Fan
This is an 8x10 sketch of the model in Jen and Ben’s long pose night last Wednesday. I was an hour late so I only had about 2 hours on it. What made me happy about it was I felt more confidence and understanding of the structure of drawing thanks to a weeklong drawing class with Jove Wang a few weeks ago. I first went to him to loosen up my painting approach, but ultimately realized my drawing needed work. His drawing demo’s killed, the structure and masterful flourishes with just pencil. See his pencil below.
Understanding the form so completely lets him approach his work inherently with simple, emotional painting, rough and alive. He's got an assistant who is a hell of a good painter who doesn't even know how good he is because when you compare yourself to Jove, your balls suck in and you just fold up. I think it's dangerous to be too in awe of brilliant painters, it can paralyze you.
Lucky for me I admire him tremendously, but I don't want to be Jove, just learn from him and be inspired by him. I also admire how he encourages me to do my own thing; he likes where I'm going and doesn't try and make me do pretty pictures or paint in his style. He just shows me how to do them better and is really happy when I do.
Even though he does a lot of sentimental subjects there is a very masculine modern and aggressive painter in him. Secretly I hope he quits the highly finished out chatting Chinese peasant lady paintings and does some dangerous contemporary painting of a Chinese execution or something. His lay- ins are sometimes so wild they look like murder scene. I sometimes tell him to stop at that point and become a modern artist and he just laughs.
Sorry the images are small I haven't asked his permission to show these so I don't what them reproducible. Remember the pencil is finished, but the painting is only a hour or so of a block -in. Jove has a new DVD. It's not tightly edited so you really get to see a full painting done over several hours. The only down side is he is silent and the occasional voice over is a bit amorphously flowery. Since the voice over woman doesn't speak but once every 10 minutes you are always startled by her voice. However, you really can see him at work, the closest thing to a workshop.
posted by william wray at 11:07 PM
10 Comments:
Great portrait painting ! I enjoyed looking at Jobe's work as well, he is very good ! Awesome Thanks !
I was on Jove's site, amazing works ! I love his loose approach in applying the paint.He has a great eye ! I apologize for the incorrect spelling of his name the first time.
Nice painting Bill. Is Ben and and Jen's lifedrawing/painting session the one in Silver Lake?
..and thanks for learning me some Jove.
Thanks Sheri, it's just a rough sketch, but I can see the improvements or at least I've fooled myself. Belief is a big part of it.
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Hey Phil, No it's the Los Feliz one . Check my December entry for info under the entry title "Junkyard."
Good chance I'll be there Wednesday night for the long pose, stop by if you can.
ya know what, i meant to say Los Feliz. I've been there for the short pose. Maybe i'll try to make it.
Have you ever done a painting in front of him and yelled, "By Jove, I think I've got it!!!" and then started dancing about not unlike a crazed gibbon?
I think you might impress him if you tried something like that. I'm sure he's never heard that expression before. Might be good for him.
And you.
Think about it.
Hi Bill,
good writing about Jove ! Quite exactly what I would think and not write :).I bought one of his books 1-2 years back and I am definitely a fan even though I can`t attach to all of his work.
Hey Martin,
I enjoyed looking thru your Mono types. I've always wanted to try doing some, maybe I'll take a class.
As far as Jove's work. I'm looking forward to his new book because I do love all his work in his current book either. Has a bit to much of his formative work for my taste. There are some great ones in there though. I feel the same way about CW Mundy's book, about half I really don't care for. What they have in common is a rough style that when it working, it's fantastic, but when they fail or do something less interesting It shows. I feel it makes them more human. It shows how difficult it is to do lose expressionist painting due the the emotional side of the painting has to be strong or the piece lacks. Very tight painters don't have to worry about this as much as tightness helps hide things, conversely they may not ever do a emotionally risky painting.
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