All I Nose about the Nose--A Few Tips

(Actor John Barrymore • Collection of the Players Club; NYC, NY)

I have always found painting noses to be so fun! They are incredibly different from person to person. No two noses are the same. Getting the structure of the nose is so important. Understanding that there are planes is invaluable. The goal of the artist is to create a nose on the face that feels three-dimensional. The nose should feel as though it comes forward from the face.

The nose is basically a combination of a box and a ball. The bridge of the nose is more box like in structure and the tip of the nose is more ball like. The forms on the bridge a cleaner and distinct like the planes of a box, the ball or tip or the nose is subtler in form like that of a ball.

I try and look at the nose as a series of planes. Identifying the side planes, the top plane, the tip of the nose and the plane that drops under the tip of the nose as it descends to the mouth area of the face. Usually the side planes of the nose on either side can be a distinctly different value that the cheek plane. Sometimes this can be very subtle, especially in the light and may only change in temperature not value.

I think nostrils are often painted too dark and lacking in color or temperature in many portraits. Look for the warmth in the nostril, especially on the lit side. Sometimes the nostril on the side with the cast shadow can be painted as one, showing no distinct separation between the nostril and the cast shadow, which is usually this cast shadow, is very warm. Look to Sargent for examples.

The nose is generally quite warm in temperature as a whole. This is obviously truer in lighter complexions, but can often be seen even in darker skin as well. The tip of the nose can be very warm in some people.

Follow the highlight as it comes down the bridge of the nose. It sits just on the edge of the top plane and the side plane of the nose closest to the light. It runs down the nose, following the edge of the plane, then breaks just before it gets to the ball of the nose. Then just below the long highlight, there is a highlight on the ball of the nose. These highlights are most often a lighter version of the main color of the nose. But not pure white!

Study noses. Make sketches both in oil and pencil. Try a variety of lighting conditions of the nose to gain a better understanding of its structure and unique qualities. They are fun, unique and a great lesson in structure, volume, temperature and edges.

“Is painting simply an imitative art? continued...

(Figure of woman: by Everett Raymond Kinstler)

(Figure of child: by Dawn E. Whitelaw)

My post yesterday was a portion of an article I wrote about a" tradition of painting" and some of it's qualities/principles. I shortened it considerably, but here it is in it's entirety. Thanks for all the comments and interest!

While in college taking my first painting class with my teacher, Dawn Whitelaw, an accomplished and gifted artist, she suggested that I go to the library and pick up a book on Everett Raymond Kinstler. She explained that I would be attracted to his work with my natural inclination toward a “brushy” style. Little did I know that my interest and study of Mr. Kinstler’s paintings would spark a long journey of discovery, finding many great artists along the way.

There are many styles and techniques in the world of painting. As John Singer Sargent once said, “There are many roads to Rome. One may get there by a method or no method at all.” John Johansen (a student of Frank Duveneck), one of Mr. Kinstler’s teachers always made a point to tell his students that he was teaching “a way of painting, not the way.” The style of painting that has interested me the most has been called, for lack of better terms, bravura painting, direct painting, painting with impasto, even the very intimidating ala prima painting. These are all adequately descriptive titles, but I like the title “brushy realism.”

There are many artists associated with this style, such as 18^th century artists Diego Velasquez and Frans Hals. Their work has made an impact that has lasted for generations. Other artists directly associated with this painterly lineage are 19^th and 20^th century painters such as Henry Raeburn (1756-1823), Carolus Duran (1837-1917), Édouard Manet (1832-1883), John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923), Anders Zorn (1860-1920), Robert Henri (1865-1929), Gordon Stevenson (1892-1982), and the more contemporary Everett Raymond Kinstler (1926-), Cedric Egeli (1936-), Scott Burdick (1967-), Dan Gerhartz (1965-) or Bettina Steinke (1913-1999), to name only a very few.

These painters are or were always given to painting with a broad brush, squinting to see the simple effect, editing wherever possible and creating a luminous color from a limited palette. They created not only masterful works of art, but also the illusion of space and light. Selecting visual information and not simply recording information is the object of every artist in this school of painting. The goal is to create the illusion of reality and to give the viewer a rich and almost intoxicating enjoyment of the painting style itself.

As a lover of history I have long had a great desire to understand the past as a way of exploring the future. I am fascinated by the continuity of information through the centuries that has affected the style of painting that is my passion. This information has been passed down from teacher to student with great clarity for generations.

Recently, I discovered a Harper’s Weekly article on the teaching of Carolus Duran written in the 1880’s. A student was enrolled in Duran’s classes in Paris and carefully recorded the critique sessions held in the studio each week. As I read the article, I was reading the words of Duran as he spoke to his students. But as I read, I could hear the same words coming from my own teacher, Everett Raymond Kinstler. I was amazed at how many of these same ideas and principles had survived intact for over 100 years. I would not hesitate to suggest that these recede in time beyond Duran to the days of Diego Velazquez.

In speaking to his students in review of their work, Duran took time to expound upon painting and working as an artist. In one such lesson, Mr. Duran speaks on the value of individuality with respect to tradition, warning his students to not merely copy the great artists of the past.

Duran states, “But what are we all but the result of tradition? –only we ought to be free to choose in the direction that agrees with our aspirations, and not have imposed upon us those of another man, however great he my be.” He continues, “Art lives only by individual expression. Where would we be if the great masters of all times had only looked to the past—they who not only prepared, but made the future?”

There is no doubt we stand firmly on the shoulders of the great artists of the past, as Duran states, but we should not feel compelled to merely imitate their style. While I want to learn as much as I can from them, I also want to experiment in my own work and paint what "I" see the way "I" see it.

Duran continued:

“Is painting simply an imitative art? No; it is, above all, an art of expression. There is not one of the great masters of whom this is not true. Even the masters who were most absorbed by outward beauty, being influenced by it according to the sensitiveness of their natures, understood that they neither could nor ought to reproduce anything but the spirit of nature either in form or color. Thus it happens that these masters have interpreted nature, and not given a literal translation. This interpretation is precisely what makes the personality of each of them. Without this individual point of view there can be no really original work.”

When I study many of the great, bold brush painters from centuries past to those alive today I consistently am interested in one ever present quality; their ability to edit or interpret nature, not simply copy it and their ability to capture the essential character of their subjects is often extraordinary. All painted from life.

This is a characteristic I hope to express in my own work. An “art of expression” free from distractions that sometimes come today from the overdependence on technology. In today’s world with the advancements of digital photography, computer screens and their ever-present seductive qualities of convenience, I must beware of the tendency to rely on my reactions to a photograph instead of my reaction to reality. Technology has the powerful force of eliminating the discovery process that should occur in the creation of a painting. As I have heard from my teachers before, with photos you almost see an end before you begin! We should continue to interact with and react to with our subjects, always interpreting what we see from our own unique perspectives.

Is painting simply an imitative art?

Recently, I discovered a Harper’s Weekly article on the teaching of Carolus Duran written in the 1880’s. A student was enrolled in Duran’s classes in Paris and carefully recorded the critique sessions held in the studio each week. As I read the article, I was reading the words of Duran as he spoke to his students. But as I read, I could hear the same words coming from my own teacher, Everett Raymond Kinstler. I was amazed at how many of these same ideas and principles had survived intact for over 100 years. I would not hesitate to suggest that these recede in time beyond Duran to the days of Diego Velazquez.

Duran states:

“Is painting simply an imitative art? No; it is, above all, an art of expression. There is not one of the great masters of whom this is not true. Even the masters who were most absorbed by outward beauty, being influenced by it according to the sensitiveness of their natures, understood that they neither could nor ought to reproduce anything but the spirit of nature either in form or color. Thus it happens that these masters have interpreted nature, and not given a literal translation. This interpretation is precisely what makes the personality of each of them. Without this individual point of view there can be no really original work.”

In today’s world with the advancements of technology and their seductive qualities, we must all beware of a tendency to rely too much on a reaction to photographs--- rather than a reaction to our reality. Technology has the powerful force of eliminating the discovery process that should occur in painting. We should continue to interact with and react to our subjects as much as possible, always interpreting what we see from our own unique perspectives.