DIEGO RODRIGUEZ DE SILVA VELAZQUEZ

This is my favorite portrait painted by Diego Rodriguez de Silva Velazquez, considered one of the greatest representatives of Baroque Art in Spain.

Born in Seville in 1599, he started painting at an early age inspired by TIZIANO´s work.

In 1629 he traveled  to Italy where he studied the works of TIZIANO, TINTORETO, MICHAEL ANGELO, RAFAEL AND LEONARDO DA VINCI.

In 1631 he returns to Spain with a large pictorial production divided in three categories: hunters, riders, dwarfs and bofoons.

iIt was in 1649, during his second trip to Italy that he had the opportunity to paint this portrait POPE INOCENCIO X.

Notice the great ability for painting shinny cloth, and the pose so realistic, you could think he is about to stand up.

Art comes out of our immensely complex brain functions and radical associations of disparate ideas, some of them subconscious.

Few artists can tell you how they arrive at their ideas because inspiration often comes in a flash after a period of intense work.

There is a beautiful mystery in this. How do you systematize that? And if one even could, wouldn't art then lose its beauty, and like the butterfly turning back into a caterpillar, become something much less inspiring?

Turren And callas

Turren And callas

16x20 oil on canvas

Norma Yorsch

A NEW PAINTING

The Beauty of Pantone

Radiant Orchid , favorite Pantone color for 2014 is the color I used for this oil painting of Lilacs.

Pantone is the colour institute whose palettes are used for inspiration by artists from around the world. The history of their guides of distinct tones based on a numerical code is fascinating.

The so-called Radiant Orchid (Pantone 18-3224) is a purple tone that the Pantone institute defines as "a captivating, magical an enigmatic purple" . While the 2013 colour Emerald (Pantone 17-5641) served as a symbol of growth, renewal and prosperity, Radiant Orchid intrigues the eye and sparks the imagination, says Leatrice Eiseman, Director of the Pantone Colour Institute. "It is an invitation to innovation, it encourages creativity and originality and spreads these values and it is viral, which is increasingly valued in today's society". This enchanting harmony if fuchsia, purple and pink emanates great joy, love and health.

Having great impact in the social networks is the Pantone Project by Chicago (USA) photographer, Paul Octavius. He goes in search if Pantone colors in real life. On his website, he explains that his  mission is to find the perfect match between the colors of the reality he photographs and the Pantone guide. Because the world is full of ranges, nuances, degrees, glances and colors.

Lilacs

Oil painting by Norma Yorsch

16x16x2 inches gallery wrap canvas

(SOLD)

How I paint the blues

Ah! Blues.....you can sing them, you can play them but mostly I like to paint them. Those cobalt blue skies in a summer afternoon, or the cool cerulean blues in late spring. There is nothing harsher than the full tinting strenght of Pthalocyanine blue....but add lots of white to it and there is nothing nicer.
You finally get to the warnth of Ultramarine, what can I say? The most versatile of the blues, you can paint a vase, a flower, skies, water..... you can warm it up, or cool it down, you can green it or violet it....purple will be better.

The following posts show interesting historical facts and uses for BLUE

The Color Blue

The Marquise de Seignelay and two of her sons

by Pierre Mignard

If the Virgin Mary had paid for even one of her portraits showing her in celestial blue robes, she would have needed the income of King David instead of her carpenter husband Joseph. That's because painters created the ultramarine pigment first used in the 13th century to portray her from the mineral ultramarine, extracted from lapiz-lazuli  stone and imported at sky-high expense only from Sar-e-Sang in modern-day Afghanistan. this convoluted import system often made the pigment costlier than gold.

Even 700 years ago, contracts were extremely specific about the amount and qualty of the ultramarine used because it was so expesive. the color- and it associations with purity and divinit- became popular with wealthy women sitting for portraits.

In the 16th centuty, painters thought they had found a cheaper, identical color in smalt, created from adding cobalt oxide to potash-rich glass that was crushed. but the bright blue turns gray in about a century when combined with oil paint.  Those 'gray' skies in Dutch landscapes were meant to be sunny blue- a fact scholars only learned in the 1970's and 1980's and still unknown to most museum visitors.