Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (pronunciation (help·info)), April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath: scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, musician and writer. Born at Vinci in the region of Florence, the illegitimate son of a notary, Messer Piero, and a peasant girl, Caterina, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan where several of his major works were created. He also worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, spending his final years in France at the home given him by King François I.
Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man" or universal genius, a man whose seemingly infinite curiosity was equalled only by his powers of invention.[1] He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.[2]
It is primarily as a painter that Leonardo was and is renowned. Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper occupy unique positions as the most famous, most reproduced and most parodied portrait and religious painting of all time, their fame approached only by Michelangelo's Creation of Adam.[1] Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also iconic. Perhaps fifteen paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination.[b] Nevertheless these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, comprise a contribution to later generations of artists only rivalled by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.
As an engineer, Leonardo conceived ideas vastly ahead of his own time, conceptualising a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, and the double hull, and outlining a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or even feasible during his lifetime,[c] but some of his smaller inventions such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire entered the world of manufacturing unheralded.[d] As a scientist, he greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.
Biography
Early life, 1452–1466
Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, in the lower valley of the Arno River in the territory of Florence and probably lived for his first five years in the nearby hamlet of Anchiano.[3] He was the illegitimate son of Ser Piero da Vinci, a Florentine notary, and Caterina, a peasant.[4] There is some evidence that Caterina may have been a slave from the Middle East.[e] Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense, "da Vinci" simply meaning "of Vinci": his full birth name was "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci", meaning "Leonardo, son of (Mes)ser Piero from Vinci." Little is known about his early life, which has been the subject of historical conjecture by Vasari and others.[5][3] At the age of five, he went to live in the household of his father, grandparents and uncle, Francesco, in the small town of Vinci, where his father had married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera, who loved Leonardo but unfortunately died young.[6]
Leonardo's earliest known drawing, the Arno Valley, 1473 - Uffizi
Leonardo was later to record only two incidents of his childhood. One, which he regarded as an omen, was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face.[6] The second incident occurred while he was exploring in the mountains. He discovered a cave and recorded his emotions at being, on one hand, terrified that some great monster might lurk there and on the other, driven by curiosity to find out what was inside.[6]
Vasari, the 16th century biographer of Renaissance painters, tells the story of how a local peasant requested that Ser Piero ask his talented son to paint a picture on a round plaque. Leonardo responded with a painting of snakes spitting fire which was so terrifying that Ser Piero sold it to a Florentine art dealer, who sold it to the Duke of Milan. Meanwhile, having made a profit, Ser Piero bought a plaque decorated with a heart pierced by an arrow which he gave to the peasant.[7]
Verrocchio's workshop, 1466–1476
The Baptism of Christ (1472–1475)—Uffizi, by Verrocchio and Leonardo
In 1466, at the age of fourteen, Leonardo was apprenticed to one of the most successful artists of his day, Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio. The workshop of this renowned master was at the centre of the intellectual currents of Florence, assuring the young Leonardo of an education in the humanities. Among the painters apprenticed or associated with the workshop and also to become famous, were Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Botticelli, and Lorenzo di Credi.[6][8]
In a Quattrocento workshop such as Verrocchio's, artists were regarded primarily as craftsmen and only the master such as Verrocchio had social standing. The products of a workshop included decorated tournament shields, painted dowry chests, christening platters, votive plaques, small portraits, and devotional pictures. Major commissions included altarpieces for churches and commemorative statues. The largest commissions were fresco cycles for chapels, such as those created by Ghirlandaio and his workshop in the Tornabuoni Chapel, and large statues such as the equestrian statues of Gattemelata by Donatello and Bartolomeo Colleoni by Verrocchio.[9]
As an apprentice, Leonardo would have been trained in all the countless skills that were employed in a traditional workshop. Although many craftsmen specialised in tasks such as frame-making, gilding and bronze casting, Leonardo would have been exposed to a vast range of technical skills and had the opportunity to learn drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics and carpentry as well as the obvious artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting and modelling.[10][11][12]
According to tradition, Leonardo posed for Verrocchio's David. Bargello Museum, Florence.
Although Verrocchio appears to have run an efficient and prolific workshop, he was primarily a goldsmith and metalworker.[8] Most of the painted production of his workshop was done by his employees, and few paintings can be ascertained as coming from his hand. On one of those, according to Vasari, Leonardo collaborated. The painting is the Baptism of Christ. According to Vasari, Leonardo painted the young angel holding Jesus’ robe in a manner that was so far superior to his master's that Verrocchio put down his brush and never painted again.[7] This is probably an exaggeration. On close examination, the painting reveals much that has been painted or touched up over the tempera using the new technique of oil paint. The landscape, the rocks that can be seen through the brown mountain stream and much of the figure of Jesus bears witness to the hand of Leonardo.[4]
The other creation of Verrocchio’s which is pertinent to the young Leonardo is the bronze statue of David, now in the Bargello Museum, which according to tradition is a portrait of the apprentice, Leonardo.[4] If this is the case, then in the figure of David we see Leonardo as a thin muscular boy, quite different to the rounded androgynous figure made by Verrocchio’s teacher, Donatello and with which it is often compared.[f] It is also suggested that the Archangel Michael in Verrocchio's Tobias and the Angel is a portrait of Leonardo.[4]
There are few records from this period of Leonardo's life. One is his earliest known dated work, a drawing done in pen and ink of the Arno valley, drawn on 5 August 1473.[g] [8] By 1472, at the age of twenty, Leonardo qualified as a master in the Guild of St Luke, the guild of artists and doctors of medicine,[h] but even after his father set him up in his own workshop, his attachment to Verrocchio was such that he continued to collaborate with him.[6]
Professional life, 1476–1513
Adoration of the Magi, return to text
The Adoration of the Magi, (1481)—Uffizi, Florence, Italy. This important commission was interrupted when Leonardo went to Milan.
It is assumed that Leonardo had his own workshop in Florence between 1476 and 1481. Court records of 1476 show that, with three other young men, he was charged with sodomy,[i] of which charges all were acquitted.[13] From this date there is no record of his work or even his whereabouts until 1478.[14]
In 1478 he was commissioned to paint an altarpiece for the Chapel of St Bernard and in 1481 by the Monks at Scopeto for The Adoration of the Magi. In 1482 Leonardo, whom Vasari tells us was a most talented musician, created a silver lyre in the shape of a horse's head. Lorenzo de’ Medici was so impressed with this that he decided to send both the lyre and its maker to Milan, in order to secure peace with Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan.[15] At this time Leonardo wrote an often-quoted letter to Ludovico, describing the many marvellous and diverse things that he could achieve in the field of engineering and informing the Lord that he could also paint.[16][8]
Between 1482 and 1499, when Louis XII of France occupied Milan, much of Leonardo’s work was in that city. It was here that he was commissioned to paint two of his most famous works, the Virgin of the Rocks for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, and The Last Supper for the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie.[6] While living in Milan between 1493 and 1495 Leonardo listed a woman called Caterina as among his dependants in his taxation documents. When she died in 1495, the detailed list of expenditure on her funeral suggests that she was his mother rather than a servant girl.[17][6]
Study of horse from Leonardo's journals- Royal Library, Windsor Castle.
For Ludovico, he worked on many different projects which included the preparation of floats and pageants for special occasions, designs for a dome for Milan Cathedral and a model for a huge equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza, Ludovico’s predecessor. Leonardo modelled a huge horse in clay, which became known as the "Gran Cavallo". It surpassed in size the only two large equestrian statues of the Renaissance, Donatello’s statue of Gattemelata in Padua and Verrocchio’s Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice.[8][j] Seventy tons of bronze were set aside for casting it. The monument remained unfinished for several years, which was not in the least unusual for Leonardo. In 1492 the clay model of the horse was completed, and Leonardo was making detailed plans for its casting.[8] Michelangelo rudely implied that he was unable to cast it.[6] In November 1494 Ludovico gave the bronze to be used for cannons to defend the city from invasion under Charles VIII.[8]
The French returned to invade Milan in 1499 under Louis XII and the invading French used the life-size clay model for the "Gran Cavallo" for target practice. With Ludovico Sforza overthrown, Leonardo, with his assistant Salai and friend, the mathematician Luca Pacioli, fled Milan for Venice. In Venice he was employed as a military architect and engineer, devising methods to defend the city from naval attack.[6][4]
Returning to Florence in 1500, he and his household were guests of the Servite monks at the monastery of Santissima Annunziata and were provided with a workshop where, according to Vasari, Leonardo created the cartoon of The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist, a work that won such admiration that "men and women, young and old" flocked to see it "as if they were attending a great festival".[7][k] In 1502 Leonardo entered the services of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer and travelling throughout Italy with his patron.[4] He returned to Florence where he rejoined the Guild of St Luke on 18th October 1503 and spent two years involved in designing and painting a great mural of The Battle of Anghiari for the Signoria,[4] with Michelangelo designing its companion piece, The Battle of Cascina.[l] In Florence in 1504, he was part of a committee formed to relocate, against the artist’s will, Michelangelo’s statue of David.[18]
In 1506 he returned to Milan, which was in the hands of Maximilian Sforza after Swiss mercenaries had driven out the French. Many of Leonardo’s most prominent pupils or followers in painting either knew or worked with him in Milan,[6] including Bernardino Luini, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio and Marco D'Oggione.[m] However, he did not stay in Milan for long, as his father died in 1504, and in 1507 he was back in Florence trying to sort out problems with his brothers over his fathers estate. By 1508 he was living in his own house in Milan, in Porta Orientale in the parish of Santa Babila.[4]
Old age
Clos Lucé, in France where Leonardo died in 1519.
From September 1513 to 1516, Leonardo spent much of his time living in the Belvedere in the Vatican in Rome, where Raphael and Michelangelo were both active at the time.[4] In October 1515, François I of France recaptured Milan.[19] On 19th December, Leonardo was present at the meeting of Francois I and Pope Leo X, which took place in Bologna.[6][20][21] It was for Francois that Leonardo was commissioned to make a mechanical lion which could walk forward, then open its chest to reveal a cluster of lilies.[7][n]In 1516, he entered François' service, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé[o] next to the king's residence at the royal Chateau Amboise. It was here that he spent the last three years of his life, accompanied by his friend and apprentice, Count Francesco Melzi, supported by a pension totalling 10,000 scudi.[4]
Leonardo died at Clos Lucé, France, on May 2, 1519. François I had become a close friend. Vasari records that the King held Leonardo’s head in his arms as he died, although this story, beloved by the French and portrayed by Ingres in a romantic painting, has been shown to be legend rather than fact.[p] Vasari also tells us that in his last days, Leonardo sent for a priest to make his confession and to receive the Holy Sacrament.[7] In accordance to his will, sixty beggars followed his casket. He was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in the castle of Amboise. Melzi was the principal heir and executor, receiving as well as money, Leonardo's paintings, tools, library and personal effects. Leonardo also remembered his other long-time pupil and companion, Salai and his servant Battista di Vilussis, who each received half of Leonardo's vineyards, his brothers who received land, and his serving woman who received a black cloak of good stuff with a fur edge.[22]
Some twenty years after Leonardo's death, François was reported by the goldsmith and sculptor Benevenuto Cellini as saying: "There had never been another man born in the world who knew as much as Leonardo, not so much about painting, sculpture and architecture, as that he was a very great philosopher." [23]
Relationships and influences
Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise, (1425-1452) were a source of communal pride. Many artists assisted in their creation.
Florence—Leonardo's artistic and social background
Leonardo commenced his apprenticeship with Verrocchio in 1466, the year that Verrocchio’s master, the great sculptor Donatello, died. The painter Uccello whose early experiments with perspective were to influence the development of landscape painting, was a very old man. The painters Piero della Francesca and Fra Filippo Lippi, sculptor Luca della Robbia, and architect and writer Alberti were in their sixties. The successful artists of the next generation were Leonardo's teacher Verrocchio, Antonio Pollaiuolo and the portrait sculptor, Mino da Fiesole whose lifelike busts give the most reliable likenesses of Lorenzo Medici's father Piero and uncle Giovanni.[24][25][26]
Leonardo's youth was spent in a Florence that was ornamented by the works of these artists and by Donatello's contemporaries, Masaccio whose figurative frescoes were imbued with realism and emotion and Ghiberti whose Gates of Paradise, gleaming with gold leaf, displayed the art of combining complex figure compositions with detailed architectural backgrounds. Piero della Francesca had made a detailed study of perspective, and was the first painter to make a scientific study of light. These studies and Alberti's Treatise were to have a profound effect on younger artists and in particular on Leonardo's own observations and artworks.[24][25][26]
Massaccio's depiction of the naked and distraught Adam and Eve leaving the Garden of Eden created a powerfully expressive image of the human form, cast into three dimensions by the use of light and shade which was to be developed in the works of Leonardo in a way that was to be influential in the course of painting. The Humanist influence of Donatello's David can be seen in Leonardo's late paintings, particularly John the Baptist.[24]
Lorenzo de' Medici between Antonio Pucci and Francesco Sassetti, with Giulio de' Medici, fresco by Ghirlandaio.
Leonardo’s political contemporaries were Lorenzo Medici (il Magnifico), who was three years older, and his popular younger brother Giuliano who was slain in the Pazzi Conspiracy in 1478. Ludovico il Moro who ruled Milan between 1479–1499 and to whom Leonardo was sent as ambassador from the Medici court, was also of Leonardo’s age.[24][25]
With Alberti, Leonardo visited the home of the Medici and through them came to know the older Humanist philosophers of whom Marsiglio Ficino, proponent of Neo Platonism and Cristoforo Landino, writer of commentaries on Classical writings, were foremost. Also associated with the Academy of the Medici was Leonardo's contemporary, the brilliant young poet and philosopher Pico della Mirandola.[26][27] Leonardo later wrote in the margin of a journal "The Medici made me and the Medici destroyed me." While it was through the action of Lorenzo that Leonardo was to receive his important Milanese commissions, it is not known exactly what Leonardo meant by this cryptic comment.[6]
Although usually named together as the three giants of the High Renaissance, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael were not of the same generation. Leonardo was 23 when Michelangelo was born and 31 when Raphael was born. The short-lived Raphael died in 1520, the year after Leonardo, but Michelangelo went on creating for another 45 years.[25][26]
Assistants and pupils
Salai as John the Baptist (c. 1514)—Louvre
Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno,[28] known as il Salaino ("The little devil) or Salai, was described by Giorgio Vasari as "a graceful and beautiful youth with fine curly hair, in which Leonardo greatly delighted."[7] Il Salaino entered Leonardo's household in 1490 at the age of ten. The relationship was not an easy one. A year later Leonardo made a list of the boy’s misdemeanours, calling him "a thief, a liar, stubborn, and a glutton. "The "Little Devil" had made off with money and valuables on at least five occasions, and spent a fortune on apparel, among which were twenty-four pairs of shoes.[29] Nevertheless, Leonardo’s notebooks during their early years contain many pictures of the handsome, curly-haired adolescent. Salai remained his companion, servant, and assistant for the next thirty years.[4]
In 1506, Leonardo took as a pupil Count Francesco Melzi, the fifteen-year-old son of a Lombard aristocrat. Melzi became Leonardo's life companion, and is considered to have been his favourite student. He travelled to France with Leonardo and Salai, and was with him until his death.[6] Salai, however, left France in 1518 and returned to Milan, where he built a house in portion of the vineyard owned by Leonardo and eventually bequeathed to him. In 1525 he died violently, either murdered or as the result of a duel.[30]
Salai executed a number of paintings under the name of Andrea Salai, but although Vasari claims that Leonardo "taught him a great deal about painting",[7] his work is generally considered to be of less artistic merit than others among Leonardo's pupils such as Marco d'Oggione and Boltraffio. In 1515 he painted a nude version of the Mona Lisa, known as Monna Vanna. [31] Salai owned the Mona Lisa at the time of his death in 1525 and in his will it was assessed at 505 lire, which was an exceptionally high value for a small panel portrait. [30]
Study for a portrait of Isabella d'Este (1500) Louvre. Isabella appears to have been his only female friend.
Personal life
Main article: Leonardo da Vinci's personal life
Leonardo had many friends who are now renowned in their fields, or for their influence on history. These included the mathematician Luca Pacioli with whom he collaborated on a book in the 1490s and Cesare Borgia, in whose service he spent the years 1502 and 1503. During that time he also met Niccolò Machiavelli, with whom later he was to develop a close friendship. Also among his friends were also Franchinus Gaffurius and Isabella d'Este. Leonardo appears to have had no close relationships with women except for Isabella d'Este. He drew a portrait of her while on a journey which took him through Mantua which appears to have been used to create a painted portrait, now lost.[6]
Beyond friendship, Leonardo kept his private life secret. Within his own lifetime his extraordinary powers of invention, his "outstanding physical beauty", "infinite grace", "great strength and generosity", "regal spirit and tremendous breadth of mind" as described by Vasari [7] attracted the curiosity of others. Many authors have speculated on various aspects of Leonardo's personality. His sexuality has often been the subject of study, analysis and speculation. This trend began in the mid 16th century and was revived in the 19th and 20th centuries, most notably by Sigmund Freud.[32]
Leonardo's most intimate relationships were with his pupils Salai and Melzi, Melzi writing that Leonardo's feelings for him were both loving and passionate. It has been claimed since the 16th century that these relationships were of an erotic nature. Since that date much has been written about his presumed homosexuality and its role in his art, particularly in the androgyny and eroticism manifested in John the Baptist and Bacchus and more explicitly in a number of drawings.[33]
Painting
Despite the recent awareness and admiration of Leonardo as a scientist and inventor, for the better part of four hundred years his enormous fame rested on his achievements as a painter and on a handful of works, either authenticated or attributed to him that have been regarded as among the supreme masterpieces ever created.[34]
These paintings are famous for a variety of qualities which have been much imitated by students and discussed at great length by connoisseurs and critics. Among the qualities that make Leonardo’s work unique are the innovative techniques that he used in laying on the paint, his detailed knowledge of anatomy, light, botany and geology, his interest in physiognomy and the way in which humans register emotion in expression and gesture, his innovative use of the human form in figurative composition and his use of the subtle gradation of tone. All these qualities come together in his most famous painted works, the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper and the Virgin of the Rocks.[35]
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that bound with medium of drying oil — especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil, such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense, these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body and gloss. Other oils occasionally used include poppyseed oil, walnut oil, and safflower oil. These oils give various properties to the oil paint, such as less yellowing or different drying times. Certain differences are also visible in the sheen of the paints depending on the oil. Painters often use different oils in the same painting depending on specific pigments and effects desired. The paints themselves also develop a particular feel depending on the media.
Techniques
A basic rule of oil paint application is 'fat over lean.' This means that each additional layer of paint should be a bit oilier than the layer below, to allow proper drying. Traditional oil painting techniques often begin with paint mixed with turpentine or artist grade mineral spirits or other lean vehicles. As a painting gets additional layers, the paint must get oilier (leaner to fatter) or the final painting will crack and peel. There are many other painting media that can be used in oil painting, including cold wax, resins, and varnishes. These additional media can aid the painter in adjusting the translucency of the paint, the sheen of the paint, the density or 'body' of the paint, and the ability of the paint to hold or conceal the brushstroke. These variables are closely related to the expressive capacity of oil paint. When looking at original oil paintings, the various traits of oil paint allow one to sense the choices the artist made as they applied the paint. For the viewer, the paint is still, but for the artist, the oil paint is a liquid or semi-liquid and must be moved 'onto' the painting surface.
Traditionally, moving paint was accomplished with paint brushes, but there are other methods, including the palette knife, the rag, and even directly from the paint tube. Oil paint remains wet longer than many other types of artists' materials, so a reality in many painter's studios is the removal of oil paint from the painting. This can be done with a rag and some turpentine for a certain time while the paint is wet, but after a while, the hardened layer must be scraped. Many oil paintings reveal evidence of such scraping on close inspection, particularly when the surface itself is examined. Oil paint dries by oxidation, not evaporation, and is usually dry to the touch in a day to two weeks. It is generally dry enough to be varnished in six months to a year. Art conservators do not consider an oil painting completely dry until it is 60 to 80 years old.
[edit]History
Oil paint was probably developed for decorative or functional purposes in the High Middle Ages. Surfaces like shields — both those used in tournaments and those hung as decorations — were more durable when painted in oil-based media than when painted in the traditional tempera paints.
Most Renaissance sources, in particular Vasari, credited northern European painters of the 15th century, and Jan van Eyck in particular, with the "invention" of painting with oil media on wood panel, however Theophilus (Roger of Helmarshausen?) clearly gives instructions for oil-based painting in his treatise, On Divers Arts, written in 1125. Early Netherlandish painting in the 15th century was however the first to make oil the usual painting medium, followed by the rest of Northern Europe, and only then Italy. The popularity of oil spread through Italy from the North, starting in Venice in the late 15th century. By 1540 the previous method for painting on panel, tempera had become all but extinct, although Italians continued to use fresco for wall paintings, which was more difficult in Northern climates.
[edit]Ingredients
The linseed oil itself comes from the flax seeds, and this flax was a common fiber crop. Recent advances in chemistry have produced modern water miscible oil paints that can be used with and cleaned up with water. Small alterations in the molecular structure of the oil creates this water miscible property.
A still-newer type of paint, heat-set oils, remain liquid until heated to 265–280 °F (130–138 °C) for about 15 minutes. Since the paint never dries otherwise, cleanup is not needed (except when one wants to use a different color and the same brush). Although not technically true oils (the medium is an unidentified "non-drying synthetic oily liquid, imbedded with a heat sensitive curing agent"), the paintings resemble oil paintings and are usually shown as oil paintings.
[edit]Carriers
Traditional artists' canvas is made from linen, but the less expensive cotton fabric has gained popularity. The artist first prepares a wooden frame called a “stretcher" or "strainer." The difference between the first and second is that stretchers are slightly adjustable, while strainers are rigid and lack adjustable corner notches. The canvas is then pulled across the wooden frame and tacked or stapled tightly to the back edge. The next step is for the artist to apply a "size" to isolate the canvas from the acidic qualities of the paint. Traditionally, the canvas was coated with a layer of animal glue (size), (modern painters will use rabbit skin glue) and primed with lead white paint, sometimes with added chalk. Panels were prepared with a gesso, a mixture of glue and chalk.
Modern acrylic "gesso" is made of titanium dioxide with an acrylic binder. It is frequently used on canvas, whereas real gesso is not suitable for that application. The artist might apply several layers of gesso, sanding each smooth after it has dried. Acrylic gesso is very difficult to sand. One manufacturer makes a sandable acrylic gesso, but it is intended for panels only, not canvas. It is possible to tone the gesso to a particular color, but most store-bought gesso is white. The gesso layer will tend to draw the oil paint into the porous surface, depending on the thickness of the gesso layer. Excessive or uneven gesso layers are sometimes visible in the surface of finished paintings as a change in the layer that's not from the paint.
Standard sizes for oil paintings were set in France in the 19th century. The standards were used by most artists, not only the French, as it was - and evidently still is - supported by the main suppliers of artist materials. The main separation from size 0 (toile de 0) to size 120 (toile de 120) is divided in separate runs for figures (figure), landscapes (paysage) and marines (marine) which more or less keep the diagonal. Thus a 0 figure corresponds in height with a paysage 1 and a marine 2 [1].
[edit]Process of oil painting
The process of oil painting varies from artist to artist, but often includes certain steps. First, the artist prepares the surface. Although surfaces like linoleum, wooden panel, paper, slate, pressed wood, and cardboard have been used, the most popular surface since the 16th century has been canvas, although many artists used panel through the 17th century and beyond. Before that it was panel, which is more expensive, heavier, less easy to transport, and prone to warp or split in poor conditions. For fine detail, however, the absolute solidity of a wooden panel gives an advantage.
The artist might sketch an outline of their subject prior to applying pigment to the surface. “Pigment” may be any number of natural substances with color, such as sulfur for yellow or cobalt for blue. The pigment is mixed with oil, usually linseed oil but other oils may be used as well. The various oils dry differently creating assorted effects.
Traditionally, an artist mixed his or her own paints for each project. Handling and mixing the raw pigments and mediums was prohibitive to transportation. This changed in the late 1800’s, when oil paint in tubes became widely available. Artists could mix colors quickly and easily without having to grind their own pigments. Also, the portability of tube paints allowed for plein air, or outdoor painting (common to French Impressionism).
The artist most often uses a brush to apply the paint. Brushes are made from a variety of fibers to create different effects. For example, brushes made with hog’s bristle might be used for bolder strokes. Brushes made from miniver, which is squirrel fur, might be used for finer details. Sizes of brushes also create different effects. For example, a "round" is a pointed brush used for detail work. "Bright" brushes are used to apply broad swaths of color. The artist might also apply paint with a palette knife, which is a flat, metal blade. A palette knife may also be used to remove paint from the canvas when necessary. A variety of unconventional tools, such as rags, sponges, and cotton swabs, may be used. Some artists even paint with their fingers.
Most artists paint in layers, a method first perfected in the Egg tempera painting technique, and adapted in Northern Europe for use with linseed oil paints. The first coat or "underpainting" is laid down first, painted normally with turpentine thinned paint. This layer helps to "tone" the canvas, and cover the white of the gesso. Many artists use this layer to sketch out the composition. This layer can be adjusted before moving forward, which is an advantage over the 'cartooning' method used in Fresco technique. After this layer dries, one way the artist might then proceed is by painting a "mosaic" of color swatches, working from darkest to lightest. The borders of the colors are blended together when the "mosaic" is completed. This layer is then left to dry before applying details. After it is dry, the artist will apply "glaze" to the painting, which is a thin, transparent layer to seal the surface. A classical work might take weeks or even months to layer the paint, but the most skilled early artists, such as Jan van Eyck, also used Wet-on-wet painting for some details. Artists in later periods such as the impressionist era often used this more widely, blending the wet paint on the canvas without following the Renaissance layering and glazing method. This method is also called "Alla Prima." When the image is finished and dried for up to a year, an artist would often seal the work with a layer of varnish typically made from damar gum crystals dissolved in turpentine. Contemporary artists increasingly resist the varnishing of their work, preferring that the surfaces remai
Acrylic paint is fast-drying paint containing pigment suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry. Depending on how much the paint is diluted (with water) or modified with acrylic gels, mediums, or pastes, the finished acrylic painting can resemble a watercolor or an oil painting, or have its own unique characteristics not attainable with the other media.
History
Acrylics were first made commercially available in the 1950s. These were mineral spirit-based paints called Magna[1] offered by Bocour Artist Colors. Water-based acrylic paints were subsequently sold as "latex" house paints, although acrylic dispersion uses no latex derived from a rubber tree. Interior "latex" house paints tend to be a combination of binder (sometimes acrylic, vinyl, pva and others), filler, pigment and water. Exterior "latex" house paints may also be a "co-polymer" blend, but the very best exterior water-based paints are 100% acrylic. Soon after the water-based acrylic binders were introduced as house paints, artists (the first of whom were Mexican muralists) and companies alike began to explore the potential of the new binders. Water soluble artist quality acrylic paints became commercially available in the early 1960s, offered by Liquitex.
[edit]Techniques
Acrylic artist paints may be thinned with water and used as washes in the manner of watercolor paints, but the washes are not re-hydratable once dry. For this reason, acrylics do not lend themselves to color lifting techniques as do gum arabic based watercolor paints.
Acrylic paints can be used in high gloss or matte finishes. As with oils, pigment amounts and particle size can alter the paint sheen. Likewise, matting agents can be added to dull the finish. Topcoats or varnishes may also be applied to alter sheen.
When dry, acrylic paint is generally non-removable. Water or mild solvents do not re-solubilize it, although isopropyl alcohol can lift some fresh paint films off. Toluene and acetone can remove paint films, but they do not lift paint stains very well and are not selective. The use of a solvent to remove paint will result in removal of all of the paint layers, acrylic gesso, etc.
Only a proper, artist-grade acrylic gesso should be used to prime canvas in preparation for painting with acrylic. Acrylic will not form a stable paint film if it has been thinned with too much water. However, the viscosity of acrylic can successfully be reduced by using suitable extenders that maintain the integrity of the paint film.
[edit]Painters and acrylic
Prior to the 20th century, artists mixed their own paints to increase the longevity of the artwork and achieve desired pigment load, viscosity, and to control the use of fillers, if any. While suitable mediums and raw pigments are available for the individual production of acrylic paint, due to the fast drying time, hand mixing may not be practical.
Acrylic painters modify the appearance, hardness, flexibility, texture, and other characteristics of the paint surface using acrylic mediums. Watercolor and oil painters also use various mediums, but the range of acrylic mediums is much greater. Acrylics have the ability to bond to many different surfaces, and mediums can be used to adjust their binding characteristics. They can also be used to build thick layers of paint: gel and molding paste mediums are sometimes used to create paintings with relief features that are literally sculptural.
Acrylic paints are the most commonly used in grattage.
[edit]Differences between acrylic and oil paint
The main difference between acrylics and oil paints is the inherent drying time. Oils allow for more time to blend colors and apply even glazes over underpaintings. This slow drying aspect of oil can be seen as an advantage for certain techniques, but in other regards it impedes the artist trying to work quickly. The fast evaporation of water from the acrylic paint film can be slowed with the use of retarders. Retarders are generally glycol or glycerine based additives. In the case of acrylic paints, the addition of a retarder slows the evaporation rate of the water, and allows for more water to be added and the paint workable, until the retarder has left the film and the paint layer is dry.
Oil paints tend to require the addition of a toxic solvent, such as mineral spirits or turpentine to thin the paints and clean up tools, though relatively recently water soluble oil paints have been developed for artist use. Secondly, oil paint films become increasing yellow and brittle, and will lose their flexibility in a few decades. Thirdly, the rules of "fat over lean" must be employed to ensure the paint films are durable.
Oil paint is able to absorb more pigment than acrylic because linseed oil has a smaller molecule than does acrylic. Oil has a different Refractive Index than Acrylic dispersions. This changes how light interacts with the paint films.
Due to acrylic's more flexible nature and more consistent drying time between colors, the painter does not have to follow the "fat over lean" rule of oil painting, where more medium must be applied to each layer to avoid cracking. While canvas needs to be properly primed and gessoed before painting with oil, acrylic can be safely applied to raw canvas. The rapid drying of the paint tends to discourage the blending of color and use of wet-in-wet technique unique to oil painting. While acrylic retarders can slow drying time to several hours, it remains a relatively fast-drying medium, and the addition of too much acrylic retarder can prevent the paint from ever drying properly.
Although the permanency of acrylics is sometimes debated by conservators, they appear more stable than oil paints. Whereas oil paints normally turn yellow as they age/dry(oxidize)—and require a removable protective layer of varnish—acrylic paints, at least in the 50 years since their invention, have not yellowed, cracked, or altered.
Acrylic paint
Charcoal
Clay
Collage
Drawing
Fresco
Glass
Gouache
Gum arabic
Lithography
Oil painting
Oil pastel
Paint
Painting
Pen and ink
Pencil
Pigment
Pottery
Serigraphy
Tempera
Watercolor painting
Woodcarving
Modern techniques:
Found objects
Video art
Photographs
Installations and Assemblage
Performances
Interactive multimedia
Land art, shaping natural materials in their found context
Artistic computer game modification, including Machinima
hie today was not my day though.
Everything almost sux for me.
But one thing that cheer me up though.
TSW praised me. That made a huge difference to my day.
Chemistry 3rd in class losing narrowly to Jeffrey, Andrew.
Arghh maths is going to be a headache.
Pissed of by my family.
Arghh somebody tell me what to do!
yeah 3-4 class t-shirt has finally been finallised. Ha ha many people have funny little names including some of the teachers. Like Ms Krishnan, she used AK-47 as her name. Haha she said that it is because some students thought of her as a machine gun. lol and also Mr Tan. He used "No Class" as his name. lol dunno where the he will teo lectured by the vp. Ms wong and i helped each other choosed our names. In the end, i gave her "Snow" as her name as snowprincess too long. And she gave me Snowboy as my name cause Snowprince too long too. Wow. IN the end our design look this way.(Top) Class 3-4 t-shirt finally done liao!
There are many kind of art styles like Abstract, Cubism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Impressionism, Pointillism, Pop Art, Postimpressionism, Primitivism, Realism and Surrealism. But i would only touch on this two. Abstract And Expressionism.
Expressionism
In Expressionist Art, the artist tries to express certain feelings about some thing. The artists that painted in this style were more concerned with having their paintings express a feeling than in making the painting look exactly like what they were painting. Well basically i like this tyles better although this is much more difficult. Drats. If it is easy i would already done this for my coursework next year.
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Abstract Art
Abstract artists felt that paintings did not have to show only things that were recognizable. In their paintings they did not try to show people, animals, or places exactly as they appeared in the real world. They mainly used color and shape in their paintings to show emotions. Some Abstract art is also called Non-objective art. In non-objective art, you do not see specific objects. It is not painted to look like something specific. Examples of Artists doing abstract art are Sonia Delaunay and Jackson Pollock.
just started on the workshop
quite hard
just came back frm volleyball
quite hard too
just went over my homework
dam hard
whoa today oral was siao!Volleyball was fun and i managed to play well in Spiker no 4 position. (according to wat kuan hao said) well nth else byew!
Haha just now Ms Chow msn me. She was saing something like*putput* or something like that. I was surprised. The i found out that this message was mean't for Ms Wong. Thus i told her directly. Haha quite funny. anyway i am blogging again because of the art blog going on again. More workshop for us. And what is more we are going to have a exhibition in november. Whoa too much to handle especially since the art paper is comming and i have to plan hard for it. Sigh. . . Just the start of the week and tsw is already guailan me. Dunno why she so pissed off. Anyway still got open house to plan for IT club... Trying to do my best for my studies... GTG bye =)
well my name is jie chou. i am 15 going 16 next year. i am from catholic high school. quite a cool school. my hobbies are playing sports especially volleyball. and i am not getting all my aces yet in my subject. Sob. Anyway i am 177cm tall, a ittle underweigt at 58kg. fit and maybe a little creative. I have cool teachers too. Yeah that is all bout me!
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (October 25, 1881 – April 8, 1973) was a Spanish painter and sculptor. His full name was Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Clito Ruiz y Picasso.[1] One of the most recognized figures in 20th century art, he is best known as the co-founder, along with Georges Braque, of cubism.
Pablo Picasso was born in Málaga, Spain, the first child of José Ruiz y Blasco and María Picasso y López. He was believed to be a stillborn baby. However his uncle, Salvador Quiz Blasco a well known doctor, revived the baby by blowing cigar smoke into lifeless Pablo's lungs [2]. He was christened with the names Pablo, Diego, José, Francisco de Paula, Juan Nepomuceno, Maria de los Remedios, and Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad.[3]
Picasso's father was a painter whose specialty was the naturalistic depiction of birds and who for most of his life was also a professor of art at the School of Crafts and a curator of a local museum. The young Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age; according to his mother,[4] his first word was "piz," a shortening of lápiz, the Spanish word for pencil.[5] It was from his father that Picasso had his first formal academic art training, such as figure drawing and painting in oil. Although Picasso attended art schools throughout his childhood, often those where his father taught, he never finished his college-level course of study at the Academy of Arts (Academia de San Fernando) in Madrid, leaving after less than a year.
After studying art in Madrid, he made his first trip to Paris in 1900, the art capital of Europe. In Paris, he lived with Max Jacob (journalist and poet), who helped him learn French. Max slept at night and Picasso slept during the day as he worked at night. There were times of severe poverty, cold, and desperation. Much of his work had to be burned to keep the small room warm. In 1901, with his friend Soler, he founded the magazine Arte Joven in Madrid. The first edition was entirely illustrated by him. From that day, he started to simply sign his work Picasso, while before he signed Pablo Ruiz y Picasso.
In the early years of the 20th century, Picasso, still a struggling youth, divided his time between Barcelona and Paris, where in 1904, he began a long-term relationship with Fernande Olivier. It is she who appears in many of the Rose period paintings. After acquiring fame and some fortune, Picasso left Olivier for Marcelle Humbert, whom Picasso called Eva. Picasso included declarations of his love for Eva in many Cubist works.
In Paris, Picasso entertained a distinguished coterie of friends in the Montmartre and Montparnasse quarters, including André Breton, poet Guillaume Apollinaire, and writer Gertrude Stein. Apollinaire was arrested on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911. Apollonaire pointed to his friend Picasso, who was also brought in for questioning, but both were later exonerated.[6]
He maintained a number of mistresses in addition to his wife or primary partner. Picasso was married twice and had four children by three women. In 1918, Picasso married Olga Khokhlova, a ballerina with Sergei Diaghilev's troupe, for whom Picasso was designing a ballet, Parade, in Rome. Khokhlova introduced Picasso to high society, formal dinner parties, and all the social niceties attendant on the life of the rich in 1920s Paris. The two had a son, Paulo, who would grow up to be a dissolute motorcycle racer and chauffeur to his father. Khokhlova's insistence on social propriety clashed with Picasso's bohemian tendencies and the two lived in a state of constant conflict. In 1927 Picasso met 17 year old Marie-Thérèse Walter and began a secret affair with her. Picasso's marriage to Khokhlova soon ended in separation rather than divorce, as French law required an even division of property in the case of divorce, and Picasso did not want Khokhlova to have half his wealth. The two remained legally married until Khokhlova's death in 1955. Picasso carried on a long-standing affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter and fathered a daughter, Maia, with her. Marie-Thérèse lived in the vain hope that Picasso would one day marry her, and hanged herself four years after Picasso's death.
The photographer and painter Dora Maar was also a constant companion and lover of Picasso. The two were closest in the late 1930s and early 1940s and it was Maar who documented the painting of Guernica.
After the liberation of Paris in 1944, Picasso began to keep company with a young art student, Françoise Gilot. The two eventually became lovers, and had two children together, Claude and Paloma. Unique among Picasso's women, Gilot left Picasso in 1953, allegedly because of abusive treatment and infidelities. This came as a severe blow to Picasso.
He went through a difficult period after Gilot's departure, coming to terms with his advancing age and his perception that, now in his 70s, he was no longer attractive, but rather grotesque to young women. A number of ink drawings from this period explore this theme of the hideous old dwarf as buffoonish counterpoint to the beautiful young girl, including several from a six-week affair with Geneviève Laporte, who in June 2005 auctioned off the drawings Picasso made of her.
Picasso was not long in finding another lover, Jacqueline Roque. Roque worked at the Madoura Pottery, where Picasso made and painted ceramics. The two remained together for the rest of Picasso's life, marrying in 1961. Their marriage was also the means of one last act of revenge against Gilot. Gilot had been seeking a legal means to legitimize her children with Picasso, Claude and Paloma. With Picasso's encouragement, she had arranged to divorce her then husband, Luc Simon, and marry Picasso to secure her children's rights. Picasso then secretly married Roque after Gilot had filed for divorce in order to exact his revenge for her leaving him.
Picasso had constructed a huge gothic structure and could afford large villas in the south of France, at Notre-dame-de-vie on the outskirts of Mougins, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Although he was a celebrity, there was often as much interest in his personal life as his art.
In addition to his manifold artistic accomplishments, Picasso had a film career, including a cameo appearance in Jean Cocteau's Testament of Orpheus. Picasso always played himself in his film appearances. In 1955 he helped make the film Le Mystère Picasso (The Mystery of Picasso) directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.
Pablo Picasso died on April 8, 1973 in Mougins, France, while he and his wife Jacqueline entertained friends for dinner. His final words were "Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can't drink any more."[7] He was interred at Castle Vauvenargues' park, in Vauvenargues, Bouches-du-Rhône. Jacqueline Roque prevented his children Claude and Paloma from attending the funeral.[8]
Blue Period
Picasso's Blue Period (1901–1904) consists of somber paintings rendered in shades of blue and blue-green, only occasionally warmed by other colors. This period's starting point is uncertain; it may have begun in Spain in the spring of 1901, or in Paris in the second half of the year.[15] In his austere use of color and sometimes doleful subject matter—prostitutes and beggars are frequent subjects—Picasso was influenced by a trip through Spain and by the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas. Starting in autumn of 1901 he painted several posthumous portraits of Casagemas, culminating in the gloomy allegorical painting La Vie, painted in 1903 and now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Claude Monet was one of the founding fathers of French Impressionism. Monet's concern was to reflect the influence of light on a subject. He never abandoned his Impressionist painting style until his death in 1926 when Fauvism and Cubism were en vogue and when abstract painting came into existence.
First Painting Lessons
Claude Monet was born in Paris, but grew up in Le Havre. His first artistic output were caricatures when he was a little boy. Close to his home was a little shop owned by a marine painter, Mr. Eugene Boudin. He recognized the talent of the boy and gave him his first painting lessons.
Claude's family was not very happy about his vocation for painting. In 1860 he was drafted and had to go to Northern Africa for two years. After his return from Africa he went to Paris and took painting lessons at Gleyre's studio in Paris. At the studio he got to know Auguste Renoir, Sisley, Bazille and others. The nucleus of the future Impressionist movement was born.
Painting en plein air
Soon Monet turned away from the traditional style of painting inside a studio. With his new friends he went outside in the Fontainebleau forest to paint in the open air. But the public and art critics ridiculed these new paintings that looked so different from any conventional art style.
In a caricature published in a newspaper, they were mocked with the proposal of chasing away the Prussian enemy by showing them Impressionist paintings - not very nice! When the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/71 broke out, Monet chose to go to London with his friend Pissarro. There he saw the paintings of William Turner in the museums of London.
The House in Giverny
After 1880 the public slowly begun to recognize the value of impressionism. Monet Claude and his friends could finally get some solid income from the sales of their paintings. In 1883 Monet rented a house in Giverny about 50 kilometers outside of Paris. Later, in 1890, he bought the house where he should stay until his death in 1926.
Claude Monet and Serial Paintings
In 1890 Monet began to paint systematically the same subjects under different light conditions. The first subject were the haystacks behind his house. As the light changed during the day faster than he could paint, he worked simultaneously on several canvases. At the end he had painted 25 different versions of the hay stacks.
More of the series paintings followed - the Rouen Cathedral, views of Venice or the Thames in London with the Houses of Parliament and other landmarks in London - often in the fog. When he painted in London in 1899 he said:
"Without the fog, Londong would not be a beautiful city."
And at another occasion, Monet put the quintessence of his art philosophy into the following sentence:
"I want the unobtainable. Other artists paint a bridge, a house, a boat, and that's the end. They are finished. I want to paint the air which surrounds the bridge, the house, the boat, the beauty of the air in which these objects are located, and that is nothing short of impossible."
Claude Monet Water Lilies
In his late years Claude Monet suffered from physical problems. After 1907 a bad eyesight and rheumatism made it more and more impossible for him to paint. But he continued until the year of his death. The great project over the last years was centered around his garden with a pond of water lilies and a Japanese bridge. He had even constructed a studio in his garden, so that he could paint more easily without being exposed to the weather outside.
In February 1926, at the age of 83, he could finish the last great challenge of his life - a commission by the French government for 22 mural paintings of water lilies. On December 5, 1926 Claude Monet died from lung cancer
Yeah tis is the doll that scared me most when i was there. Yuck look so real! At first i thought it was coming after me! WTF.
This is the hangings also from NAFA. Is 3diamension and quite creative in his way of expressing his feelings in it. I would give this 2 outtta 4 star. Quite nice to decorate my bedroom. ;X
This is one of the stone pictures although i don't quite grasp what this is trying to say, the shadows from all the realistic shades made the whole picture look quite real, as if i am walking in it. Wow
Ha cute pose for terrance. He was asking mr lim not to blackmail him after that! Heehee
haha this is the trip to NAFA where wai ying and terrance joke about all this real life 2d statues. it was quite admired by many until this duo came in. Haha
wow this is the UOB Painting of the year. Quite amazing how the artist merge the different meanings together in this fantastic drawing done mostly based on lines.
my name is ... .... Yeah and i am 15 this year and i am in art class. Well to begin, art to me is an enjoyment. It is a self expression as i am able to express my feelings stimulated through my daily activities in school, in the drawings and sketches i drew. To me art needs patience to cultivate. And most importantly practice. Therefore art should be an artist everything!
yeah went for SPLASH Awards and got 1st runner up. Haha there was da bomb and xiao wee hong zhi and me went laughing out time throughout the competition. Yeah there was 6 games(2 pc, 2 xbox 360, 2playstataion 3 games ) 240 dollars singtel voucher, 450 dollars cash prize... wonder how much i will receive
kk that is the good news, the bad news is that i have to take 2 retest tomorrow and 1 spa too. xD
Sam's birthday picture!
Hi it's NATIONAL DAY
anyway just found this pics on the net of me!
today was quite a wow day. First few period was quite okay but then mr tan keep scolding us, then everything else went fine and we even celebrated Samuel's birthday! We bought a big cake costing 20 dollars! Then we asked Jeffrey and Sebastian and together with kelvin and me, we... we ate the cake! Then we played football and went for re mastery review. Then heard of Andrew that ..... saying that there is a sneak preview for rush hour 3 and they wanted to watch. Thinking of that i thought of the movies i watched with my friends this year. Hm... Mr Bean on holiday. Spiderman 3 and some more i forgot. Nvm i went for volleyball later and played fairly well. And i am so supprised that Jeffrey can play so well! Anyway i went home with Melvin that pro! Yup that is all for today
today was a meaningful day for me. first the practical was screwed up, second was the physics retest, i think i did fairly well. I thought over a few days and wondered why i was feeling sad over the days, and i wondered why. Then i found out. Ms wong, the teacher whom i have felt like i have a second mother when she teach us. Other than her , ms tan seow wee is the second best teacher i can get along best with though i felt not as close to her than ms wong. Well the supplier for the t-shirt came down and well we planned so long and during the discussion ms tan also said i am cute! This reminds me of mrs tan who also said that i am cute. In all it came to nothing when ms foo say cannot wear it for the celebration. Thus i went for volleyball instead. In the end i went home with Jeffery and we both saw ms tan seow wee again. Said hi and went home. Well meaningful one for me.Our supposed class t-shirt. Done by Jie Qi and i edited a little. Hope you like it.
hiee today was an okay day for me, but now even Yuan Lao Shi say i am 可爱!!Well it is not that i wanna act cute, but there is already three teachers calling me cute!
well the recent art expedition at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts were fun expedition as we not only get to get together but also to see how professional their arts were.
Like the picture on the right were awesome as it is almost real looking to me. The faces one were cool and abstract.
yeah chemistry 29/35 marks and i think Jeffery and i are called the double J harhar.
anyway today when Ms Foo mention the changing of teachers, i was so sad.
Ms Wong was my best physics teacher so far. At that time i dun know where the to smile or to look sad. In the end, i almost ended of smiling.
at the end of the presentation, i was saying,"... We would like to thank ms wong for her guidance and teaching all this while. Thank you for being our physics teacher. THANK YOU MS WONG! We will miss you.
exams ended and i need to break free from the world.
this CA to me, is a waste.
not so well as i expected my results would get.
so many news.
now even ms wong dun wan to teach us.
how much more would it get!
jie chou get a grip
snowprince
15
Cat High
13 April
[[SnoWish]]
不能说的秘密 dvd
[[Snowlikes]]
any form of sports especially volleyball
[[Snowhates]]
backstabber
Doggie
Chalet for 3-4
All my Aces in my subjects
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows
30GB IPOD!
A Hamster
Get Into School's Volleyball Team
my fwends
going on outings with fwends
chatting on msn
my teachers
losers like Andrew
people who are not optimistic
people who confused my feelings
Edward
Juinli
Afrah
Alcia
Amanda Chua
Asraf
Hazel
Joyce
Wenxin
Liang Pin
Shi Hui
Xin Yee
Yong Chang
[[ Cat High Fwends]]
Jieqi
Samuel
Terrance
Wai Yinn
[[ Tagbox ]]
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (pronunciation (help·info)), April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath: scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, musician and writer. Born at Vinci in the region of Florence, the illegitimate son of a notary, Messer Piero, and a peasant girl, Caterina, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan where several of his major works were created. He also worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, spending his final years in France at the home given him by King François I.
Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man" or universal genius, a man whose seemingly infinite curiosity was equalled only by his powers of invention.[1] He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.[2]
It is primarily as a painter that Leonardo was and is renowned. Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper occupy unique positions as the most famous, most reproduced and most parodied portrait and religious painting of all time, their fame approached only by Michelangelo's Creation of Adam.[1] Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also iconic. Perhaps fifteen paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination.[b] Nevertheless these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, comprise a contribution to later generations of artists only rivalled by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.
As an engineer, Leonardo conceived ideas vastly ahead of his own time, conceptualising a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, and the double hull, and outlining a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or even feasible during his lifetime,[c] but some of his smaller inventions such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire entered the world of manufacturing unheralded.[d] As a scientist, he greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.
Biography
Early life, 1452–1466
Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, in the lower valley of the Arno River in the territory of Florence and probably lived for his first five years in the nearby hamlet of Anchiano.[3] He was the illegitimate son of Ser Piero da Vinci, a Florentine notary, and Caterina, a peasant.[4] There is some evidence that Caterina may have been a slave from the Middle East.[e] Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense, "da Vinci" simply meaning "of Vinci": his full birth name was "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci", meaning "Leonardo, son of (Mes)ser Piero from Vinci." Little is known about his early life, which has been the subject of historical conjecture by Vasari and others.[5][3] At the age of five, he went to live in the household of his father, grandparents and uncle, Francesco, in the small town of Vinci, where his father had married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera, who loved Leonardo but unfortunately died young.[6]
Leonardo's earliest known drawing, the Arno Valley, 1473 - Uffizi
Leonardo was later to record only two incidents of his childhood. One, which he regarded as an omen, was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face.[6] The second incident occurred while he was exploring in the mountains. He discovered a cave and recorded his emotions at being, on one hand, terrified that some great monster might lurk there and on the other, driven by curiosity to find out what was inside.[6]
Vasari, the 16th century biographer of Renaissance painters, tells the story of how a local peasant requested that Ser Piero ask his talented son to paint a picture on a round plaque. Leonardo responded with a painting of snakes spitting fire which was so terrifying that Ser Piero sold it to a Florentine art dealer, who sold it to the Duke of Milan. Meanwhile, having made a profit, Ser Piero bought a plaque decorated with a heart pierced by an arrow which he gave to the peasant.[7]
Verrocchio's workshop, 1466–1476
The Baptism of Christ (1472–1475)—Uffizi, by Verrocchio and Leonardo
In 1466, at the age of fourteen, Leonardo was apprenticed to one of the most successful artists of his day, Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio. The workshop of this renowned master was at the centre of the intellectual currents of Florence, assuring the young Leonardo of an education in the humanities. Among the painters apprenticed or associated with the workshop and also to become famous, were Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Botticelli, and Lorenzo di Credi.[6][8]
In a Quattrocento workshop such as Verrocchio's, artists were regarded primarily as craftsmen and only the master such as Verrocchio had social standing. The products of a workshop included decorated tournament shields, painted dowry chests, christening platters, votive plaques, small portraits, and devotional pictures. Major commissions included altarpieces for churches and commemorative statues. The largest commissions were fresco cycles for chapels, such as those created by Ghirlandaio and his workshop in the Tornabuoni Chapel, and large statues such as the equestrian statues of Gattemelata by Donatello and Bartolomeo Colleoni by Verrocchio.[9]
As an apprentice, Leonardo would have been trained in all the countless skills that were employed in a traditional workshop. Although many craftsmen specialised in tasks such as frame-making, gilding and bronze casting, Leonardo would have been exposed to a vast range of technical skills and had the opportunity to learn drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics and carpentry as well as the obvious artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting and modelling.[10][11][12]
According to tradition, Leonardo posed for Verrocchio's David. Bargello Museum, Florence.
Although Verrocchio appears to have run an efficient and prolific workshop, he was primarily a goldsmith and metalworker.[8] Most of the painted production of his workshop was done by his employees, and few paintings can be ascertained as coming from his hand. On one of those, according to Vasari, Leonardo collaborated. The painting is the Baptism of Christ. According to Vasari, Leonardo painted the young angel holding Jesus’ robe in a manner that was so far superior to his master's that Verrocchio put down his brush and never painted again.[7] This is probably an exaggeration. On close examination, the painting reveals much that has been painted or touched up over the tempera using the new technique of oil paint. The landscape, the rocks that can be seen through the brown mountain stream and much of the figure of Jesus bears witness to the hand of Leonardo.[4]
The other creation of Verrocchio’s which is pertinent to the young Leonardo is the bronze statue of David, now in the Bargello Museum, which according to tradition is a portrait of the apprentice, Leonardo.[4] If this is the case, then in the figure of David we see Leonardo as a thin muscular boy, quite different to the rounded androgynous figure made by Verrocchio’s teacher, Donatello and with which it is often compared.[f] It is also suggested that the Archangel Michael in Verrocchio's Tobias and the Angel is a portrait of Leonardo.[4]
There are few records from this period of Leonardo's life. One is his earliest known dated work, a drawing done in pen and ink of the Arno valley, drawn on 5 August 1473.[g] [8] By 1472, at the age of twenty, Leonardo qualified as a master in the Guild of St Luke, the guild of artists and doctors of medicine,[h] but even after his father set him up in his own workshop, his attachment to Verrocchio was such that he continued to collaborate with him.[6]
Professional life, 1476–1513
Adoration of the Magi, return to text
The Adoration of the Magi, (1481)—Uffizi, Florence, Italy. This important commission was interrupted when Leonardo went to Milan.
It is assumed that Leonardo had his own workshop in Florence between 1476 and 1481. Court records of 1476 show that, with three other young men, he was charged with sodomy,[i] of which charges all were acquitted.[13] From this date there is no record of his work or even his whereabouts until 1478.[14]
In 1478 he was commissioned to paint an altarpiece for the Chapel of St Bernard and in 1481 by the Monks at Scopeto for The Adoration of the Magi. In 1482 Leonardo, whom Vasari tells us was a most talented musician, created a silver lyre in the shape of a horse's head. Lorenzo de’ Medici was so impressed with this that he decided to send both the lyre and its maker to Milan, in order to secure peace with Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan.[15] At this time Leonardo wrote an often-quoted letter to Ludovico, describing the many marvellous and diverse things that he could achieve in the field of engineering and informing the Lord that he could also paint.[16][8]
Between 1482 and 1499, when Louis XII of France occupied Milan, much of Leonardo’s work was in that city. It was here that he was commissioned to paint two of his most famous works, the Virgin of the Rocks for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, and The Last Supper for the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie.[6] While living in Milan between 1493 and 1495 Leonardo listed a woman called Caterina as among his dependants in his taxation documents. When she died in 1495, the detailed list of expenditure on her funeral suggests that she was his mother rather than a servant girl.[17][6]
Study of horse from Leonardo's journals- Royal Library, Windsor Castle.
For Ludovico, he worked on many different projects which included the preparation of floats and pageants for special occasions, designs for a dome for Milan Cathedral and a model for a huge equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza, Ludovico’s predecessor. Leonardo modelled a huge horse in clay, which became known as the "Gran Cavallo". It surpassed in size the only two large equestrian statues of the Renaissance, Donatello’s statue of Gattemelata in Padua and Verrocchio’s Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice.[8][j] Seventy tons of bronze were set aside for casting it. The monument remained unfinished for several years, which was not in the least unusual for Leonardo. In 1492 the clay model of the horse was completed, and Leonardo was making detailed plans for its casting.[8] Michelangelo rudely implied that he was unable to cast it.[6] In November 1494 Ludovico gave the bronze to be used for cannons to defend the city from invasion under Charles VIII.[8]
The French returned to invade Milan in 1499 under Louis XII and the invading French used the life-size clay model for the "Gran Cavallo" for target practice. With Ludovico Sforza overthrown, Leonardo, with his assistant Salai and friend, the mathematician Luca Pacioli, fled Milan for Venice. In Venice he was employed as a military architect and engineer, devising methods to defend the city from naval attack.[6][4]
Returning to Florence in 1500, he and his household were guests of the Servite monks at the monastery of Santissima Annunziata and were provided with a workshop where, according to Vasari, Leonardo created the cartoon of The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist, a work that won such admiration that "men and women, young and old" flocked to see it "as if they were attending a great festival".[7][k] In 1502 Leonardo entered the services of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer and travelling throughout Italy with his patron.[4] He returned to Florence where he rejoined the Guild of St Luke on 18th October 1503 and spent two years involved in designing and painting a great mural of The Battle of Anghiari for the Signoria,[4] with Michelangelo designing its companion piece, The Battle of Cascina.[l] In Florence in 1504, he was part of a committee formed to relocate, against the artist’s will, Michelangelo’s statue of David.[18]
In 1506 he returned to Milan, which was in the hands of Maximilian Sforza after Swiss mercenaries had driven out the French. Many of Leonardo’s most prominent pupils or followers in painting either knew or worked with him in Milan,[6] including Bernardino Luini, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio and Marco D'Oggione.[m] However, he did not stay in Milan for long, as his father died in 1504, and in 1507 he was back in Florence trying to sort out problems with his brothers over his fathers estate. By 1508 he was living in his own house in Milan, in Porta Orientale in the parish of Santa Babila.[4]
Old age
Clos Lucé, in France where Leonardo died in 1519.
From September 1513 to 1516, Leonardo spent much of his time living in the Belvedere in the Vatican in Rome, where Raphael and Michelangelo were both active at the time.[4] In October 1515, François I of France recaptured Milan.[19] On 19th December, Leonardo was present at the meeting of Francois I and Pope Leo X, which took place in Bologna.[6][20][21] It was for Francois that Leonardo was commissioned to make a mechanical lion which could walk forward, then open its chest to reveal a cluster of lilies.[7][n]In 1516, he entered François' service, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé[o] next to the king's residence at the royal Chateau Amboise. It was here that he spent the last three years of his life, accompanied by his friend and apprentice, Count Francesco Melzi, supported by a pension totalling 10,000 scudi.[4]
Leonardo died at Clos Lucé, France, on May 2, 1519. François I had become a close friend. Vasari records that the King held Leonardo’s head in his arms as he died, although this story, beloved by the French and portrayed by Ingres in a romantic painting, has been shown to be legend rather than fact.[p] Vasari also tells us that in his last days, Leonardo sent for a priest to make his confession and to receive the Holy Sacrament.[7] In accordance to his will, sixty beggars followed his casket. He was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in the castle of Amboise. Melzi was the principal heir and executor, receiving as well as money, Leonardo's paintings, tools, library and personal effects. Leonardo also remembered his other long-time pupil and companion, Salai and his servant Battista di Vilussis, who each received half of Leonardo's vineyards, his brothers who received land, and his serving woman who received a black cloak of good stuff with a fur edge.[22]
Some twenty years after Leonardo's death, François was reported by the goldsmith and sculptor Benevenuto Cellini as saying: "There had never been another man born in the world who knew as much as Leonardo, not so much about painting, sculpture and architecture, as that he was a very great philosopher." [23]
Relationships and influences
Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise, (1425-1452) were a source of communal pride. Many artists assisted in their creation.
Florence—Leonardo's artistic and social background
Leonardo commenced his apprenticeship with Verrocchio in 1466, the year that Verrocchio’s master, the great sculptor Donatello, died. The painter Uccello whose early experiments with perspective were to influence the development of landscape painting, was a very old man. The painters Piero della Francesca and Fra Filippo Lippi, sculptor Luca della Robbia, and architect and writer Alberti were in their sixties. The successful artists of the next generation were Leonardo's teacher Verrocchio, Antonio Pollaiuolo and the portrait sculptor, Mino da Fiesole whose lifelike busts give the most reliable likenesses of Lorenzo Medici's father Piero and uncle Giovanni.[24][25][26]
Leonardo's youth was spent in a Florence that was ornamented by the works of these artists and by Donatello's contemporaries, Masaccio whose figurative frescoes were imbued with realism and emotion and Ghiberti whose Gates of Paradise, gleaming with gold leaf, displayed the art of combining complex figure compositions with detailed architectural backgrounds. Piero della Francesca had made a detailed study of perspective, and was the first painter to make a scientific study of light. These studies and Alberti's Treatise were to have a profound effect on younger artists and in particular on Leonardo's own observations and artworks.[24][25][26]
Massaccio's depiction of the naked and distraught Adam and Eve leaving the Garden of Eden created a powerfully expressive image of the human form, cast into three dimensions by the use of light and shade which was to be developed in the works of Leonardo in a way that was to be influential in the course of painting. The Humanist influence of Donatello's David can be seen in Leonardo's late paintings, particularly John the Baptist.[24]
Lorenzo de' Medici between Antonio Pucci and Francesco Sassetti, with Giulio de' Medici, fresco by Ghirlandaio.
Leonardo’s political contemporaries were Lorenzo Medici (il Magnifico), who was three years older, and his popular younger brother Giuliano who was slain in the Pazzi Conspiracy in 1478. Ludovico il Moro who ruled Milan between 1479–1499 and to whom Leonardo was sent as ambassador from the Medici court, was also of Leonardo’s age.[24][25]
With Alberti, Leonardo visited the home of the Medici and through them came to know the older Humanist philosophers of whom Marsiglio Ficino, proponent of Neo Platonism and Cristoforo Landino, writer of commentaries on Classical writings, were foremost. Also associated with the Academy of the Medici was Leonardo's contemporary, the brilliant young poet and philosopher Pico della Mirandola.[26][27] Leonardo later wrote in the margin of a journal "The Medici made me and the Medici destroyed me." While it was through the action of Lorenzo that Leonardo was to receive his important Milanese commissions, it is not known exactly what Leonardo meant by this cryptic comment.[6]
Although usually named together as the three giants of the High Renaissance, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael were not of the same generation. Leonardo was 23 when Michelangelo was born and 31 when Raphael was born. The short-lived Raphael died in 1520, the year after Leonardo, but Michelangelo went on creating for another 45 years.[25][26]
Assistants and pupils
Salai as John the Baptist (c. 1514)—Louvre
Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno,[28] known as il Salaino ("The little devil) or Salai, was described by Giorgio Vasari as "a graceful and beautiful youth with fine curly hair, in which Leonardo greatly delighted."[7] Il Salaino entered Leonardo's household in 1490 at the age of ten. The relationship was not an easy one. A year later Leonardo made a list of the boy’s misdemeanours, calling him "a thief, a liar, stubborn, and a glutton. "The "Little Devil" had made off with money and valuables on at least five occasions, and spent a fortune on apparel, among which were twenty-four pairs of shoes.[29] Nevertheless, Leonardo’s notebooks during their early years contain many pictures of the handsome, curly-haired adolescent. Salai remained his companion, servant, and assistant for the next thirty years.[4]
In 1506, Leonardo took as a pupil Count Francesco Melzi, the fifteen-year-old son of a Lombard aristocrat. Melzi became Leonardo's life companion, and is considered to have been his favourite student. He travelled to France with Leonardo and Salai, and was with him until his death.[6] Salai, however, left France in 1518 and returned to Milan, where he built a house in portion of the vineyard owned by Leonardo and eventually bequeathed to him. In 1525 he died violently, either murdered or as the result of a duel.[30]
Salai executed a number of paintings under the name of Andrea Salai, but although Vasari claims that Leonardo "taught him a great deal about painting",[7] his work is generally considered to be of less artistic merit than others among Leonardo's pupils such as Marco d'Oggione and Boltraffio. In 1515 he painted a nude version of the Mona Lisa, known as Monna Vanna. [31] Salai owned the Mona Lisa at the time of his death in 1525 and in his will it was assessed at 505 lire, which was an exceptionally high value for a small panel portrait. [30]
Study for a portrait of Isabella d'Este (1500) Louvre. Isabella appears to have been his only female friend.
Personal life
Main article: Leonardo da Vinci's personal life
Leonardo had many friends who are now renowned in their fields, or for their influence on history. These included the mathematician Luca Pacioli with whom he collaborated on a book in the 1490s and Cesare Borgia, in whose service he spent the years 1502 and 1503. During that time he also met Niccolò Machiavelli, with whom later he was to develop a close friendship. Also among his friends were also Franchinus Gaffurius and Isabella d'Este. Leonardo appears to have had no close relationships with women except for Isabella d'Este. He drew a portrait of her while on a journey which took him through Mantua which appears to have been used to create a painted portrait, now lost.[6]
Beyond friendship, Leonardo kept his private life secret. Within his own lifetime his extraordinary powers of invention, his "outstanding physical beauty", "infinite grace", "great strength and generosity", "regal spirit and tremendous breadth of mind" as described by Vasari [7] attracted the curiosity of others. Many authors have speculated on various aspects of Leonardo's personality. His sexuality has often been the subject of study, analysis and speculation. This trend began in the mid 16th century and was revived in the 19th and 20th centuries, most notably by Sigmund Freud.[32]
Leonardo's most intimate relationships were with his pupils Salai and Melzi, Melzi writing that Leonardo's feelings for him were both loving and passionate. It has been claimed since the 16th century that these relationships were of an erotic nature. Since that date much has been written about his presumed homosexuality and its role in his art, particularly in the androgyny and eroticism manifested in John the Baptist and Bacchus and more explicitly in a number of drawings.[33]
Painting
Despite the recent awareness and admiration of Leonardo as a scientist and inventor, for the better part of four hundred years his enormous fame rested on his achievements as a painter and on a handful of works, either authenticated or attributed to him that have been regarded as among the supreme masterpieces ever created.[34]
These paintings are famous for a variety of qualities which have been much imitated by students and discussed at great length by connoisseurs and critics. Among the qualities that make Leonardo’s work unique are the innovative techniques that he used in laying on the paint, his detailed knowledge of anatomy, light, botany and geology, his interest in physiognomy and the way in which humans register emotion in expression and gesture, his innovative use of the human form in figurative composition and his use of the subtle gradation of tone. All these qualities come together in his most famous painted works, the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper and the Virgin of the Rocks.[35]
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that bound with medium of drying oil — especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil, such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense, these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body and gloss. Other oils occasionally used include poppyseed oil, walnut oil, and safflower oil. These oils give various properties to the oil paint, such as less yellowing or different drying times. Certain differences are also visible in the sheen of the paints depending on the oil. Painters often use different oils in the same painting depending on specific pigments and effects desired. The paints themselves also develop a particular feel depending on the media.
Techniques
A basic rule of oil paint application is 'fat over lean.' This means that each additional layer of paint should be a bit oilier than the layer below, to allow proper drying. Traditional oil painting techniques often begin with paint mixed with turpentine or artist grade mineral spirits or other lean vehicles. As a painting gets additional layers, the paint must get oilier (leaner to fatter) or the final painting will crack and peel. There are many other painting media that can be used in oil painting, including cold wax, resins, and varnishes. These additional media can aid the painter in adjusting the translucency of the paint, the sheen of the paint, the density or 'body' of the paint, and the ability of the paint to hold or conceal the brushstroke. These variables are closely related to the expressive capacity of oil paint. When looking at original oil paintings, the various traits of oil paint allow one to sense the choices the artist made as they applied the paint. For the viewer, the paint is still, but for the artist, the oil paint is a liquid or semi-liquid and must be moved 'onto' the painting surface.
Traditionally, moving paint was accomplished with paint brushes, but there are other methods, including the palette knife, the rag, and even directly from the paint tube. Oil paint remains wet longer than many other types of artists' materials, so a reality in many painter's studios is the removal of oil paint from the painting. This can be done with a rag and some turpentine for a certain time while the paint is wet, but after a while, the hardened layer must be scraped. Many oil paintings reveal evidence of such scraping on close inspection, particularly when the surface itself is examined. Oil paint dries by oxidation, not evaporation, and is usually dry to the touch in a day to two weeks. It is generally dry enough to be varnished in six months to a year. Art conservators do not consider an oil painting completely dry until it is 60 to 80 years old.
[edit]History
Oil paint was probably developed for decorative or functional purposes in the High Middle Ages. Surfaces like shields — both those used in tournaments and those hung as decorations — were more durable when painted in oil-based media than when painted in the traditional tempera paints.
Most Renaissance sources, in particular Vasari, credited northern European painters of the 15th century, and Jan van Eyck in particular, with the "invention" of painting with oil media on wood panel, however Theophilus (Roger of Helmarshausen?) clearly gives instructions for oil-based painting in his treatise, On Divers Arts, written in 1125. Early Netherlandish painting in the 15th century was however the first to make oil the usual painting medium, followed by the rest of Northern Europe, and only then Italy. The popularity of oil spread through Italy from the North, starting in Venice in the late 15th century. By 1540 the previous method for painting on panel, tempera had become all but extinct, although Italians continued to use fresco for wall paintings, which was more difficult in Northern climates.
[edit]Ingredients
The linseed oil itself comes from the flax seeds, and this flax was a common fiber crop. Recent advances in chemistry have produced modern water miscible oil paints that can be used with and cleaned up with water. Small alterations in the molecular structure of the oil creates this water miscible property.
A still-newer type of paint, heat-set oils, remain liquid until heated to 265–280 °F (130–138 °C) for about 15 minutes. Since the paint never dries otherwise, cleanup is not needed (except when one wants to use a different color and the same brush). Although not technically true oils (the medium is an unidentified "non-drying synthetic oily liquid, imbedded with a heat sensitive curing agent"), the paintings resemble oil paintings and are usually shown as oil paintings.
[edit]Carriers
Traditional artists' canvas is made from linen, but the less expensive cotton fabric has gained popularity. The artist first prepares a wooden frame called a “stretcher" or "strainer." The difference between the first and second is that stretchers are slightly adjustable, while strainers are rigid and lack adjustable corner notches. The canvas is then pulled across the wooden frame and tacked or stapled tightly to the back edge. The next step is for the artist to apply a "size" to isolate the canvas from the acidic qualities of the paint. Traditionally, the canvas was coated with a layer of animal glue (size), (modern painters will use rabbit skin glue) and primed with lead white paint, sometimes with added chalk. Panels were prepared with a gesso, a mixture of glue and chalk.
Modern acrylic "gesso" is made of titanium dioxide with an acrylic binder. It is frequently used on canvas, whereas real gesso is not suitable for that application. The artist might apply several layers of gesso, sanding each smooth after it has dried. Acrylic gesso is very difficult to sand. One manufacturer makes a sandable acrylic gesso, but it is intended for panels only, not canvas. It is possible to tone the gesso to a particular color, but most store-bought gesso is white. The gesso layer will tend to draw the oil paint into the porous surface, depending on the thickness of the gesso layer. Excessive or uneven gesso layers are sometimes visible in the surface of finished paintings as a change in the layer that's not from the paint.
Standard sizes for oil paintings were set in France in the 19th century. The standards were used by most artists, not only the French, as it was - and evidently still is - supported by the main suppliers of artist materials. The main separation from size 0 (toile de 0) to size 120 (toile de 120) is divided in separate runs for figures (figure), landscapes (paysage) and marines (marine) which more or less keep the diagonal. Thus a 0 figure corresponds in height with a paysage 1 and a marine 2 [1].
[edit]Process of oil painting
The process of oil painting varies from artist to artist, but often includes certain steps. First, the artist prepares the surface. Although surfaces like linoleum, wooden panel, paper, slate, pressed wood, and cardboard have been used, the most popular surface since the 16th century has been canvas, although many artists used panel through the 17th century and beyond. Before that it was panel, which is more expensive, heavier, less easy to transport, and prone to warp or split in poor conditions. For fine detail, however, the absolute solidity of a wooden panel gives an advantage.
The artist might sketch an outline of their subject prior to applying pigment to the surface. “Pigment” may be any number of natural substances with color, such as sulfur for yellow or cobalt for blue. The pigment is mixed with oil, usually linseed oil but other oils may be used as well. The various oils dry differently creating assorted effects.
Traditionally, an artist mixed his or her own paints for each project. Handling and mixing the raw pigments and mediums was prohibitive to transportation. This changed in the late 1800’s, when oil paint in tubes became widely available. Artists could mix colors quickly and easily without having to grind their own pigments. Also, the portability of tube paints allowed for plein air, or outdoor painting (common to French Impressionism).
The artist most often uses a brush to apply the paint. Brushes are made from a variety of fibers to create different effects. For example, brushes made with hog’s bristle might be used for bolder strokes. Brushes made from miniver, which is squirrel fur, might be used for finer details. Sizes of brushes also create different effects. For example, a "round" is a pointed brush used for detail work. "Bright" brushes are used to apply broad swaths of color. The artist might also apply paint with a palette knife, which is a flat, metal blade. A palette knife may also be used to remove paint from the canvas when necessary. A variety of unconventional tools, such as rags, sponges, and cotton swabs, may be used. Some artists even paint with their fingers.
Most artists paint in layers, a method first perfected in the Egg tempera painting technique, and adapted in Northern Europe for use with linseed oil paints. The first coat or "underpainting" is laid down first, painted normally with turpentine thinned paint. This layer helps to "tone" the canvas, and cover the white of the gesso. Many artists use this layer to sketch out the composition. This layer can be adjusted before moving forward, which is an advantage over the 'cartooning' method used in Fresco technique. After this layer dries, one way the artist might then proceed is by painting a "mosaic" of color swatches, working from darkest to lightest. The borders of the colors are blended together when the "mosaic" is completed. This layer is then left to dry before applying details. After it is dry, the artist will apply "glaze" to the painting, which is a thin, transparent layer to seal the surface. A classical work might take weeks or even months to layer the paint, but the most skilled early artists, such as Jan van Eyck, also used Wet-on-wet painting for some details. Artists in later periods such as the impressionist era often used this more widely, blending the wet paint on the canvas without following the Renaissance layering and glazing method. This method is also called "Alla Prima." When the image is finished and dried for up to a year, an artist would often seal the work with a layer of varnish typically made from damar gum crystals dissolved in turpentine. Contemporary artists increasingly resist the varnishing of their work, preferring that the surfaces remai
Acrylic paint is fast-drying paint containing pigment suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry. Depending on how much the paint is diluted (with water) or modified with acrylic gels, mediums, or pastes, the finished acrylic painting can resemble a watercolor or an oil painting, or have its own unique characteristics not attainable with the other media.
History
Acrylics were first made commercially available in the 1950s. These were mineral spirit-based paints called Magna[1] offered by Bocour Artist Colors. Water-based acrylic paints were subsequently sold as "latex" house paints, although acrylic dispersion uses no latex derived from a rubber tree. Interior "latex" house paints tend to be a combination of binder (sometimes acrylic, vinyl, pva and others), filler, pigment and water. Exterior "latex" house paints may also be a "co-polymer" blend, but the very best exterior water-based paints are 100% acrylic. Soon after the water-based acrylic binders were introduced as house paints, artists (the first of whom were Mexican muralists) and companies alike began to explore the potential of the new binders. Water soluble artist quality acrylic paints became commercially available in the early 1960s, offered by Liquitex.
[edit]Techniques
Acrylic artist paints may be thinned with water and used as washes in the manner of watercolor paints, but the washes are not re-hydratable once dry. For this reason, acrylics do not lend themselves to color lifting techniques as do gum arabic based watercolor paints.
Acrylic paints can be used in high gloss or matte finishes. As with oils, pigment amounts and particle size can alter the paint sheen. Likewise, matting agents can be added to dull the finish. Topcoats or varnishes may also be applied to alter sheen.
When dry, acrylic paint is generally non-removable. Water or mild solvents do not re-solubilize it, although isopropyl alcohol can lift some fresh paint films off. Toluene and acetone can remove paint films, but they do not lift paint stains very well and are not selective. The use of a solvent to remove paint will result in removal of all of the paint layers, acrylic gesso, etc.
Only a proper, artist-grade acrylic gesso should be used to prime canvas in preparation for painting with acrylic. Acrylic will not form a stable paint film if it has been thinned with too much water. However, the viscosity of acrylic can successfully be reduced by using suitable extenders that maintain the integrity of the paint film.
[edit]Painters and acrylic
Prior to the 20th century, artists mixed their own paints to increase the longevity of the artwork and achieve desired pigment load, viscosity, and to control the use of fillers, if any. While suitable mediums and raw pigments are available for the individual production of acrylic paint, due to the fast drying time, hand mixing may not be practical.
Acrylic painters modify the appearance, hardness, flexibility, texture, and other characteristics of the paint surface using acrylic mediums. Watercolor and oil painters also use various mediums, but the range of acrylic mediums is much greater. Acrylics have the ability to bond to many different surfaces, and mediums can be used to adjust their binding characteristics. They can also be used to build thick layers of paint: gel and molding paste mediums are sometimes used to create paintings with relief features that are literally sculptural.
Acrylic paints are the most commonly used in grattage.
[edit]Differences between acrylic and oil paint
The main difference between acrylics and oil paints is the inherent drying time. Oils allow for more time to blend colors and apply even glazes over underpaintings. This slow drying aspect of oil can be seen as an advantage for certain techniques, but in other regards it impedes the artist trying to work quickly. The fast evaporation of water from the acrylic paint film can be slowed with the use of retarders. Retarders are generally glycol or glycerine based additives. In the case of acrylic paints, the addition of a retarder slows the evaporation rate of the water, and allows for more water to be added and the paint workable, until the retarder has left the film and the paint layer is dry.
Oil paints tend to require the addition of a toxic solvent, such as mineral spirits or turpentine to thin the paints and clean up tools, though relatively recently water soluble oil paints have been developed for artist use. Secondly, oil paint films become increasing yellow and brittle, and will lose their flexibility in a few decades. Thirdly, the rules of "fat over lean" must be employed to ensure the paint films are durable.
Oil paint is able to absorb more pigment than acrylic because linseed oil has a smaller molecule than does acrylic. Oil has a different Refractive Index than Acrylic dispersions. This changes how light interacts with the paint films.
Due to acrylic's more flexible nature and more consistent drying time between colors, the painter does not have to follow the "fat over lean" rule of oil painting, where more medium must be applied to each layer to avoid cracking. While canvas needs to be properly primed and gessoed before painting with oil, acrylic can be safely applied to raw canvas. The rapid drying of the paint tends to discourage the blending of color and use of wet-in-wet technique unique to oil painting. While acrylic retarders can slow drying time to several hours, it remains a relatively fast-drying medium, and the addition of too much acrylic retarder can prevent the paint from ever drying properly.
Although the permanency of acrylics is sometimes debated by conservators, they appear more stable than oil paints. Whereas oil paints normally turn yellow as they age/dry(oxidize)—and require a removable protective layer of varnish—acrylic paints, at least in the 50 years since their invention, have not yellowed, cracked, or altered.
Acrylic paint
Charcoal
Clay
Collage
Drawing
Fresco
Glass
Gouache
Gum arabic
Lithography
Oil painting
Oil pastel
Paint
Painting
Pen and ink
Pencil
Pigment
Pottery
Serigraphy
Tempera
Watercolor painting
Woodcarving
Modern techniques:
Found objects
Video art
Photographs
Installations and Assemblage
Performances
Interactive multimedia
Land art, shaping natural materials in their found context
Artistic computer game modification, including Machinima
hie today was not my day though.
Everything almost sux for me.
But one thing that cheer me up though.
TSW praised me. That made a huge difference to my day.
Chemistry 3rd in class losing narrowly to Jeffrey, Andrew.
Arghh maths is going to be a headache.
Pissed of by my family.
Arghh somebody tell me what to do!
yeah 3-4 class t-shirt has finally been finallised. Ha ha many people have funny little names including some of the teachers. Like Ms Krishnan, she used AK-47 as her name. Haha she said that it is because some students thought of her as a machine gun. lol and also Mr Tan. He used "No Class" as his name. lol dunno where the he will teo lectured by the vp. Ms wong and i helped each other choosed our names. In the end, i gave her "Snow" as her name as snowprincess too long. And she gave me Snowboy as my name cause Snowprince too long too. Wow. IN the end our design look this way.(Top) Class 3-4 t-shirt finally done liao!
There are many kind of art styles like Abstract, Cubism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Impressionism, Pointillism, Pop Art, Postimpressionism, Primitivism, Realism and Surrealism. But i would only touch on this two. Abstract And Expressionism.
Expressionism
In Expressionist Art, the artist tries to express certain feelings about some thing. The artists that painted in this style were more concerned with having their paintings express a feeling than in making the painting look exactly like what they were painting. Well basically i like this tyles better although this is much more difficult. Drats. If it is easy i would already done this for my coursework next year.
Abstract Art
Abstract artists felt that paintings did not have to show only things that were recognizable. In their paintings they did not try to show people, animals, or places exactly as they appeared in the real world. They mainly used color and shape in their paintings to show emotions. Some Abstract art is also called Non-objective art. In non-objective art, you do not see specific objects. It is not painted to look like something specific. Examples of Artists doing abstract art are Sonia Delaunay and Jackson Pollock.
just started on the workshop
quite hard
just came back frm volleyball
quite hard too
just went over my homework
dam hard
whoa today oral was siao!Volleyball was fun and i managed to play well in Spiker no 4 position. (according to wat kuan hao said) well nth else byew!
Haha just now Ms Chow msn me. She was saing something like*putput* or something like that. I was surprised. The i found out that this message was mean't for Ms Wong. Thus i told her directly. Haha quite funny. anyway i am blogging again because of the art blog going on again. More workshop for us. And what is more we are going to have a exhibition in november. Whoa too much to handle especially since the art paper is comming and i have to plan hard for it. Sigh. . . Just the start of the week and tsw is already guailan me. Dunno why she so pissed off. Anyway still got open house to plan for IT club... Trying to do my best for my studies... GTG bye =)
well my name is jie chou. i am 15 going 16 next year. i am from catholic high school. quite a cool school. my hobbies are playing sports especially volleyball. and i am not getting all my aces yet in my subject. Sob. Anyway i am 177cm tall, a ittle underweigt at 58kg. fit and maybe a little creative. I have cool teachers too. Yeah that is all bout me!
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (October 25, 1881 – April 8, 1973) was a Spanish painter and sculptor. His full name was Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Clito Ruiz y Picasso.[1] One of the most recognized figures in 20th century art, he is best known as the co-founder, along with Georges Braque, of cubism.
Pablo Picasso was born in Málaga, Spain, the first child of José Ruiz y Blasco and María Picasso y López. He was believed to be a stillborn baby. However his uncle, Salvador Quiz Blasco a well known doctor, revived the baby by blowing cigar smoke into lifeless Pablo's lungs [2]. He was christened with the names Pablo, Diego, José, Francisco de Paula, Juan Nepomuceno, Maria de los Remedios, and Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad.[3]
Picasso's father was a painter whose specialty was the naturalistic depiction of birds and who for most of his life was also a professor of art at the School of Crafts and a curator of a local museum. The young Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age; according to his mother,[4] his first word was "piz," a shortening of lápiz, the Spanish word for pencil.[5] It was from his father that Picasso had his first formal academic art training, such as figure drawing and painting in oil. Although Picasso attended art schools throughout his childhood, often those where his father taught, he never finished his college-level course of study at the Academy of Arts (Academia de San Fernando) in Madrid, leaving after less than a year.
After studying art in Madrid, he made his first trip to Paris in 1900, the art capital of Europe. In Paris, he lived with Max Jacob (journalist and poet), who helped him learn French. Max slept at night and Picasso slept during the day as he worked at night. There were times of severe poverty, cold, and desperation. Much of his work had to be burned to keep the small room warm. In 1901, with his friend Soler, he founded the magazine Arte Joven in Madrid. The first edition was entirely illustrated by him. From that day, he started to simply sign his work Picasso, while before he signed Pablo Ruiz y Picasso.
In the early years of the 20th century, Picasso, still a struggling youth, divided his time between Barcelona and Paris, where in 1904, he began a long-term relationship with Fernande Olivier. It is she who appears in many of the Rose period paintings. After acquiring fame and some fortune, Picasso left Olivier for Marcelle Humbert, whom Picasso called Eva. Picasso included declarations of his love for Eva in many Cubist works.
In Paris, Picasso entertained a distinguished coterie of friends in the Montmartre and Montparnasse quarters, including André Breton, poet Guillaume Apollinaire, and writer Gertrude Stein. Apollinaire was arrested on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911. Apollonaire pointed to his friend Picasso, who was also brought in for questioning, but both were later exonerated.[6]
He maintained a number of mistresses in addition to his wife or primary partner. Picasso was married twice and had four children by three women. In 1918, Picasso married Olga Khokhlova, a ballerina with Sergei Diaghilev's troupe, for whom Picasso was designing a ballet, Parade, in Rome. Khokhlova introduced Picasso to high society, formal dinner parties, and all the social niceties attendant on the life of the rich in 1920s Paris. The two had a son, Paulo, who would grow up to be a dissolute motorcycle racer and chauffeur to his father. Khokhlova's insistence on social propriety clashed with Picasso's bohemian tendencies and the two lived in a state of constant conflict. In 1927 Picasso met 17 year old Marie-Thérèse Walter and began a secret affair with her. Picasso's marriage to Khokhlova soon ended in separation rather than divorce, as French law required an even division of property in the case of divorce, and Picasso did not want Khokhlova to have half his wealth. The two remained legally married until Khokhlova's death in 1955. Picasso carried on a long-standing affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter and fathered a daughter, Maia, with her. Marie-Thérèse lived in the vain hope that Picasso would one day marry her, and hanged herself four years after Picasso's death.
The photographer and painter Dora Maar was also a constant companion and lover of Picasso. The two were closest in the late 1930s and early 1940s and it was Maar who documented the painting of Guernica.
After the liberation of Paris in 1944, Picasso began to keep company with a young art student, Françoise Gilot. The two eventually became lovers, and had two children together, Claude and Paloma. Unique among Picasso's women, Gilot left Picasso in 1953, allegedly because of abusive treatment and infidelities. This came as a severe blow to Picasso.
He went through a difficult period after Gilot's departure, coming to terms with his advancing age and his perception that, now in his 70s, he was no longer attractive, but rather grotesque to young women. A number of ink drawings from this period explore this theme of the hideous old dwarf as buffoonish counterpoint to the beautiful young girl, including several from a six-week affair with Geneviève Laporte, who in June 2005 auctioned off the drawings Picasso made of her.
Picasso was not long in finding another lover, Jacqueline Roque. Roque worked at the Madoura Pottery, where Picasso made and painted ceramics. The two remained together for the rest of Picasso's life, marrying in 1961. Their marriage was also the means of one last act of revenge against Gilot. Gilot had been seeking a legal means to legitimize her children with Picasso, Claude and Paloma. With Picasso's encouragement, she had arranged to divorce her then husband, Luc Simon, and marry Picasso to secure her children's rights. Picasso then secretly married Roque after Gilot had filed for divorce in order to exact his revenge for her leaving him.
Picasso had constructed a huge gothic structure and could afford large villas in the south of France, at Notre-dame-de-vie on the outskirts of Mougins, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Although he was a celebrity, there was often as much interest in his personal life as his art.
In addition to his manifold artistic accomplishments, Picasso had a film career, including a cameo appearance in Jean Cocteau's Testament of Orpheus. Picasso always played himself in his film appearances. In 1955 he helped make the film Le Mystère Picasso (The Mystery of Picasso) directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.
Pablo Picasso died on April 8, 1973 in Mougins, France, while he and his wife Jacqueline entertained friends for dinner. His final words were "Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can't drink any more."[7] He was interred at Castle Vauvenargues' park, in Vauvenargues, Bouches-du-Rhône. Jacqueline Roque prevented his children Claude and Paloma from attending the funeral.[8]
Blue Period
Picasso's Blue Period (1901–1904) consists of somber paintings rendered in shades of blue and blue-green, only occasionally warmed by other colors. This period's starting point is uncertain; it may have begun in Spain in the spring of 1901, or in Paris in the second half of the year.[15] In his austere use of color and sometimes doleful subject matter—prostitutes and beggars are frequent subjects—Picasso was influenced by a trip through Spain and by the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas. Starting in autumn of 1901 he painted several posthumous portraits of Casagemas, culminating in the gloomy allegorical painting La Vie, painted in 1903 and now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Claude Monet was one of the founding fathers of French Impressionism. Monet's concern was to reflect the influence of light on a subject. He never abandoned his Impressionist painting style until his death in 1926 when Fauvism and Cubism were en vogue and when abstract painting came into existence.
First Painting Lessons
Claude Monet was born in Paris, but grew up in Le Havre. His first artistic output were caricatures when he was a little boy. Close to his home was a little shop owned by a marine painter, Mr. Eugene Boudin. He recognized the talent of the boy and gave him his first painting lessons.
Claude's family was not very happy about his vocation for painting. In 1860 he was drafted and had to go to Northern Africa for two years. After his return from Africa he went to Paris and took painting lessons at Gleyre's studio in Paris. At the studio he got to know Auguste Renoir, Sisley, Bazille and others. The nucleus of the future Impressionist movement was born.
Painting en plein air
Soon Monet turned away from the traditional style of painting inside a studio. With his new friends he went outside in the Fontainebleau forest to paint in the open air. But the public and art critics ridiculed these new paintings that looked so different from any conventional art style.
In a caricature published in a newspaper, they were mocked with the proposal of chasing away the Prussian enemy by showing them Impressionist paintings - not very nice! When the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/71 broke out, Monet chose to go to London with his friend Pissarro. There he saw the paintings of William Turner in the museums of London.
The House in Giverny
After 1880 the public slowly begun to recognize the value of impressionism. Monet Claude and his friends could finally get some solid income from the sales of their paintings. In 1883 Monet rented a house in Giverny about 50 kilometers outside of Paris. Later, in 1890, he bought the house where he should stay until his death in 1926.
Claude Monet and Serial Paintings
In 1890 Monet began to paint systematically the same subjects under different light conditions. The first subject were the haystacks behind his house. As the light changed during the day faster than he could paint, he worked simultaneously on several canvases. At the end he had painted 25 different versions of the hay stacks.
More of the series paintings followed - the Rouen Cathedral, views of Venice or the Thames in London with the Houses of Parliament and other landmarks in London - often in the fog. When he painted in London in 1899 he said:
"Without the fog, Londong would not be a beautiful city."
And at another occasion, Monet put the quintessence of his art philosophy into the following sentence:
"I want the unobtainable. Other artists paint a bridge, a house, a boat, and that's the end. They are finished. I want to paint the air which surrounds the bridge, the house, the boat, the beauty of the air in which these objects are located, and that is nothing short of impossible."
Claude Monet Water Lilies
In his late years Claude Monet suffered from physical problems. After 1907 a bad eyesight and rheumatism made it more and more impossible for him to paint. But he continued until the year of his death. The great project over the last years was centered around his garden with a pond of water lilies and a Japanese bridge. He had even constructed a studio in his garden, so that he could paint more easily without being exposed to the weather outside.
In February 1926, at the age of 83, he could finish the last great challenge of his life - a commission by the French government for 22 mural paintings of water lilies. On December 5, 1926 Claude Monet died from lung cancer
Yeah tis is the doll that scared me most when i was there. Yuck look so real! At first i thought it was coming after me! WTF.
This is the hangings also from NAFA. Is 3diamension and quite creative in his way of expressing his feelings in it. I would give this 2 outtta 4 star. Quite nice to decorate my bedroom. ;X
This is one of the stone pictures although i don't quite grasp what this is trying to say, the shadows from all the realistic shades made the whole picture look quite real, as if i am walking in it. Wow
Ha cute pose for terrance. He was asking mr lim not to blackmail him after that! Heehee
haha this is the trip to NAFA where wai ying and terrance joke about all this real life 2d statues. it was quite admired by many until this duo came in. Haha
wow this is the UOB Painting of the year. Quite amazing how the artist merge the different meanings together in this fantastic drawing done mostly based on lines.
my name is ... .... Yeah and i am 15 this year and i am in art class. Well to begin, art to me is an enjoyment. It is a self expression as i am able to express my feelings stimulated through my daily activities in school, in the drawings and sketches i drew. To me art needs patience to cultivate. And most importantly practice. Therefore art should be an artist everything!
yeah went for SPLASH Awards and got 1st runner up. Haha there was da bomb and xiao wee hong zhi and me went laughing out time throughout the competition. Yeah there was 6 games(2 pc, 2 xbox 360, 2playstataion 3 games ) 240 dollars singtel voucher, 450 dollars cash prize... wonder how much i will receive
kk that is the good news, the bad news is that i have to take 2 retest tomorrow and 1 spa too. xD
Sam's birthday picture!
Hi it's NATIONAL DAY
anyway just found this pics on the net of me!
today was quite a wow day. First few period was quite okay but then mr tan keep scolding us, then everything else went fine and we even celebrated Samuel's birthday! We bought a big cake costing 20 dollars! Then we asked Jeffrey and Sebastian and together with kelvin and me, we... we ate the cake! Then we played football and went for re mastery review. Then heard of Andrew that ..... saying that there is a sneak preview for rush hour 3 and they wanted to watch. Thinking of that i thought of the movies i watched with my friends this year. Hm... Mr Bean on holiday. Spiderman 3 and some more i forgot. Nvm i went for volleyball later and played fairly well. And i am so supprised that Jeffrey can play so well! Anyway i went home with Melvin that pro! Yup that is all for today
today was a meaningful day for me. first the practical was screwed up, second was the physics retest, i think i did fairly well. I thought over a few days and wondered why i was feeling sad over the days, and i wondered why. Then i found out. Ms wong, the teacher whom i have felt like i have a second mother when she teach us. Other than her , ms tan seow wee is the second best teacher i can get along best with though i felt not as close to her than ms wong. Well the supplier for the t-shirt came down and well we planned so long and during the discussion ms tan also said i am cute! This reminds me of mrs tan who also said that i am cute. In all it came to nothing when ms foo say cannot wear it for the celebration. Thus i went for volleyball instead. In the end i went home with Jeffery and we both saw ms tan seow wee again. Said hi and went home. Well meaningful one for me.Our supposed class t-shirt. Done by Jie Qi and i edited a little. Hope you like it.
hiee today was an okay day for me, but now even Yuan Lao Shi say i am 可爱!!Well it is not that i wanna act cute, but there is already three teachers calling me cute!
well the recent art expedition at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts were fun expedition as we not only get to get together but also to see how professional their arts were.
Like the picture on the right were awesome as it is almost real looking to me. The faces one were cool and abstract.
yeah chemistry 29/35 marks and i think Jeffery and i are called the double J harhar.
anyway today when Ms Foo mention the changing of teachers, i was so sad.
Ms Wong was my best physics teacher so far. At that time i dun know where the to smile or to look sad. In the end, i almost ended of smiling.
at the end of the presentation, i was saying,"... We would like to thank ms wong for her guidance and teaching all this while. Thank you for being our physics teacher. THANK YOU MS WONG! We will miss you.
exams ended and i need to break free from the world.
this CA to me, is a waste.
not so well as i expected my results would get.
so many news.
now even ms wong dun wan to teach us.
how much more would it get!
jie chou get a grip