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Saturday, November 6, 2010

What am I DRAWN TO?...365 Days of Drawing


I am drawn to drawing beautiful exotic women, young sweet children and anything somewhat poignant, romantic or sparkling. I can't help myself and I don't fight it anymore. Call me sentimental, I don't care.

I once saw a female artist post on Facebook that doing this kind of art was TOO OBVIOUS and taking advantage of women...so she then painted some really gritty faces to make her point. They were very good too. Was this higher art tho' as I think this was her point? Isn't this taking advantage of ugly people? Who gets to decide this?

Hmm...all those Victorian painters, J.W. Waterhouse, Alma Tadema, Burnes Jones, John Millais and Lord Frederick Leighton to name a few, must have been not only rolling in their graves but their eyes too. They loved to paint a pretty girl or two in transparent airless shifts. Gratuitous? I think not.

I post my drawing for yesterday. It has to be said a craggy old man has it's appeal too especially with an upcoming Santa Claus demo December 3rd that I am now preparing for. Renting costumes, sketching and finding just the right face...(actually I found him this week- thanks Beglar!).

Ssssshhhh.. Santa Claus is real. And painting "pretty" ok.


4 comments:

Marian Fortunati said...

I love this drawing!! What a face...
Although I never thought of your pretty girls as exploitative, I always love your "characters" the best!!
This is fabulous!!

Anonymous said...

I've discovered your blog! Expect contributions from me, an admirer of your art, Johanna. I will comment on "paintings of beautiful girls and women," why I am attracted to this genre, and my thoughts on this topic.

David Magallanes
Real World Projects
www.realworldprojects.info

Anonymous said...

beautiful drawing and interesting post, something i have also often thought about but then think, well the most important thing is to keep on painting...

Johanna Spinks said...

Thank you all. I got some interesting emails on this one too. Seems like it struck a cord with quite a few artists.

David,,,thrilled you are here and found me.

Rahina...yes, exactly, keep on painting. I say that to myself all the time.

Marian...ditto to everything you say!