Intro

Introduction

Hello there, potential reader. I figured i should introduce myself properly, because after all this blog is about personal observations, ramblings and opinions on art, art-making and stuff in general, so knowing some more about me could make my posts look a bit more meaningful or interesting than they are.

So, here we go. My name is Stamen Kisselkov, in my mid-twenties, trained and schooled in fine arts, mainly representational drawing and painting, the oldschool way, brushes and stuff, portraying naked people, vases, dressed people, flowers in vases...you get the picture. I don't really know if it would be interesting to tell you how I got into arts, because frankly I don't know too, it just happened so naturally. Since I can remember, I always drew, and what's more important, i was always better than my peers at it, so i didn't ever thought about doing something else. Maybe the fact that I was surrounded by books about painting and painters all my life wasn't detrimental, either. My mother is an art historian, go figure...

Now don't get me wrong, I'm really passionate about what I do, it's not like I paint and go "..yeah, whatever, dude, go with the flow and stuff.." In fact most of the people around me don't like to talk about art with me, because I always have a strong opinion about those things.(Yeah, I'm THAT cool)

Seriously, though, art is something special. The creative drive that pushes you to the limit, the satisfaction you get when something goes the right way, the pleasure of seeing a good artwork..thats the good stuff, that drives me, and fellow artists I suppose, forward, trough hardships and tough times. Sounds a bit cheesy, but it's true. Ok, I won't tell you that I think art is really important in everybody's life, and how I believes it is to the soul what food is to the stomach.

Well, that's enough about me, now go and eat some nice pictures and music!

Size does matter

..even in art! The physical dimensions of the area you are drawing/painting on are very important. This fact gets overlooked because it's so obvious, but it shouldn't be neglected. For example, most beginners start out on smaller surfaces, because it's easier to keep all the elements of the drawing in relation to each other, the work is easy to see as a whole (mainly because of the way our vision works) and it requires shorter hand motions to draw even the largest details in the piece, compared to working on a larger scale.(easyer to control those pesky lines' flow!)
Smaller scale works have their strenghts, that are unique to them, too, but I'm focusing more on the point that the size you work in changes the way you draw/paint/, organize the composition etc. which, I think, is really interesting. During life drawing sessions I often wondered "why I distort the proportions of the model the exact same way as last time, even though I consciously try not to?", "Why sometimes my composition works out well, and another time it doesn't, although I am using the same principle?" and many times the answer was right before me, the size of the sheet I was drawing on! Well, I found that out years later, of course. Working on a format, not suited for the distance between you=>your workplace=>the model often proves to give bad results, especially on the perspective and foreshortening in your work.
"Well, that's common knowledge! You just have to have enough space to back away from your workplace to see the piece as a whole", you say, an you'd be completely right! The problem is, ideal conditions for life drawing are rarely present. Packed studios, wall behind you, not enough space between your easel and the model etc. are what is often the reality. So, one should constantly think about this in order not to let such obstacles hinder him...for years, in some cases. *cough*..me..*cough*

This can be employed to mix things up a bit too, if you are stuck burned out, or stupefied by the complexity of such arduous tasks as painting naked women realistically, whip out your biggest/smallest sheet/canvas and see what could happen, I bet you'll be surprised of the result. Dunno if the surprise would be a pleasant one, but a surprise s a surprise nonetheless!

Illustration for Inspiration

  The best way to see a painting is to go to the museums, galleries or other place where you can feel the vibrancy of every brush stroke, to see delicate transparency of layers or the lucidity of canvas. The live dialogue between the viewer and the painting can not be recreated by any other means. A digital reproduction is never an accurate representation of the real painting.

  Illustration, being specifcally tailored for mass production, is better suited for viewing on the monitor. I often look at the work of several illustrators for inspiration. It's always nice to discover new artists on the internet.
  Yoshitaka Amano is one of my favorite artists, here are some examples of his gorgeous works:

Kay Nielsen is one of  "The Golden Age" illustrators from the early XX century

Black and white drawings by Aubrey Beardsley

Self-Portrait

My painting based on Christian Schad's "Self-Portrait with model"

The painting "Self-Portrait with model" 1927 of Christian Shcad is striking with it's cool sensitivity and painstaking precision. Making a copy of a painting gives me a deeper understanding of it. It's not an exact replica because I wanted to make it more personal, and I changed a few things. The "model" is my boyfriend and he doesn't have "sfregio". (the facial scar of Naples women, marked by jealous husbands) The Edelweiss is replaced by a palm branch and I made the buildings in the background somewhat different, resembling the buildings in Sofia, where I live. The painting became my own, more cheerful version of Schad's.

IliEve, Selfportrait with model, 2011, acrylic, 76x62 cm ©