Artist Influences: Rembrandt
The Artist Influences series is going to be about the top artists who left a great impression on me over the years. I can think of a top ten list right off the top of my head. Let's start with a classic painter.
One of the many artists I took a great deal of inspiration from is Rembrandt. Let me just say that if I had a name like Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, I'd just go by my first name, too! Easier, right? Funny, I have the opposite problem where people have a hard time pronouncing my last name!
Despite being a tortured artist from life dumping endless misfortunes on he and his family, he continually whipped out brilliant stuff. Light, texture, sense of space, and atmosphere are elements he excelled in.
Also it bears mentioning that his process of painting, the dutch -Flemish style, is the one that I have largely adopted to create all of my personal paintings.
The Night Watch by Rembrandt
With Rembrandt, it's all about the lighting. See how well it works in the Night Watch painting above. Studying his work immediately impressed the notion of how very important it is to capture lighting within a painting. It makes the subjects feel more 3-dimensional and less flat. It's also a great way to highlight your key players in a piece with a lot of characters in it. Shine ’em up to make sure they become the stars of the piece.
Carcass of Beef (Pictured below) is a painting that most closely resembles my style, especially in relation to my sepia paintings. Mmm... Dead ox for dinner!
Carcass of Beef by Rembrandt
I haven't really gotten the bug to do a ton of self-portraits like Rembrandt did. I've sketched a few, but for now, I'm more obsessed with painting as many of my favorite monsters as possible. Guess I'm not a monster... Yet!
I'll leave you with a painting I feel expresses my interest in examining light rather well. It's definitely much more colorful, but I'm proud of all the little lighting nuances in my Candyman piece.
Candyman by Chris Kuchta
Its been a little while since I posted so I have to apologize about not being more frequent. This here is my new gem The Candyman. I posted this on Facebook a little while ago but here you see I improved of the image. Tell me what you think.
