Taking the Plunge to Full-Time Artist

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

Today is the anniversary date of the day I sold my beeswax candle business in 2001 and took the plunge full-time into an art career. It has been a bit of a roller coaster ride and I cannot say it is a life of security by any means; however, it was the right move for me. And the only one I could have made by that point in my life and even today, twelve years later.

As a thank you for helping me keep to this journey, I typically have a special offer in January to help you get more art in your life. This offer is detailed in my recent art newsletter that is posted on my Web site. In this newsletter, I have also shared some of my experiences and images while visiting the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. In addition, I have written a bit about artists Richard Serra and David Hockney.

Whether your interest is in sculpture or travel or even 2-dimensional artworks, I hope that you will check out my latest art news: http://www.borsheimarts.com/news/2013_01_GuggenheimSerraBilbao.htm and help me celebrate TWELVE full years of art making! Thank you for reading and riding along!

P.S. Many thanks to my friend Anna Laura in Mexico who took this silly shot of me pole dancing among friends when we had “The Blob” to ourselves this past July. I enjoyed getting to be friends with her as she lived in Firenze for a short time. Charming girl. [The Blob is a horrible little nightclub that is one of the few open till 5 a.m. in Florence, Italy. There are more images from that party on Facebook, my “Friends – Album V” in case you are curious.]

Happy birthday, Aunt Patsy! Let’s dance some more!

Guggenheim Serra Bilbao

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

Friday 11 January is my 12th anniversary for taking the plunge into full-time art. I have been busy writing my next art newsletter for those on my list. The main subjects will be the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, as well as the architectural sculptures of Richard Serra that are part of the Guggenheim’s permanent collection. I include a few of my images here as a wee bit of a teaser.

Also included in the newsletter will be my annual special offer on my available artworks. (I am still dreaming that up!) If you would like to receive this newsletter and have not yet signed up for it (the list is a different one from this blog subscription), please visit my contact page to subscribe. You may also read past newsletters to see if you would enjoy receiving your own copy, click on my art newsletter table of contents page: www.borsheimarts.com/newsletter.htm.

Thank you for sharing this artistic journey with me. And stay tuned . . .

Buon compleanno, Tomaso!

San Sebastian Spain

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

Sometimes life feels like a “chicken and egg” thing. My friend Victor Goikoetxea who I met in Firenze, Italia, had only just told me about his mural painting workshop in his hometown of San Sebastian, Spain, when one of my collectors with a home in Italy told me that he had an idea for a mural he wanted me to paint. It has been a crazy, life-filled summer with a few unexpected twists.

With my schedule I found myself flying into Barcelona from Italy in time to catch the overnight bus across northern Spain. I arrived around 7 a.m. and was greeted by my kind host, one of Victor’s cousins. He drove us home and after being introduced to his family and dropping off my suitcase, his wife and kids walked me over to the mural workshop in the central part of the city. We began the first lesson shortly after 9:30 a.m.

While I have studied perspective before, I always need to “relearn it,” not using it to this degree so often. We spent the first 2-3 days calculating the proportions of a design that Victor had already come up with. The drawing of the bozzetto is the most important part of the work and most of us took a full week just for the drawings. We drew everything to a smaller scale than our real project and thus, one must always remember which number we are referring to. It spins my head around and I enjoy math!

Anyway, after working that whole day after a long sleep-deprived bus ride, I was surprised at my energy level. I met all the other artists taking the workshop and went out with a couple of women from Paris that evening. We had dinner on the beach and I took this snapshot of San Sebastian’s famous shore. Do you see the light in the clouds in the shape of a bird? I love watching skies!

The first thing that really struck me about this city is the architecture. It feels as if Alphonse Mucha and his Art Deco tribe settled here and made themselves comfortable. It is gorgeous here, with even door pulls having flowing beauty. Prettier than Bilbao. There… I wrote it.

By the third day, I was drawing an enlarged version of my bozzetto onto my canvas at three times the scale. We drew with pencil and will paint with acrylics and oil. Having already designed most of my first mural project in Italy, I was grateful that we were saving time on this workshop project because our instructor Victor had already done all of the creative design work for us. Sometimes I think that people just think we pop this stuff out of our heads. Well, sometimes we do (usually after many years of creating), but just like Albert Einstein, few become genius before having worked a lot in the field beforehand, learning, making mistakes, making progress, and repeating the whole process… a lot. I doubt very much that geniuses are born. Made, I believe in. Even then, most of us do not reach that lofty title, and remain simply students. It is a good thing that learning itself is rewarding.

P.S. No, I have not forgotten the anniversary that most people are thinking of today. I have no wish to make light of what happened by seeming uncaring about it. But I have always been confused on where the line is between remembering loved ones we have lost and letting losers remain famous for their “triumphs.” In my own personal grieving, I rarely remember the day a loved one dies, preferring to remember the life and the love, wherever and as often as it moves me.

Eugenio Lucas Velázquez Bilbao Spain

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

In my last post, I wrote about seeing the etchings of Francisco de Goya in the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Spain.

A small part of the wonderful exhibition was a collection of paintings inspired by Goya’s etching style and ideas. Most of those works were beyond me. [I think that is my current polite way of saying that I either do not understand it or I just do not like something.] However, one small painting blew me away! It was an oil painting on copper titled “The Communion” by Spanish painter Eugenio Lucas Velázquez (1817–1870). It was painting in 1855 and the depiction of light is phenomenal!

This is a strong composition that relies heavily on the composition “Rule of Thirds.” This rule refers to the idea of dividing the image into thirds by using a grid system (think Tic Tac Toe, but with any rectangle). The four points where these vertical and horizontal dividing lines meet are the key points of interest for the eye. The strong light figure on the left side coincides along one of these lines. The strong dark figure in the lower right also lies on a point of interest, more or less.

The overall horizontal design of this painting gives one a sense of calm. The dramatically lit standing figure gives the feeling of strength and stability (the basic emotional feelings for vertical lines). And yet, diagonals are where we get our sense of drama, or more important, movement. We are kept from being bored in Eugenio Lucas Velázquez’s painting because of the subtle diagonal of the crouching figures. Their heights vary and if one moves along the top of this gathering of sinners, one can imagine playing music or something. [I suppose this is one of those weird Synesthesia situations or perhaps only the memory of my musical training.] And if that were not enough, the artist has given us a strong diagonal of light underlying the figures and leading the viewer’s eye back into the standing priest in white.

The faces and figures are hardly detailed. The small painting has quite a lot of texture, even in some of the darker areas. It is a rich painting of a grande idea. It is simply (or not so simply) gorgeous.

Goya Bilbao Spain

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

This past week and for this next one, I am learning the art of mural painting from my friend and colleague Victor Goikoetxea in a workshop here in San Sebastian, Spain. I was lucky enough to be offered a day trip on Saturday to nearby Bilbao with my host family, one of Victor’s cousins. After arriving in Bilbao, I was dropped off in front of the famous Guggenheim Museum. That was fun, but even before I explored the grounds of the Guggenheim, I saw banners hanging from the street lamps advertising something even more enticing.

I could not believe my luck: there is an exhibition going on at the nearby Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao of Francisco de Goya’s etchings! I find myself intrigued with etchings and know that if I possibly can, I will learn more about this process enough to try my hand at it. Goya (1746-1828) changed the way that etchings were viewed. According to the writings on the walls of the museum, etchings were traditionally created as copies of paintings. They were intended to create a wider public awareness and appreciation for a painter’s work. Rarely before Goya had anyone used the printmaking process to create original compositions. And what wonders Goya created!

Even if you find Goya’s subject matter dark or too satirical or something (insert your own adjective here) for your taste, perhaps you can appreciate his dramatic imagination, as well as his ideas of composing in light and dark. Much of his work was a direct outcry at the excesses and abuses he saw in his own culture and for this, he was not without censure. He was a master at expressing himself. While the museum permitted absolutely no photographs, I include here some of Goya’s etchings and/or aquatints that I found on the Internet that show much of his skill in creating many different tones by “scratching” made into copper plates. I know artists who work in this medium and it is not a skill developed overnight!

Goya: “The Well-Known Folly” aka “If Two to One Stuff Your Arse With Straw”

Goya: Disparates series -- “Strange Folly”

Goya: Lucientes – “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters” the caprices, 1799

Goya: “And They Still Won’t Go” 1799

Goya: ”Disparate de Bestia”

Goya: “Que Viene Coco” or “Here Comes the Bogey Man” 1799

Goya: “Los Ensacados” or “The Bagged” 1823

This exhibit of Francisco de Goya and other artists inspired by Goya ends on 23 September 2012.

Incidentally, two of the etchings that I saw had a figure in it that no doubt inspired the Frankenstein image we see in films. I was stunned at the resemblances!

Pastel Life Drawing

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

Although I move slowly, I have little patience for waiting. Today I want to share with you two brief sketches I did to help pass some time. These days I try to keep with me a small pastel kit and some black paper. It is a contrasty look that perhaps lends itself to more drama and less softness than lighter papers and more subtle techniques encourage.

This first one is titled “Beach Talk” I took about a week holiday in June to visit one of my models (and friend) on the island of Palma de Mallorca, Spain, flying in and out of Ibiza in the process. During the one really sunny day in Palma, we headed off for a small, but charming beach.

I find sunbathing boring and the water was too cold to swim in just yet ... so I tried to sketch these women chatting with each other on the beach. It looked to me as if they had known each other for a long time. I was hoping that I could capture some of their naturalness with each other.

Unfortunately, once they noticed me drawing them, they turned their chairs to face the water! Still, it was a good challenge to draw people who were moving about and not trying to pose. And in general, I like the idea of sunshine, but not the reality. Shortly after I did what I could with this sketch, I headed into the ocean for a refreshing swim.


"Beach Talk" Palma de Mallorca, Spain
20 x 28 cm June 2010
pastel on black paper
Private Collection, Caprese Michelangelo, Italia

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This second sketch happened because of a recent trip to Lucca, Italia. The logistics of carrying five people in a vehicle equipped for three left my model Nathan and me opting to wait for the second run. This young man was quite a charming first-time portrait model and we both enjoyed the process, fitting in a nap along the top of the tree-shaded wall surrounding Lucca before our ride arrived again.


“Nathan” Lucca, Italia
6 July 2010
pastel on black paper
Private collection, United Kingdom