Labrozzi Illustration

Hi everyone,

I’ve been away for a bit from the blog, but I thought it might be nice to close out some of the pieces we talked about months ago.

Above is the final for the cycling piece (the earlier blog entries were, “Parts of a Piece” and “More Parts of a Piece”). This is the final orchestration of all of the flickers and blurs we talked about earlier. You can always view these works larger on my portfolio site at www.labrozziillustration.com.

In fact, my portfolio site already has a great deal of the finished illustrations that I will be showing here in future blogs that discuss process. I try to photograph my paintings as they develop through key parts of my process.  I hope it will be a lot of fun either way as I’ve always enjoyed looking at sketches with their finished counterparts.

I hope this makes what I do more accessible. I say this because as a student I’ve always found myself marveling at finished works in museums. Growing up near Washington DC, my local gallery was the National Gallery. Some of the greatest pieces in the world are there which can be a little intimidating for anyone trying their hand at painting. It wasn’t until I visited the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam that I noticed partially finished works on display.

What a relief! All of the great masters were people too.

It may sound funny, but what I’m really getting at is — this is assurance. It is meant as an assurance that every artist and every work of art starts somewhere. It also means we share a common bond in our humanity.

I hope those reading will start those pieces they haven’t tried yet. And, if you’re excited about where you’re going, please respond to this post.

In the coming days, I will post a couple more images from “One From A Samba Series” and I’ll be starting one called “First Impressions.”

As always, Thank you for reading.

Sincerely

David Labrozzi

Samba Premier Sketch

Hello again,

When I initially took on my motion project I was, in fact, starting a visual project on Samba. This was, in part, because I was searching for something in my past. I really could consume a whole essay with this on it’s own. Suffice it to say, I believe Brasilian culture is deeply en-grained in the (U.S.) American experience though it remains, in many ways, very hidden. I also feel that some of the music from Brasil is of the most genuine in the world. I deeply appreciate it.

That being said,  I realized that Samba music and dance are, among many things, an expression of energy. This energy is the exact  thing I decided was important in first my drawings; then my paintings. I was interested in the idea of a kinetic painting.

I became excited about breaking away from representation and becoming more expressive again. At first it was little difficult to free myself. My exercise was to start with a single dancing figure, like the one at the top of this blog. I would render that figure in an exact enough way. It was to be nothing too challenging for the viewer to interpret.

Then I began to develop a vernacular for different sounds. Perhaps the deep heartbeat of the base rhythm could be circles of distortion over the image. Maybe another piece of the music was a soaring slash of colour across the corner of the piece. It was a sort of free association of colour, shape, sound and rhythm.

What I found was the abstract interpretation became more interesting, more elegant in purpose than the representational one.

More genuine.

Still, I enjoy the hybrid of the two. That is, the creation of a visual narrative that rides the fringe of abstraction.  I feel familiarity helps ground the image for many viewers. It provides a sort of entry point. Once that familiarity has been established, an abstract dialogue can begin to take place. A more intuitive form of communication can occur.

That is, the viewer may not only see and interpret the image as the Samba dancer. Instead, there is the opportunity for them to feel the rhythm or hear sound as they engage with the work. The experience then becomes transcendental. It transcends the see/interpret experience and becomes a see/feel experience.

Below is the beginning of the painting for the drawing above. It will follow much of the same process as the bicycle image I posted earlier (I will be posting the finish of the bicycle piece soon). Let’s see how close I stay to the map of my drawing as the painting progresses. Let’s see where the painting takes over the drawing. Stay tuned!

David Labrozzi

Samba Dancer under painting from drawing above (30"X34")

Welcome back.

This will be a brief post with some details from the painting from the previous post.

Last time the discussion was about flicker effect. This phenomenon occurs as repeated shapes are brought into proximity with one another.  Below is an illustration from the larger painting.

Parts of a Piece detail from fork of bicycle

Upon close inspection it is clear what has actually been painted is a swash of yellow. With even closer inspection it becomes noticeable that the right and left side of the swash are actually the slightest bit brighter than the middle of the swash.

When moving back farther from the painting the eye responds to these types of slight repeated patterns. An illusion of flicker occurs then. This type of flicker vibration gives the sensation of motion. In the illustration above, the motion is a sort of left to right to left to right.

Here’s another example from the riders shirt.

Riders shirt from Parts of a Piece

Again the same sort of effect is occurring, yet this time the motion is slightly more inclined.

As an aside, please refer back to the original post on this painting; these merging directions were determined very early on in the drawing and underpainting.

There are immediately two things which are important to note. First, the flicker effect is a vibration which occurs through value. This is different than a colour vibration, though both I’m sure could be used together. The other is the closer the repeated parts of the flicker are to each other, the faster the flicker occurs.

The full painting should illustrate this second point as there are numerous flickers of varying distance occurring throughout the painting.

The beauty of thinking of painting and composition in this way is that the painting becomes an orchestration of long and short vibrations. Though far different than music, as music has a defined performance time (beginning to end), a painting can indeed sing with high and low notes through these types illusions. It creates rhythm as well as tone through vibration.

Harnessing these movements puts the painter in a powerful position. When used correctly, flicker can prompt the viewer through a visual journey of the painting. It can help them soar or slow them down. These abstract notions can be applied as the foundation to paintings with a visual narrative as well.

… we still have a long way to go …

See you next time, with a brand new painting.

David Labrozzi

Motion painting in progress

Above is progress on the  painting previously described on this post. As before, a limited colour pallete has been maintained. In fact only three more colours have been included in this work. Specifically those colours are a pale yellow, cobalt turquoise and cadmium yellow deep. Though it appears quite a bit more developed, this is still essentially the same painting posted before. That is, graphically the main shapes and general flow were orchestrated before this. What is here is really a filling in of information for the big shapes of the underpainting; with one exception.

The new device explored through the riders shirt, the bicycle tires and stem is image vibration. This could also be considered a flicker effect. Because they are light on a dark field these effects influence the eye through contrast. However, it is arguable they also train the eye to see directional motion.

The question then becomes, how does directional motion in flicker effect relate to the  overall flow of the painting? What happens when the effect is congruent; what happens when it is in opposition?

Later this week I will expand on this effect and offer some details of the painting where the flicker occurs.

See you then.

David Labrozzi

Labrozzi Cyclist in progress

In the interest of keeping a steady blog with regular updates, I’m posting on the process of  a painting from my studio.

What I am showing in the illustration above is actually a fifth or sixth step in a process I use for developing an oil painting. The recent paintings I have been working on all share the subject of motion. Because of this I have made a few changes to my painting style as I have been working toward this goal. I will explain the changes later on, but first; the process.

I do numerous sketches for the painting before starting a project. After I have a general idea of what I’m looking for, I begin to shoot photographic reference for myself. Many times the photo reveals details I would not normally see. In the case of my motion paintings, taking photographic reference has been indispensable.

Typically when shooting, I take many sequential photographs. I composite various numbers of these into my final composition and begin to do a final, full value sketch. This is important as the photos begin a new start point in the drawing process. That is, once the composition is roughed out, an editing/drawing process begins. I work to only take what I need from my photos to make the painting work.

I usually scan the final drawing in and then project it onto my stretched canvas. In this case, the canvas is 44″ wide X 32″ tall (the original drawing is only about 17″ wide). From there, I do a pretty tight line drawing of what I’m projecting. It may seem redundant but by drawing again this way, I can begin to see and make last minute adjustments that might be needed to help the composition flow better.

In the case of the painting above, I painted 2 colours over my line drawing on the canvas. The colours are a lightened cerulean blue and cadmium yellow mix. Basically the yellow works as a swash across the middle of the blue field on this canvas. There is no precision to this stroke. The colours at this point only are set to establish a local colour  to work off of and establish a general flow to the composition. Though it is not completely random, the looseness of these strokes helps to guide me throughout to keep the flow in the painting. You may still be able to see these original strokes here under the darker blue/purple shapes I have painted over them.

The step we are at now is illustrated above. That is, darker shapes (in this case) are painted over the big colour strokes I put down earlier. These shapes begin to conform closer to the line drawing underneath, but are still kept purposefully loose. The reason why is to maintain energy in the painting. Since the big background strokes were dry, I could paint and wipe off the darker colour to establish this. Again, I do this very rough as the roughness helps later on.

Next week I’ll show a more completed version of this painting. But for now, I’ll take a little time to briefly discuss some changes I have made to how I paint as I have engaged the subject of motion in painting.

First off the canvases I use now are larger than I had previously painted. The reason for this is it gives me full range of motion as I paint. In turn, this full range of motion provides more evidence to my brush strokes in the final piece and is congruent with the ultimate goal of the painting. That is, the conveyance of movement in what is an otherwise still medium. In contrast, if I am working smaller I am only moving a small portion of my arm or just my wrist. I find this limited range causes me to tighten up and the work begins to lose vitality.

Brush strokes are important. Just as a car leaves paint on the concrete of a jersey wall after impact, all the marks left behind are evidence of the motion and the energy it took to create them. These marks are a great starting point for a painting that has life. This is also why looseness helps from the beginning.

I have made conscious decisions to use vibrating or close to vibrating colours many times in different areas throughout paintings. These vibrations lead to an optical effect that can be channeled and used toward the betterment of a painting when used thoughtfully. This painting above, will not contain extreme colour vibrations, but will use a blur and strobe effect together.

Blur and strobe. This is another method for creating an optical effect of motion. Futurist painter, Balla used it in his painting, dynamism of a Dog on a Leash. Photography is a great source of reference for these effects. In painting I have tried to harness and edit these effects where it can help the energy of the painting. These can be very powerful devices in a composition.

Thanks for reading. More development of the painting above to come next week.

Thanks also goes out to Hannele Lahti for her help in photographing this work in progress.

David Labrozzi

Hello and welcome,

Thank you for visiting.

This is the first entry in hopefully a long running blog of Labrozzi Illustration and some of the work inside the studio. My intent is to document, with a somewhat candid view, a working process as well as works in progress. And with this, I’ll share some ideas behind the Art of Image Making as it’s done at Labrozzi Illustration.

This first entry is a foundation piece for thesis development on motion. In fact, this is really a piece about colour vibration.

Colour vibration can certainly be a device toward the impression of motion. There are many others of course. Gesture, blur, and strobe effect, to name a few. Still, colour is often forgotten as a device toward this impression. It is a personal belief that colour vibration, and vibration across the surface of an image, is almost always overlooked as it pertains to composition. Vibration creates activity and draws the eye. If this can be harnessed, it is my belief it can be a powerful tool toward leading the eye in compositional practice.

So that’s the first entry.

Whether your reason for attending is for information or entertainment, I’m glad you’re here.

Sincerely,

David Labrozzi

Labrozzi Illustration