u/martin__singer

Acrylic on paper
29.5 × 21 cm

Here is an exercise created using the ink wash technique with India ink and drawing gum, based on two folding screens and crane motifs as reference images. The wash is a mixture of water and India ink, and drawing gum is a masking fluid that preserves the white of the paper: you just have to remove it by rubbing it off with your fingertips. I explained to the students that I wanted a light and shadow effect, imagining how a lateral light source would fall on the folding screen.

Initially, I wanted to depict the figure holding a pane of glass tinted red, seeing the object only through its transparency and the modulations created by overlapping colors. Then I stopped along the way. I preferred strangeness over demonstration.
Acrylic on paper
29.5 × 21 cm

Like actors miming a scene, only the position of the characters has been kept (from a still from Hitchcock's I Confess, notable difference: the man in the center has become a woman).
Acrylic on paper
29.7 × 21 cm

For this painting, I used an image taken from the classic film noir "They Drive by Night" (translated in a very macho way in French as "Une femme dangereuse" / "A Dangerous Woman" — you know, no profit too small, whenever they can discredit women in France, they don't hold back...), released in 1940 and directed by Raoul Walsh.
Acrylic on paper
33.4 × 26.2 cm

Now, parity - that's already a sign the subject is starting to run out of steam...
Acrylic on paper
29.7 × 21 cm

Acrylic on paper
29.7 × 21 cm

I remember painting these first bodies intuitively, without trying to understand in a more cerebral way how it works (because that's when things go wrong, and the painting with them).
Acrylic on paper
30.8 × 21 cm

Acrylic on paper
29.7 × 20.5 cm

Here is an exercise based on a photograph of a work by the designer and artist Roy McMakin (a pink writing table and chair set, which I've included as the last image). I asked my adult students to recreate the three parts (table, drawer, chair) in a different color, adding either black or white to maintain the tonal values ​​of the original photograph.

With this modestly sized painting begins a series in which the sculptural rendering of bodies is brought to the fore.
Acrylic on paper
29.7 × 21 cm

When you take three steps forward, you sometimes take two steps back, just to see if you didn't leave anything behind along the way. In this case, for this painting: a sculptural way of painting. Acrylic on paper,
34.2 × 24.3 cm

When you take three steps forward, you sometimes take two steps back, just to see if you didn't leave anything behind along the way. In this case, for this painting: a sculptural way of painting. Acrylic on paper, 34.2 × 24.3 cm

In this painting, I reconnect with my matierist leanings. I played with the repetition of the shapes in the hair, as well as the very geometric rhythm of the arms and bodies. The successive positions of the bodies (from left to right) first descend toward the depressive figure, then ascend toward the window, toward a brighter future (hopefully).

Here, this is not Judith but Salome with the head of John the Baptist. For once, I didn't paint over the gummed tape that is used to stretch the sheet, so you can see the irregular edges.

What is the figure in the foreground on the right doing? He is lifting a sheet that reveals the upper body of a reclining woman. I didn't do it with that intention, but it reminds me of a famous 1936 engraving by Picasso: "Faun Unveiling a Woman" (from the Vollard Suite).

Acrylic on paper
42 × 30 cm

What is the figure in the foreground on the right doing? He is lifting a sheet that reveals the upper body of a reclining woman. I didn't do it with that intention, but it reminds me of a famous 1936 engraving by Picasso: "Faun Unveiling a Woman" (from the Vollard Suite).

For this painting, I used a photo of a film set, not a still from the film itself, a photo from which I erased the actors. In short, only the set remains.
Acrylic on paper
42 × 29.8 cm