Another old painting

This is one of the paintings from the Theatre of Life series. It was done for the gallery market.

Theatre of Life: Chess Game, 2000, oil on canvas, 80x60 cm,  private collection

Oldies

While preparing the material for my upcoming book The Art of Petar Meseldzija I came across the files of many old paintings. Because the paintings have been sold, I haven't seen them for many years. Nor have I looked at the hi-res files for quite some time. Therefore it's been nice to see all these images again and to recollect the memories attached to their making and their subsequent life. Below you can see one of the oldies.
The book is progressing well, in fact much of it is already finished, and it is now definite that it will come out in august.

 

 

Family portrait

More than 10 years ago I was commissioned to paint a few family portraits. Here is one of them and it’s my favorite one :-)

 

Oil on canvas, 70 X 100 cm, 2002

 

Little paintings

Here are two little paintings that I recently finished. First is my MicroVisions piece which I call “Frightened Monster”. The second painting, named “Night Knight”, was done for a quilt project. Both paintings will be auctioned (the Knight painting as a part of the quilt) and the money will go to the student scholarships.

Sometimes I wish these kind of scholarship projects existed when I was a student, so that I could at least buy a proper oil paint, instead of having to use the cheap little tubes of oil color manufactured in China, that I used to buy in Prague, Czech Republic. But on the other hand, I often wonder if better circumstances and more stimulating surroundings would help me become a better artist…well, maybe…I don’t know. It’s also true that when things get tough, we get to know our deeper Self and often get better and tougher, for if you are not tough enough and always need somebody or something to lean on, despite of all your great talents, you might not make it as an artist. In my opinion talent and skill need to be accompanied by a set of other qualities within the personality that have nothing to do directly with the artistic abilities, things like perseverance, courage, a certain amount of boldness and even stubbornness. One does not develop these qualities if the surroundings are too supportive. On the other side, the lack of support can have a devastating impact on the psyche, as we all know.

Anyway, that Chinese oil paint from Czech Republic was not that bad after all. At least it had a very pleasant and natural smell that stayed with me forever, and that I still associate with good old days marked by happy enthusiasm, blessed lack of life and professional experience and above all my burning love affair with painting.



Frightened Monster



Night Knight

 

Head studies

Every now and then, when I find time, I work on my book about Giants. Here are the head studies of  a few rather normal-looking fellows.

 

Silly figure

One evening, after a long, tiring day of "serious" painting, I wanted to relax a bit, so I took a pencil and a piece of paper and drew this silly figure. After it was finished, I went downstairs to watch the TV with my wife.

 

 

Progress Shots

Perhaps some of you would like to get a little more insight into the stages of development of my Death Dealer: Homage to Frazetta piece. Here are a few progress shots.

 

 

Death Dealer: Homage to Frazetta

 

Death Dealer: Homage to Frazetta, Oil on board, 55 X 72 cm (21 1/2 X 28 1/4 inch), 2012/2013

 

My homage to Frazetta is finally finished and although it has often been said that a good painting does not need the explanation, I do feel compelled to say something about one particular aspect of this piece. My intention was not to make a copy of Frazetta’s character. My intention was to do a homage to the master by projecting his famous character onto my world and let it go through the prism of my own vision. The essence of my interpretation has been most correctly expressed by a good friend of mine and a fellow artist who, upon seeing the painting, commented:  “ Ah, you are on their side as well…!” Another spot-on remark I heard from another person was: “This is perhaps the lightest Death Dealer painting I have ever seen, but  still the darkest Death Dealer, for it appears to me that HE is the bad guy!”

The Death Dealer series, as it is the case with much of Frazetta’s art, reflect a typical black-and-white approach to the relationship between good and evil, and it is presented in a simplified and rather straightforward manner. Death Dealer’s foes are evil savages who are here to be slain (punished for whatever they stand for), while Death Dealer’s job is to make sure it is properly and thoroughly done. Generally speaking, I think this aspect of Frazetta’s art is not only connected to the certain archetypes and the stereotypes of his time, but it also reflects something of the preconceptions,  general aspirations, prevailing ideologies, the impact of major conflicts, etc. of the 20st century.

The times have changed, as we know . We don’t live anymore in a black-and-white world (we never did, by the way, this is one of many misconceptions man has to deal with). We now live in a Grey, more complex  world, a global village, where the division line between the good guys and the bad guys seem to be fairly blurred. In a way we have become more realistic (I still avoid to use the word “wise” because of the obvious reasons). It has been said that the most popular character from Peter Jackson’s movie trilogy The Lord of the Rings is not Frodo, or Sam, or Gandalf, or Aragorn but Gollum! I think this is a very interesting indication, although a tiny one, and I guess relatively insignificant, for there are much better and more relevant examples. Never the less, this testifies to the shift in the approach of the general public (popular culture) to the concept of good and bad, which apparently has become more flexible.

The underlying notion of my Death Dealer interpretation is supposed to reflect this “new” point of view. The rest of the elements, mostly technical in nature, are derived from this concept.

 

 

Scribbles

Last Saturday I attended a convention in the nearby town of Beverwijk in North Holland. My publisher Dark Dragon Books presented there a little book titled Petar Meseldzija Dossier Preview (a 12 pages book, limited to 50 copies only). The book includes a number of recent sketches and drawings and it is in fact an announcement of a bigger book that will be published in June this year. 

 

  

During this rather chilly convention (our booth was quite close to the entrance and it was a cold day), I did a number of drawings in Dossier Preview book as well as in my Tarzan book. In order to forget about the cold and to have some extra fun, I decided to do a little game. Most of the sketches, that you can see below, were created in the following way: I would take a fine liner, close my eyes and do a very quick uncontrolled scribble, or I would ask the publisher to do the scribble, or my wife. Then I would let this scribble guide me while I try to “squeeze” a shape out of it, mostly a head of a grotesque character. None of these characters are premeditated, they just happened, they popped-up from the scribble J



A scribble and the finished drawing
and two regular sketches (below)

 

 

Sketching on bad paper

Here are some recent sketches  from my Tarzan book. The paper from this book is not very suitable for drawing with graphite because it is too smooth and plastic-like. Because of that I have to adjust my approach to this disobedient surface  (it makes it harder to achieve the usual results), but when after that I do my drawings on a proper  paper,  it becomes much easier to control the drawing process and to achieve the desired results. Sounds quite logical, right!? So, people, I guess the conclusion is: use bad art materials and tools to practice with for a certain period of time, in order to enhance your skills :)