Thursday 19 April 2012

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").




Wednesday 11 April 2012

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.