Dean Cornwell, by contrast, had to be hoisted up on ropes to paint his murals for the Los Angeles Library, which he completed in 1932. His foot was bandaged, having been hurt in an accident. He had to move to England to be trained in the art of mural painting, and to find suitable mural space.
The library commission paid barely enough to pay his expenses. He had to borrow money from his life insurance policy to afford his children’s college education.
5 comments:
When I took art classes at ISU, people kept telling me I needed to work bigger. I wish I had found your blog back then - I think it's good to be able to paint big, but I also think it's just as important to paint small too. It's really hard to lug giant canvases about!
I am not a professional artist by any means, but when I went to the local community college to take Drawing 1 the teacher said "fill the page, fill the page" and in Drawing 2 a different teacher said just as confidently "Do all 5 drawings on one page".
I don't know why big canvas has a tendency to scare me... All this white, all this paint to put on...
I'ts harder to build good proportions because we have more space for errors (yeah, good excuse!)
But I Like smaller works for (outdor) color sketches, to focus on color & value.
Here is a video about people who have a good reason to be scared when painting big:
http://vimeo.com/10562000?hd=1
A documentary that offers painters (in letter and advertising)
to tell their story, talk about their jobs in extinction.
(sorry if my english is not correct)
Fascinating. (btw, this Cornwell mural looks to me a bit wider than just 12 feet.) Here is another artist who did large scale paintings, Vlaho Bukovac:
http://tinoradman.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/img_8247-copy.jpg
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