Author Archive for Michael Astrachan

Thank you for all the online and offline compliments on my previous posting.  It is my hope that I can shed some light on the realist tradition that so many artistic hopefuls lack… to give an appreciation for the vocabulary of art.

I receive dozens of portfolios a month from recent grads and honestly, most of them stink. It is very sad to realize that these students go through four year programs and many even get advanced two year degrees and somehow they never learn basic art technique.  At the end of all that study a large percentage of students still can’t paint, either in pigment or with pixels, a faithful representation of reality.

The residual effects of modernism is still alive and well in many art programs and that trend is doing a great disservice to many art students and visualizers alike. I recognize that there are many excellent schools that produce extremely talented artists, but there are far too many programs that ignore basic art training. This is particularly harmful In the world of 3d animation where students need to have a strong foundation in realism. Understanding the vocabulary of art…light, shadow, value, chroma, edge, line, shape, composition, etc is essential to excel in their career. But all too often, students today only learn to paint what they feel and thus technique becomes irrelevant.

This “paint what you feel” teaching method might inspire the latest modern art trend…but it will never properly develop a realist artist.

So if you want to be a 3d artist, and your teacher is asking you to paint what you feel…run as fast as you can to a real art school.

Art vocabulary can be learned.  Through training and practice, students can develop an artist’s eye.

This artist’s eye is similar to a musicians ear. Where a musician has the ability to hear a chord and know the notes, major or minor, diminished and so on…The artist’s eye can discern hue, value, chroma, form, plane, edge, etc.  Understanding and putting into practice this vocabulary of art is the necessary first step to becoming a competent artist.

-mike

Just got back from a week in Portland Oregon, where I visited family and participated in the annual AMI (Association of Medical Illustrators) meeting. I was so impressed with the fun, bright and creative people who make up the AMI.

It was really interesting to learn how many of you came to where you are now…it’s certainly a varied route we all take.

My own path, that everyone seemed to find unusual (in a good way) …was via: Airbrush T-shirt artist -to- traditional artist -to- a medical artist

While still airbrushing I studied classical technique. At this time, I modified the typical neon T-shirt airbrush palette to a “controlled palette” consisting mostly of opaque flesh tones and a few transparent colors for glazing. This odd technique gave me a bit of notoriety in the airbrush world…

And since you were all so nice sharing your techniques and ideas, I wanted to give something back…

In this “how to” video i use a controlled palette to paint a portrait of Sir Patrick Stewart (Jean Luc Picard.)

Don’t be fooled by medium of the T-shirt…there is some real art knowledge in this video.

BTW, this was done in 1997 so please ignore the big glasses!

Enjoy!

-mike

Steven, an old friend and I made facebook contact after 30 years, he was surprised I became an artist. Perhaps he forgot that I was doodling constantly in school but more likely he was surprised because he thinks, as many people do, that artists have a difficult time making a living…the “starving artist stereotype”

I thought I would try to answer him through my first blog post.

He said, “My wife and I are trying to figure out what her (his daughter) career possibilities are in the art world since we don’t understand too well. Maybe you can give some advice.”

Before I go into the practical side of being an artist I thought it would be good to ramble a bit about what I think makes a good realist artist first…then we can get to all that career stuff.

I was trained as a classical artist, in the Frank Reilly technique…value, line, color, edge, plane, form, composition etc. I was instructed to not paint what I feel, but rather paint what I see. And learn to see I did.

I guess before my classical training when thinking of a leaf, my mind would fix upon a bland green spear shape thing with little resemblance to an actual leaf. As Lao-Tzu said “the five colors make a man blind, the five tones make a man deaf” But while studying and painting and drawing I began to see a “leaf”, with a multitude of colors, patterns, textures …and it was beautiful.

This is mindful observation.

The artist in seeing this way can begin to represent, as my business partner David says, “the truth and beauty” in life.

This artist can see the patterns and beauty of life. Through this type of observation the quieting of the labeling, judging mind happens immediately.

This state of mind does not come easy, but through proper training, and experience an artist can realize their best work.

This state of observation must be coupled with intense study in how to represent what you can now see. Classical art technique has been taught for hundreds of years and some of the best schools still teach these techniques. It is no easy task to become an artist, it takes talent, dedication and a lot of practice!

I know …just food for thought, but I promise Steven, I’ll try my best to answer your question next time.

- mike a

Links to Frank Reilly

http://www.dhfa.net/Artiststatement2.html

http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/2008/05/frank-reilly-could-teach-wooden-indian.html

http://apollodorian.tripod.com/