Beauty and Innocence

Hello my friends! Today I want to talk about Ashley Gore and her artworks. I use to give some advices and tips and then put an artist as an example, but this time I prefer talking about this artist since her work caught my attention in more than one sense. 

As you can read in her site: http://agore72185.wixsite.com/ashleyartgallery , she has a disease that she struggles with every day and which could be an obstacle for anyone but she decided to do something positive about it. What calls my attention the most in addition to the brave way she faces life it's how she transmits it through art. When we see her works, mostly made in acrylic, the first thing that comes to our mind is an innocent style that looks at life with a very particular candor. 

Her work is soft, delicate, feminine, with subtle lines and colors that celebrate life. Her works have a distinctive but not overwhelming symbolism, which leads us to see beyond the simple elements. In many of her works this artist seems to have a close relationship with nature, in how it is modified and what can affect it. She eliminates some superfluous elements of realism to add her own that give us a more intense vision of what she wants to express, such as a particular use of light that takes our eye to the right place, close-ups that indicate its importance and the playfulness between colors and lines.

Likewise, at some point she secretly reveals her pain, not as a complaint, but as a simple commentary on life which makes it even more revealing. In her work "She's gone" (you can find it below), for example, in that case she has an impressive creativity to show a fact of life (which can touch both physically and emotionally) from a symbolic and even surreal point. I do not like comparisons, but seeing that work reminded me Frida Kahlo's works in which her pain showed itself openly and not, since the beauty of the composition could only lead us to empathy. 

As I always say, I admire artists who go beyond, those that a flower is not simply a flower but rather says something else, who show us a series of colors that is not a simple composition for the visual but also for the spirit. 

I invite you to click on the images to enlarge them and know more about Ashley Gore, you can find her on facebook as well: https://www.facebook.com/AshleyGallery/ .

Art that Comes from the Heart

Artists have many motivations to paint and they are all valid. But there is one in particular that I, personally, have always considered remarkable and that is the one that comes from the heart.

It's interesting to see how people express their emotions and feelings in a different way. Some sublimate what they can not control in life through sport, excessive order, disorder, food, alcohol, drugs, ... among other things, while others, very few, do it through art. Art then becomes an extension of the spirit, of the soul. It is a way of dealing with pain, anguish,  uncertainty and all the emotions and feelings that the soul can shelter, which are almost endless. Sometimes situations or emotions overflow us and then our instinct leads us to behave either positively or negatively. 

Some people, I insist that few, manage to create beauty from the worst. While most would use all these destructive feelings in a negative way a few use them to create beauty. However, there are two ways of using pain and anguish in art: 1) create as a distraction and 2) get the pain involved in the work. The first case is one of the best ways to put our mind and soul somewhere else, outside us. But the second one, when pain revolves inside us and we're not even able to manage it but we instinctively throw all those feelings in a mass of creativeness, when we are able to pick up those sharping pieces of anguish transforming them in colors and shapes in a canvas, then my friends, then it is when you really are a great artist. It's about sensitivity and row soul, it's about your heart drawing and painting in an even unconscious way.

Of course art is a subjective issue, but paintings that tell us about inner stories are those that personally touch me since the author shows him/her heart naked. It's about courage and braveness as well, and that deserves all our respect and admiration.

I was inspired for this article on Emily Page's artworks, who knows much about feelings and emotions and perfectly managed to create beauty from sadness. Besides being a great artist she gives us a lesson as human beings. I don't want to talk a lot about her work since I prefer you to see it yourselves, I just have to say that she is a fabulous realistic artist who innovates in techniques, and artist with amazing hands and an amazing heart. Click on the images and know more about her, she deserves it. I also invite you to visit her blog  https://emilypageart.net/ and her site  https://emilypageart.com, where you'll not only  be able to know more about her artworks but also about "Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too", an Emily's book which I strongly recommend.

I leave you with this artist today who, by sure, will touch your heart.

Portraits that speak by themselves

Traditional themes never die since they are renewed by the technique used and by what they tell us. This is portraits' case. Artists have always been interested in perpetuating other people in their works, before photography technology there was no way to get someone to be remembered, but the most interesting thing about it is that due to portraits we are able to realize how faces have been changing over the course of history. 

Thanks to the portraits we can know what the idealization of beauty was at any given moment, which wasn't the same in the tenth century or in the sixteenth century, much less in the twenty-first century. We have an idea nos of what was worn, fashion, morphology and even the predominant expressions in a time that is not ours. It's like writing history but with pencils and paintings. Therefore, portraits have always existed and will always exist, whispering to the ear the secrets of a moment or circumstance of history and a character.

It is interesting to see how things have changed, not only in the portrait's subject but also in its realization. Personally, I feel great admiration for those artists who manage to make realistic portraits and are able to show up the emotions and feelings of a character through their eyes, for example, something that photography itself often can not get. 

Today, I want to show you Marina Pacurar's work, she is a traditional and digital artist specialized, but not limited, on portraits. She has a serie of portraits based on Games of Thrones' characters, which she used as well to create a Deck of Poker Cards ( https://www.etsy.com/shop/MarinaPacurar?ref=hdr_shop_menu ). One of the things that most caught my attention in her portraits, besides their great perfection, it was the expression that this artist gives them, they are live as they could speak and tell us how they feel and how they are, what is very difficult to achieve in fact. Click on the images below to enlarge them and to know more about this awesome artist who is able to make her portraits talk with their eyes and skin.

Find your style in oil - 2 - Beyond Realism

As we've been talking about, having your own and personal style makes the difference in art. There isn't a better or worse style, it's just about how you want to let your creation go. 

About oil, one of my favourites mediums, you can work with it in so many different ways that it would be impossible to describe in just a few lines. Besides, let's take into account that an artist is always improving her/his work, changing, tasting, facing challenges to find the perfect style that fits their inspiration. We grow as human beings, as persons and as artists as well. 

Regarding this post, realism is one of the most extended styles in the history but don't think that they are all the same. Each artist has a special brushstroke and a concept of contrasts and colours as well as a vision of the elements. There is one style in realism in which converge the classic figurative realistic style with the contemporary artist's vision and hand adding the effective touch of modernism that is needed now a days. This kind of art takes us further than the classic one pushing us into a reality which goes beyond the simple figure but to its environment and circumstances as well. 

As I mentioned before, we can find lot of realistic artists in history but they are not all the same even the same, just the opposite. Fortunately, we still have some artists who work with this style and oil medium and who give us as a present their wonderful artworks to our delight. As an example of this, I want to introduce you Dominique Amendola's art, which is already well know around the world. She works with realism but with her special touch and style in which she constantly works. You can click on the images to enlarge them and know more about this excellent artist and visit her site http://dominiqueamendola.com .

When photografic art speaks of our inner world

Today I want to show you the work of an artist that exceeds normal expectations regarding photography. She is Juli Scalzi and it's difficult to define her. She is not just a photographer, she goes far beyond giving the images the ability to transmit more than a simple figure or a landscape in the composition.

She takes some elements, as does a painter, and she gathers them to express a very precise idea or feeling. The first time I saw her artworks I thought that they were paintings, and I was not so far from reality since she uses the images taken with her camera in the same way. Such works can only be done with great creativity and talent, they make you think and it's unavoidable to feel emotions at watching them. Her works also have a certain innocence, the ability to take normal elements and convert them into compositions full of symbolism.

No matter what type of photography that is, a landscape, an animal or a composition, she always manages to make it a work of art.  I leave some of her work below, you can click on the picture to see the details and enlarge, I invite you to do so you can also see more variety of her beautiful work and know more about Juli Scalzi, an artist that makes you think and feel.

The magic pencil

Some painters have problems to determine the best medium to use in order to show what they want to express and capture in their works. There is just something that I feel completely sure about and it's that it doesn't exist the best medium. The best medium is the one that makes us feel better with our final work and the one that makes us enjoy all the procedure. 

On the other hand, some times artists complain too much about not having the perfect materials. I could be the best example for this, I'm always complaining about the paper or canvas quality, about brushes and about all other kind of materials perfection..., and that's why when I see some people artworks I arrive to the conclusion that sometimes we lose sight of creativity in terms of materials.

A good artist is able to create amazing works simply with a pencil and paper, and when I say it's just simply I don't mean that it's easy , but that we should just only need those materials.

There are some great artists who perform their work with pen and paper and they are able to show the details and magnificence of a complex work done with other sophisticated materials. 

Paper and pencil, that's all, plus talent and creativity.

To illustrate what I comment I want to show you Maria Boklach's artworks. Her portraits have a perfectly defined style that combines realism with contemporary vision. Her works have a striking and powerful detailed realism while adopting a contemporary fresh air that renews the idea of what we consider a portrait. 

I encourage you to click on the images to see her galleries and know more about this young and excellent artist who delights the senses with her wonderful works.