The Beautiful Troublemaker

Top:

Nude on the Couch (from the movie The Beautiful Troublemaker). 2019. Vine Charcoal on Old Master's Paper. 10" x 18.5". Casey Klahn. Actress Emmanuelle Béart.

Bottom:

Nude on the Couch Seen from the Back (from the movie The Beautiful Troublemaker). 2019. Vine Charcoal on Old Master's Paper. 10" x 18.5". Casey Klahn. Actress Emmanuelle Béart.

It's not the best practice: using a photo for your reference. Worse, yet, someone else's photo. Worser, yet, from a movie. But, I told myself when I started this 200 Figures Project, that instructional figure model videos were allowable. After all, I'd be needing practical, fresh sources on a constant basis, and it is about practice.

La Belle Noiseuse (1991, which is The Beautiful Troublemaker, is as much an instructional video as any other. It features long shots of the model posing, and also long sequences of the artist just drawing, or re-arranging the studio furniture. I think that's courageous of the filmmaker; it dares to bore the viewer. I wasn't bored at all! I grabbed my iPad and started sketching along with the sessions.

I am a little more than halfway through this project, but it doesn't help that I go through and cull out works occasionally (I got rid of 2 this morning!). Most of my source work is sketches from life models, and I am constantly re-mining those for new works. I am allowing master copies, and by my count those make up 9-10% of what I've posted. Instructional sources, such as Croquis Cafe and this movie, are fewer, yet. 

Thanks for following along. 

White Nude

454/1. 2017. Graphite, Pastel, Dry Ground, Charcoal, and Spray Acrylic Varnish, on Brown Paper Rubbed with Pumice Powder. 8.25" x 6.25." Casey Klahn.

Winterscape 2016

Winter Temperatures. 2016. Pastel on Sketch Paper. @10" x 10." Casey Klahn.

Mountain Drawing

Crags and Chute. 2016 

Carbon Pencil & Pastel 

@8" x 11" 

Casey Klahn

To Italy!

Umbrian Woman. 2015. 
Pastel. 
9.75" x 7.5" 
Casey Klahn



Beneath Riva Ridge. 
Small, Graphite.
Casey Klahn


I promise to post some images from Italy soon. I'm gone to Umbria for most of October.

Charcoal SP

Self Portrait in Charcoal. 2015. 

Charcoal heightened with White Charcoal and Pastel. 

21.5" x 14.5." 

Casey Klahn.

Blue Nude

Biskra Blue Nude. 2015. Pastel, Charcoal & Graphite. 17" x 14.75." Casey Klahn.

Sketch, White Nude on Blue. 2015. Graphite & Pastel. @6." Casey Klahn.

Blue Nude. Digital Drawing. Large. Casey Klahn.

My inspiration for the blue nudes originates with the 1907 work of the same subject by Henri Matisse, shown below. A disrobed woman in Algeria was his model, and the painting reflects his search for new imagery in north Africa. 

Matisse, in Biskra, Algeria: "I went from one surprise to the next - without being able to tell if my amazement came from the vastness of the country, or the new types of human being I was seeing, or from purely pictorial emotions."

A conversation between Picasso and Walter Pach, while viewing Matisse's Blue Nude: "Does that interest you?" asked Picasso. "In a way, yes...it interests me like a blow between the eyes. I don't know what he is thinking." "Neither do I," said Picasso. "If he wants to make a woman, let him make a woman. If he wants to make a design, let him make a design. This is between the two."

Late in his life, in 1952, Matisse revisited the Blue Nude title with his series of famous cut-outs. 

Henri Matisse, 1907, Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra), Nu bleu: Souvenir de Biskra, oil on canvas, 92.1 x 140.3 cm (36 1/4 x 55 1/4 in.), Cone collection, Baltimore Museum of Art.

At Rest

Magpie. 2014. (Shown Flipped Horizontally)

9" x 12" 

Charcoal and Compressed White Charcoal on Rough Brown Paper

Casey Klahn

Russian Busker Without Her Hat

The Russian Photo Busker Who Wore No Hat. 2014. @11" x 9." Graphite, tinted with Compressed White Charcoal, Conté, and Pastel, on Blue Saint Armand Old Master Drawing Paper. Casey Klahn.

Snow Deep and Notes

  Autumn Slope Drawing

12" x 13.5" 

Charcoal, Chalk & Pastel

Casey Klahn

With my world full of snow, I have taken to drawing in a serious way. I have quit a lot of pastel works in storage, and with a head full of ideas I want to make hundreds more. Anyway, I felt the urge to simplify and sharpen the charcoals a bit. This one, posted above, devolved from a finished pastel!

My children are snowed in from school, and my wife is down with an awful virus of some kind.  My time is not very plentiful, but I do get to the studio almost daily. Maybe today I'll wear snowshoes to get there since yesterday I was plunging to the knee in snow!

Another bother is that we have misplaced the battery charger for the Nikon camera and will have to order a new one.  So, no new photos of pastels for a while, even though I have probably 20 or more to show.

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In other studio news, I am forming an idea for a large work and it may take two over-size sheets of La Carte that I have squirreled away for a special occasion.  I'm imagining them just mounted together, seam and all.  If Degas did it, I think I may try the same. I know I could unroll some Wallis, or even get a piece of Gatorboard that big, but the dream I have is for La Carte.

Another fun pastime has been virtually framing art in Photoshop.  Here is one that worked well.

Fantastic Italy in Faux Frame

More Drawings, Especially Degas

I'm feeling the urge to really get busy drawing.  The change of season always does that to me.  Here is a post from the drawing archive.

Degas Influence

At The Bar - Copy of Degas

@22" x 17"

Charcoal, Conte & Pastel 

Casey Klahn

Progress

This post was first published at Pastel Workshop in 2011.

I think this was a practical exercise from a text book.

Detail

Charcoal, Conte and White Chalk

@ 8" x 12"

Casey Klahn

Okay.  I fixed the eye placement and the lip.  It is fascinating how once good abilities can evade me after too many years out of practice.  Figures and heads require lots of practice, and then there's the art part, too.

This is done on newsprint.

Take It Out Back

Behind The Garage

9.5" x 13"

Charcoal, Graphite, Chalk, Pastel

Casey Klahn

This garage drawing will be a book cover in the not-too-distant future.  


Oh Canada!  Come June 2nd and 3rd, I will be bringing my workshop to Cambridge, Ontario at the Pastel Studio store.  The Pastel Studio of Canada is a tremendous place to resource everything from Roche and Diane Townsend pastels to Wallis and Colourfix surfaces.  Contact or phone here.  Two days, $250 Canadian.


Ken Elliot is teaching a one day workshop in Parker, CO.  Painting strategies, and succeeding as an artist.  This will be a rewarding Denver area workshop from a colorist artist!


My Denver Area Workshop:  One more space!


Studio.  Do you use a projector in your studio?  I have had these old school opaque, and reflecting projectors in the past.  This year, I have stepped up to a digital LED projector, and also an LED flat light pad.  The high tech. light pad was a help for me in transferring the garage image from its original, plein air drawing to what would be a finished mixed media piece.

Finished Practice

Practice:  Head Facing Right

14" x 13

Charcoal, Pastel & White Chalk on Drawing Paper

Casey Klahn

Horse Sketch Wednesday

Horse Sketch

5.5" x 5.5"

Pastel & Charcoal

Casey Klahn

pas camera

Face & Hands

First posted in 2007.

Face & Hands

Graphite

Casey Klahn

More process stuff in the figures vein, this time a portrait sketch, from the imagination.

This sketch is @ 12 years old.

Drawing Mary

First published November, 2009.

Mary Cassatt, After Degas - detail
@ 32" x 26"
Charcoal
Casey Klahn

At the Easel

I like studying the master works of artists like Edgar Degas. This work is a copy of his well known Portrait of Mary Cassatt.

Charcoal River

Charcoal River

@9" x 14"

Charcoal, Chalk & Pastel

Casey Klahn

Charcoal, chalk and pastel on Rives BFK Heavyweight.

These tools allow me to express more than any other media.  Maybe they are the reason for the deep, dark passages in my finished pastel paintings.

Master Copies of Degas