork. Because I do not trust the post office service due to pandemic related issues. But  HQ quality digital image file of the finished artwork is available for all my Patrons in Patreon. 


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Wednesday, March 11, 2020

ACEO Clown Portrait #165 "Marco Mariani"

Clown #165  "Marco Mariani"
acrylic on paper, 
2 ½” x 3 ½” (64 x 89 mm), 2020
SOLD

ACEO Clown Portrait #165 is inspired by a wonderful circus clown "Marco Mariani" from Paris, France. Mariani started to perform at very early age while  he was 2 years old with his grandfather in the circus. He studied at Accademia D'Arte Circense, Verona, Italy. His wife Stefania Gottani is Antipodist and Hi Ring Act performer in circus.  He works at Circus Maximum. You can watch his YouTube clip to see his performance in this link.

"Marco Mariani"

work in progress


Join me on Patreon and Become a Patron! That means you will be supporting my ACEO miniature clown portraits project and at the same time, you will have the chance to collect all the clown portraits.
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Wednesday, March 4, 2020

ACEO Clowns #163 & #164 "Shirley et Dino"

Clown #163 "Shirley" Clown #164 "Dino"  
acrylic on paper, 
2 ½” x 3 ½” (64 x 89 mm), 2020

Corinne Benizio ("Shirley", born 1962) and Gilles Benizio ("Dino", born 1957), are a French comic duo known by their stage name Shirley et Dino. The couple met at university in 1982, married in 1985, and made their debut the same year with the stage name "Achilles Tonic". In several of their shows, the duo depicted touching stories about unsuccessful naïve clowns. 
Corinne and Gilles created the characters "Shirley and Dino" during an improvisation internship with Ariane Mnouchkine in 2002, and their frequent skits on Patrick Sébastien's TV show "Le plus grand Cabaret du Monde" (The Greatest Cabaret Show of the World) made them famous in France. The release of clips from that show on YouTube in 2011 made them famous around the world, ( watch them on this link) with more than 2 million views. In 2003 they received the Mulier prize for their "Le Duo" show, as the "Best Sketch Show of the year". According to the official website , Their DVD was sold in more than 1 million copies.

work in progress

work in progress

Join me on Patreon and Become a Patron! That means you will be supporting my ACEO miniature clown portraits project and at the same time, you will have the chance to collect all the clown portraits.
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