Return to health continued, Holbein

Holbein may have enjoyed a healthy life but in general I haven’t, least not as an adult, years of severe disability are finally catching up with me. Health is extremely important to do pretty much anything, most people know little about fine-art painting and the hours you have to spend as an artist, not only on the paintings that are part of your ‘oeuvre’ but forever learning and maintaining technique; fine-art painting actually requires a fairly high degree of physical and mental stamina. One must always be a student and as I still don’t have the strength to spend hours at the easel on bigger more involved paintings, I’ve taken December’s partial return to health to make small A4 sized or less copies of renaissance, ‘great masters’ works. I have about 7/8 on the go, all in various states of completion. The aim being as a life-long student to improve technically, in classical art, ‘art’ meaning all disciplines, music, poetry, writing sculpture etc. technique serves emotion, it is the bedrock of the meaning.
I’ve managed to complete so far a detail from ‘The Ambassadors’ by Hans Holbein The Younger (1497-1543), painted in 1533 it is known not only for the consummate skill of Holbein in rendering texture and detail but the astonishing anamorphic skull, which today looks like a Photo-shop effect. See here, for my exert from the much larger painting, for the anamorphic skull, search google. The Ambassadors_detail Sorry for the photo quality, my little painting is far superior 🙂
I hope to complete the rest by the end of January at the latest and then if my stamina is ready to be tested I can move onto the bigger ideas I aim to complete in 2016. Three paintings to be rendered in oils are, ‘The Last Judgement of Pope Frances’ which I hope will cause some controversy, a female nude surrounded by a Möbius strip and my second painting in a series of realisations of poems by Wilfred Owen.
Owen’s poem, ‘Spring Offensive’ with its descriptions of buttercups catching the blood of the fallen and the shock of meeting a hail of bullets, having climbed a ridge. Literally like falling off the edge of the world, will be painted on a wooden panel prepared in the renaissance way, using rabbit skin glue and six or so fine coatings of real home-made chalk gesso as opposed to cotton canvas or linen which I favour. I hope I can do it justice, I can certainly imagine it now as I did when I first read it many years ago.
I have many sketches to turn into paintings so I hope my health holds up and that I can be busy painting again this year and finally get around to selling high quality Giclée prints.

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