In this video I discuss five qualities of great realism, using the paintings of Karen Offutt. For more free videos on painting in oil visit drawmixpaint.com
What a wonderfull artist and I find that her way of painting realism is much more alive that what I have seen in other contemporary artists. This way of working with realism has breath and aliveness and it is absolutely wonderfull - Thank you for sharing
Thanks Mark, Her work is another example of pure confidence in putting paint down. Like Sargent she can see the truth in what she is doing. You have never mentioned Richard Schmid in your references to fine artist. The picture/painting of his daughter on the paper cover of his book Alla Prima, to me, is another master piece. Schmid applies a little different technique in that he details out the small part of the painting that he wants the observer to focus on, else the rest of his paining is very loose like those of Karen Offutt.
Today I made two great discoveries on my long-overdue journey back into oil painting; Karen Offut, whose work I find inescapably captivating, and Mark Carder, who has such relaxed & engaging teaching and artistic styles. After maybe 40 years immersed in photography, I am about to try a realist/ultra-realist approach to painting some natural history subjects. What a mine-field! So thanks Mark for showing me that there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel, and to Karen for so clearly demonstrating the value of individual style and interpretation.
I see a lot of paintings that feel over rendered that just look flat at the end of the day. I love realism but if you can capture realism like Karen but with a little theater , then you have all the makings of a master artist.
wild cory i totally agree. It's amazing that someone can capture realism to it's tiniest details! But it can also be somehow flat. I love when artists mix their own colors and strokes to bring some emotions and feelings to the art!
@@hedegaard8 False. Many photo realist painters trace their work from a screen. They mix their colors offside until they get a match, or they purchase specifically made colors. It's literally fill in the lines and dots.
Thank you so much for this video! Karen's work is a great example of what you're talking about. The abstraction, I can see takes a good understanding of values, but also color theory.
Mark, thanks for the instructive critique. I want to try this kind of style in my next session. Good of you to find this excellent artist and give us the benefit to learn from her style. I like the freedom in her handling of paint.
Thanks for sharing her work. The closeups really helped me to see the abstraction of the brushstrokes that I had not seen before. Very inspiring and beautiful.
I was a student of fine arts in manila sir mark way back 70's but i was not able to finish my education.your video helps my passion as artist again,thank for explaining the importance of values.GOD BLESS
Thanks Mark for the video. The paintings are very nice but I found it to be very loose. I prefer by far the work you do. Maybe after all those years of painting you don't realize how beautiful and perfect is your work. You are in another level than anyone I have seen. Every single brush stroke you do is there for a reason. You make painting oil look so easy when it's totally the opposite.
Thank you for demonstrating the most basic of critique a painting. I am new to painting and still going around to find what is the right way to know that painting meets its quality. Through your video, I have the general idea about critique and also your bias, but I still have some disagreements with your idea. However, for the fundamental critique and that 5 qualities which teach me a lot. Thank you 🙏 again.
I see what you mean, and why you like this artist, Mark. I think it's helpful to note that you said these are very small paintings - maybe you should mention size which would put this in proper perspective for those of us watching. The closeness of these images may not do the effect justice because from here - the paintings do tend to look unfinished, loose, and impressionistic. BUT if you consider the size of the painting it might all make sense. They look large on the screen. I do pixel art sometimes so I can understand how you call this realism and I think you are right. People confuse realism and realistic sometimes and think both terms are the same. Yes, these paintings evoke a sense of realism - I think its subtle emotion of color, expressions of character, and the mundane scenes that are everyday life that give weight to the realism here. I do understand people commenting on the looseness of the strokes and almost transparency of the paint in some cases - making it look like the canvas is barely covered - even seeping through in many spots. Take picture #1 - the brush strokes in the bottom of the skirt don't appear to move the way anyone would imagine fabric to move or be printed - it's almost in a circular fan motion. And the bodice of the dress - you don't know if the dress front is open and a shirt is peaking through or if that yellow is a color blocked patch of fabric sewn in - it "looks" like it was just roughly painted over the stripe pattern underneath. My fav bit of that painting is the hair and face - incredible! The opacity and depth of colors - it seems finished. Everything else seems loosely added in. The purse straps also seem unfinished. The #2 painting - colors are lovely, but again - there seems to be something rushed and loose and unfinished. The man almost looks like he is emerging from her chest instead of standing in his own space behind the counter. #3 the hair looks kinda weird - like a lion's mane. And the railing is distracting - it seems to be flowing in an unrealistic way into the surrounding space. This looks like an exhausted pregnant woman sitting, legs splayed on the ground somewhere. It also looks like a school girl sitting cross-legged on a train. I can't tell where where she is. #5 looks interesting. ALL these paintings have a feeling of realism even if they aren't realistic - they have a quality we can understand and connect with. The most successful one of this series is #4 - the lady with the sad expression. She just reminds me of the typical suburban mom who is really dying inside, stuffed to the gills with prescription meds, but puts on a false, tight, crumbling smile for her family and the world. You can almost see the tears glimmering in her eyes - the Opioid Princess is what I would call that one. It's kind of raw and real. That is probably not the artist's intent, but that's what it makes me think of.
I agree with Mark Carder in that the work of Karen Offutt is just wonderful. To me this is painting at its best. Her brush work is absolutely not sloppy. There is great skill and knowledge in these brush strokes. I understand and know photo-realism and hyper-photo-realism enough, and I am sorry, but I don’t care for it. It’s a mistake to compare the realism style like that of Karen Offutt with photo-realism. Thank you Sir for posting this video.
Jeff Bond So true. I enjoy viewing photo-realistic paintings, but painting in that style myself has never been my goal. I've always prefered classical realism for my own art goals.
Very informative, as usual. Thank you. I have learned a lot from you. Most curious, have you ever seen the work of Bob Byerley? Between him, you, and dozens of exquisite artist, I am learning a lot. Thank you all. I would personally like to know what you think of Bob Byerley technique. Underpainting the values first.?
Great video Mark, Karen is an amazing artist and a reminder of Sargent's brilliance, I can't believe I am just now seeing her work! I was wondering if you have spoken to Karen about her technique, is her method similar to yours, is she thining the paint, and is her palette limited? Also has her work encouraged you to loosen up your brushwork?
She is very accomplished and good, but it is less realist and more like Impressionism without the color emphasis. I see the influence of Sargent, yes. But, compare it to Eakins, who is more strictly a realist. Or Rembrandt, and the other Dutch Masters. Finally, look at Chardin, who plays the loose and fuzzy edge so well. I am a bit puzzled by the use of the terms "abstraction everywhere". It looks more like simply "textural paint variety", admittedly a fine goal for many artists in a variety of styles. Abstraction, however, strictly speaking, is the only way we CAN paint: there is no real "thing" on or "in" the canvas (except paint itself). If you meant "everywhere", you'd have to also claim the strokes on the skin, the dresses, the most shiny objects, the dullest floor boards, etc, were also all made to look "jumbled". So, by implication, other artists of the 20th century Modernist era who went further with the jumbling (De Kooning, Guston, Auerbach) but were still paying some attention to figures, were ipso facto fulfilling the "everywhere" mandate more thoroughly. Manet and the Impressionists DID claim we do not see objects at all, only light reflecting off of them, in a tangled atmosphere, which could be translated into daubs (or , later, dots). More contemporary studies also show we do not even see a continuous, single "field of view", because of the saccades which we use to scan our world and the blind spot--- all being relayed over a rapid but measurable amount of time, during which the world itself does not freeze in place, much less so over the time it takes to paint the work! "Real-ism" is exactly that, an ISM", a false style like all other styles, a visual metaphor no more "real" than many other seemingly "more abstract" styles. Emotional "truth", for many artists and viewers, is more significant than recognizably nameable "things" being depicted in the work.
I definitely think that your theory of art is at loggerheads with realist art in general. Realists of all kind, from Albrecht Durer to Manet to Thomas Eakins to Edward Hopper codify rationalism (that the world is objective and knowable) as a metaphysical world view. This is why at its core, a realist's metier involves crafting an illusion of reality on a two-dimensional surface. This goes all the way back to the renaissance with Alberti saying in "On Painting" that a painting should be a window, something you look through to a world that is a continuation of our own. Impressionists and then post-impressionists were the first artists to really defy this worldview. Postmodern philosophers like Heidegger or Maurice Merleau Ponty used Cezanne or Van Gogh as examples to illustrate their phenomenological theories about the openness and indeterminacy of perception. Modernist art, expressionist art, ab-ex art all pursue the emotive and the perceptive above the rational and the objective. Though not all forms of modernism fit this bill. Abstract painters like Mondrian, Rothko, Newman pursued a kind of systematic objectivity. Though within realism there is a degree to which the emotive and perceptive play a key role. When they don't when its just purely technical and rational, the work becomes overly naturalistic or scientistic, and that in my opinion makes for fairly dull art. For example, Hans Holbein who nonetheless was an incredible painter, made much less compelling work than Diego Valazquez. Holbein attempted to paint every single hair on the chin of Henry VIII, whereas someone like Velazquez relied on a measure of slackness, risk, and spontaneity to make his work more emotive while still retaining a high degree of likeness to his subject. Heinrich Wölfflin's 'Principles of Art History' describes this distinction very well. Though he uses the terms 'linear vs painterly' as opposed to 'naturalist vs realist.'
i think he's just simplifying it for beginners, you won't be able to learn these stuffs that you said in 8 minute-video, but for me, its pretty annoying too, because he doesn't use another word to define them, the terms are so over used.
There are at least two terms that Mark uses in his own wisdom: 1. "Abstraction" to define the irregular pattern of brush strokes. 2. "Milky" to name what most painters define as "chalky". It took me a while to know his terminology.
I really like her paintings. I like yours also. I began painting about fifty years ago, on and off. Realism in the sixties was rendered in bright colors. I don’t get all the brown. It is a color I never used. Recently I added burnt umber to my palette. But I still find, even as my skills grow, I hate all that brown. That aside, I still think I have much to learn from you. Thank you.
Go to Mark Carder's website and take a close look at his own paintings. His portrait of George W. Bush is a very good example. Do you see anything abstract in his paintings? His paintings are amazing photorealistic paintings with no abstraction whatsoever.
Thanks Mark - your analysis of Karen's paintings is brilliant and her artwork is so full of mood and gesture... its alive. I wonder if you know about the great Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum who paints very like Rembrandt... Karen's work is getting close to this quality
So , do you think it’s ok that the canvas can be seen through the paint in many places on Karen’s canvases? I can see that the paint is thinly covered in some areas, especially in the first painting of hers you showed.
Whatever Sargent's style was called is what her style is because she paints a lot like him and other painters during that time. I don't think Sargent was called an impressionist exactly. I don't think there is any definite name for it. I think some people might call this style Bravura, but I'm not sure. Maybe Impressionistic Realism would be a good name for this kind of style.
J.S. Sargent paints in the so called Academic style, developed during the mid- to late-19th century. Later on he is influenced by Impressionism. Although he likes Impressionism, and uses just some of it, Sargent never really adopts it fully because he cannot sell that style to the upper-class society, for which he paints big size portraits. He is not a penniless Impressionist who paints for the burgeoning middle-class, nor spends most of his days in pubs - forget it. Leave that 'lifestyle' for Renoir, Pissaro and the rest of new 'French revolutionaries'. Ending by mid-19th century we had a long period (started in early Renaissance) of studios as the source and means of artistic education. But about that time art classes became more 'objectivised' and 'structured', academies opened, enrolled en masse, and a certain style was developed for the sake of teaching and learning - the Academic style. Until then painters vehemently followed other art voices: architecture, music and poetry. So in the beginning of the 19th century we had Romanticism in music and in poetry, then it came into painting and visual expression, inspired firstly by poetry. However, styles in visual art are primarily developed as consequences of - architectural styles, because art was designed and executed to complement human habitats.
I like the term bravura, I think it implies a confident approach, which I see in karens paintings. I agree with you and as an aspiring painter I would like to paint this style
Philip Wilson Steer painted a portrait of a girl named Rose Pettigrew on a couch wearing a purple dress. does anyone know the name of it? I've been looking for ever and can't seem to find it.
They are beautiful but is some places small parts of the canvas is barely or not even covered. Won’t this affect the survivability of the painting in the long run?
This might be a little off topic, but I figured I would ask since this is the most recent video. I have been having lots of trouble mixing a dark reddish plum color. I try to enter the purple side but leaving enough red in it, but it always tends to go into the brown. Are there any tips you or anyone on here have to keeping a rich dark purplish red that you would find in a dark plum?
Hello. I am not sure, but it might help if you use different reds and blues to mix the purple tone with. Some red and blues will mix and create a very low chroma brown tone. Maybe if you try to use a red and blue that mix to create a very bright high chroma purple, you would be able to get the mix you are looking for. A good blue and red to mix a bright purple with is ultramarine blue and alizarin red.
BOB Thanks very much bob, This was very informative and I actually recently did that very thing. The geneva red and blue seemed to give me the chroma I needed. Thanks very much for your insight.
Ish Perr You're welcome. Glad to hear you are getting the color mixes you want. I don't know if you saw them already, but Mark Carder has some great videos on color mixing on this youtube channel and on his website. He does a great job of showing how to mix any color.
BOB I always have his videos on while I paint. I really enjoy watching others paint while I paint, so nothing is better than watching him explain his technique.
Vishvesh Tadsare I feel as though her style is not full on realism, but a more impressionistic form of realism and so if one tries to categorise it as realism it can appear underdevelop, but when seen as what it is, its complete on its own. Then again, everyone does have personal preferences.
These are definitely great, they have a somewhat Sargent-y feel to them. But when I paint I often feel conflicted with the concept of abstraction in making realism paintings because I often think of the Renaissance time paintings when there is both realism and very little abstraction (if any at all), all the details and information is there to see even if you stand close to it. I am an amateur, I've only been painting seriously for a bit over a year, and I am finding it difficult to stick to a concept/style and I can't help making things as detailed as I can :((
DrAmantias My advice would have been to not force yourself to stick to one style but to explore different styles and techniques and you'll find yourself using the one that suits you the most often. You may even incorporate a mix of elememts from different styles and develop your own as a result. Good luck on your art journey.
How great it would be to have a channel completely dedicated to Vermeer, Calf and CO style🙄 Although Sargent Repin are great! For me there wasn't better style in painting!
I came across a wonderful Spanish realist painter a few weeks ago called Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau while looking for paintings of the U.S. Civil War General Stonewall Jackson. On Wiki he described as a 'Hyper Realist'... I'd be interested in what your thoughts are on the various types of realist categories. Google image search his name to see his work. The Jackson painting I found: delanceyplace.com/cmsAdmin/uploads/jackson_(2).jpg
Personally speaking I've never been a fan of hyper-realist or photo-realist work. I recognise the skill, yes, but in the type of realist painting that Mark talks about I think there is more skill involved in painting something that looks real from a distance and yet up close is quite abstract...
She really puts the soul in her faces. I looked at Picassos's faces and they were dark and soul less. I wish I could do realism. I can compose paintings but I find the,technique hard.
@@tegan71969 Some say that there are two kind of painters, the ones who paint from photographs and the ones who lie about it. There is a small group of die hard painters from life, but somehow their paintings are of lower quality. Mark himself paints some still life paintings from life, but his best portraits are from photographs.
In my opinion. Great realism is achieved when an artist paints a subject in great details without using reference photos. I am surfing the internet and looking for someone who paints without ref photos. I found "muraljoe", but he is good at painting nature by imagination with a scientific approach on realism. I paint human figures without reference photos for years, I know I cannot achieve the quality of paintings done with reference photos, or models, but I am more comfortable painting everything from imagination.
Most of figurative art is not Realism at all. Realism in art is something completely else. Painting of objects and subjects, to a certain *objective likeness* to that found in nature, is called Naturalism. Every art genre up to Post-Impressionism contained some level of, and depiction of, naturalism. Landscapes and people painted by Rubens and Cezanne are quite different, but neither is 'a Realist', albeit both use elements of naturalism, that is, of objective reality, to a various degree.
Yes, it is possible to have Naturalism and Realism at the same time. However, Realism in art was born out of literature of the Realism movement of the 19th and 20th century, which was a consequence of revolutions of the time. In real life, something always precedes the art genre, or, gives a reason that an idea of which the world is buzzing about may be adopted in art world. Same happened with Modernism; it came through the sociology and psychology, then it continued in literature, print and propaganda, and then most devastatingly - in visual art. Once it got enthroned in the art galleries, it was, like, crowned for life.
But these paintings are more like impressionistic portraits? Not realistic. Are you sure to define these style as ''realistic''. It is weird, because real realistic painters do overwork their details most of the time. Their brushwork is not loose..
You know what's so funny, is coming from a photography background, I can see that these are all painted from rather typical studio or candid photographs, and she has applied those brush techniques that you admire. But as for the abstractions - they are a product of poor eyesight - and I mean that literally. Visual arts is a way to compensate for poor eyesight, vis-a-vis print or engineering, where the finer the eyesight the better. If you actually SEE in this abstract way when you are working on a machine - it's a bad thing. Or when you are trying to read extensively - that's bad as well - very frustrating. But DAMN if you can't put it to good use to create effective visual art and abstractions. Last December I had a small stroke in my left eye that convinced me to switch from print media to video and art (blended as a higher concept.) Besides completely reforming my diet, this was not a small thing - and here it is almost October again and the transition is only maybe 3/4 accomplished. This is only even possible because I had done this visual thing before and left it off in the mid-nineties. So I had a LOT to catch up on. And RUclips in particular has proven central to the age of explosion of understanding. So here is a wonderful blend of the very old and the very new. But shouldn't it be called something like impressionistic realism?
I agree with the comment lower down,this guy just rambles on and on with unenthusiastic speech and uninspiring tired look on his face. The only thing he seems to attract is a flat monochrome audience of which i zipped away from towards luscious and inspirational painting! We in Europe know what painting is and i don’t mean that commercial plonker bob Ross!
I am here because I like the way you paint but you are constantly refering to impressionist ways of painting.What is going on?Did you got tired of your own virtuosity?
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Her paintings really do remind me of Zorn. Of Sargent too, but his faces are usually tighter than this. She definitely deserves this praise!
What a wonderfull artist and I find that her way of painting realism is much more alive that what I have seen in other contemporary artists. This way of working with realism has breath and aliveness and it is absolutely wonderfull - Thank you for sharing
Amazing examples - thank you! Thats the style I love most - loose, but when you zoom out its all there.
bazyt1 I love that style too. A looser form of realism. There's such depth and movement to it.
Thanks Mark, Her work is another example of pure confidence in putting paint down. Like Sargent she can see the truth in what she is doing. You have never mentioned Richard Schmid in your references to fine artist. The picture/painting of his daughter on the paper cover of his book Alla Prima, to me, is another master piece. Schmid applies a little different technique in that he details out the small part of the painting that he wants the observer to focus on, else the rest of his paining is very loose like those of Karen Offutt.
Today I made two great discoveries on my long-overdue journey back into oil painting; Karen Offut, whose work I find inescapably captivating, and Mark Carder, who has such relaxed & engaging teaching and artistic styles. After maybe 40 years immersed in photography, I am about to try a realist/ultra-realist approach to painting some natural history subjects. What a mine-field! So thanks Mark for showing me that there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel, and to Karen for so clearly demonstrating the value of individual style and interpretation.
I see a lot of paintings that feel over rendered that just look flat at the end of the day. I love realism but if you can capture realism like Karen but with a little theater , then you have all the makings of a master artist.
wild cory i totally agree. It's amazing that someone can capture realism to it's tiniest details! But it can also be somehow flat. I love when artists mix their own colors and strokes to bring some emotions and feelings to the art!
wild smooth nah, the more photo realistic it is the better mastery
Well said
@@hedegaard8 False. Many photo realist painters trace their work from a screen. They mix their colors offside until they get a match, or they purchase specifically made colors. It's literally fill in the lines and dots.
Absolutely terrific work - thanks for sharing her art with us!
Thank you so much for this video! Karen's work is a great example of what you're talking about. The abstraction, I can see takes a good understanding of values, but also color theory.
Thank you for introducing this artist & sharing her work. 🌷
Hi Mark.
Absolutely beautiful on this Amazing painting. Love them all. Love every brush strokes. Thanks for sharing
Mark, thanks for the instructive critique. I want to try this kind of style in my next session. Good of you to find this excellent artist and give us the benefit to learn from her style. I like the freedom in her handling of paint.
It is indeed amazing! Thank you for introducing her work ❤️
Thanks for sharing her work. The closeups really helped me to see the abstraction of the brushstrokes that I had not seen before. Very inspiring and beautiful.
Thank you for showing her paintings!
Great interpretation of these beautiful pieces. Very helpful in improving the way we look at art. Thanks
Lovely! Karen's edges are wonderful: lost and found!
Such lively brushwork!
Oh... just awesome! Thank you Karen! Thank you Mark!
What a lot of talent ! she does great work Thanks for showing her work . Al
Thank you, excellent overview of Karen’s paintings.
Outstanding! Thanks for posting this!
Another wonderful video, thank you!
Wonderful paintings. Great analytics of why they are so good too.
I'm a new painter and aspire to be just as good. Thank you for all the insight you have shared and continue to share.
Such a sense of life to her paintings. Nothing flat or static. I can but dream to paint like that
Excellent! Inspirational! Thanks a million!
Thank you for the lessons.
Thanks.. her works are beatiful
oh my god. i was profoundly moved by some of her work
Gorgeous paintings.
I was a student of fine arts in manila sir mark way back 70's but i was not able to finish my education.your video helps my passion as artist again,thank for explaining the importance of values.GOD BLESS
Really beautiful paintings!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you sir mark for sharing your knowledge,especially learning frm.those great artist of the past like j.singer sargent.god bless
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about these paintings of Karen Woolley Offutt
Love her work! Do you think you'd ever have guest artists appear with you to explain their technique?
many thanks.
Great lesson...Thanks heaps.
Great video! Great painting!
Thanks Mark for the video. The paintings are very nice but I found it to be very loose. I prefer by far the work you do. Maybe after all those years of painting you don't realize how beautiful and perfect is your work. You are in another level than anyone I have seen. Every single brush stroke you do is there for a reason. You make painting oil look so easy when it's totally the opposite.
thanks so much for this!!!
Thank you for demonstrating the most basic of critique a painting. I am new to painting and still going around to find what is the right way to know that painting meets its quality. Through your video, I have the general idea about critique and also your bias, but I still have some disagreements with your idea. However, for the fundamental critique and that 5 qualities which teach me a lot. Thank you 🙏 again.
I love Lars Lerin paintings. (watercolor) Its the melancoly mood what gets me all the time.
Great!
I see what you mean, and why you like this artist, Mark. I think it's helpful to note that you said these are very small paintings - maybe you should mention size which would put this in proper perspective for those of us watching. The closeness of these images may not do the effect justice because from here - the paintings do tend to look unfinished, loose, and impressionistic. BUT if you consider the size of the painting it might all make sense. They look large on the screen. I do pixel art sometimes so I can understand how you call this realism and I think you are right. People confuse realism and realistic sometimes and think both terms are the same. Yes, these paintings evoke a sense of realism - I think its subtle emotion of color, expressions of character, and the mundane scenes that are everyday life that give weight to the realism here. I do understand people commenting on the looseness of the strokes and almost transparency of the paint in some cases - making it look like the canvas is barely covered - even seeping through in many spots. Take picture #1 - the brush strokes in the bottom of the skirt don't appear to move the way anyone would imagine fabric to move or be printed - it's almost in a circular fan motion. And the bodice of the dress - you don't know if the dress front is open and a shirt is peaking through or if that yellow is a color blocked patch of fabric sewn in - it "looks" like it was just roughly painted over the stripe pattern underneath. My fav bit of that painting is the hair and face - incredible! The opacity and depth of colors - it seems finished. Everything else seems loosely added in. The purse straps also seem unfinished. The #2 painting - colors are lovely, but again - there seems to be something rushed and loose and unfinished. The man almost looks like he is emerging from her chest instead of standing in his own space behind the counter. #3 the hair looks kinda weird - like a lion's mane. And the railing is distracting - it seems to be flowing in an unrealistic way into the surrounding space. This looks like an exhausted pregnant woman sitting, legs splayed on the ground somewhere. It also looks like a school girl sitting cross-legged on a train. I can't tell where where she is. #5 looks interesting. ALL these paintings have a feeling of realism even if they aren't realistic - they have a quality we can understand and connect with. The most successful one of this series is #4 - the lady with the sad expression. She just reminds me of the typical suburban mom who is really dying inside, stuffed to the gills with prescription meds, but puts on a false, tight, crumbling smile for her family and the world. You can almost see the tears glimmering in her eyes - the Opioid Princess is what I would call that one. It's kind of raw and real. That is probably not the artist's intent, but that's what it makes me think of.
I agree the one closer up portrait is her best
Can you make a video on how to prepare panels & your thoughts on it? I can't afford to buy and store canvas all the time
I agree with Mark Carder in that the work of Karen Offutt is just wonderful. To me this is painting at its best. Her brush work is absolutely not sloppy. There is great skill and knowledge in these brush strokes. I understand and know photo-realism and hyper-photo-realism enough, and I am sorry, but I don’t care for it. It’s a mistake to compare the realism style like that of Karen Offutt with photo-realism. Thank you Sir for posting this video.
Jeff Bond So true. I enjoy viewing photo-realistic paintings, but painting in that style myself has never been my goal. I've always prefered classical realism for my own art goals.
Jeff Bond Its way too sloppy, not photo realistic at all :(
Very informative, as usual. Thank you. I have learned a lot from you. Most curious, have you ever seen the work of Bob Byerley? Between him, you, and dozens of exquisite artist, I am learning a lot. Thank you all. I would personally like to know what you think of Bob Byerley technique. Underpainting the values first.?
Great video Mark, Karen is an amazing artist and a reminder of Sargent's brilliance, I can't believe I am just now seeing her work! I was wondering if you have spoken to Karen about her technique, is her method similar to yours, is she thining the paint, and is her palette limited? Also has her work encouraged you to loosen up your brushwork?
thanks !
Holy crap shes good.
great video
Thanks, yes Karen paints like an old soul. Someone that listens and can reproduce whispers on the canvas.
The first one, the girl whith green stripes, is amazing
She is very accomplished and good, but it is less realist and more like Impressionism without the color emphasis. I see the influence of Sargent, yes. But, compare it to Eakins, who is more strictly a realist. Or Rembrandt, and the other Dutch Masters. Finally, look at Chardin, who plays the loose and fuzzy edge so well. I am a bit puzzled by the use of the terms "abstraction everywhere". It looks more like simply "textural paint variety", admittedly a fine goal for many artists in a variety of styles. Abstraction, however, strictly speaking, is the only way we CAN paint: there is no real "thing" on or "in" the canvas (except paint itself). If you meant "everywhere", you'd have to also claim the strokes on the skin, the dresses, the most shiny objects, the dullest floor boards, etc, were also all made to look "jumbled". So, by implication, other artists of the 20th century Modernist era who went further with the jumbling (De Kooning, Guston, Auerbach) but were still paying some attention to figures, were ipso facto fulfilling the "everywhere" mandate more thoroughly.
Manet and the Impressionists DID claim we do not see objects at all, only light reflecting off of them, in a tangled atmosphere, which could be translated into daubs (or , later, dots). More contemporary studies also show we do not even see a continuous, single "field of view", because of the saccades which we use to scan our world and the blind spot--- all being relayed over a rapid but measurable amount of time, during which the world itself does not freeze in place, much less so over the time it takes to paint the work! "Real-ism" is exactly that, an ISM", a false style like all other styles, a visual metaphor no more "real" than many other seemingly "more abstract" styles. Emotional "truth", for many artists and viewers, is more significant than recognizably nameable "things" being depicted in the work.
I definitely think that your theory of art is at loggerheads with realist art in general. Realists of all kind, from Albrecht Durer to Manet to Thomas Eakins to Edward Hopper codify rationalism (that the world is objective and knowable) as a metaphysical world view. This is why at its core, a realist's metier involves crafting an illusion of reality on a two-dimensional surface. This goes all the way back to the renaissance with Alberti saying in "On Painting" that a painting should be a window, something you look through to a world that is a continuation of our own.
Impressionists and then post-impressionists were the first artists to really defy this worldview. Postmodern philosophers like Heidegger or Maurice Merleau Ponty used Cezanne or Van Gogh as examples to illustrate their phenomenological theories about the openness and indeterminacy of perception. Modernist art, expressionist art, ab-ex art all pursue the emotive and the perceptive above the rational and the objective. Though not all forms of modernism fit this bill. Abstract painters like Mondrian, Rothko, Newman pursued a kind of systematic objectivity.
Though within realism there is a degree to which the emotive and perceptive play a key role. When they don't when its just purely technical and rational, the work becomes overly naturalistic or scientistic, and that in my opinion makes for fairly dull art. For example, Hans Holbein who nonetheless was an incredible painter, made much less compelling work than Diego Valazquez. Holbein attempted to paint every single hair on the chin of Henry VIII, whereas someone like Velazquez relied on a measure of slackness, risk, and spontaneity to make his work more emotive while still retaining a high degree of likeness to his subject. Heinrich Wölfflin's 'Principles of Art History' describes this distinction very well. Though he uses the terms 'linear vs painterly' as opposed to 'naturalist vs realist.'
i think he's just simplifying it for beginners, you won't be able to learn these stuffs that you said in 8 minute-video, but for me, its pretty annoying too, because he doesn't use another word to define them, the terms are so over used.
There are at least two terms that Mark uses in his own wisdom:
1. "Abstraction" to define the irregular pattern of brush strokes.
2. "Milky" to name what most painters define as "chalky".
It took me a while to know his terminology.
I really like this video as I didn't know Karen's work. I also recommend Antonio Lopez Garcia just in case you don't know him. Greetings
please do a review about Jeremy Lipking's paintings.
Can you talk about the Impressionists?
I really like her paintings. I like yours also. I began painting about fifty years ago, on and off. Realism in the sixties was rendered in bright colors. I don’t get all the brown. It is a color I never used. Recently I added burnt umber to my palette. But I still find, even as my skills grow, I hate all that brown. That aside, I still think I have much to learn from you. Thank you.
There's something reminiscent of Rembrandt in her work...
Very inspiring. What size were these pieces?
Can you post a video on painting a red rose?
very good
Sir, would you make a video demonstrating this kind of realism? Will an underpainting still affect the finished artwork or alla prima is enough?
I am also blown away...but I do think she is more toward the impressionists.
its all about the values mang!
This is Modern Art. Long live Modern Art.
I see a definite admirer of Sargent, and for good reason.
The intangibles. Thank God we don't all have the same genius.
Hi Mark. I am curious to know what you think of Daniel Sprick's work. thanks
Go to Mark Carder's website and take a close look at his own paintings. His portrait of George W. Bush is a very good example. Do you see anything abstract in his paintings? His paintings are amazing photorealistic paintings with no abstraction whatsoever.
Thanks Mark - your analysis of Karen's paintings is brilliant and her artwork is so full of mood and gesture... its alive. I wonder if you know about the great Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum who paints very like Rembrandt... Karen's work is getting close to this quality
So , do you think it’s ok that the canvas can be seen through the paint in many places on Karen’s canvases? I can see that the paint is thinly covered in some areas, especially in the first painting of hers you showed.
Look for Leonard Paul, Nova Scotian artist. Delicate and powerful at the same time, evocative, plus all your criterion.
actually I would argue that her work is more along the lines of impressionism than realism, but it is beautiful work nonetheless.
Whatever Sargent's style was called is what her style is because she paints a lot like him and other painters during that time. I don't think Sargent was called an impressionist exactly. I don't think there is any definite name for it. I think some people might call this style Bravura, but I'm not sure. Maybe Impressionistic Realism would be a good name for this kind of style.
Robert it is an all a prima style.
J.S. Sargent paints in the so called Academic style, developed during the mid- to late-19th century. Later on he is influenced by Impressionism. Although he likes Impressionism, and uses just some of it, Sargent never really adopts it fully because he cannot sell that style to the upper-class society, for which he paints big size portraits. He is not a penniless Impressionist who paints for the burgeoning middle-class, nor spends most of his days in pubs - forget it. Leave that 'lifestyle' for Renoir, Pissaro and the rest of new 'French revolutionaries'.
Ending by mid-19th century we had a long period (started in early Renaissance) of studios as the source and means of artistic education. But about that time art classes became more 'objectivised' and 'structured', academies opened, enrolled en masse, and a certain style was developed for the sake of teaching and learning - the Academic style. Until then painters vehemently followed other art voices: architecture, music and poetry. So in the beginning of the 19th century we had Romanticism in music and in poetry, then it came into painting and visual expression, inspired firstly by poetry. However, styles in visual art are primarily developed as consequences of - architectural styles, because art was designed and executed to complement human habitats.
I like the term bravura, I think it implies a confident approach, which I see in karens paintings. I agree with you and as an aspiring painter I would like to paint this style
Zvonimir Tosic Unlike her art: when you stand back from what you said
I find it stays a jumbled mess.
Philip Wilson Steer painted a portrait of a girl named Rose Pettigrew on a couch wearing a purple dress. does anyone know the name of it? I've been looking for ever and can't seem to find it.
Girl on a Sofa 1891?
They are beautiful but is some places small parts of the canvas is barely or not even covered. Won’t this affect the survivability of the painting in the long run?
This might be a little off topic, but I figured I would ask since this is the most recent video. I have been having lots of trouble mixing a dark reddish plum color. I try to enter the purple side but leaving enough red in it, but it always tends to go into the brown. Are there any tips you or anyone on here have to keeping a rich dark purplish red that you would find in a dark plum?
Hello. I am not sure, but it might help if you use different reds and blues to mix the purple tone with. Some red and blues will mix and create a very low chroma brown tone. Maybe if you try to use a red and blue that mix to create a very bright high chroma purple, you would be able to get the mix you are looking for. A good blue and red to mix a bright purple with is ultramarine blue and alizarin red.
BOB Thanks very much bob, This was very informative and I actually recently did that very thing. The geneva red and blue seemed to give me the chroma I needed. Thanks very much for your insight.
Ish Perr
You're welcome. Glad to hear you are getting the color mixes you want. I don't know if you saw them already, but Mark Carder has some great videos on color mixing on this youtube channel and on his website. He does a great job of showing how to mix any color.
BOB I always have his videos on while I paint. I really enjoy watching others paint while I paint, so nothing is better than watching him explain his technique.
Ish Perr
Yeah, he's definitely a great artist and teacher. I learned a lot from his youtube channel and from his website.
There is undeniable dreamy quality here.. esp that portrait of woman face.. but the first two seems underworked.
Vishvesh Tadsare I feel as though her style is not full on realism, but a more impressionistic form of realism and so if one tries to categorise it as realism it can appear underdevelop, but when seen as what it is, its complete on its own. Then again, everyone does have personal preferences.
honestly, Carder's realism is Great!
These are definitely great, they have a somewhat Sargent-y feel to them. But when I paint I often feel conflicted with the concept of abstraction in making realism paintings because I often think of the Renaissance time paintings when there is both realism and very little abstraction (if any at all), all the details and information is there to see even if you stand close to it. I am an amateur, I've only been painting seriously for a bit over a year, and I am finding it difficult to stick to a concept/style and I can't help making things as detailed as I can :((
DrAmantias My advice would have been to not force yourself to stick to one style but to explore different styles and techniques and you'll find yourself using the one that suits you the most often. You may even incorporate a mix of elememts from different styles and develop your own as a result. Good luck on your art journey.
How great it would be to have a channel completely dedicated to Vermeer, Calf and CO style🙄 Although Sargent Repin are great! For me there wasn't better style in painting!
I came across a wonderful Spanish realist painter a few weeks ago called Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau while looking for paintings of the U.S. Civil War General Stonewall Jackson. On Wiki he described as a 'Hyper Realist'... I'd be interested in what your thoughts are on the various types of realist categories. Google image search his name to see his work. The Jackson painting I found: delanceyplace.com/cmsAdmin/uploads/jackson_(2).jpg
Personally speaking I've never been a fan of hyper-realist or photo-realist work. I recognise the skill, yes, but in the type of realist painting that Mark talks about I think there is more skill involved in painting something that looks real from a distance and yet up close is quite abstract...
I can’t tell if my paintings are good, I’ve only painted a few but I just don’t know if they are really good or really bad, or just ehhh.
She really puts the soul in her faces. I looked at Picassos's faces and they were dark and soul less. I wish I could do realism. I can compose paintings but I find the,technique hard.
Don't you think we could do with a demo?
Realism?
Sorry, maybe this is obvious but are her paintings taken from photographs?
Have a guess, do you think she took her easel and brushes down to the subway to paint the young black woman ?
@@redangrybird7564 Possibly. Or maybe she painted the woman in a studio, then referenced a subway photo for the background. That's why I'm asking.
@@tegan71969 Some say that there are two kind of painters, the ones who paint from photographs and the ones who lie about it.
There is a small group of die hard painters from life, but somehow their paintings are of lower quality.
Mark himself paints some still life paintings from life, but his best portraits are from photographs.
In my opinion. Great realism is achieved when an artist paints a subject in great details without using reference photos. I am surfing the internet and looking for someone who paints without ref photos. I found "muraljoe", but he is good at painting nature by imagination with a scientific approach on realism. I paint human figures without reference photos for years, I know I cannot achieve the quality of paintings done with reference photos, or models, but I am more comfortable painting everything from imagination.
The colors and shapes are wondrous, but why is it called "Realism" when the execution is not like W. A. Bougereau, for example?
Yooo check out Delfin Finely. He's only 22. Crazy good instagram.com/delfinley/
helpful but dour
Most of figurative art is not Realism at all. Realism in art is something completely else. Painting of objects and subjects, to a certain *objective likeness* to that found in nature, is called Naturalism. Every art genre up to Post-Impressionism contained some level of, and depiction of, naturalism. Landscapes and people painted by Rubens and Cezanne are quite different, but neither is 'a Realist', albeit both use elements of naturalism, that is, of objective reality, to a various degree.
Yes, it is possible to have Naturalism and Realism at the same time. However, Realism in art was born out of literature of the Realism movement of the 19th and 20th century, which was a consequence of revolutions of the time. In real life, something always precedes the art genre, or, gives a reason that an idea of which the world is buzzing about may be adopted in art world. Same happened with Modernism; it came through the sociology and psychology, then it continued in literature, print and propaganda, and then most devastatingly - in visual art. Once it got enthroned in the art galleries, it was, like, crowned for life.
But these paintings are more like impressionistic portraits? Not realistic. Are you sure to define these style as ''realistic''. It is weird, because real realistic painters do overwork their details most of the time. Their brushwork is not loose..
You know what's so funny, is coming from a photography background, I can see that these are all painted from rather typical studio or candid photographs, and she has applied those brush techniques that you admire. But as for the abstractions - they are a product of poor eyesight - and I mean that literally. Visual arts is a way to compensate for poor eyesight, vis-a-vis print or engineering, where the finer the eyesight the better. If you actually SEE in this abstract way when you are working on a machine - it's a bad thing. Or when you are trying to read extensively - that's bad as well - very frustrating. But DAMN if you can't put it to good use to create effective visual art and abstractions.
Last December I had a small stroke in my left eye that convinced me to switch from print media to video and art (blended as a higher concept.) Besides completely reforming my diet, this was not a small thing - and here it is almost October again and the transition is only maybe 3/4 accomplished. This is only even possible because I had done this visual thing before and left it off in the mid-nineties. So I had a LOT to catch up on. And RUclips in particular has proven central to the age of explosion of understanding.
So here is a wonderful blend of the very old and the very new. But shouldn't it be called something like impressionistic realism?
its interesting ive looked at your portraits,they are truly,sorry,better than sargents.this is 2 loose i dont agree,,she must really be fine lol
its too loose one sargent was enough
There’s no story within the paintings.
This guy lost me, he rambles for half the video about how realistic the painting is, then he shows us great impressionist style.
Irish Tino my thought exactly!
Mark's lessons are for intermediate to advanced painters.
I agree with the comment lower down,this guy just rambles on and on with unenthusiastic speech and uninspiring tired look on his face. The only thing he seems to attract is a flat monochrome audience of which i zipped away from towards luscious and inspirational painting! We in Europe know what painting is and i don’t mean that commercial plonker bob Ross!
I don't know, man.
Her drawing with the brush lacks precision.
I prefer Rose Frantzen.
I am here because I like the way you paint but you are constantly refering to impressionist ways of painting.What is going on?Did you got tired of your own virtuosity?