Andre Lucero :: An Artist's Journal

Recent Paintings

2011-08-08T15:00:00.005-04:00

Painting from life is the most fun. Control of the outcome is not as easy as when painting in the studio. Painting with friends is always fun and gives me a chance to see things from a different point of view.

What to do?

2011-01-20T16:27:00.002-05:00

I am always trying new ways of painting and approaching new subjects. I try to put last on the list of my considerations - "will someone buy it?" Painting for me is very personal and cherished time. "I take money for it, but I don't do it for money." I know many painters that when considering a painting or subject, the first question for them is about commerce. I am privileged to be able to exercise my God given gifts ( no matter how humble ) knowing that I am free. What a blessing.

Studio Figures

2010-05-08T10:35:00.003-04:00

Lately I have been focusing much of my efforts on painting from the live model. Painting people offers an endless supply of inspiration and challenges. All my paintings are direct, alla prima paintings which adds another level of difficulty to the issue. It makes painting very exciting, not knowing where things might go, or if the painting will go where I want, or become a failure. So much in life is planned. I like having my work be something that occurs in the moment and is a discovery as it happens.

" Peonies and Silver" oil 36x24

"Afternoon Tea" oil 30x24

New Figure Paintings

2010-01-27T11:15:00.004-05:00

My latest efforts have been mainly Figure and Still life paintings. Painting people is the most challenging of all subjects in art. I love painting people and the endless variation of expression and meaning represented in the human form. Among the challenges for the figure artist are the anatomical demands to start and then the concerns about expression. The first hurdle to cross is the need for the figure to "read" correctly and believably. If I can get past this point, then the work begins to be about feeling, or mood and expression. For me this is the goal, to get past the technical aspects and try to approach something that might be "Art".

Fuchsia 24 x 18 oil

Remembering 36 x 24 oil

Warm and Cool 24 x 12 oil

Friendly 16 x 12 oil

Sitting Pretty 24 x 18 oil

New Still Life Paintings

2010-01-22T17:40:00.002-05:00

Since the weather has been so cold this winter and I have a new work space, I have begun to paint still life again after many years. I have always enjoyed the challenge of painting beautiful objects. The challenge for me now is to try to preserve the form of the objects and still paint them in a loose and painterly fashion. I feel my most successful paintings are achieved with the least detail yet an accurate and faithful portrayal of the subject. It is also great to paint some rich color during the winter, as outside it is rather gray and sometimes my mood tends to follow.

Autumn Still Life 20 x 24 oil

Pink Roses 20 x 16 oil

Copper and Red Onions 16 x 20 oil

Roses and Tea 30 x 24 oil

William McGregor Paxton

2010-01-21T15:56:00.003-05:00

William McGregor Paxton (June 22, 1869 – 1941) has been one of my favorite painters for the past 25 years when I was first introduced to his work by my teacher. The poetic feeling of his work is superb. The understated quality of his light combined with great draftsmanship always inspires me.

William McGregor Paxton (June 22, 1869 – 1941) was an American Impressionist painter.
Born in Baltimore, the Paxton family came to Newton Corner in the mid-1870s, where William's father James established himself as a caterer. At 18, William won a scholarship to attend the Cowles Art School, where he began his art studies with Dennis Miller Bunker. Later he studied with Jean-Léon Gérôme in Paris and, on his return to Boston, with Joseph DeCamp at Cowles. There he met his future wife Elizabeth Okie, who also was studying with DeCamp. After their marriage, William and Elizabeth lived with his parents at 43 Elmwood Street, and later bought a house at 19 Montvale Road in Newton Centre.
Paxton, who is best known as a portrait painter, taught at the Museum School from 1906 to 1913. Along with other well known artists of the era, including Edmund Charles Tarbell and Frank Benson, he is identified with the Boston School. He was well known for his extraordinary attention to the effects of light and detail in flesh and fabric. Paxton's compositions were most often idealized young women in beautiful interiors. Paxton gained fame for his portraiture and painted both Grover Cleveland and Calvin Coolidge. He taught at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School from 1906 to 1913. Paxton was made a full member of the Nation Academy of Design in 1928.
Like many of his Boston colleagues, Paxton found inspiration in the work of the seventeenth-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. Paxton was fascinated not only with Vermeer's imagery, but also with the system of optics he employed. He studied Vermeer's works closely, and discovered that only one area in his compositions was entirely in focus, while the rest were somewhat blurred. Paxton ascribed this peculiarity to "binocular vision," crediting Vermeer with recording the slightly different point of view of each individual eye that combine in human sight. He began to employ this system in his own work, including The New Necklace, where only the gold beads are sharply defined while the rest of the objects in the composition have softer, blurrier edges. Paxton crafted his elaborate compositions with models in his studio, and the props he used, appear in several different paintings.
Paxton was working on his last painting, a view of his living room at 19 Montvale Road, with his wife posing for him, when he was stricken with a heart attack and died at the age of 72.

Julius LeBlanc Stewart

2010-01-09T17:23:00.005-05:00

Here is one of my favorite artists. What caught my eye is the natural light he uses and I love figure painting and especially the nude outdoors.

Julius LeBlanc Stewart (September 6, 1855, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - January 5, 1919, Paris, France), was an American artist who spent his career in Paris. A contemporary of fellow expatriate painter John Singer Sargent, Stewart was nicknamed "the Parisian from Philadelphia."
His father, the sugar millionaire William Hood Stewart, moved the family to Paris in 1865, and became a distinguished art collector and an early patron of Fortuny and the Barbizon artists. Julius studied under Eduardo Zamacois as a teenager, under Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux Arts, and later was a pupil of Raymondo de Madrazo.
Stewart's family wealth enabled him to live a lush expatriate life and paint what he pleased, often large-scaled group portraits. The first of these, After the Wedding (1880), showed the artist's brother Charles and his bride Mae, daughter of financeer Anthony J. Drexel, leaving for their honeymoon. Subsequent group portraits depicted his friends — including actresses, celebrities and aristocrats — often with a self-portrait somewhere in the crowd.

He exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon from 1878 into the early 20th century, and help organize the Americans in Paris section of the 1894 Salon. The Baptism (1892), which reportedly depicted a gathering of the Vanderbilt family, was shown at the 1893 Chicago World Columbian Exposition, and received acclaim at the 1895 Berlin International Exposition.
He painted a series of sailing pictures aboard James Gordon Bennett Jr.'s yacht Namouna. The most accomplished of these, On the Yacht "Namouna", Venice (1890), showed a sailing party on deck and included a portrait of the actress Lillie Langtry. Another, Yachting on the Mediterranean (1896), set a record price for the artist, selling in 2005 for US$2,312,000.[2]
Late in life, he turned to religious subjects, but Stewart is best remembered for his Belle Époque society portraits and sensuous nudes.

The Studio is Complete

2009-12-16T14:43:00.009-05:00

The studio is complete!!! I have been very busy and have not posted since it was finished a couple of months ago. We had an open house and about 75 invited guests visited my new work space.
It is a dream come true. I have been planning and dreaning about this for about twenty years. Everything came out just how I planned. It is a joy and inspiration to work in the space.
Here are pictures of the studio.

I promise to post on a more regular schedule now that things are calming down.

The Studio is Painted!!!

2009-07-14T09:02:00.008-04:00

A Weathervane for the Studio

2009-07-12T18:17:00.005-04:00

I wanted to have a unique weathervane for the studio. Fishing is one of my fondest hobbies, so I chose a fish for the weathervane.

Progress on the Studio

2009-05-28T08:49:00.004-04:00

Things are now moving fast on the studio. The roof is done and next is installation of the doors and windows. The cupola was installed yesterday. The weather vane will arrive friday.

The studio is 20' x 28' with good north light from the gable end windows and a good view of the pond from the doulble doors on the back side. The vaulted ceiling will give the room a spacious feeling.

As we get more done on the inside, I will post info about the details of the interior.

Building a Studio

2009-05-20T10:40:00.015-04:00

I am building a new studio on our property!! This has a been a dream for as long as I can remember. I have always thought about art and it has been my main pursuit since high school. I have never had a "real job" and now finally after all these years I will have the space to work in that I have dreamed of. It has been so exciting to see the stages of development. The site is just right, with a view of our pond from the studio. I will post more about the finishing stages soon.

Too Long

2009-05-19T22:36:00.004-04:00

It has been way too long since my last entry! Things have been very busy. I am in the middle of building a studio on my property and getting ready for two shows coming up this summer. I am preparing about 70 paintings for the two shows. I will talk about the studio in my next post along with some photos.

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I love painting people and I try to paint at least 30 figure paintings a year. People are so intersting to me and always make for good subject for painting. Below is one of my figure studies, done in about three hours in one sitting.

Red hair 24x20 oil

Tending His Flock 24x36 oil, Ireland

I went to ireland a couple of years ago and it is still on my mind often. It is truly a magical place. Ireland was more dramatic and rugged than I had anticipated. I am eager to return there to do more painting.

A Russian Master

2009-01-28T15:42:00.012-05:00

On Monday January 26, I had the great fortune of hearing, Mikhail Kugach, a living master painter from Russia give a short talk (in Russian and translated by John Wurdeman) about his life and art. The talk was given at Lazare Gallery in Charles City Virginia, about an hour from my home. For many years, Russian art has been a great inpiration to me. During the last century Russian artists were dedicated to beauty, nature and the pursuit of excellence while the rest of the western world had abandoned these timeless principles for more political and temporal concerns.

Mikhail Yurevich Kugach was born January 2, 1939 in Moscow. He is the son of the famous Russian artists Yuri Petrovich Kugach and Olga Grigoryevna Svetlichnaya. In 1949 he enrolled in his first art classes at the Moscow secondary art school, which was affiliated with the Surikov Institute. He studied here until 1956 when he was accepted into the Surikov Institute. He graduated from the Institute in 1962 and began to actively exhibit his works.

From 1987 to 1989 he was the director of the "1905" Moscow Art Institute. Since 1988 he has been the chairman of "Moskvorech'e", the creative union of artists. In 1995 he was selected to be the member-correspondent for the Russian Academy of Artists. He is also an active member and has been the president of the legendary Moscow River Group. Mikhail continues to paint today primarily in the Tver' region, along the Msta River. This Russian countryside is continuously a theme in the artist's work. His works can be found today in galleries, museums, and private collections around the world.

Yuri Kugach , Evening Sun

Yuri Kugach , In the Village

Yuri Kugach , June Green

Mr. Kugach spoke of his youth and growing up with artists for parents. He talked of the fertile environment of the group of artists surrounding his parents and the advantages of artists in community sharing ideas and helping one another. It was not an easy life but a fulfilling one dedicated to his art and surrounded by such talented artists and some of the legends of Russian art.

I asked him about his philosophy of choosing and handling of subject matter. He said that it was not enough just to correctly paint the information of a tree or whatever subject you choose. He stated that God made creation and nature and the artists job is to honor Him. "To be a slave to God and nature." An artists job is to live deeply and to feel deeply and describe in his art the emotional content of the subjects he paints. He also spoke about the need of the artist to fail and feel the pain of these shortcomings and how these faults and the role of humility spur us on to create better paintings.

Mikhai Kugach, Calm River

Mikhail Kugach, Spring Day

Mikhail Kugach,, Lake Stino

I am inspired to have met this great artist and to hear from him his thoughts on painting and its meaning. The lineage of great western art is unmistakeable. Great art does not occur in a vacuum and we artists are indebted to the great artists that have come before us. Without them the state of the arts would suffer immeasurably.

Winter is Hard

2009-01-22T16:57:00.011-05:00

Wildflowers, Gray Day 11x14 oil

I had to post this painting of some flowers, that I finally got around to photographing, painted back in August on the back of our property. It is to remind me that the flowers will probably bloom again in the spring and the sun will once again shine warmly. The next several weeks are the hardest of the year for me and I look forward to going back outside and painting the beautiful and cheerful colors of the warmer months. Just when I think I can't take the short, cold days any longer, spring comes around again. I seeded these wildflowers back last spring.

First Glimmer 16x20 oil

I am not a morning person, but I have learned to have a great affection for morning. Taking the time to get out early and paint the sunrise are my most cherished moments. The most interesting colors and moods happen in those first flickers of light. The morning has a quiet, calm feeling that gives me such a sense of peace.

Black Scarf 24x18 oil

I try to paint at least one figure from life a week. Here is the latest, of Roxanne, a model I have painted many times. It has been cold, so the scarf is not a prop. Figure painting is infinitely interesting. People are so diverse and compelling.

New Works: Figures

2009-01-09T16:44:00.000-05:00

Derrick 20x16 Oil

Red Velvet 24x20 oil

Here are a few new figure paintings I have done lately. I truly enjoy painting from the live model. It is very challenging and exciting to try and capture something of the model and still try to make something artful.

Here are a couple of funny quotes from my favorite painter, John Singer Sargent, about portrait painting:

“A portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth.”

“Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.”

“I have now got a bombproof shelter into which I retire when I sniff the coming portrait or its trajectory.”

Years and years ago I used to do some commissioned portraits, and learned what Sargent is talking about. Now I do paintings of people and then someone can purchase the work whether it is the sitter or not.

To view more of my figure works click here: http://www.andrelucero.com/FigureGallery.htm

Welcome

2009-01-07T10:49:00.000-05:00

Fresh Snow Oil, 24x20 by Andre Lucero

Happy New Year!

For 2009 I have decided to create this blog to journal my thoughts on painting, art and my travels. I hope you enjoy reading my entries and seeing the art that interests me and the places and subjects I paint.

Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave comments,

Andre