Donatelli's Artist Advice Column

To smile or not to smile... the portrait today.

2012-01-01T22:23:00.000-08:00

As any good portrait artist knows, a mouth full of teeth showing a big smile is not the ideal look for a portrait. At least not according to tradition. Portrait painting in the time of Rembrandt or even as long ago as DaVinci, (the Mona Lisa) was considered a vehicle by which to show off the character, the dignity and the social position of the sitter. The portrait was even a very well respected art form. Much more so than it is today. The most famous portrait, Ms. Mona herself, had but the smallest hint of a smile on her lips, but the eyes, they said it all. The real smile came from those dark orbs, that penetrating gaze that is still shrouded in mystery as to what she is thinking. Rembrandt's self portraits, the perfect painting by which an artist can paint themselves however they wish with no one to argue or reject the outcome, every single one that I have seen, are all expressions of deep thought, quizzical or mischievous, non-smiling but with a sparkle in the eyes and a crinkle in the crow's feet that convey an all knowing smile radiating from within. The expressions on these classic portraits are by far more compelling and give the viewer much more to contemplate than a candid snapshot with a broad silly grin. It seems apparent that a big smile just does not convey a mood suitable to a portrait that would be considered High Art.

There have been times that I have been asked to paint a subject, especially a child with a big smile on his or her face and the parent will not be persuaded to go for something with more composure. I do wonder why that is since most parents dream about their children being well behaved and composed little angels. I think it must be that we are so conditioned as a society that has grown up with Kodak, Polaroid and most recently digital imaging, that if you are not smiling there must be something wrong with you. So to please the client I have acquiesced outwardly but remained troubled inside. They were ultimately not my best work. There were however some exceptions, two very different examples I have shown above.

A few images of what I consider my best portraiture so far, I have included one with a pensive, almost angelic, dream like gaze and another with a very charming, electric smile. The boy with the angelic gaze I painted from a series of photos I took of him. The mother of course liked the one with the obvious smile. I loved the one with a more pensive gaze and just a hint of smile in his eyes only. But for this portrait I chose to meet somewhere in the middle. The result is a very pleasant, dreamy portrait of a young boy that I am very happy with and his family is ecstatic over. I would call that a "win, win". The second portrait of the very beautiful yet very mature woman in her 50's is one that I would consider a "lucky strike". I took photos of her and asked her not to smile but to project a feeling toward me of confidence and the feeling of being alive. In the last few shots I told her to go ahead and smile, I would give her a photo print of the best one for her coffee table. To my surprise when I got home and began editing the images, something disturbing kept emerging in the photos of her where she wasn't smiling. I saw deep depression and despair in her eyes and a rapid aging in the rest of her face. But the smiling photos were alive and magnetic, the charming dimples plumping out her cheeks with a youthful glow. And the teeth, well they were stunning of course since she paid $20,000 for them. So how could I not paint them in all of their bright, white glory? I ended up loving this portrait and she, well now she has something to remind herself everyday of how absolutely gorgeous she is when she smiles. That one experience alone showed me that Yes there are absolutely times when a smile can light up a painted portrait and is very appropriately used here.

I read a commentary recently, written by John Howard Sanden, one of the most respected traditional portrait artist working today and pulled a few sentences from it that points out the most popular way of thinking about traditional portraiture by traditional portrait artists. "The only thing that one can say is that everyone concerned, when the issue comes up, must realize the simple fact that the standards for candid photography and the standards for historic, traditional portraiture are different. These are different art forms, with different standards." ~J.H. Sanden

If you would like to read the entire commentary by Sanden, click on the Headline above of this blog, "To Smile or not to Smile..." He has much more to say than I have here with some very different view points and more images of portraits to make the case in point. I would be interested to know if you would regard what Sanden has to say above my own experience or vice versa. Please leave your comment either way.

The photos above can be enlarged to view details by clicking on them. Thanks. ~K. Donatelli

The Juror, the artist, the man

2010-09-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

When I created this self portrait with the red sweater back in 1986 it was for a very special occasion. Jack Beal was the juror for an upcoming national art show being sponsored by a gallery in Soho. I was so excited because I really loved Mr. Beal's art. I related to it, I got it, I aspired to paint like him. So I studied his self portraits in particular and began working on this pastel. It's small because the maximum size for this show was 11 x 14", the palette, I kept it saturated with warm hues, working in 'contrast of intensity' which is both his and my natural way of working. I paid particular attention to the shadows in my face because it seemed to be an attention to detail in Jack's self portraits. I gave myself a challenge to draw my right hand into the portrait, while using my right hand to draw! The end result was, I got into the show. I was told the entries were close to 5000, but that is just hearsay. The accepted pieces numbered close to 65. And mine was one of them. I was so encouraged by that but didn't quite know what it would mean to me until later. When I arrived at the opening I was speaking to a nice gentleman who told me he was with Mr. Beal when he was going through the slides of the submitted work. When he came to my self portrait he paused and said "I think I know this woman." Anyway, could he have been subconsciously drawn to the portrait because his own work had influenced me? Did I look 'familiar' because of it? These were questions I asked myself as I looked around at the other work he had chosen for the show. I was certain that I got in through some kind of fluke or default of the juror. My self criticizing mind was going full steam. But in the end I was able to add the national show to my resume and it sure looked good there.

Fast Forward to 2010. I have joined Facebook. I found so many people I used to know back in the 60's and 70's. This is a great thing isn't it? To be able to reconnect with old friends that disappeared years ago from my life and also meet total strangers and invite them onto my page?

One day I was looking at a page on Facebook of the National Portrait Society and happened to see that Jack Beal was there. When I clicked on his picture I noticed that I had a few friends in common with him. I did a triple flip, grabbed my heart and sent him a message to let him know how much he had influenced me in my life. He responded right back and wrote me a brief but very nice note sharing with me his excitement about an upcoming event. In closing he asked to see samples of my work. So I very nervously spent a few hours selecting and then rejecting and then selecting a half dozen or so pieces that I hoped were good enough to share with someone of Mr. Beals notoriety and sent them off holding my breath. Surely he would write back and tell me I needed to spend a lot more time at my easel or else he would say, are you sure I juried you into a show? But, the truth is, I never heard back from him.

It's possible he didn't get the email because I had half a dozen images in it. And maybe Mr. Beal thinks I never wrote back to HIM. I kept telling myself to send a follow up email, ask him if he received my images and I did nothing. But whatever happened, I feel so sure that he did see them and just didn't care to comment. In the meantime I sent him a friend request on Facebook which he did not respond to either. Rejected twice by the grand master of figurative realism. Oh well. Life is short, when one door closes a window opens and vice versa. I was trying to comfort myself with all the right sayings but I was convinced that he had just chosen to ignore me because my work was not at a level worthy of noticing. I was really looking down on myself and making sure I did not look up. Suddenly I wasn't feeling so hot and Facebook wasn't any fun any more.

Months had passed, time healed all wounds and honestly I had forgotten about all that when, a few days ago, I sent out a mass email to all my friends, family and clients. I was announcing a new web page that I was excited about because I was now selling prints and cards of my most salable images. To my dismay I did not receive any feed back until a few days had passed and then there appeared in my inbox two new messages. One was from a good friend congratulating me on my new site and another was from him, Jack Beal. I was so nervous to open the email because I didn't expect to hear from him and even forgot he was in my address book. When I did finally get the nerve to open it, here is what it said: "Please remove me from your mailing list."

It has now been 3 days since that email request and I have to say that I feel a little bruised inside and like a changed person. There is a quiet feeling inside and light that has gone out of my delusional candle. I know now that in the grand scheme of things, I am nobody, a person that needs to get a day job, someone who has been fooling herself for more than half a century thinking she can draw or paint better than the average artist and will someday be great. Don't get me wrong, I can make an image look like what it represents and I have fans out there that tell me daily that they love my work, I have also sold hundreds of images of my own work most of my life, but that is not enough. I have had to own up to the truth of what I have always known underneath, there is no real purpose yet, there is no deep or challenging concept, nothing to compel someone to think very hard, nothing new to contribute to the art world, in any of my images. The conceptual part of the art, the creative bones, the rending of my own flesh and turning it into paint has up until now been missing from my work.

So now I need to thank you Mr. Beal for the slap on the back of the head, figuratively speaking. You have put me in my place and forced me to face reality, disappear inside myself, find my own heart and then fight my way back up out of the darkness with a new resolve to begin my life over as a better artist. I feel like the little girl in the black and white painting who has just received her first pair of skates and is about to prove to the world that she doesn't need feet to fly down the road on silver wheels. I am that little girl and I did that over and over when I was a child. I can do it again, now, I can, I can.

Down the Rabbit Hole, the Large Family Portrait

2010-02-16T13:05:00.000-08:00

June, 2005

For three years my aunt had been saying to me that she would like to have a portrait painted of her 8 grandchildren. Every time she mentioned it my thoughts would get jumbled up and I just couldn't imagine composing that many people on one canvas. I don't remember really what kind of responses I had when she would start talking about it, but one day when she started talking I realized she was serious and I had better pay attention. She was asking me for a price, how much would it cost to paint something like that. I guess I must have told her I would figure it out and get back to her because I remember spending a few days with a calculator as if that was going to tell me anything. In the end, we decided on a number that worked for both of us and my journey began.

My trip to Virginia to photograph my cousin's children was filled with pleasant surprises and unexpected turns. There were 8 kids to gather up, meet for the first time, coordinate schedules, and get to know their personalities. I also had to choose a location and design a composition for the painting. All of this had to be done in 3-4 days time. I had never painted so many people in a portrait and it was getting kind of scary. I never expected to suddenly be confronted with the fear I felt inside and the strength it took to face all those people I didn't know. It also didn't help that they were not crazy about the idea they had to pose for a portrait. But by the end of the trip, I had had a great time, I had my photos of all of them and was feeling like I was privileged to have been allowed into their home to be a part of their intimate family life. They made me feel comfortable. were very cooperative and went along with all my fumbling and searching for the best concept of how to paint them all together. I finally decided to direct my focus on the several wonderful tree houses they had all built together. Now the only challenge left was to get them all there at the same time. It only happened once in the 4 days and only for about 30 minutes. But beggars can't be choosers and I was happy to have been given that half hour.

When I returned home with 900 plus shots of them and started the grueling task of sorting through the images and choosing the best expressions, poses and lighting, I was shocked to discover that the vision I saw for the painting was not in the shots. When I was photographing them it was all kind of a blur. I was sure I got many shots that would work with what I was visualizing. So I had to begin again with what I had, to compose something that would inspire me and that my aunt would love. I worked for 3 weeks everyday in photoshop, searching for just the right faces and poses. When I was finished, I thought I had the best composition I could make with all those disjointed photographs. With love and satisfaction in my heart I emailed the finished composition to my aunt. Now I only had to wait for her to see it and let me know her opinion.

July 2005
To say that my aunt did not like my choice in poses would be putting it nicely. She was in no uncertain terms, unhappy about some of the poses I picked. They happened to be my favorite poses so in turn, I was unhappy too. But underneath the unhappiness there was a traumatic letdown that I had misjudged so extremely what my aunt would like. Again I was confronted with a primal fear and felt like I was in an alternate world and couldn't get my bearings. If I could just replace the figures she didn't like that would be fine but each figure was there because it worked with the entire structure of the figure placement. Now that some had to come out, I would have to start over from the beginning. I was so out of breath by this turn of events that I put the portrait away for the time being. I had no idea when I would take it out again.

August 2005
Finally got my energy back to start again on composing the painting. Now it seems as if one of the disks is partially corrupt. There are at least 100 shots that I cannot open. That narrows my choices down somewhat. Unfortunately the images that won't open are the only shots I took with all 8 of the siblings present. And to top it off, I seem to remember there were some really beautiful shots in there that I would have chosen if going in a different direction. The direction that I now have to go in. Oh darn.

September 2005
It took another two weeks to compose the painting again with all new images. I hope she likes it this time. Her rejection of the first layout that I really loved set a precedence in my head and I can't seem to climb out of that box. And to top it off, now I have bubble butt from sitting in front of my computer for hours at a time for two straight weeks. To be honest, it's probably more from the m&m's I'm bingeing on from frustration.

October 2005
Finally started sketching the figures and working on the faces. It looks good so far. I have one more figure left but it will have to wait until tomorrow because I just can't lift that piece of charcoal one more time today.

Just erased all my sketching as the last figure wasn't fitting on the canvas. Guess I'll have to reduce all the figures and start over. Not sure when that will happen because I have a few other projects in right now that have deadlines. Looks like I will have to put the portrait aside for now. Maybe a break is what I need anyway.

My break consisted of 5 months of guilt and beating myself up over not being able to get started back on the portrait.

February 13, 2006
I am finally about to start work on my aunt's painting again. I just took it back out of storage and finished setting it up yesterday. I applaud myself for finally breaking through the inertia I was feeling over this commission. I started by reviewing all the faces, taking out my drawing materials and sitting in front of the white rectangular space, visualizing where each figure would go. This time I would get it on the canvas right. At the end of the day I had not made one mark on the canvas. Maybe tomorrow something will happen.

February 14
Got a good sketch going finally. The figures are placed, now for the details. Guess I will start with Emma. Drew one face each day for the next 8 days. Except for Kelleigh. I worked on her face 5 times. Each time took an entire day. I admit the angle and perspective of her face is not a conventional pose but that is what really attracted me to it. But when I drew her face even though it looked great to me, the next day when I looked at it I could not believe how distorted and wrong it was. I couldn't believe this was happening. Another face was now beginning to give me problems. It was Emma. I ended up changing her 4 or 5 times also. Again, each time I redrew her face it took another whole day. It was no coincidence that the angle of her face was just as complicated and unusual as Kelleigh's. I thought that was why I was having the difficulty until the same distortions turned up in Tim, Jake, Lindy and Levi. The only two faces that emerged effortlessly were Olivia and Micaiah Salvatore. I love that name, Micaiah Salvatore. His smile was so contagious I was grinning just drawing it. Olivia had quite a big grin on her face too. I don't normally like to paint people with big grins showing teeth but these faces worked for me. And still, I couldn't understand why the other six were being so difficult.

February 23
I decided to let the faces alone for now and worked on the figure ground. Switching over helped me get a better perspective and I could see the entire layout more clearly. The trees behind them, the deck beneath them, both added dimension, structure, interest, etc. and the painting finally started to have a personality. Finding my momentum again, sketching in the figure ground only took one day.

February 24
I started to work on the faces again. I needed something to help me see better when working on small areas such as a face that is only 3-4 inches high, so I created a system of photographing each drawing with my digital camera, put it in photoshop, next to the photo I was working from of each person. That way I could view the drawing side by side with the photograph to get a better comparison. Slowly but surely I was able to correct my distortions even though it was such a long drawn out and painful process. I saved those images for future study because it was astonishing how skewed my drawings had become. I was beginning to believe there was something wrong with my visual perception. Is this what it is like to burn out? I was working so hard but feeling like I was in a daymare of some kind running in waist deep water. I was still in the process of drawing. I hadn't even started the color yet. Maybe I had gone down the rabbit hole and was about to meet Alice. Honestly it wouldn't have surprised me. I probably would have asked directions to the smoking caterpillar.

In the next blog I will write about the rest of my experiences with finishing the painting. Next part, the color is applied ...to be continued.

Who do I think I am? Matisse?

2010-02-15T21:50:00.000-08:00

The image on the bottom left is a portrait of my friend, her daughter and her husband all of whom shall remain nameless to protect the innocent. She had asked me to paint a portrait of her family in the style of Matisse. So I thought, "Oh that's easy...". Well I can't really claim to be able to paint like the master himself, especially that master, but I could paint something in fun that resembled, vaguely, a Matisse painting. After all how complex really is a Matisse painting? For one, the most beautiful distinction about a Matisse painting is that every square inch is filled with gorgeous abstract design and nuances of color. That I could even pretend I could paint like that was hilarious. But I did have fun and so I sent the finished painting off with every confidence that it would be appreciated and loved.

Sometime after I completed the painting I found a photo of a real Matisse painting that had strikingly similar elements to mine although the style was completely different. The similarities were as follows: The mother in both paintings is holding her child on her lap in front of her while the father sits apart from them not really engaged in the activity; There is a scene outside the room in the background that seems to at first be a part of the inside but on second glance becomes another environment entirely; In both paintings the door that is open to the outside is shuttered and the lines in the shutters lead your eye down to the father; There are two large green elliptical shapes, both represent leaves and both inhabit the same amount of space in the format; In both paintings there is a landscape in the distance, the 3 figures are in the middle ground and there is a still life in the very frontal plane on the bottom right; There is also an identical element of wrought iron in the railing and on the piano in the Matisse painting and in mine it is in the bed frame. I just find these similarities uncanny. And I promise I had not seen this Matisse painting before I painted mine.

Now as far as the flaws in my painting, I admit that the young girl's head appears quite large for her body and the husband figure looks too small. Although in Matisse's painting the father is somehow not quite in perspective either. But my painting has neither the graceful line or stunning mastery of structure that is so obvious in the Matisse. In my painting there are areas that have no detail at all or texture to allow the eye to flow across them. To me these spaces feel "blank". In contrast the objects that contain detail seem to jar the eye into looking at them. Whereas in the Matisse painting every inch has design, color, texture and line that flows from one element to the next. I could go on lamenting the fact that I am not Matisse and criticizing my own painting but I would rather tell you that having studied this brilliant painting by the master has made me a better artist. And a better critic of my own work.

And now the shocking story of what happened next.

A package arrived at my studio one day and in it was this portrait I had painted for my friend or rather the remains of the portrait. The canvas was in pieces, there were curse words scrawled in ball point pen across several areas of the painting, the stretcher bars were hanging in shards. I think I dropped to my knees with the destroyed painting in my arms, completely numb and not able to put any thoughts together in my head. What on earth had happened here? Did they hate it that much? Why couldn't she just send it back and ask me to paint another one? I looked for a note or explanation of some kind. But there was nothing with the painting. I did however get a phone call that evening from her. She said, "I feel terrible, can you fix the painting? I'm in the perfect storm of an abusive relationship and I took it out on the painting because I couldn't stand to look at him". I still didn't know quite how to respond. I was kind of relieved that she didn't really hate the painting, just her husband. But now it was a moot point and I told her I couldn't fix it but maybe I could salvage parts of it. The left side with her and her daughter were still intact so I may be able to re stretch that half and make it into a new painting. I was however still in disbelief for weeks afterward. I put the painting away in my storage closet until I could recover and find time to work on it.

A few months later I opened the door to the closet and I noticed the intact half of the painting was laying on the floor behind some large canvases. I picked it up and draped it over the large paintings and closed the door. I repeated this same procedure each time I opened the closet as the piece of torn canvas continued to fall each time I closed the door. After 4 or 5 times of picking it up it was on the ground again and this time I neglectfully left it there. I must of walked over it several times over the next week or so. Sometime later I decided to resurrect the pieces and see what I could do. I looked all over the closet and couldn't find that one piece, the half with mother and child. I asked my roommate Larry if he saw it and he said, "yes I was tired of seeing it on the floor so I threw it away".

Is there a lesson in all of this? Is there a moral to the story? To me it means that when we treat something like trash it eventually finds a way to dispose of itself.

The Online American Portrait, Pricey or Dicey?

2009-12-18T18:20:00.000-08:00

I was commissioned to paint the two daughters of a couple who live in London. I don't personally know them. The mother came upon my portraits on my website page and ordered the two paintings online. This was an extraordinary event for me. I have been getting paid for my portraits since I was in High School and I always attracted a portrait commission by getting to know someone and showing them my work in my studio or from my portfolio.

Two years ago when I decided to solicit portrait work on the internet, I had decisions to make that temporarily paralyzed me. How do I price the work? Which images do I post to represent my finest work? Do I try to represent my finest work or do I sell quick, low cost sketches? First, I was reluctant to represent myself with quick, cheap sketches. At the same time I didn't think that putting the same price on my work online that I was getting in my studio would actually attract any internet customers. All of the online portrait artists I could find were pricing their work lower than a framed print on a Hollywood street corner. And the quality of the portraits I was finding I shouldn't even say out loud, I just wish them the best and hope they find the light. My most pressing question that I had to resolve, was I entering a market that was all about bargain hunting by uneducated art buyers and that would ignore me because my work was too expensive?

Finally I had the answer that felt right to me. Let the bargain hunters ignore me. They are not my customer. The day will come when saavy art buyers will look for exceptional art online and pay a fair price for it. I got up the nerve to attach a higher price to my work than was the standard because when researching online portraiture I found that my portraits have an original edge to them and they are good. Next I adopted an attitude that my customer would find me. I only had to be patient.

My first client was from London and I developed a wonderful communication back and forth through emails and over the phone. She emailed me numerous photos that helped me get to know her daughters expressions and personalities and the differences between the two of them. The oldest girl is pictured at the top of this blog, the younger child is attached to the blog below. As our communication grew so did the trust and the feeling of familiarity when dealing with a good and honest person. When I sent her the first preview of her youngest daughter, she called me and told me my prices were too low, I didn't charge enough, my work was fantastic and she couldn't stop looking at it. She put her money where her mouth is too and when the first portrait was finished she sent me an extra payment that equaled the original price of the portrait. When I finished the second portrait and received her final payment, I raised my prices accordingly on the internet because after all, the fair market value of any piece of work is the price that someone is willing to pay for it.

Read about the unique medium and the process of these two portraits in my previous blog just below this one, titled Contemporary Fresco, an oxymoron?

Contemporary Fresco, an oxymoron?

2009-12-18T13:01:00.000-08:00

For several years now I have been playing with and experimenting on a plaster compound that I apply to canvas. The surface is especially forgiving toward my own personal process of applying thin washes and rubbing them back off. The pigment deposits itself randomly deciding on it's own where and when it will reveal the mysterious pitting and cracking that is natural to this medium. The most fascinating result occurs when I don't attempt to paint over my work too many times. Of course this means that my first application of paint needs to be right on target, because the more original paint I can leave undisturbed, the more lifelike the subject appears. It becomes an exercise in letting go and moving on. In that regard, this contemporary process that I have developed is so similar to the original Fresco process of the 14th and 15th centuries. They had to paint quickly into the wet plaster before it dried.

This particular portrait when studied closely, the face looks like actual transparent layers of skin that seem to be emerging from the plaster. There are tiny little fissures and minute veins that are so convincing up close yet the skin looks apple cheeked and radiant when stepping back a few feet. From even further away, the atmosphere around the child is warm and glowing and her linen smock feels crisp and cool. She appears real as if we have entered behind the surface of the plaster into her world. Step up close again and the loose brush strokes on her garment and hair wake us up to the reality of the painted surface, recalling perhaps a Degas pastel or Manet sketch. The surface is lush and delicious in person. Really there is nothing to compare a portrait painted on a surface of plaster to. It stands on its own and the truth of that is centuries old.

Rethinking Contemporary Portraiture

2009-12-16T21:33:00.000-08:00

I created this portrait from 3 sources. The young man whom I know from my watercolor class at LACC, modeled for the subject, the tree on the top left is a magnificent old gnarly pine that I discovered during my travels in Florida and the landscape on the bottom right was inspired by a Korean painting from the Chosun period. The challenge in painting this watercolor was to integrate the three sources in a manner that brought them together into one flowing style. Portrait in a landscape setting has always been my favorite and this one I particularly love for the delicate muted palette, the feeling of meditative stillness and the thought provoking depth both in the man's expression and the disappearing horizon line just below his chin. His garment came from my imagination, risky though that can be in a specifically planned layout, and I just let it happen as it unfolded from brush to paper. If the collar seems a bit odd, I believe it may have come from a subconscious thought that occurred to me about the young man. He reminded me of a crane with his long neck and slightly cocked head as if listening for the cry of his lost mate. His very thin chest seems to protrude strangely like two displaced shoulder pads that very well may be stuffed with bird feathers. I experienced a heightened joy when I painted this portrait. And that intense pleasure awakened something very powerful within. I no longer am interested in painting an ordinary portrait, to copy someone's likeness or even the cliche and abused statement, to capture their spirit, as if that is an easy thing to do. My path has been revealed to me through this exercise and I see the possibility of reconnecting one with their ancestry and maybe even a past life, if just for fun. It still makes me smile just thinking of it.