Frescoes to Visit in San Francisco & the Northbay

Detail of a mural by Diego Rivera, City College, San Francisco

If you are in California it's worth a pilgrimage to the St. Seraphim church in Santa Rosa where you can see the creation of large scale frescoes, which are still in the process of being painted. Another place to visit is the fabulous Diego Rivera fresco at City College in San Francisco. Not many people know about it. Most people go to the San Francisco Art Institute to view his other fresco but the painting at City College is much grander in scale.

Mural by Diego Rivera, SF Art Institute, San Francisco

Detail of a mural by Diego Rivera, City College, San Francisco

Detail of a mural by Diego Rivera, City College, San Francisco

The Fresco Process

Detail of a larger fresco in the Museo Nationale Romano

 I love the loose, sketchy imagery you can find in the background of ancient Roman frescoes like the detail above shot in Rome.

If you are curious about the process of painting a fresco take a look at the development of this painting.  When I paint a fresco I only do the last step which is called the intonaco. If you are painting a large scale fresco on a wall you will need to do many more steps.

Encaustic Portraits

Self-Portrait, 1998

I've been painting with encaustic since 1998 when I did this self-portrait. At the time, I didn't know how to paint with wax. It was an oil sketch with wax on top.

Once I discovered how to handle the medium I put aside my oils. Encaustic allows me to easily build texture. It handles much like watercolor with the color intensity of oil. I can embed my photos, and other objects, and create transfers on the surface and carve into the painting. I wish I'd discovered this medium 20 years ago but no one was teaching it at the time. 

Study of Jean, 2011

One of my goals with this blog is to promote fresco and encaustic painting, two techniques that are rarely taught in high schools or colleges. Encaustic classes have started springing up all over the country in the form of workshops but there aren't many fresco painting classes.  This past year I developed a course and taught high school students these ancient techniques. The next step is to teach a workshop for adults.

Study of Jean, 2011

Maisha, 2000

Allia Potestas, 2011

This text is copied from the actual tombstone of Allia Potestas, which can be found in the Epigraphic Museum in Rome.

Up Close to a Mummy Portrait!

AN314270001
© The Trustees of the British Museum

Last Monday I had the special opportunity to view an ancient mummy portrait up close (like the one above from the British Museum) at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles with conservator, Marie Svobada, a curator, chemist and artist, Sylvana Barrett who specializes in ancient techniques. (This is the portrait.) http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=7654  

These mummy portraits were found in ancient Egypt attached to coffins and were painted during the Roman empire. There are over a thousand scattered in museums throughout the world. Some are painted by highly skilled artists and some of the paintings are much more naive in style. They are painted on very thin wood panels with beeswax. Marie Svoboda is doing a study on the portraits trying to determine how they were painted and whether something was mixed with the wax. Most of the paintings are very textural and have a lot of dimension.

I always get excited when I can get up close or touch an artifact from the past that is thousands of years old! I was also able to view the paintings in an interesting program called RTI, http://culturalheritageimaging.org/Technologies/RTI/. This program allows you to see every brush stroke of a painting and how it was executed in a way that you could never see with the naked eye...especially under the dark lighting conditions of a museum.

Part of my research at the Getty is for my upcoming book on the ancient techniques that I've been teaching. Next month I'll be in NYC at the MET researching frescoes, encaustics and mosaics.

Flemish Painting Palette

Pondering, 2012

Goat, 2012

 I've been playing with different color palettes lately and think I've stumbled onto one that I want continue with. The 17th century Flemish palette. It's melancholy and romantic.

Fox, 2012

I've been working on a book on the art program I established 11years ago at Sonoma Academy and it's finally finished and hot off the press. There are some pages devoted to fresco painting. I plan on creating another book on the Lost Techniques class I'm teaching in the next year. Take a peak:

The Visual Arts at Sonoma Academy by Hillary Younglove | Make Your Own Book

Creatures at Twilight

Pygmy Owl, 2012

This painting was based off a photo I took of a tiny owl at the bird sanctuary in Santa Rosa. The jack rabbit fresco inspired me to work on more images of creatures at twilight.

Cat, 2012

Painting the jack rabbit fresco.