Silhouettes

Dai Vernon is a name that few people interested in magic will not know. Apart from his well acknowledged ability of sleight of hand, another talent he had was cutting silhouette portraits and this skill contributed to his income.

Silhouette portrait artists still exist and armed with scissors and paper, they attend weddings or other functions and can cut a portrait for someone in less than two minutes. Others work from a studio, cutting portraits in a matter of minutes for each client.

Here is a video of Denise Clark cutting a portrait.

Here is a video of Tim Arnold who has been a silhouette artist for over thirty years.

Silhouette artists can also be found in Britain; one example is The Roving Artist Ltd, a business employing more than one such artist.

[The videos are copyright by the named artists]

Updates on Projects

The question that I have received most is ‘Why have you stopped uploading videos of your work?’ I have not stopped making the videos, they simply have not been uploaded yet. The reason for the delay is that I have been using different methods of filming other than time lapse photography and the results require more time in editing them into short videos. The reason for the change was to obtain a better quality of picture in the videos. The camera and software being used had a setback of a low resolution when in time lapse mode. It is a bit of an oddity considering all the other modes have a high resolution.

I have tried editing together a series of photographs for several oil paint portraits and the results are okay. Because the paintings take more than one day, it is a reasonable method to use but it is of no use when concentrating on a drawing or ink sketch which can be finished in an hour or two. It is too much trouble to get the right amount of photos, it interrupts my concentration and prolongs the task in an unacceptable way.

For these reasons, the time from the picture being completed and the video of the work being uploaded is now much greater.

Another reason, as far the project The Dead is concerned, is that the videos have been held back until after this year’s Remembrance Day. Although it was explained that the project is for Remembrance Day 2010, based on only one video from the project being made available there has been continual questioning from people regarding its use this year. Therefore, as stated above, no more videos from that project will be uploaded until sometime in November.

The only other piece of news is that the project Magicians has been given a longer time scale for completion due to the list of portraits required being lengthened.

The Old Masters

I received an unexpected present from my wife yesterday. Jill bought me the anniversary edition of How To Paint Like The Old Masters written by Joseph Sheppard. This is an unusual and yet popular book. It has been around for thirty years and is in no way intended for beginners. If you cannot already paint a portrait there is no point buying this book (the publishers might tell you different). Even then, the book has a value more for Art History than practical application.

For in this book, Joseph Sheppard takes the reader through a detailed process of describing how paintings were done in previous centuries. His example artists are Dürer (1461-1528), Titian (c.1488-1576), Veronese (1528-1588), Caravaggio (1571-1610), Rubens (1577-1640), Hals (1580-1666), Rembrandt (1606-1669) and Vermeer (1632-1675). Instead of taking the usual route of other art books, where a painting of the artist is shown and then a less than helpful whistle-stop tour of technique is given, Sheppard paints a portrait from scratch and gives photographs of each stage. That may seem simple enough but the techniques and styles of painting have changed so much that the methods given in Sheppard’s book may astonish the young modern artist.

Most modern artists use the alla prima method. Alla prima means ‘all at once’ and describes how the artist begins and finishes a painting in one sitting. It is a loose term because sometimes two or three sittings may actually be needed. In alla prima what is central is that the colour and tone is built up all at once and not in layers, usually varnished layers.

That is how the old masters did it: in layers. Paint a layer. Wait a few days while it dried. Varnish/glaze it. Wait a few days for that to dry. Paint the next layer. Wait some more days for that to dry. And so on. A single painting may take weeks to complete and along the way the look of the painting might perturb a viewer. The flesh colour appears in a portrait during the latter half of the painting as a translucent wash; before that, the subject may appear very grey or silver in one method because those are the colours used in the primary layers. The final result is worth it if you have the patience, or rather, if your client has the patience.

Another set back for the novice with this book is the necessity of making your own paints and preparing your own linseed oil. The painting methods can be done with paint from a tube and bought artists linseed oil but the end result can be hit or miss. Sheppard is somewhat upbeat on the point and encourages the reader to make up his/her own mind. However, way back when, many years ago when I received training from Ed Howard, I spent a lot of boring hours preparing oil paint from scratch. I also did what is called ‘washing’ the linseed oil to take out any colour from it that ruins the delicate colour of a thin translucent layer of paint. Even the artists’ linseed oil bought from art shops does not match this and tends to have the colour of honey rather than having a clearer look about it. The home made DIY method is troublesome and boring but produces a better quality of paint and final picture. However, the difference is hardly visible in a photograph or print and so the modern, quicker methods prevail and with some sense when art is now more commonly seen by the public in printed mediums.

Even if you cannot paint, have no intention of learning to do so but have an appreciation of 16th and 17th century art then Sheppard’s book could be useful to you in deepening your understanding of the trouble that Titian, Rembrandt and others went to in order to paint a single portrait

Snippets of News

Well, last week the mysterious white box that controls my access to the internet died in a puff of smoke and so my access to my own website and work has been limited. All was fixed yesterday thanks to the speedy response of my internet provider. You might think that a week was a long time to achieve that but with some internet providers people can end up waiting months. I am grateful it was only a week.

That, of course, means the work on my website is a week behind. Apologies to those waiting for the two remaining sections to completed.

Anyway, the news that should have been in my blog last week (if I was able to connect to the internet) is that there is an interview of me regarding my artwork in the latest issue of Magicseen. The article includes some samples of my portraits. A better reason to buy the magazine is the other articles; there are some really interesting ones. There is an interview with magical inventor Ben Harris, Craig Petty writing about gaffed coins and a feature on David Copperfield – which is something we do not see often in British Magic Magazines.

Those of you who have visited my updated website have asked questions on my new art project The Dead. Here are the answers to the two most frequently asked questions. Firstly, no, it does not mean that the Magicians project is finished; that will continue along side this new project. Secondly, The Dead is timed for Remembrance Day next year, not this year.

A piece of news regarding the Magicians project is that the client, after reflecting on the matter for some time, decided that the portrait of Noel Britten should not be included in the project. The basis of his decision is that Britten’s public image is connected more to comedy than it is to magic. Various arguments against the decision could not counter two points on which the client remains firm. Firstly, although the magic which forms an integral part of The Bizarre Bath Comedy Walk has been performed for eighteen years or so now (by Noel Britten and JJ) and has a world wide reputation, the outward image is still focused on comedy. Secondly, while Britten is respected for his work by the magic community, the general public see him as a comedian and not a magician. For that reason, the portrait is offered for sale to the general public in a ‘sealed’ or ‘blind’ bid auction. The full details are on my website in the art section.

One final piece of news is that the paperback A Briefe And Pleasaunt Treatise, Entituled, Naturall and Artificiall Conclusions by Thomas Hill, the text of 1581, is now on sale. You can buy a copy on my website (using the link on the Home page) or from my Ebay shop John Helvin's Books.

Vote For The Next Portrait Of A Magician To Be Painted

The project of portraits of magicians continues (not all the portraits are available to see on the internet). Not all the portraits will be oil paint on canvas and I thought I would give people a chance to vote as to who will be the next magician to be painted in that medium.

So, below is a poll with four historical magicians. Vote for the one you think should be the next subject for an oil painting. Voting ends on the evening of the 31st of August. In the meantime, I will be painting some watercolour portraits of modern magicians and a pen and wash of Egyptian Hall during the Maskelyne period.



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