StoryCulture

Artist Survives Spring Fever By Playing With Her Oil Paint Palette

February is rolling out a string of gray days. I started the month expressing mood with tonalist landscapes, but my inner-Fauve broke loose after a few days of raw umber induced blues.

© Lalla Porter. All rights reserved.

You Ask Too Many Questions (Olga)

© Lalla Porter. All rights reserved.

oil on canvas (4" x 4" / 10 cm x 10 cm)

OLGA AS A PRELIMINARY CHARCOAL DRAWING ON CANVAS

© Lalla Porter. All rights reserved.

This little jewel of a painting was influenced by a visit to The Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis. I don't always do a preliminary drawing. With charcoal, I placed my imagined Olga on the canvas. My brush gave her life.

Nuclear Family

© Lalla Porter. All rights reserved.

Oil on Linen

Cliche makes green the color of envy and jealousy. In my vision, all the dark emotions are poisoned with verdigris.

Affection between siblings is a powerful force. Careless words spark a charge that explodes boisterous camaraderie. The pressure wave leaves a wake of silence.

Next of Kin

© Lalla Porter. All rights reserved.

Next of Kin
oil on board

Read about the process of creating this painting here.

Naive

© Lalla Porter. All rights reserved.

Naive
oil on linen

Thunder By Evening

© Lalla Porter. All rights reserved.

Thunder By Evening
oil on linen

View the first stages of this painting here.

Oil Painting After Toulouse-Lautrec's Romain Coolus

© Lalla Porter. All rights reserved.

oil on linen

Toulouse-Lautrec's loose lines of oil on cardboard flow like ink. I chose linen for my painting and embraced it's beautiful texture over the slick surface Lautrec played with. I learned to do studies after The Masters at classical atelier schools. The chance to get inside a great artiist's head is intoxicating. The practice has an illustrious history and was not limited to academic painters. Vincent Van Gogh -- and the paintings he did after other artists such at Millet and Rembrandt -- taught me how rejuevenating it is to spend time in the light and shadows of historic studios.

Edit:
When I posted my study of Toulouse Lautrec, I didn't expect to have daily google searches for the actual painting. I went back to the library to get the book that contained the painting to humbly share it with researchers who arrive at my site.

Please consider: I did not push my work to be an exact copy of the original painting, but to learn from the master, and I drew mine freehand in oils with a brush. I assure you that is a challenge, as every mis-step of accuracy shows... and Toulouse-Lautrec was a MASTER of the loose oil sketch.

The original painting:
Romain Coolus

Toulouse-Lautrec 1899
oil on cardboard 56.2cm x 36.8cm
Monogram in blue paint lower left.
Musee Toulouse-Lautrec

Romain Coolus's real name was Rene Weill (1868 - 1952)

The painting is in the excellent, out of print, book: Toulouse-Lautrec by Gotz Adriani Published by Thames and Hudson 1986. The book was published for a major retrospective in West Germany. English translation 1987