JackMontmeatPaintings

new portrait painting

2012-01-07T17:33:00.000-08:00

This is a painting I have just completed. It is life-size and is a follow-up to a painting from a few years ago, here. It is oil on linen.

Here are some of the progress shots:

4. after finishing the Polo shirt and some of the hands:

3. after finishing the shirt and painting most of the faces:

2. after transferring the finished drawing to the canvas and relining it (and then varnishing over it):

1. early stages of the drawing (on paper):

studies

2011-12-19T09:02:00.000-08:00

A couple of recent studies from classes at LAA:

two drawings

2011-12-03T13:51:00.000-08:00

These are two sketches from this week from classes at the Lyme Art Association:

A.T. Van Laer

2011-12-03T13:35:00.000-08:00

This is a charcoal drawing I own by the artist A.T. Van Laer (1857-1920). It has quite darkened with age but I love its mysterious and somber tones.

Here is a photograph of the artist. A native of New York, he studied during his formative years in Holland where he was heavily influenced by Dutch painting. Later in his life he lived and worked in Northwestern Connecticut:

the white pitcher /oil sketch

2011-11-12T11:13:00.001-08:00

This is a small 5"x6" oil sketch of a larger painting I am working on. I've already done a colored pencil version here.

The Singing Boy

2011-10-28T14:11:00.000-07:00

Jack Montmeat "The Singing Boy" oil on linen on panel 10"x12" 2011

And here is a photograph of the model with his portrait in the early stages:

figure study

2011-10-18T17:27:00.000-07:00

a preparatory sketch for a figure painting we are doing in class:

late summer on the lieutenant river

2011-10-05T10:19:00.000-07:00

This a landscape I just finished that I had been working on whenever possible for the last month:

I started it with a pencil line drawing:

portrait commission

2011-09-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

This is a small portrait commssion I painted about two years ago as a gift. The setting is South America:

man with a fish

2011-09-08T20:18:00.000-07:00

This is a large commissioned painting from a few years ago. I was looking at alot of the 20th century Russian painting, with the large brush strokes and stark realism.

baby jack

2011-09-03T07:13:00.000-07:00

a sketch from a few days ago, sleeping in his car seat:

pelvis study

2011-09-03T07:05:00.000-07:00

I have always found the pelvis one of the most difficult shapes to draw and I always admire artists who can draw it out of their head in any position. As Robert Beverly Hale said, "all lines run over conceived form"-meaning without a thorough understanding of the shape, one cannot draw it. With this in mind, I set up a pelvis for my class to draw, with particular emphasis on understanding of the planes that make up each half (called os innominatum, "the bone with no name", which actually looks like a propeller blade). This is my page of demos:

class progression

2011-08-18T15:50:00.001-07:00

This are some examples of the projects we might do in the first few classes in my private sessions at LAA.
1. Starting with copying from plates; in this case eyes from the Bargue Book. The goal is to accurately identify angles.

2. Blocking out the contour. The idea is to transfer the lesson above to sketching a cast from life, leaving out the inner shapes:

3. Then, developing more of the inner shapes, and blocking out the basic shadow shapes:

profile handout

2011-08-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

This is a handout on drawing profiles. Profiles are one of the first things I learned to draw-and they are a bit easier than most angles, because if you draw the profile line accurately, than you are sure to have a good likeness:

class demos

2011-08-05T19:12:00.001-07:00

These are a couple of demos from portrait drawing class. We were dealing mostly with the correct shape of the face, the "basic frame" or "envelope":

These next three are from basic drawing class, dealing with correct shapes, using plaster casts:

drawing on toned paper

2011-08-01T20:38:00.000-07:00

Drawing on toned paper is a good idea in life-class because the middle tones are already taken care of. You can go darker with the charcoal and heighten with a white pencil. These are a couple of recent demos from LAA portrait class:

These next three are from a few years ago. The warm paper is Canson "bisque" color. I find that this offers a warm undertone to the cold black charcoal and cold white pencil. I find it is good to not isolate the charcoal from the white, but to let them mix and overlap:

class handouts

2011-07-26T11:48:00.001-07:00

I enjoy making these handouts for my classes to help explain specific concepts. The one on the illustrates starting a portrait with the "basic frame" and working the detail over this. The handout on the right discusses a specific feature, the eye:

Also, I was taught the concept of the "basic frame" from my teacher Arthur Wang at Columbus College of Art and Design. He is a great draughtsman and teacher and I took his class for a few years. His website is here.

the singing boy

2011-07-25T11:26:00.001-07:00

This is a compositional drawing for a painting I am hoping to do at some point. It will be called "The Singing Boy", a theme I have been wanting to paint for a while. My son is the model:

class sketch

2011-07-08T16:36:00.000-07:00

Just a quick demo schematic drawing from class at LAA intending to stress the linear aspect of the composition. I have found that it helps to think in terms of "picture-making" when planning out your painting:

still-life with brandy glass

2011-06-20T17:08:00.000-07:00

I decided to try a small colored pencil study before beginning the oil version. It is 5"x5.5". It is the first time I have used the medium since this figure study.

Also, the painter Claudio Bravo died earlier this month, on June 4th. He was one of my favorite artists. I went to his exhibition last fall at Marlborough Gallery in Chelsea. I didn't know that it would be his last show. Check out his website: www.claudiobravo.com

two new still-life sketches

2011-06-14T15:32:00.000-07:00

This is a still-life pencil drawing I am finishing at the LAA studio:

And this is a compositional drawing for a still-life painting I am working on in my studio. It is a little bit trickier in that the final painting will be 16"w x 14"h. However, I drew it somewhat smaller, at 15"w. But I found that this website helped a lot, as I was able to type in the drawing's width (15"), along with the reproduction height and width (16"x14"), and it gave me the missing height of 13.125" to use on my drawing. It also gave me the enlargement percentage of 106.6% to use in my transfer:

sketch of baby jack

2011-06-03T18:25:00.000-07:00

a quick drawing of baby jack, done while he was asleep in his car seat, in pen and crayon...

florence drawings

2011-05-31T14:52:00.000-07:00

I went to Florence, Italy for a couple of days to get some inspiration, and to do some sketching. The Uffizi, Pitti Palace, and the Accademia had very long lines stretching around the building so I didn't go to those, but other museums in Florence are virtually empty. Places like:

The Museum of the opera di Santa Maria del Fiore:

The Medici Chapel:

and the Bargello.

I took one day to see the Tuscan countryside, here's a quick sketch:

Also, I recommend highly the hotel I stayed at, the Soggiorno Michelangelo Hotel. It is just north of the Accademia. I was welcomed by Oscar, who runs the establishment, and the accommodations couldn't have been better, or more quiet.

Jack Jr.

2011-04-20T13:58:00.001-07:00

My son Jack was born three weeks ago. He is quite fun to draw as he sleeps for long stretches. The "Jum-Jum" is a nickname that his older brother gave him which I liked very much.

completed "still life in red"

2011-03-23T13:13:00.000-07:00

This is the finished painting, "Still-life in Red", size 12"x12", oil on linen. It is larger than the oil sketch shown a few posts back and more carefully modelled, but very similar in color.

Also, this is a two session demo figure drawing from class at LAA:

small still-life drawings

2011-02-12T09:30:00.000-08:00

These are four small compostional sketches drawn at the Lyme Art Association. They are done in a few hours each with the goal of creating an interesting composition out of a quickly set-up still-life arrangment. With any composition, one should walk around the room examining the subject from every view-point before deciding on an angle to work from:

still-life in red

2011-01-19T14:56:00.000-08:00

This is a just completed 5"x5" oil sketch painted in my studio with natural light:

some sketches from class...

2010-12-16T11:04:00.000-08:00

these are a few recent demo drawings from classes.

Portraits

2010-11-09T17:35:00.000-08:00

some portrait commissions from a few years ago:

still-life

2010-10-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

A couple of still-lifes from 2007:

class drawings/sketches

2010-10-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

These are some demo sketches from recent portrait and figure classes. They are all drawn with either Papermate pens or Papermate sharpwriter pencils.

The Blue Pitcher

2010-09-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

This is a painting I just finished entitled "The Blue Pitcher", size 18"x24", oil on linen on board. The picture took a very long time to paint, more than three months of work and involved quite a lot of glazing, especially in the dark sections. These dark passages I found took three or more thin layers of ivory black, ultramarine blue, and other dark colors to capture.
Originally, the painting was intended to try to show different paper textures. The blue pitcher was thrown in to add color.

Here are a few thumbnail sketches I did in the beginning, right after setting up the still-life:

two older portrait paintings

2010-09-17T18:58:00.001-07:00

I am finishing up a still-life painting right now (which I look forward to posting) but I thought I would post a couple of portrait commissions from 2006. In the first piece, "Stacey and Riley", I was very interested in the formal concepts of composition, specifically the dominant element, subdominant element, subordinant elements, and accents. The woman in the painting would be the dominant element, the child the subdominant, the arm of the sofa an example of a subordinate element, and the flower petals and the polka-dots on the girl's dress accents. I think about these concepts on every painting I do. The painting of my grandfather "Big Jack", below, was originally intended as a demonstration piece. Both pieces are life-size.

Carpeaux cast drawing

2010-08-18T19:32:00.000-07:00

This is a charcoal cast drawing I did a few years ago. The cast is by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-1875), one of the greatest French sculptors. This bust is part of a group called "Four Parts of the World Sustaining the Globe" which can be viewed in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.

new portrait

2010-08-08T18:25:00.000-07:00

This is a compositional drawing for a new portrait commission I am starting. It is life-size, and is a follow-up to an older painting I posted earlier. Once the drawing is finished, I photocopy it and transfer it to a canvas that I construct to the same size. It is 37"x27":

old paintings/drawings

2010-08-04T12:07:00.001-07:00

I found some images of some pieces I did in 2002 when I was just out of art school. I thought I might post them:

this was one of my favorite portrait drawings

a copy of one of my favorite paintings "Girl with a Red Hat" by Vermeer on cardboard. I painted it the exact size of the original.

a pencil drawing of an ominous-looking doll.

a painting of the interior of my first studio in New London

a small painting based on the last scene in Romeo and Juliet. I hope to do some Shakespeare-themed paintings in the future.

a sketch of a real skeleton done in the library of Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio.

two old still-lifes

2010-07-29T17:40:00.000-07:00

These are a couple of old still-lifes (2003-04) that were stored away for years and I just looked at them again the other day. The above one was painted with just lead white, yellow ochre, vermillion, and ivory black. This was great practice as it forces one to create form and the illusion of color with a minimum of pigments. Now I use about 20 colors.

drawing/still-life class

2010-07-25T07:55:00.000-07:00

This is a preparatory drawing done for my still-life class at LAA. The still-life will have good color, and I hope to post progress on it.

figure drawings

2010-07-22T18:46:00.001-07:00

I thought it would be nice to show some figure drawings. This is a six-hour figure drawing done at the Lyme Art Association last week:

And here is one done at the LAA four years ago in charcoal:

Some drawings of the model Bill, who models frequently. The standing one I drew in ball-point pen at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts in Jerry Weiss's class:

These next two are demo drawings I did for my figure drawing classes at the Mystic Art Center:

the blue pitcher /oil sketch

2010-06-01T11:34:00.000-07:00

This is a small oil sketch on board, size 4.5"x6", called "The Blue Pitcher". The final painting will be 18"x24" or 400% larger.

The Orchid

2010-05-21T17:37:00.001-07:00

A still-life from 2008, "the orchid", oil on linen 16"x18"

a few sketches

2010-05-13T05:56:00.000-07:00

These are a few drawings that I have made in my classes at the Lyme Art Association recently:

Brooklyn Bridge

2010-04-28T06:02:00.000-07:00

This is a portrait drawing completed about a year ago of a woman under the Brooklyn Bridge, size 17"x22". The medium is graphite on printmaking paper.

Sketches

2010-04-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

This is the drawing and the 3"x5" oil sketch on board for "A Composition in Blue and Yellow".

The Lavendar Vase

2010-04-17T07:03:00.000-07:00

This is a still-life I completed at the same time as the one below. This painting was done by window light, while the one below by artificial light. "The Lavendar Vase" 12"x16", oil on linen.

recent painting

2010-04-12T15:49:00.000-07:00

This is a still life painting I just completed entitled "A Composition in Blue and Yellow", oil on linen on board, 10"x12".

oil sketch

2010-04-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

And this is a small (3"x5") oil sketch of what the final painting will look like.

Two Still-lifes

2010-04-07T08:31:00.000-07:00

These are compositional drawings for two still-lifes I am starting in my studio, one by natural light, one by artificial light.

The Dancers

2010-04-01T18:48:00.000-07:00

This is a somewhat recent colored pencil drawing, entitled "The Dancers", that I did on toned paper ("ivy" canson 19"x25"). I had had little experience in colored pencil, and found I needed to sharpen the pencil I was using after almost every stroke, as well as use a magnifying glass for the more detailed sections.

two-figure portrait painting

2010-03-26T10:44:00.000-07:00

This is a recent portrait painting that I did for a Harvard Law Professor-oil on linen, size 60"x66" (life-size).

Recent portrait painting

2010-03-21T16:08:00.000-07:00

This is a recent portrait commission I completed- oil on linen, 17"x22".

Paris

2010-03-18T16:27:00.000-07:00

These are ball-point pen drawings I made in my sketchbook while I wandered through the museums of Paris:

This was my favorite painting I saw in Paris, "The Good Samaritan" by Aime-Nicolas Morot (French, 1850-1913) at the Petit Palace, a free museum.

The above three from the Louvre.

The above two from the Petit Palace.

Musee Carnavalet, which is a free museum, a room of caricature sculptures.

louvre.

The above two drawn at the Pantheon from enormous wall paintings by Bonnat and Laurens.

I had the chance to spend last September in Paris on a Stobart Foundation Fellowship. I spent each day drawing in the museums and looking at paintings. All the above drawings are from my sketchbook and done in bic ball-point pen. My accomodations were at the FIAP, which is listed as a hostel but feels like a hotel. It is in the 14th arrondissement, just below Montparnasse.

Gulls

2010-03-17T08:16:00.000-07:00

"The Gulls of Rocky Neck" oil on linen 12"x16

This is a fairly recent painting showing the technique I use.

Cast Drawings/Slater Museum

2010-03-16T16:42:00.000-07:00

I have just begun this drawing of Dionysis from the Parthenon. I will post progress on it as it develops.

I thought I would start by showing some cast drawings I have done at the Slater Memorial Museum in Norwich, CT over the last ten years. The museum houses about 160 plaster casts, all created from the original sculptures in the 19th century. The bottom one is actually my first cast drawing, done in Ohio. The rest of the above were drawn at the Slater.

2010-03-16T16:15:00.000-07:00

Hi, my name is Jack Montmeat and I am a draughtsman and painter with a studio in East Lyme, CT. I teach classes at the Lyme Art Association and the Mystic Art Center. I paint portrait commissions and work on my own pieces in my studio. My goal is to develop my drawings and paintings as much as possible and I intend to post new work on this blog as it is created. I also want to show older work that is relevant to any new projects.