Saturday, March 27, 2010
Shanks does Smerconish
On Wednesday I attended a demonstration portrait study: The noted Philadelphia portrait artist Nelson Shanks was painting the talk-show host Michael Smerconish, for an audience of some 300 people over about 3 hours. It is always magical to see a strong image take shape on an empty canvas, like watching a photograph develop in a darkroom but under the artist's active control.
Shanks was working at an easel, of course. But to show the process to 300 people, a camera was focused on the canvas and the image projected to a large screen. I took a series of photographs throughout the process, mostly of that large screen. That distorted the colors a lot, of course. I tried to compensate for that with my photo editor, but you will see how much more "alive" the direct shots of the canvas are, compared to the screen-derived shots. In any case, here's the sequence:
After studying Smerconish intensely for a few minutes Shanks begins by blocking in the painting, working rapidly. He is using a rather transparent color that will disappear as he continues to work on the painting.
Then he begins filling in a middle color, laying it in rather thinly. He is concentrating on the larger areas, and leaving a lot of detail to be modified or worked on later.
During a break, I was able to look at Shanks' pallet. Large, neutral (woody) color, covered with a glassy material. He has a rainbow of paint that he works from, and lets little mountains of them develop at the edge of the pallet, adding just a little fresh paint to the top for a new painting. I'm told that is in the style of the "Old Masters," thereby keeping track of the colors and kind of providing an inventory of what should be there. Perhaps also providing an emergency supply of color that might be needed, (although I have never been successful in trying to use paint that has dried on the pallet - it clumps up and makes ugly globs on the canvas). You can see that he mixes only a little paint on the pallet and indeed, he works very thinly.
He has lots of brushes on the pallet, but seems to use only a few while he is sketching or painting the portrait - mostly only two. He does wipe them on a rag frequently, when he wants to change color.
Shanks was working at an easel, of course. But to show the process to 300 people, a camera was focused on the canvas and the image projected to a large screen. I took a series of photographs throughout the process, mostly of that large screen. That distorted the colors a lot, of course. I tried to compensate for that with my photo editor, but you will see how much more "alive" the direct shots of the canvas are, compared to the screen-derived shots. In any case, here's the sequence:
After studying Smerconish intensely for a few minutes Shanks begins by blocking in the painting, working rapidly. He is using a rather transparent color that will disappear as he continues to work on the painting.
Then he begins filling in a middle color, laying it in rather thinly. He is concentrating on the larger areas, and leaving a lot of detail to be modified or worked on later.
During a break, I was able to look at Shanks' pallet. Large, neutral (woody) color, covered with a glassy material. He has a rainbow of paint that he works from, and lets little mountains of them develop at the edge of the pallet, adding just a little fresh paint to the top for a new painting. I'm told that is in the style of the "Old Masters," thereby keeping track of the colors and kind of providing an inventory of what should be there. Perhaps also providing an emergency supply of color that might be needed, (although I have never been successful in trying to use paint that has dried on the pallet - it clumps up and makes ugly globs on the canvas). You can see that he mixes only a little paint on the pallet and indeed, he works very thinly.
He has lots of brushes on the pallet, but seems to use only a few while he is sketching or painting the portrait - mostly only two. He does wipe them on a rag frequently, when he wants to change color.
After the break, this is what the sketch/portrait looks like:
Continuing:
and --- The Final Result:
Yeah, the guy is a Master!
