Fuji Godess - finished artwork

Hope you like my completed work of art. Enjoy!  You can refresh your memory  and see again the development of my piece of work.

"CYBORG" DIGITAL PAINTING - Work in progress

I am happy with my newly discovered passion and I don't miss any opportunity to share my emotion. So, I come back to all of you in order to show some stages of my first digital painting. Even though this kind of painting requires many hours of work and attention, the result makes the effort worth it.

While it's a great feeling to make the effects and textures similar to the reality captured in photos, I think it's also very close to the  sensation of the real painting on canvas, the advantage being that it does not require drying and downtime, so the efficiency is increasing significantly ;)!

Enough with the words, you can discover below the backstage (the progress) of my digital artwork up to this moment. The last image is a detail of the previews one.

I'll be back with the final version...but before, ENJOY!

The artwork for today

I'm happy to share with you several images of my work of art made today. In the foreground you can see the black Chinese ink (ink-stick) melted in the ink stone. Also, there is a close-up of the red ink that I used for this Asian blossom branchlet.

The Great Wave of Kanagawa Hokusai

I was searching information and images about street art the other day, and I discovered "The grate wave" of Hokusai like a graffiti on a house wall.
Then I started a research about how Hokusai was a source of inspiration and I understood that this (Hokusai's famous view of Mount Fuji) work is an icon of Japan and people use that image like a symbol from graffiti to shoe soles design, food, architecture and tattoos.

Above you can see my composition of a geisha, dressed in a  kimono decorated with a great wave pattern inspiration.

The artists used the Asian inspirational subject to develop at their turn works of art in photography or scenography.

In 2011 Tim Walker, a British fashion photographer, staged  extravagant and romantic motifs, characteristic for his style, and rebuilt the Hokusai's Grate Wave in three dimensions.

And you can also see the “Wave” of the french artist, Bernard Pras.  He reproduced Hokusai’s work with bird and animal figures, hands, hoses, button like things. Amazingly, it looks like a piece of picture but it is actually an installation collage.

 
For sure those are just some examples of the woodblock print reproduction, and it will always be a (source of inspiration for us) landmark  for our inspiration.

Simply hit "Collect Me"

Lidia Alina Nicolae: Click "Collect Me" to help me win $10,000 and a show in the most immense exhibition of art in New York City : Art Takes Times Square.

Thanks!

Then and now - brushes of the world

I think we all know more or less about the early-ages cave drawings from Lascaux. When I recently went into this, my first question was about the colours and brushes they used for it. Well, let me tell you, they had animal hair brushes (and colours prepared with natural pigments) made by themselves (a tuft of hair tied).

                                                                Chinese horse - Lascaux cave

From France estimated to be 17,300 years old to China starting around 4000 B.C., traditional painting has developed continuously over a period of more than six thousand years.

I have a passion for brushes, and my little collection is composed of several types already, out of the big variety of the existing brushes, which differ from tuft to handle, shapes and sizes, but the most beautiful (and useful) are the handmade natural hair Chinese brushes.

The tuft is made of animal hair: wolf fur, ox and horsetail hair, weasel hair brush, goat hair brush, and combination brushes, used for different subjects, like bamboo, flowers, landscapes, figures. There is another way to categorize brushes according to the ratio of length and diameter of their hair.

The Chinese calligraphy brushes can generally be categorized by:

1. Kinds of hair used

2. Sizes (lengths) of hair

3. Proportion of length to diameter of the brush's hair

Using the above criteria, we can identify four major categories of brushes for Chinese calligraphy based on materials used:

1. Hard Brushes - usually weasel hair brush “pronounced as Lun Hao ( 狼毫 )," more resilient and stiff

2. Soft Brushes - usually goat hair brush “pronounced as Yeung Hao ( 羊毫 ),” softer than weasel hair

3. Combination Brushes “pronounced as Jian Hao ( 兼毫 )” – generally combine weasel and goat hair or other hair in various percentages

4. Brushes made of other types of hair (rat, rabbit, deer, horse, bear, badger, rooster, baby hair and so on). Brushes made of baby hair ( 胎毛筆 ) are great gifts for lifetime memory and are very popular in asian families.

Another element that completes the image is the brush hanger, also a beautiful object.

The handle is usually made of bamboo, but they may also be made of ceramic, jade, horns, sometimes sculpted or decorated with drawings.

It’s fascinating how the “ancient” brush evolved to a software that simulates very well the touch of the traditional brush and the technique texture (pen, ink, watercolour, oil colour, chalk, airbrush, textiles, clouds, etc.)

And from prehistoric brushes to the modern approach, it is fascinating how you can personalize every digital brush with a simple software nowadays, and that by adjusting a lot of details, like saturation, angle, spacing, scattering, jitter, tilt, pressure, …(and these personalized brushes, patterns or extracts from a photo, what a wonderful and innovative method to texture the paintings)  and the result is amazingly realistic only with some mouse clicks.....nice transformation during the times :)!

The bull from Valencia

It will be nice to present in one day this drawing in Valencia, those 

guys are crazy about bulls. I'm thinking seriously to develop this subject in future series.

The bull from Valencia, ink on coloured paper, 21x29.7 cm 

Artindex winner logo design

Another prize, this time it's about "Artindex" (online Romanian art Gallery) logo design. 

Hope you like it. I'm waiting for your feedback ;)

The winning poster

My design is the winner of Figo's New Album "Put It All On Black" Poster Competition :)

Midnight in Paris

How to feel happy at the end of a movie?


I knew Woody Allen long ago as an actor, two or three years ago as a writer through some stories from his book "The Insanity Defense: The Complete Prose" (some interesting pieces there, some not), and two days ago as a director.
I consider a moment of genius when he wrote the script for "Midnight in Paris", first because of the concept of putting together the fabulous atmosphere of the 20's with the present, and in the second row for the actors chosen to resemble the characters so well.

While it all starts with some views from the French capital, places visited by me during September last year,...the contact was immediately done.

Further down the road, he made me live again the action and the feeelings of being down there, on those streets, and that with his main character. He made me wonder how would be the feeling of meeting Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Dalí, Man Ray, Degas, Gauguin, spouses Fitzgerald and not the least, Hemingway, and how to transfomr them into my friends guild. And all those things happening  in their youth, before they become famous, like in a perfect dream of becoming.....

P.S.: Next time in Paris, I'll go to see the Monet's garden in Giverny (inspiration for Japanese bridge),  water lilies, flower garden and other series.

P.S.2: Any thoughts on the above? Opinions? Well, please feel free to jump in :).

P.S.3: You can see more photos on my Facebook profile. Enjoy!

You have to watch "Midnight in Paris"!

   

The anatomy of a character

 It sounds like a medical term, and it's not far for this meaning. In my adventure with graphic design, in an "InDesign" related book, I found some of the component parts of the letters. So, here you can find almost the whole them "world". Knowing the terminology for the anatomy of a character makes it easy to recognize and properly use a specific font for your design work.

I find it very useful to have all these info in one place.

Have fun!

Desene pe fier / Drawings on iron

Now my engravings are on the walls of Odeon Gallery. I hope you will be curious to see them, before 24 February.

Here are some photos from opening.

Enjoy the catalogue!