Ron Weaver's Painting Blog

 "Below The Campidoglio", oil/canvas,
This is my paintng of my daughter Jennifer walking up the steps to the  Campidoglio in Rome. There are farow cats in that area of the Capitoline Hill. This is another occasion in which I've placed a young person in a "classical" environment due to my belief in offering classical foundational experience to support their potential professional growth in the arts.  Jennifer has become a classical dancer, teacher, and  artistic director of Ballet Rincon in Tucson, Arizona.

Ron Weaver, "Below the Campidoglio", oil/canvas

This second paintng is of an art student near the sculpture of Marcus Aurelius at the Campidoglio.  The sculpture stands in a central location by the civic buildings designed by Michaelangelo.

 Ron Weaver, "The Art Student",  oil and acrylic on canvas.

 

Chuck Close has been making photorealist tapestries lately.
I wonder if these two I've posted below indicate his “politics” or are simply another famous person he wanted to tapistry-ize.
I included another of Brad Pitt as an example of fiber becoming faces. I think he has French tapestry machines do the production. That’s a lot of knots.
When he first began photorealism in the late 60’s his people were unknown and he liked that idea so that viewers would simply consider the painting but then those he painted became known or famous (like Philip Glass or Richard Serra) . Probably because his friends in New York were talented and bound to be well known eventually. Anyway he seems to have given over to the immediately known people images now. And in the case of Obama, the immediately known and hated by haters.
The moderating heat is just great in the mornings and evenings. This is about the time of year we would be returning to Arizona.
Self Portraiting currently. Don’t know what this second one is telling me what it wants to look like yet. It keeps saying this way and that. But I know the answer is strangely located in my spirit somewhere and I’ll know it when I see it.

Chuck Close with his tapestries of President Barack OBama

 

Chuck Close, Brad, tapestry, 104" x 78"

I enjoy a television program called Globe Trekker; Particularly when Ian Wright does the travelling and naration. He's got a lot of personality and relates well to the people he meets. But yesterday a new perosn toured some eastern U.S. cities and sites. When she toured Philadelphia she went to the Philadelphia Art Museum. She didn't go in. She demonstrated how "Rocky" ran up the steps of the museum and jumped victoriously. Then she showed other people doing it and interviewed them. Oh my!! What they might have seen had they gone inside but she didn't nor did any of the Rocky fans.
Fine Corots, Rubens, Manet, Monet, etc. are in there.
(I downloaded a few of these to show you but they remained the size of postage stamps so I saw no point in posting them>)

Imagine trying to find a complete explanation of the form of a human head through drawing. Watteau is very good at it.
I've seen so many "drawing books" that try to explain how one should draw a head. The information in those books is usually irrelevant to the process that Watteau actually goes through that allows him to explain so completely. The way to do it is to look and really know how to look. A rare ability.
This advice is for those interested in realism and not for those who are now swimming in a sea of what else they believe visual art to be.

Another example of so called development that is really a destructive act is being played out in Arizona this week. Developers have purchased a house designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright (for his son) and they plan to take it down and subdivide the land on which it sits into two properties. There is some movement to save the Wright house and renovate it to it's original condition. What always galls me in these situations are the developers who have no concern about the architectural treasure that they are perfectly willing to destroy in their profit seeking. A lawyer for the two developers is seeking a lawsuit against the city of Phoenix for impeding their progress and claims the Wright building will come down in any case.  (Perhaps Shakespeare was right; "Kill all the lawyers.")