Juliette Aristides latest book

Scott and I are honored to each have a drawing included

I will post all of our on the spot paintings from Spain in the next update. Below is one that I did from a photo when I got home. She is a dancer at the Flamenco Museo in Seville  www.flamencomuseum.com/

We went there five nights in a row, the performances were amazing. 

Last year Scott and I went to San Miguel Allende , Mexico for day of the dead. While we were there we came upon a huge religious festival to bless horses. Hundreds and hundreds of men, women and children rode their horses to a small town outside of San Miguel. They would ride up through the courtyard of the church to have their horses blessed by the priest. What an incredible experience.

The young boy above caught my eye, he was so cute.

This was a small passage where vendors were selling candy and souvenirs, they came so close we couldn't move from our spot. Sometimes the horses would get scared and rear up and usually the guy who had started drinking too early would fall off. I liked the way the yellow tarp cast a shadow over the riders.

Frank Gardner ( a great artist who lives in San Miguel) his wife Julie and I are the only tourists along with Scott who climbed a tree to get a better advantage.

This was a photo I took from my camera during a demo Scott was doing for our workshop last June, 2011.  I was so busy for the whole 10 days I didn't get a chance to take many photos. This is our studio in Winston Salem, NC, we use it to hire models. The studio was super cluttered with everyones supplies and all of our samples on the walls. We love hanging out and spending time with people who share our love of art.

A drawing I did with pastel pencil on Rives paper. I usually hire models for 3 hours when we do a simple portrait. 

Our local friends that join us for the fun

Corn and Sunflowers  oil on canvas  34 by 20

The blue cloth is a sari I bought in Inda. Everytime I see this painting I think about the book of The Count of Monticristo that I was listening to when I was painting. This was the first still life I did in a long time. I want to do more of them this year and try not to over work them. I want the lessons I've learn from doing the short figure paintings to transfer to my longer works.

This is a mother and child from India, titled  Yellow Hat  oil on canvas  24 by 18.  I love to paint young and old faces in the same painting and I especially like it when kids are dressed up in quirky hats. He looks a little like a daffodil, so cute.

This was a comission from a fellow artist which made it more stressful for me to finish, knowing that artists I respected were going to see this.  I worked from their photo which I never do so I dealt with a double lighting and a little distortion from the camera lense. This boy is so beautiful,  his long eyelashes and curly hair were so fun to draw, I didn't want it to come out too sweet, it was impossible not to make him look like an angel. Pastel on Rives paper

Amy in White  22 by 16  charcoal on watercolor board

I used water and charcoal dust in the back with a brush.

Lunchtime   oil on Museum board   15 by 20

These children were sitting in front of a church in Lima, Peru.

seated Nude  charcoal on rives paper  30 by 22

I used water and charcoal dust with a brush to make my darks

Spanish Dancer   pastel on rives paper  20 by 18

She worked as a flamenco dancer at a famous restaurant in Florida. I loved the dramatic lighting on her face, although it hard to know how much to do since she had fake eyelashes on and dark red lipstick. It is hard for me to paint or draw someone that has a lot of makeup on.

sarah dear

Sarah dear

I did this painting in memory of my friend Sarah who died october, 2010 of brain cancer, her favorite flower was orchids and her favorite color was purple. I started the painting a few months after she died, put it aside and finished it few days ago. It took me a while to do the final touches because I knew when I did I would have to write about her and put the painting up on my blog. I met Sarah years ago when she called me to talk about workshops Scott and I held at our studios. She was so enthusiastic about art and could talk a mile a minute about everything she wanted to paint and all the places she wanted to travel. She lived about an hour and a half away from us and would drive into our Saturday morning drawing classes when we held them. She also would take our week or 10 day workshops that we hosted. Her husband Art was totally supportive of her dreams and ambitions. She had more energy then anyone that I knew. As I got to know her more she would open up about all the health issues she dealt with over her life time. She amazed me with her positive attitude and humor about all the road blocks that got in her way. Maybe because she was sick so much she could appreciate painting in a more intense way then most people. She first learned to do printmaking and woodblock prints in England. She and art lived in Germany and England for years because of Arts job. Those were the happiest days of her life. I love her block prints and think she was really talented with her graphic designs. It seemed as though life was finally starting to go her way, she dealt with the health issues that came her way and she was happy and productive. She attended our 10 day workshop in June 2009 in Winston Salem, I was dealing with some weird problems that doctors couldn't find a reason for and Sarah was a true friend. She would call and email me cheering me up with her humor. She was so strong, what I was dealing with was nothing like the trials she had gone through over and over. I found a doctor I liked that was about 30 minutes from her house and at one of the first medical IV's I had she sat with me and brought me lunch. I saw the doctor a lot for about 6 months and each time I went I usually visited with her. I felt very grateful for her friendship. In September a couple of months after the workshop I got an email from her husband Art that said Sarah was taken to the hospital and they discovered that she had brain cancer, the kind that people don't recover from. It hit me like a truck, I cried and cried. Scott and I visited her after her surgery, she looked more beautiful than I had ever seen her before, it was hard to believe she was sick. She had such a positive attitude and hope about the future. They gave her 12 to 18 months, she lasted 13. I visited her over the year and each time she was enthusiastic about art and planning a trip to Europe. They put her on constant chemotherapy and radiation. They also tried some new stuff on her, she never had a break from it, because of that she was too weak to leave her house or paint. She always put a brave and happy face on for me, I like to think I helped her in some small way, at least to let her know that she was important to me. I will never forget her joy for life,her humor, the funny way she would phrase things and her love of art. Art gave me some of her painting and drawing supplies and each time I use them I give a silent thank you to her, Scott has done a bunch of paintings using her canvases, each one brings Sarah to mind. She will live on through our hearts and our work. She was in her late 40's when she died.

When she first started to study art in Europe she focused on block prints. We have the one below hanging in our kitchen.

Sarah collected costumes and lots of hats. We visited Sarah at her house and she posed for Scott while he did a drawing. We video taped the drawing in progress and had her talk about her love of art and her travels through Europe.

She commissioned me to do a drawing of her in one of her amazing hats. It was 18 by 24  pastel on pastel paper.

Most of her paintings were whimsical.

Figure sketching in Oil

For the last few months I've been painting a lot of 30 to 45 minute figure poses. I started drawing figures in school, we had 4 day poses and quick sketch. After school I practiced quick sketch at the Palette and Chisel for years until I moved to North Carolina. There wasn't an art club near where I lived, I did eventually find someone who hosted models sessions at their studio once a week during the summers. It was hot and fumes from a roofing company in the same building forced me to start having a few artists over my home studio to draw once a week. At first it was just a hand full of people who would come over, as time went by more and more people were added to the list. I was lucky to find a studio space in the arts district in Winston Salem, 30 minutes away. It was a great space to keep for model sessions, portrait and figure. Everyone chips in for the models any left over goes towards future sessions.

After doing quick sketch for so many years I wanted to experiment with materials, at first I started to paint 30 minute poses on sealed museum boards. Then I changed to trying different Vellum's and lengthening the time to 45 minutes. I started to film months ago, below is an ad for the new video Scott and I produced on my figure sketches in oil. The ad and an article on my drawing techniques are in the Summer edition of American Artist's Drawing Magazine.

click the link to see the promo for the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nr2OhzCKM0

I've included in this post a bunch of the sketches that are in the video. Some of them were filmed and you see brush strokes and the palette, some are a part of a slide show while I talk about them. There are 13 demos on the 2 hour video. I will be teaching this technique at the Weekend with the Masters conference this Sept in Monterey, hosted by American Artist Magazine.

The painting below was a  45 minute demo for a workshop held at my studio in Winston Salem, June 2011

I tape the vellum to white boards, after they dry I will mount and mat them with blue or green mat boards. Since the vellum is somewhat transparent the white or blue color that it is mounted to influences how you see the painting.

All of these paintings are around 14 by 11 inches

The painting below was one of the first ones I did on Vellum, it was a 30 minute pose

As I talk about on the video, I don't art direct the model when she poses. I ask them once in a while to move a hand to a different spot, but I like the challenge of paintng what is given me. Some poses are easier to paint, of course when a model has arms and legs crossed it makes it a little harder to draw. As with foreshortening like the pose below, they can make interesting designs, so I just look for shapes and paint what I see and not what I think it should look like.

I still draw the figure about once a week, drawing is the most basic fundamental learning tool to help you learn how to paint.

"The Human Figure" by John H. Vanderpoel

The Vanderpoel Art Collection

Ridge Park Fieldhouse, Chicago, IL

www.vanderpoelartmuseum.org

This collection is taken care of by Grace and Sid Hamper, a husband and wife team who volunteer their time.

The Vanderpoel Art Association was founded in 1913 by Friends of John H. Vanderpoel, as a memorial to this celebrated instructor from Chicago's School of the Art Institute. Legendary artist Georgia O'Keefe praissed him as "one of the few real teachers I have Known." The Vanderpoel Art Association collection includes more than 600 works of art, of which approximately one third are on display in our gallery on a rotating basis. Just a few of the famous artists included in the collection are Mary Cassatt, Frederick Freer, Edward Dufner, Maxfield Parrish, Carl Von Marr, Joseph Leyendecker and Frank Benson.

Scott and I visited this museum on a very cold wintry day a couple of years ago while on a trip to Chicago. The couple who takes care of this collection volunteers their time 3 days a week, they came in especially for us on one of their days off. We got lost trying to find it because when we got there, we didn't believe it was the real place. We actually went up to the building which is in a residential area of the very south side of Chicago and asked a couple of people walking into the building if this is where the Vanderpoel museum was and they had never heard of it, so we went off to another arts building a few miles away. The people at this location didn't really know about this collection we were trying to see, but they guessed that the place we had just come from was the right place. So, we drove back worried that the couple wouldn't still be there. We walked into a building probably built in the 1920's with gymnasiums and community rooms and an outdated weight room for the public. There was a little sign that lead up a few stairs into a big room with wall to wall art hanging on the walls. It didn't have heat or air conditioning and I worried about the safety of all these precious paintings. We were flustered from our driving around and told the couple that we had asked people at the door and they had never heard of this collection. The couple said that was something they had to deal with a lot. After calming down a little and chatting with them about how long they had been volunteering there and how the collection came about, we learned that it was nonprofit and that years ago the Art Instituted of Chicago had declined the original drawings for the book that Vanderpoel had produced, "The Human Figure", which has become my number one book that I recommend to students. The collection consists of paintings donated by students that have studied under Vanderpoel. That really shows how important he is to art history.

I only had my little snap and shoot camera, so I started taking shots of the walls while Scott talked with the nice couple. I was over whelmed, I did not expect to see all these amazing paintings. I almost couldn't take the excitment of seeing the orginal drawings that he had done for the book.  Below are just some of the pages, there were just too many for me to include. The actual drawings are about 14 by 11 inches. The recent editions of "The Human Figure" are washed out because they don't print the new ones from original plates, they probably just take photos of old books. I didn't realize that these drawings were done on toned paper with the use of white pencil for the lights. The couple said the association that looks over this collection would love to have someone take professional images for them and for a future book. 

above is one of the illustrations that Vanderpoel did for cermamics.

You can see a beautiful Benson to the left, the women in the red dress

This is the case that the drawings are housed.

The information below came from a brochure.
John H. Vanderpoel, who was a resident of the Beverly Hills community at the turn of the 20^th century.  Mr. Vanderpoel was a distinguished instructor and director at Chicago's School of the Art Institute.

John Vanderpoel was author of "The Human Figure," first published in 1908 and still in print. It is considered a classic text in art instruction. A bound volume of original sketches for this book, contributed by the Art Institute, is on exhibit in the northwest corner of the gallery. 

An artist known primarily for his mural decoration and easel painting, John Vanderpoel was also an instructor at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1880 to 1906. In 1909, he became Director of the People's University in University City , Missouri . Reinforcing the assertion that he was a very effective teacher are the words of one of his students, Georgia O'Keeffe, who praised him as "one of the few real teachers I have known." Among his more popular classes were the ones conducted outdoors at St. Joseph , Michigan , and Dayville , Illinois . He also taught classes at Delavan , Wisconsin .
Vanderpoel was born Johannes/Jan van der Poel) in the Haarlemmermeer of The Netherlands on November 15, 1857 and was the son of Jan van der Poel and Maria van Nes, who were born in Rijsoord. They married on May 10, 1848 in Ridderkerk and had ten children, with Johannes being number seven. The family also included a sister, Mathilde, who became an artist.
The mother Maria van Nes died in the Haarlemmermeer in 1867. In 1869, Jan van der Poel emigrated to the United States with all of his children, including John Vanderpoel, whose talent as a painter was well served because he got a good education in America and later in Paris at the Academie Julian. However, at age fourteen, he had a fall in a wrestling match in a gymnasium that caused him to be a cripple for life, and at age thirty-five, he lost sight in one eye.
In 1888 with a group of students from Paris , he visited for the first time, Rijsoord, the hometown of his parents. During the 1888 floods, when the flax and potato crops were ruined, a number of art students gave a benefit to aid citizens of Rijsoord.
John Vanderpoel has written the book The Human Figure, which became a standard text book in the teaching of figurative painter. A Vanderpoel Memorial Art Collection is in Chicago , and this houses many paintings, prints and sculptures commemorating the artist by his peers as well as works by Vanderpoel.
Five of his paintings were exhibited at the Columbian Exposition in 1893, and his painting Little Miss Muffett won a bronze medal at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Among his murals are an eight-section ceiling mural in De Paul University's College Theatre on the Lincoln Park campus, and a sixty-foot mural at the Alexander Hotel in Los Angeles .
Source:
The John H. Vanderpoel Art Association, Courtesy Sidney Hamper, President
In 1882, the Leyendecker family immigrated to Chicago, Illinois, where Elizabeth's uncle had founded the successful McAvoy Brewing Company. After working in late adolescence for a Chicago engraving firm, J. Manz & Company, and completing his first commercial commission of sixty Bible illustrations for the Powers Brothers Company, J. C. sought formal artistic training at the school of the Chicago Art Institute.

After studying drawing and anatomy under John H. Vanderpoel at the Chicago Art Institute, J. C. and younger brother Frank enrolled in the Académie Julian in Paris for a year, where they were exposed to the work of Toulouse-Lautrec, Jules Chéret, and also Alfons Mucha, a leader in the French Art Nouveau movement.^{[3] [4]}