David Hockney: A broader view.

 Maybe it's just my point of view, but I was thrilled to speak with a security guard who had personally met David Hockney when he was supervising the placement of his works and told me that he is the more sympathetic artist out of the many ones that have gone through the Guggenheim Museum, and that he even introduced him to his sister!

I have no doubt that David Hockney, besides being a master painter, has to be a very happy person, because only a great man like him can make things better and more beautiful than they really are and can convey that feeling ( that only great artists who have preceded him) that doing things like him is so easy.

I have no words to express the virtues and talents of David Hockney, but I have to say that it is astonishing that a man with his ability, experience and standard of living has taken and continues taking the trouble of working so hard, studying, learning and finding out other things that go unnoticed for us! Each of his paintings are a masterful lesson with a lot of work behind!

David Hockney is so marvelous that this concern can only be attributed to the great Renaissance genius!

You have to look carefully at Hockney's paintings because they carry a great subliminal message; he makes you lose the feeling that you are looking at a painting.

I think that Hockney's philosophy is to translate into his paintings, the movements that the human eye catches while we´re looking at a landscape, for example.

He is not limited to a single perspective because when we are looking at something;  many scans of every: detail, area or object are doned by our eyes and this provides us with many different vanishing points of view, more like cubism views, whom he  has always been a big fan.

I loved the book "David Hockney. The great message conversations with Martin Gayford "so readable and entertaining ( you read it right away), though the photos of the pictures are ridiculously small, almost have to use a magnifying glass to appreciate the details. Fortunately, what matters is the content!

When I leave an exposition, nearly always; I wonder who is the person responsible for choosing the artworks that will be reproduced and selled at the museum shop . I don´t understand why, someone with that job does not have the judgment or the need to provide the best way possible what it is exhibed.

I think that anyone with a modicum of sensitivity and discretion would choose more photographs of the paintings that can not be photographed during the visit and I would do better catalogs of such wonderful exhibitions that only great museums can offer.

I have watched many times that the guards of these museums do not flinch or look at the paintings that they are keeping; and we have often said with a laugh, that they are deliberately chosen like that for guarding without distractions!
 I have been one of the privileged that have seen, for the first time in Spain, the David Hockney exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum. I never thought that they would bring 200 of Hockney´s best paintings to Spain (Bilbao).

Hockney's paintings photographs are wonderful and it is a pity that in this exhibition there only were 4 different postcards out of his 200 works. Thankfully,  the catalog: "David Hockney. A broader view " is very complete and includes all the paintings shown along the visit.

Hockney´s  videos:  painting and being interviewed have no waste and are a masterpiece  to see many times!

I highly recommend you to see this exhibition if you can. I will be back and definitely, I would see the exposition daily!

Basilius Besler.

Tulipa Globosa Serotina  and   Sultan Zambach 24x 32cm nib and watercolor.

I have been painting Basilius Besler´s Herbarium for 15 years.  It took him 16 years to complete his "Botanical Atlas" in 1613.

As some of the original copper plates where his prints were engraved were melted at the beginning of the war for making weapons; I have undertaken to copy and colour them with nib and ink for anyone who wants to enjoy thems. They look great everywhere.

He named it: "Eystettensis Garden" and managed to change the current concept of botany.

It is very difficult to find an original and if we find one, it would cost between 6,000 € and 30,000 € each, depending on the difficulty of the template.

Besler was a chemist who loved plants, and maybe that’s why he did not made an old fashioned herbarium like the ones made in the previous centuries which mainly represented culinary herbs difficult to identify.

Apart from representing each plant with many great details he setted thems in a very artistic way; his book has a modern aesthetic concept as if it was done yesterday

They made two versions: one in black and white, cheap for use as a reference book, and a deluxe version without text, printed on quality paper and richly hand-colored.

The deluxe edition was sold for a whopping price of 500 guilders,while simple copies uncoloured,  were 35 guilders each.

Besler bought a nice house in a fashionable area of ​​Nuremberg, for the price of 2,500 guilders (equivalent to five colored plates of the "Eystettensis Garden").

How I discovered David Hockney.

Years ago, when I came back from a village where we went to paint life drawing, I started painting these landscapes. 

I was delighted to see that the owner of the house that I had painted in my picture, wanted to buy it, saying

 that I had represented so well the light and joy of the place where several generations of her family were born since 1900; she was so excited looking at it.

One of the teachers who came with us, told me that my style looked a lot like an English well-known painter, called "David Hockney".

By those years we have not heard of him not even in our college. And  Internet didn´t had the same resources as now.                                            

Quick portaits in watercolor.

As there is no coincidence, just when I returned to Madrid, a friend of my mother gave me a double catalog of the latest exhibition of David Hockney in London.

I can not forget that moment, his wonderful painting moved me so much. I have spent many hours studying that photos! Every detail, every stroke ...

The views of my house are of the Sierra de Madrid mountains and that was what I started painting emulating this recently discovered master.

David Hockney paints every day.
"Most artists work all the time... especially good artists... I mean, what else is there to do?" (David Hockney)

"As you get older, it becomes a little more difficult to maintain the spontaneity, but I do an effort to achieve it" David Hockney.

Mars thinking.

I just finished a painting of one of my favorite statues in the Louvre! You can watch the creation process video here.

I called it : "Mars thinking"  and it is a canvas of 90 x 116cm painted in acrylic.

Researching, I was surprised to know the story behind this representation of this strong and virile Greek god of war.

Its sculptor, Lysippus, wanted to immortalize him so undignified; showing him disarmed and relaxed, victim of love that gets tangled between his feet.

This bronze sculpture from the Louvre Museum, belonged to the Ludovisi family, whichtakes its name.

People just pass in a hurry next to it without looking at Mars, to enter and see the Mona Lisa in the next room.

Common sense is the least common of senses!

Books and plants.

 Inspiration comes at any time of serenity and rest and there was a moment when I was looking at my books stacked because they were assembling a bigger library for my study. I realized that they looked great just like that; piled up with my favorite flowers and other ornaments.

                      "Cactus with Books" Acrylic 120x 93.

I wanted  to immortalize that moment immediately . 

Nowadays It´s so exciting to see people reactions when they look at their finished paintings with their books, plants and favorite things; I think that this is a good way of keeping a great evidence of their pleasant memories.

"My Violet" Oil 46 x 38.

It is very important for me to represent and paint things and objects that I like or inspire certain feelings because they normally produce a calming effect of wellness and harmony. In fact, this table named "My Violet" has not been sold even though I've been offered big money for it because I painted it through a very important moment of my life and I want to keep it!

As I usually travel alone; I’ve noticed that if you don´t take photographs or keep some physical evidence of that moments, after a while, It´s as if they hadn´t existed...

"David" Michelangelo´s Trompe l´oeil

Since I saw, years ago, the magnificent statue named “David “ at the Accademia Gallery in Firenze, I knew that I had to make a trompe l'oeil painting of that Michelangelo´s sculpture to admire it every day.

The light, the volume and depth of the paint on the canvas, make it look like a real sculpture.

Many people, like me, who love sculpture and statues can not have their favorites at home, so I have painted several sculptures that can be placed everywhere.

I decided to write this blog, to comment my work and share what I feel performing them.

The trompe l'oeil, or "trap to the eye” (in French) is an hyper-realistic  technique that plays with light, perspective and optical effects to enjoy the feeling of looking at a 3-dimensional space.

The trompe l'oeil it´s magical, because you can open up spaces in walls creating the optical illusion that the object really exists.

A good trompe l'oeil, transforms and expands any room, bringing light to dark areas,  adding windows, stairs, doors, bookcases, furniture and and more complex scenes in any desired space.

Painting children's rooms can transport thems to their magical world of fantasy.