| Painter |
August 7, 2017
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| After he retired from his job, he had a hard time to pass his free time. When he was young, he played tennis, so he restarted to play tennis. But you can't play tennis alone. His match tennis friend was a busy person so he only played tennis once a month or so. He liked to watch movies and foreign TV dramas on DVD. Once he watched 60 volumes of a serialized detective story. It was very good and he watched them from morning till night. Each episode was one hour long, and he watched 10 episodes each day. After a week, he felt sick and decided not to watch movies or TV dramas for that many hours again. He liked reading books. Once he read a serialized detective story every day from morning till night. After a week, he felt sick and had a very bad shoulder ache. He decided to limit his reading time each day. He liked traveling but traveling cost a lot of money. He could only afford to travel once or twice a year. He joined a pottery club. He remembered when he was young, he liked art class. His art teacher praised him for his paintings and craft works. But in the pottery club some of the members were very noisy. They talked too much while making their  own pottery. He wanted to concentrate on making his pottery, so he quit the club. But, since making pottery needed a place that could get dirty and also needed a kiln, he gave up making pottery. One day a poster attracted him. It was an exhibition of paintings of Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. He was familiar with van Gogh from only his name and his famous painting 'Sunflower'. He never seen his real paintings. He went to the museum. In the museum he was attracted by van Gogh's paintings, especially the one named 'Still Life with a Plate of Onions'. On the wooden table, there were 4 onions, a book, a letter, a burning candlestick, a match, a watch (only a band was seen), a pipe and leaves of tobacco. By the wooden table, there were the upper parts of a bottle of wine and a coffee pot. The main color was yellow. Almost all of the items had yellow in some part of them. For him, the picture seemed to be talking to him. He stopped by a painting supply shop and told the owner that he wanted to draw oil paintings like van Gogh. He showed the post card of 'Still Life with a Plate of Onions'. The shop owner nodded and said, "As you must have studied at the museum, van Gogh left about 1,000 paintings during his painting life of about 10 years, since he started painting late and died young. So on average, he painted 100 pieces a year, 1 piece every 3 days. He left another 1000 sketches and drawings. Of course, there are many other sketches that he probably had drawn which have been lost, I suppose." He wondered what the owner wanted to say, "Did my van Gogh remark offend his professional feelings?" The owner continued, "But it was about a hundred and thirty years ago. Now we have modern technology. If you use it appropriately, you can become a good painter without a lot of effort and enjoy the process." The owner smiled. The owner took an iPad and showed him a YouTube video. A painter was seen facing a big white canvas in an art studio. Over the canvas, he could see a woman posing in a chair. The painter started to paint with black paint. First he drew a very thin black line, and then drew the frame of the body. Little by little, he used darker colors, and the shape on the campus became more concrete. While drawing, he explained some tips for the process, like, "You should use your brush's body to see the balance like this; when you draw a human, you can start from here; this degree of the thin ink doesn't spoil your painting if you make a mistake." After about 10 minutes, a black and white woman's picture was completed on the canvas. He was amazed. The owner said, "There are so many videos by professional painters from charcoal sketches to oil paintings on YouTube. They are very helpful. And one more thing. You should prepare a picture first. He searched the Internet on the iPad and found a picture of an apple. He took a small sized piece of paper and started to draw with a colored pencil, it was whitish brown. His drawing was skillful. After a while he picked up a brush and dipped it into the water bin and started to spread the pencil lines. He said, "This is one of the easiest ~ using a water color pencil." The owner also explained about other kinds of paints, like oil based paint, water based paint, and acrylic paint. He bought a set of acrylic paint and other things, some brushes, a 3B pencil, and a sketch book and a couple of small canvases. He thanked the owner very much. The owner wished him good luck. On the train ride home, he watched some videos on YouTube. When he got home he already had some tips, like 'Quality is in direct proportion to quantity' ~ the more you draw, the more your drawing skills go up,' 'You can erase as many times as you need to in order to get your ideal line,' 'Watch, watch, watch the subject and then draw.' He sat at the desk where his computer sat. He searched and found a picture of a young woman standing in a coffee shop who was smiling in her apron. He started to sketch her on a small canvas with the 3B pencil. As he learned on the video, he drew and erased many times and formed the woman little by little. After about an hour, his 3B pencil sketch was completed. He started to color it. One video had recommended that the painter should prepare three similar colors for each part; for example, if he painted her skin, he would put beige from the tube on the palette, and then using white make a lighter beige, then using black make a darker beige. In acrylic paint, you can add water and thin the colors. Acrylic paint is also easy to dry and it allows paint to be put on older pictures. The texture was like oil painting so he chose this. He used a thin paint and put it on the sketch little by little, again and again. It took time but it was certain. After about two hours, his first work was completed. The waitress was smiling at him on the canvas. It was like a Picasso, but he liked it. |
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*kiln :©|
*Quality is in direct proportion to quantity :ΚΝΏπ½ν·ι