Relaxing at Mevagissey - Oil on canvas (24” X 20”) by Benoit Philippe
Mid-Day San Francisco - Pastel (37 cm X 30 cm) by Benoit Philippe
Sgrafitto is a technique borrowed from ceramic makers and plastor. The top layer of the painting is scratched while fresh in order to reveal the colour underneath.
The sgrafitto technique
In oil, you would:
You can use many tools to remove the upper layer of paint, provided they are not blunt and likely to damage the canvas. Two tools I found that work well are the tip of a brush handle and a shaper.
Uses of the technique
I used the sgrafitto technique in a recent plein air painting done alla prima (e.g. in one go). This was done to create highlights in plants as well as to evoque grass blades and twigs in the foreground.
Sgrafitto technique used in the foreground of the painting "The red meadow"
The French painter Eugène Carrière was using the sgrafitto technique to sign his oil paintings. I have also seen the technique used in many paintings by Matisse.
The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life Many of Twyla’s advice can be transposed to other forms of arts.
The good news is that everyone can be creative, that creativity can be unearthed with perseverance and the right process. The bad news for those who hope to arrive somewhere but don’t want to bother with the journey is that “there is no “natural” geniuses.”
Twyla Tharp is a choreographer and examines her creative process. She talks about:
The design of the book is stylish, making the read even more enjoyable. The layout, illustrations, typography and colour of the pages (white, grey or black) keep you in a creative mood.
This book is the journal of a creative journey, personal yet useful for anyone who craves to explore her or his own creativity. This is not about theory but a practical manual peppered with exercise to help you on your quest. 
"Coins and Chaos", one of the exercises described in the book
In a nutshell: a practical book to read, use, and read again.
Favourite quotes
On the paradox of creativity
“There’s a paradox in the notion that creativity should be a habit. We think of creativity as a way of keeping everything fresh and new, while habit implies routine and repetition. That paradox intrigues me because it occupies the place where creativity and skill rub up against each other.”
“This, to me, is the most interesting paradox of creativity: In order to be habitually creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative, but good planning alone won’t make your efforts successful; it’s only after you let go of your plan that you can breathe life into your efforts.”
On metaphors
“Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art, if it is not art itself. Metaphor is our vocabulary for connecting what we’ve experiencing now with what we have experienced before. It’s not only how we express what we remember, it’s how we interpret it – for ourselves and others.”
The Book
The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life
The creative habit: learn it and use it for life: a practical guide
By Twyla Tharp, Mark Reiter
Published by Simon & Schuster
ISBN 0743235266, 9780743235266
Related articles and resources
Twyla Tharp’s website
Wikipedia entry for Twyla Tharp
The creative habit Twyla Tharp Creativity Art book Book review
Saturday was another good day for plein air painting. Last week, I went away with my pochade box and painted three studies, included the one titled “The orange meadow” .
I wanted to go back there and make a larger painting of the same subject. The pochade helped me to resolve some composition issues and make sure it was a worthwhile subject to paint. On the other hand, the pochade did not do justice to the fierce colours of the meadow.
I took my French easel on my back and rode my bike to the scenery I wanted to paint. It is a nice spot, off the cycle path and sheltered by edges. Despite the motorway being only a few yards away behind me, it seems like an isolated place and I only saw two people while painting.
After a week, the orange plants covering the meadow had turned rusty in the shadow and bright red in the sun. My orange meadow was now a red meadow.
The red meadow - Oil on canvas (18" x 14") by Benoit Philippe
Before I went, my wife gave me a challenge: not to put on my palette the green I generally use in my paintings (it must be the Sap green colour that I like indeed). I also decided to forego the Yellow Ochre colour, just to try something different. After I put-up my easel, I realised I faced an even bigger challenge: I forget to pack my Titanium White. I had to use two light colours as substitutes:
As my normal palette was already missing some key colours, I decided not to use any Viridian Green or any pre-mixed green and to increase instead my selection of yellow and blue colours in order to mix a variety of greens I needed.
Here is my complete palette for this work:
For this canvas, I used both brushes and palette knives. I sketched the composition using a large flat brush loaded with diluted Alizarin Crimson. I then blocked-in the main shapes with large and medium brushes. At that point, I switched to painting knives.
Towards the end, I reworked some background areas and the sky with a soft synthetic brush to achieve a smooth surface that would contrast with the texture created by the painting knives. I also used a shaper to carry on some sgrafitto work in the foreground (more on this later).
This exhibition, currently on at the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki (Finland), features a selection of coloured woodcuts by Hokusai (1760 –1849) and Hiroshige (1797–1858), two major artists from Japan's Edo period (1603 – 1867).
The prints on show come from the Yasusaburo Hara Collection in Tokyo. Yasusaburo Hara (1884 – 1982) was a Japanese industrial.
Water is omnipresent and landscapes are everyday scenes brought to life with peasants and animals. The colours of the woodcuts are limited (Indigo, red, black and green) but applied with gradations and variations. The blue colour, in particular, is used with wonderful gradation, from and intense indigo (almost Prussian blue in the dark) to a light veil of transparent colour.
Hokusai (1760 –1849)
Hokusai began at 14 as a woodcutter apprentice. He was influenced by western copperplate engravings. I knew about the influence of Japanese art on Monet (Giverny’s house feature many Japanese woodcuts), Mary Cassatt or Gauguin, but did not realise that western art influenced Japanese art in return.
Hokusai published a series of engraving called “Thirty six views of Mount Fuji”. He also published fifteen volumes of manga, with thousands of sketches of landscapes, people and animals.
In his commentary for the exhibition Heikki Malme (Ateneum's Chief Curator) reports the following story: “At the age of 88, just before he died, Hokusai is said to have exclaimed “If only fate had given me five more years, I could have become a true artist.”. Whether he really said that or not is not really important, it is such a perfect translation of every artist’s endless quest towards perfection.
The Great Wave (image source: Wikipedia)
Art exhibition Japanese art Japanese woodcut Ateneum meseum Hiroshige Hokusai Heikki Malme
