Good morning

Karina Eibatova (Eika) painting

Paul Robertson painting

Sachin Tong painting

Carl Larsson (1853 — 1919)
Spring 1907

Mary Bradish Titcomb (1856 - 1927)
Good morning

Interview with ballpoint pen hyper-realism artist Samuel Silva

Unknown to many, Samuel Silva is a lawyer by day, and a talent hyper-realist artist at night. In his spare time, he creates these ballpoint pen drawings you’d otherwise mistake for photographs. We interviewed him recently, and we talked about his growth as a ‘hobby artist’, his work-hobby balance, and his favourite subjects to draw. [read our original post about Samuel Silva here]




How long have you been creating artworks with a ball point pen, and how long did it take before you reached this kind of hyper-realistic art mastery?

Contrary to what the vast majority of people think, including other artists and even specialists, I have been drawing with ballpoints, in this kind of semi-serious way you see now, for the last three years, more or less. I have been drawing with them for much longer, since I was in school, on the back pages of my exercise books, but it was just rapid classroom sketches, nothing realistic at all, mostly just silly cartoons.

As it turns out, doing those helped me learn some things about the medium and some methods I came up with then, I still use them today. Of course that having started drawing at the age of 2, real recognizable animals and objects, not just random lines like most 2 year old children, and having gone through all known mediums before even trying pens helped me a lot in understanding their nature as a potential medium.

Honestly, I do not think at all I have complete mastery of the medium, I am still experimenting with it, and evolving, I have only been drawing with it in a semi-serious way for a short time, I am planning improvement for future works.
How do you balance your work as a lawyer and your hobby as an artist?

I don’t. Like with any other hobby, if you have time for it good. You feed your hamster, or you water your bonsai, or you change the water in your fish tank… I draw in my free time, not all my free time obviously, too boring.

What’s your favourite subject, and how long does it usually take you to finish each one?

Well, I definitely do not like to draw streets and cities, not because I can’t, but because I find them the most boring thing to draw on earth. I like organic natural drawings, about landscapes, animals, people, I’m all about natural beauty, not man-made

Sergey Kustarev painting

Henri Lebasque (French, 1865-1937)

In 1865, Henri Lebasque was born in Champigné, France. In 1885, Henri Lebasque studied in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and thereafter entered the studio of the artist Bonnat. Henceforth, Henri Lebasque participated regularly in exhibitions of the artists' association and in the salons of Paris. Lebasque also maintained an intense artistic exchange with young painters, especially Vuillard and Bonnard, the founders of the artists' associations "Les Nabis" (the prophets) and the "Intimists."

In 1903, together with his friend Matisse and other artists, Henri Lebasque founded the "Salon d'Automne". In 1912, the Salon exhibited works by a group of artists, which, because of its distinct style, became popular as "Les Fauves" (wild beasts). Lebasque also changed his style in the same vein as "Les Fauves," taking on a similar flatness of form and color, which was actually much subtler in Lebasque's works.
In 1924, Henri Lebasque moved to Le Cannet on the French Riviera, where he and his friend Bonnard shared a manikin for their studies. Henri Lebasque was called "the painter of joy and light," by both critics and artists. He was admired for the intimacy of his themes and the unique joy in his colors and forms.

Henri Lebasque died in Le Cannet, Alpes Maritimes, in 1937. Twenty years after his death, the Musée des Ponchettes in Nice presented the first retrospective of the works of Henri Lebasque.

Lucia Sarto painting

Lucia Sarto, Italian painter, was born in the Province of Udine. In Trieste, when she was barely eleven, she was awarded the First Prize on the occasion of a Regional School painting contest. She was barely eleven years old when she was awarded First Prize in a regional school's painting contest in Trieste. Sarto studied art in Venice and Turin where the works of Southern Romantic painters such as De Nittis 1846-1884, Palizzi and Giganti have greatly influenced her work. American impressionist John Singer Sargent 1856-1925 was also an influence. But it was under the tutelage of well known artist V. Guidi that Sarto developed her own style.

Good Sunday guys

Marius van Dokkum painting