How artists and galleries can work together.

How artists and galleries can work together.

Interview between Marcus McAlister and Susan Johnson Mumford of Be Smart about Art. 

Don't bite the hand that feeds you - Monthly Art World Webinar - See more at: http://besmartaboutart.com/blog/146/dont-bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you-monthly-art-world-webinar#sthash.n8IECbGl.dpuf

Don't bite the hand that feeds you - Monthly Art World Webinar - See more at: http://besmartaboutart.com/blog/146/dont-bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you-monthly-art-world-webinar#sthash.n8IECbGl.dpuf

Don't bite the hand that feeds you - Monthly Art World Webinar - See more at: http://besmartaboutart.com/blog/146/dont-bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you-monthly-art-world-webinar#sthash.n8IECbGl.dpuf

Teaching art in October

I'll be teaching art to adults in a private school, in Bastille, from October. It's in a building designed by Gustave Eiffel. There is fantastic light. A good ambiance and plenty of space.

Here's the poster and if you would like to sign up, send me your details by email. tj@tjbyrne.com with the subject marked, October art school.

There will be no messages taken at the phone number until September.

Teaching street sketching

Yesterday was the second day that I've taught street sketching and it was great. In the morning, the weather was extremely dramatic, so we were very lucky to have clear skies and brilliant views for the afternoon.

I taught a range of things, from perspective drawing to tonal perspective to blind drawing. They were just introductions of course but everyone got the basics and their drawing method changed. I was amazed by the leap forward that most of them made. Even more amazed that they didn't always recognise the progress themselves :)


Here's a building we drew where everyone is looking for perspective but in a very different way to the method of using vanishing points etc.


Basic explanation of perspective drawing. Horizon line and vanishing point. The simplicity of this seemed to amaze everyone and everyone got it. One person did a cats eye view of the scene. Their perspective was very different to everyone elses but just as accurate.


Perspective created by tonal values rather than line.


Perspective in a cafe. Exactly the same thing happens here as in the other drawings. The horizon line and vanishing point are just guides and there is nothing technical in the process of the drawing.


After the class, I unwound in le Baron Rouge, sketching the people there.

Snow and portraits

Hi
It's snowing in Paris. Lovely but it means a total go slow. I'm not feeling very inspired anyway. There seems to be very little feedback, whether it be good or bad from people regarding arts these days. I'm not going to try to do anything for a few weeks. I'm just ging to go with the flow and see what does or doesn't happen.

I've been enjoying drawing people on the metro. Will post a few drawings of them here later. I've also been doing more portraits in oils. That's come to an end for the moment. I won't do any more commissions till January at the earliest. In fact, I think that I'll concentrate on Gravure. I've been missing my friends in the engraving group for some time now and thanks to the fact that I'll be handing the gallery over to someone else in January I'll be free to get back to that. Running the gallery has been so incredibly time consuming. Very interesting of course and I learnt a lot but so many other things that are important took a back seat as a result. What I learnt is invaluable though. It has given me a totally new outlook on art and the art world.

Here are some of the portraits I've done this week. Neither is finished and both were executed very quickly. I'll finish them off later. Oddly enough I've found that instead of speeding up through doing the portrait sessions, in fact I've slowed down. Great way to get to know people though.

Plein air, sketching, exhibition

Hey, been doing lots of things on the qt. Yesterday, thanks to an artist friend who looked after the gallery, I was able to go out and join some others at Fontainbleau for Pleine Air Painting. It was really a great day. Well worth taking the time out for. I'm a little ill with a cold as a result because it was freezing but I'm still very glad I went.

Here are a couple of photos.

I've also been doing a lot of sketching on the metro in Paris. The portraits above are of people I've seen on the train recently. It's a nice way to spend a voyage. I might take a day out just to do that, particularly on longer journeys, perhaps to CDG airport etc.

There's an exhibition coming up. Yes, my own work at last, rather than other peoples. It's in Style Pixie gallery. A great, off the beaten track gallery which I really like. It has an underground feel to it. The curator is great and the directress is very inspiring.

Fr Declan

This weekend saw a major change for Irish people living in Paris. One of the rocks of the community has moved back to Ireland and will be missed. Fr Declan Hurley, our Chaplin and confidant, who has been here for the last 4 years has returned to his home town of Navan.

I met Fr. Declan when I first arrived in Paris. He was resident in the Irish College or College des Irlandais in the 5eme. My wife and I lived there for the first 5 months of the first year here in France and we have very fine memories of the time. Fr Declan was undoubtably one of the pillars of the society and he made the community there stronger.

The Irish parishioners commissioned a going away painting for him. A reminder of his stay here and of the college itself. It's painted in oils on canvas.

Portrait in tempera

To zoom in on the details in this painting click here.


Here's a photo of a painting that I did in two sessions last week. The first layer is a tempera and the second is oil. One over the other. The basic ingredients of the tempera and the oil are the same. Except that the tempera has the egg added. You do it all yourself, from dissolving the resin, mixing the ground pigment to thickening the oil in the sun for a few weeks. It's that process of being in touch with the materials that makes the painting very personal.

The model was very pleased with the painting too and took a photo of me at work. He's asked me not to post a photo of him beside it but I'm sorely tempted. Anyway here is the painting. It's not finished. There is more to do on it but I want the current paint to dry first, in a couple of weeks.

Exhibition update-Greenlane Gallery

There are four paintings which are on show in the Greenlane Gallery in Dingle, Co. Kerry this month.

They are:

Garcon
Shopping
Negotiations
The Lovers Whisper

I'm very pleased about this because Dingle is one of those special places in the world. It was a pivotal place of change for me several years ago, before I decided to move to France. I was on an artists retreat with some American artists who came over from New Haven. I thought that there would be more Irish artists too but in fact I was the only one.

It rained and rained for two weeks without ceasing. Despite this we walked and explored every day and wrote,talked, painted and went out over the sea to the Blasket Islands. It was boot camp for creatives and I loved it. Thanks to Caoimhghin O'Fraithile, our indestructible & madcap artist guide, we visited many amazing, artistic and historical locations in Dingle and the ring of Kerry. It was formative. The Greenlane gallery, which was in a different building then also opened my eyes to the freshness and purity of the kind of art that a location like Dingle can produce. So it's great to have my work on show there and it's a great gallery.

Art en Capital

The entrance.


Yong Man Kwon, from south Korea now living in the south of France.


View of Korean works and statues by Yvone Cleragerue.


I also visited Art en Capital yesterday. It took place in the Grand Palais des Champs Elysees, Paris.
This is an annual event. An exhibition of artists who are not represented by galleries and who live and work in the centre of Paris.
The first thing that strikes you is the enormous number of artists that are in Paris who are eager to exhibit but who are not represented. The exhibition had several hundred artists. It's very confusing to see this exhibition because there is no jury process and as such you have very good work placed beside not very good work. On the other hand, as the organisers say, the public decides what is good or not.

If you want to, you can reserve an entire 9m stand for your work which protects it from landing beside the work of someone that won't compliment it. It's a bit expensive but as there are thousands of art buyers attending the investment is a good one and great marketing. A lot better value than a particular, Irish art fair, at half the price.

There was some terrific work there. Particularly from visiting Asian artists. Their levels of skill and focus are impressive. In huge contrast with European artists there is an energy and daring in the work that is very strongly restrained. It feels like a wild horse that has been, barely tamed and is only holding itself back enough to perform for a particular moment. Unlike a lot of European art where the artists almost seem bored or going through the motions in their work.

The Asian artists have a lot of academic background and training yet they also have this fierce energy to get out there and express something bigger, better, brighter and stronger. Bursting out of the restraints of their academic training and using that famous focused intensity.

Icons

Yesterday, after setting up in the atelier in Bastile, I visited two exhibitions that I had been curious about. One was in Nation. An exhibition by an Icon Painter who studied in Greece. The exhibition took place in a small gallery on the second floor of the Centre Culturel Franco-Japonais, 8 Passage Turqueti, 75011 Paris. Metro -Nation. The artist is Dominique Groffe.

The artist has reproduced paintings of icons on wood using gold and tempera (egg). I'm interested in this because it's a subject that I'm studying at the moment. By doing the course you learn an enormous amount about the history of painting (as far back as the Egyptians) and you discover some of the most unlikely mediums with which you can paint and which last for thousands of years.

Although I like the artists ability to recreate the icons of past artists, I didn't see anything new being explored in the work. Creating an icon where the subject is religious is like a prayer for many people. A meditation and study of past works and as such gives a great deal of personal pleasure. The original images are full of hidden meanings as well and were not merely decorations. So that is also a study of history in itself.

It's fantastic to see this kind of work still being done. Otherwise it just disappears forever.

FIAC 2007

This Year Fiac was hampered by the massive strike by the RATP. Despite this, FIAC was very well attended. All trains, metro, bus and RER were out on strike. There was literally no transport for either Thursday or Friday in or around Paris. Amazingly the Parisians didn't take offense despite the serious inconvenience. Instead they got onto their bikes, into their cars or put on their walking shoes and got on with it. There is an enormous amount of sympathy for the strikers and people believe that tolerating the events is for the greater good. Powerful attitude! The French are great at acting on principle or putting a concept before personal desires.