Watercolors after: (l to r) Michelangelo, El Greco, Thomas Eakins

            Circa 1975/1976

In the fall of 1975 at my Brooklyn art school, Pratt Institute, I began my University Without Walls program. This was a great program where the student chose what they wanted to do; their choice of classes (at Pratt or another school) or working on your own with a mentor. It was perfect for me. Luckily, through the program, I was hooked up with the legendary caricaturist David Levine. He turned out to be a mentor of mine for my remaining year and a half at Pratt. Levine was foremost a painter and turned to his pen and ink caricatures to make money so he could continue to paint, go figure. Besides being a wonderful man he was a great teacher (one of my best) and really helped me learn to draw. One thing he always stressed was to learn from the masters. Copy! Copy! Copy! But, he also stressed, copy in your own way. So, for me doing caricatures of master paintings was fine with him, as long as I was learning from them. He was an amazing watercolorist and had me try my hand at it. His process: first paint a thin coat of Gesso on the paper, put down a wash of color and then with a brush and/or a little sponge push and pull the color around to create highlights. Then go back with more watercolor. As you proceed you always let the watercolors dry to create their own bloops and blobs. The layer of Gesso worked as a protection, so doing all of that rubbing with a sponge didn’t distress the paper. That was his process, not mine, but recently finding some forgotten experiments of mine, from that time, was fun to see again.

Taken on: December 16, 2019

Tags:

watercolors

painting

david levine

pratt institute « less

Sets appears in: • Early Tulka

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