Fechin fans
2yr
Jo Sheridan
Just discovered Fechin's sketches - couldn't resist having a go...
2yr
Hey, @Jo Sheridan, thanks for reaching out! These are great!!
I knew nothing about Fechin, so I googled him and got to find the artworks you used as reference - you really did some beautiful studies! I like them all, but I’m especially amazed by this one you did in colored pencils. Since the reference was painted in oils, you went through a good deal of interpretation and adaptation to get to this result with such a different medium, and I think it looks awesome. I love the line work and how you designed the edges in order to define the facial features as the center of interest. Strong form construction and nice use of color, too!
I also took a look at Fechin’s quotes on the link you suggested further below and, yeah, it’s thought-provoking! He seemed very assertive about his view of art and the importance of tradition and technical execution. It makes sense when we consider that he went to the Imperial Academy of Arts and was a pupil to Ilya Repin. But the interesting thing I noticed is that he lived around the turn of the 20th century, so this classic and more conservative point of view was going completely against the modernist vanguards that were popping at the time - in fact, he seems to make his strong criticism to the “shallow-minded novelties” very clear in one of the quotes. Anyway, from what I know, a lot of schools and artists in Russia still did maintain a more classic tradition in spite of the modernist movements at that time - at least, more so than in Europe apparently. It’s like classicism wasn’t so “obscured” by modern art in Russia as it was in more western countries, and, personally I think that could be part of what makes the “Russian approach” attractive to some art students nowadays. Or, at least, that’s my guess. :)
Keep up the good work, Jo! 🙌🏻
Jo Sheridan
2yr
@Liandro - thanks for your thoughts Liandro - you clearly know a whole bunch of cool stuff about Art History and this is really interesting to read and digest - it almost makes me want to learn more about all this myself, so I shall just add it to my ever growing list of things that I find fascinating about Art and hope that at some point I have the time to pull at that thread a little bit...
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2yr
Asked for help
@paper - Thought I'd have another go - this is a study of a Fechin Oil Painting - which I've just tried out in Polychromos pencils... I was actually quite surprised how forgiving they were, they mixed much more easily than I realised - a good thing as I only have a few colours.
I think I'll have a go with Oil, but that will probably be a real test of this idea of "its more about the value than the colour" as I am a real novice when it comes to mixing paint - will be fun though as this is a great source to study.
Hi @Liandro - be glad to get your thoughts...
2yr
Hello @paper So- I had a go in Oil - I am fascinated by how hard it was to keep the colour in this - you can see how bright I started out, and where I ended up! - I have to admit that this was attempt two - the first one was so grey/brown I had to start again...
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2yr
Hello @Jo Sheridan,this is very cool!I loved how you interpret Fechin's painting into a dry medium,it's very unique!I don't have much to say,since I don't know what you're trying to get out of this study(feel free to comment below if want more in depht critique:D)
Also yeah,doing a copy of Fechin is really hard,especially for beginner,I don't think I attempted a fechin study until I got a little bit more milleage with how I mix paint and my use of brush and pallete knife.But please,by all mean try it anyway,just to get a feel for it!
(Also I was going to show you my own Fechin study,as an example,but I couldn't find it,so instead here's a painting of my grandpa in a fechin style,in an attempt to emulate his edge and brushmanship)
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Great job on the sketch after Fechin. It looks wonderful! Is that charcoal on drawing paper?
2yr
Hi @Christopher Beaven - Glad you like him, it was really fun to draw... I did this with an 8B graphite on very smooth drawing paper - as charcoal is still a bit out of my comfort zone - so I didn't get the same texture around the edges, but I was still really pleased with how it came out. I'm trying to do more with Conte sticks which I am getting used to, but am struggling to find a charcocal / paper combination that isn't distractingly scratchy - I get that "fingernails on the blackboard" feel most of the time, if you know what I mean...
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2yr
This is fucking awesome,Fechin is an amazing artist,I'm glad you got introduced to him :D (Also did you use graphite to draw this?)
2yr
Wow, praise indeed - thank you! - I was working off an amazing resource :) - I did use graphite, I went with an 8B - I really wasn't sure whether this is what Fechin would have used - it looked like he could have used charcoal - but I've not got a hang of that properly yet...
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