Interlude - The Wasp

It's taken a while for me to get into the swing of the new Ecuador painting. There are so many different things to include, and so many different colours to mix for it, that it's been very "stop and start". After working on it for days it didn't look as though I had done much more than a couple of hour's worth.

To make myself feel better I painted this quick study of a dead wasp. At 6 x 6" it's a very small painting, but it has a certain amount of rhythm and energy; qualities that I love in a painting.

Over the past few months I have been visiting the National Gallery a lot, partly to improve what little I know of Art History, but mostly just to get fired up. On a recent trip there I spent some time looking at Botticelli's "Venus and Mars", one of my favourites in the collection. It was the wasps buzzing around Mars' head (just visible on the extreme right) that stuck in my mind and triggered my sketch. Once I had found a subject, and glued it to a bit of card (!), I was away.

Asking Price: SOLD!

The Fear

Beginning a new painting can sometimes be a nerve-wracking ordeal. It's much like jumping into a pool of cool water on a hot day; the will is there, but the dread of the initial shock paralyses you into inaction. Ridiculous I know, but I am not alone in this. An old work colleague of mine used to refer to it as, "The Fear".

After a few false starts, I have taken the plunge and am painting a new market scene from Riobamba. It's full of detail so may take some time to complete, but so far so good. Rather than painting a panoramic view I have decided instead
on a fairly large square canvas (36"x36"). By limiting the view, you get a sense of being there yourself, jostling against the other people. The picture also has some strong verticals which gives the picture depth. It will be interesting to see how it turns out. In the meantime, here are a few details from the initial sketch.

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Stephan Fullagar - The Paint Brush Diaries

A Nice Little Earner

A very good friend of mine commissioned me to paint this 12x12 inch portrait of his son, which I completed soon after "En Dios..." last month. It earned me some welcome pocket-money, and this makes it my first success since I began my life as an artist!


On the odd occasion when I picked up my brush after leaving university my painting style still showed the influence of van Gogh, as this still life of a Swiss zupfe bread shows. Although I liked the results - I am still very fond of this picture - I felt a need to break this habit. Up to this point I had made the short, brisk strokes using the side of a "short-bright" hog brush. To change this I just started using the flat of the brush instead. The following portraits of James and Javier were the first pictures that I painted using this new "revolutionary" technique.
















It was not a huge advance, I grant you, but I liked the sense of spontaneity that it lent the painting, and at the very least it made me pay more attention to changes of tone. It was a style that I pursued, not always successfully, until fairly recently. The portrait of my friend's son, as well as my work on Ecuador, shows a mellowing of this approach.

Stephan Fullagar - The Paint Brush Diaries

En Dios Confiamos

This is a life-size portrait of a Quitenian shoe-shine boy. It's painted on linen canvas and measures 32x54 inches, and was completed a month ago.

I had never been to a third world country before I went to Ecuador, and the experience of children begging to clean your shoes for a few coins was deeply affecting. If you declined, the mournful protestation - "Si! Si! Si!" - was heart-breaking, and the memory still nags at my conscience. I wanted to paint this uncomfortable picture to move others as I was moved.

For a while I was unsure whether to include a background or not, and at one point I even sketched in a part of the Plaza de la Independencia where I met the boy. I eventually decided against the idea however, as it seemed to sentimentalize the portrait. For the image to work it had to be shocking and immediate. By painting him against a plain background he confronts the viewer more powerfully. At the same time, as there are no other distractions, you are forced to focus on him alone; his expression, his body language, and his clothing, and consequently to wonder about his situation.

The title, "En Dios Confiamos" is painted ambiguously on a rectangle at the bottom left of the portrait. It is a translation into Spanish of "In God We Trust"; in 2000 Ecuador adopted the US Dollar as its currency, and this phrase - in English - appears on their One Dollar coin. As a result it refers both to the change that these children depend on, as well as our own hope that this situation will improve.

"En Dios..." turned out very much as I first conceived it. It was only later when I re-discovered, "The Boy with the Club-Foot" by Jusepe de Ribera, and Edouard Manet's, "The Fife Player" in re-productions, that I realised the similarities. The influence must have been subliminal; I saw them both in Paris in 1997 at the Louvre and at the Musee d'Orsay. I'm afraid my work suffers greatly by comparison, but at least it shows that I was on the right track.

Asking Price: £1,750

El Mercado, Riobamba

This is the first canvas that I completed after leaving work. It shows a street corner where severed cow heads have been unloaded onto the pavement by the market in Riobamba, Ecuador. A few figures gather round, presumably waiting to buy them; plastic bags, paper, plantain skins, and grass lie scattered on the floor. A mother stands at the far right with her son and daughter. The rear wheel of a car can just be made out on the other side of the street. Painted on linen canvas it measures 45x31 inches.

I was attracted to the image by the interesting play between the row of heads and the emotionless face of the small indigenous boy. His expression, and his sister's total lack of interest tempers the horror, showing us that this is not a scene of grand guignol but a fact of every day life, something that they are used to seeing, something familiar. I tried to convey this view further by painting the heads in such a way that they no longer seemed grotesque, in fact almost looked beautiful; a fold of flesh and skin on the far left of the picture even reminds me of a petal in van Gogh's "Irises". The benevolent smile of the cow closest to you was not invented but caused, I think, by the snout pressing against the ground.

I worked infrequently on this picture for two years, and it was only once I had left the art shop that I could devote myself fully to it. In fact it was the frustration I felt at not being able to work on it regularly that lead me to leave, and when I did, the canvas was completed within a week.

Asking Price: £3,000

First Steps - Building a Portfolio

In 2003 I travelled to Ecuador, and since then Latin America has become my muse. This painting was the first canvas that I completed on my return. It's based on Gauguin's "Still Life with Three Puppies", using as a composition three dollar coins, two mangoes, and a clay idol at its heart. It's painted on linen stretched over an oval MDF panel which measures 19 inches across.
It's not a style that I usually adopt, but the ambigous subject matter and colour scheme fascinated me so much that I had to try and emulate it. You'll be the judge of how successful I have been.

This was to have been the first of a series of about twenty canvases to be made for an exhibition based on my time in South America. I now realise that I do not have enough strong material to achieve that goal. I am planning another trip to Latin America shortly, so a similar exhibition will happen before too long, but until that happens I'll have to keep building up a body of work on other themes, and find other ways to display my work.

Preliminary Sketch

It's been two months now since I left work to become a painter. It may have been a foolish decision, time will tell, but it was something that I had to do. With any luck conviction, enthusiasm, and a highly developed sense of humour should see me through.

I started painting in oils when I was seventeen, and at once fell in love. The colours, the texture, the plasticity, the smell even, gripped my imagination. I developed a love of van Gogh early on, and tried to emulate his style and passion; wiping my brush on the clothes that I was wearing (rather than rinsing them with turps) so as to keep up with the flow of inspiration. The colours may have suffered a little as a result - I may have even invented a few new browns - but my passion and eagerness to learn earned me the respect of my teachers, and a few good grades.

Unfortunately that was the end of my official training. At university I chose a more academic subject for the sake of the "Real World", and my output dwindled. With the lack of instruction and guidance, uncertainty and a fear of failure grew rapidly, and the paint brush was left neglected for ever longer periods of time.

After a string of brief and unsatisfying jobs I found work in an art materials shop in north London, and for the last four years it has been like an art school for me. It was an Aladdin's Cave of colour and canvas run by a team of young and impassioned artists. From them I began to learn the practical side of painting. At school the only preparation required was a coat or two of linseed oil and turps on a sheet of parcel paper, now I was learning about the different types of canvas, how to stretch them over the bars, how to prepare them for painting - the smell of rabbit skin glue! - and how to build the picture with ever fatter layers of paint. Needless to say in an environment such as this my love of painting began to warm again, and I tentatively returned to my easel.

My confidence grew after exhibiting in two staff shows, and winning first prize in a company competition, but finding a place to work, and the time to work in, proved more difficult. I managed to turn out the occassional canvas over the years, but my frustration and shame at not producing more became unbearable, and I recently took the plunge. The voice of reason is still protesting in my head, but I am not prepared to go to my grave quietly muttering to myself, "what if?"

This blog will chart the stumbles, falls and successes on my road to becoming a professional artist. Any constructive criticism, advice, or suggestions would be very welcome, as would your thoughts about art in general, and news about your own work.

I hope you enjoy it.

Stephan Fullagar