{"id":7486,"date":"2019-02-07T12:55:07","date_gmt":"2019-02-07T19:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/egallery\/?p=7486"},"modified":"2019-02-07T14:47:43","modified_gmt":"2019-02-07T21:47:43","slug":"a-surprise-portrait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/egallery\/2019\/02\/07\/a-surprise-portrait\/","title":{"rendered":"A Surprise Portrait"},"content":{"rendered":"

In November of last year I did a lecture\/demo at an art league here in Southern California.\u00a0 It’s something I’m invited to do from time to time.\u00a0 In this case it was some distance away, hard to find in the dark; I arrived late, had to shlep all my stuff in multiple trips across a long parking lot, then to set up my easel and canvas, my palette and all my gear while they patiently waited.<\/p>\n

Per usual, I “lectured” first, relating some motivational points from my own experience.\u00a0 People generally find that useful as we’re all trying to find our way in this pathless route called art. Then, after a break, when I also was to judge works of art they’d brought, I plowed into the painting demonstration.<\/p>\n

I always paint large at these events, to be viewable from a distance.\u00a0 I’d laid in an acrylic background earlier;\u00a0the rest would go up in oil.\u00a0 I worked from a photo with two figures and, though quite ambitious, would offer some good teaching points.\u00a0 The risk was it could turn out just a big mess.\u00a0 But I figure, that’s a teaching too.\u00a0 If I mess up, that gives permission for others to mess up too, and not quit.<\/p>\n

While painting I’m teaching the whole time, answering questions, explaining what I’m doing and why. I move pretty fast, keep it light; we laugh a lot.<\/p>\n

When time was up, I stopped. People gathered around and chatted, some bought my books. One told me he was very inspired by my loose, big-brush approach with no concern for drawing at all, at least not at the beginning. He told me he’d gotten so tight with his many portraits that for months he’d lost his joy and quit painting altogether.<\/p>\n

Image my surprise when I got an email from him a month later with the following.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I must say I was impressed. Lots of accuracy there, even including my first few stokes on the new painting. I’m just glad my influence encouraged someone.\u00a0 It’s part of why we live.<\/h6>\n

Hi Hyatt, Just wanted to share with you a painting that you inspired me to do.\u00a0 I was in a less than enthusiastic place with my art when you gave your demo at the Anaheim Art Association meeting in November.\u00a0 In viewing your process and the freedom and energy that it brought to the work, I was re-inspired to get back to work.\u00a0 I love doing figurative work and portraiture and I was anxious to try out your process so I figured what better subject that the man that inspired it.\u00a0 I did a quick sketch in charcoal on the canvas before the acrylic underpainting.\u00a0 Just couldn’t bring myself to jump right into painting without the sketch yet, but maybe the next one.\u00a0 Thanks so much for the demo.\u00a0 Let me know what you think.<\/span>
\nAl Garofalow<\/span>
\nPS I am working on putting up a website:\u00a0www.allangarofalow.com<\/a>\u00a0 if you get a chance, check it out.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course I wrote back to him expressing my delight at his progress, his encouragement, the painting. He gave me permission to relate all this here.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s the state my painting was in not long after time was up that evening. Note how it’s very loose, moving ever tighter, never too much . . . points not lost on Allan Garofalow. I did check out his website, good paintings, but I did see the influence with this new one.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I finished the work the following morning in my studio and was pleased enough with the result. Masai Majesty<\/em>, oil over acrylic on canvas, 36×27.5.<\/a><\/p>\n

But most of all, I was rewarded with helping someone, already good, but leveled out and “stuck.” What we all need is freedom, and examples of it when we can find it. Thanks, Al Garofolow, for following through.<\/p>\n

Coming Up<\/span><\/h2>\n

On February 21 at 4:00 p.m. Anne and I will be guest presenters at\u00a0a community arts education event in Laguna College of Art and Design Gallery, 374 Ocean Avenue, Laguna Beach.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Being Valentine month they want us to speak on how two artist do their craft together. More important than Valentines, it’s our anniversary month. We should talk on how we’ve made that work together!\u00a0 (It’ll be our 53rd year.) <\/span><\/p>\n

All invited ($20.00 at the door).<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes you don’t know where your influence will go, how it will affect another, and then even come back to you. That’s what happened here. Check it out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/egallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/egallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/egallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/egallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/egallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7486"}],"version-history":[{"count":52,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/egallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7543,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/egallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7486\/revisions\/7543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/egallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/egallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/egallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}