On my easel… New steampunk nude!
“We’ve only just begun…” The placement for this figure was an enormous challenge as there are large steampunk wings coming in later. I have less than a month to finish this piece so it’s going to be a hard slog to get it all done to the quality I want!
There are times I wish I could save it as it is. I really like the way it looks now, but I can’t wait to see it finished either! Ah well, that’s what photographs are for!
The finished work will be appearing in a very cool steampunk show during Loréal fashion week so stay tuned!
What is it about a nude that’s offensive?
At my local shopping center there is a massage place. The poster in the window has a nude woman’s back and the prices extending down her spine. It’s a cute concept until you get to the lower region.
This woman has buttocks, but no dividing line.
You can see where the heal tool was used, and you know that even with some shapes there is no way that this woman was born without a buttcrack.
In Japan, anime with nude breasts can be shown on any channel at anytime- providing the nipples are removed.
In many countries the tiniest bikini (an inch covering the butt and nipples) is enough to satisfy propriety while nudity or g-strings aren’t.
The details, it seems, must be covered or removed.
This makes me wonder. Is it the breast that’s “offensive” or is it the nipple? Are buttocks a problem or just the crack? Why are they offensive? Is it because the are the functional part of that zone? Or because they are the defining characteristics of those dodgy areas? If nipples are the offender then why are men’s acceptable?
Consider this an open forum, I want to hear your thoughts on these questions!
Friday Nude Quotes
The difference of a painting in the nude becoming lewd
Is in the shadows
Arthur Tugman
Friday Nude Quotes
Scott only asked me to do the movie because he couldn’t get anyone else. He asked everyone ? Mel Brooks, Marty Landau, Carl Reiner. They were all afraid of the nude scene.
Friday Nude Quotes
Even in Orange County, reference to nude figure drawing is not exactly stimulating in a sexual manner.
Jonathan Lovett
Seven – 8×8 Oils on Canvas
Seven 8×8 Oils on Canvas
$150
Currently at ArtBoy Gallery
I love the Borg. I think they are one of the best enemies introduced by Star Trek. they are so..human. they appropriate from everywhere to add to their perfection. they take our distinctiveness and add it to their own. they augment and corrupt rather than create, but everything they do serves to create more drones operating on the hive mind. The borg are captives, taken and converted. their memories shared amongst every other borg and their identity lost. their original species is lost. all that remains is the drone.
In Voyager they introduced Seven of Nine and converted her back. it was a long, slow process involving the stripping away of her borg components and extricating her from the hive mind. in doing so, they turned her from one of the most interesting borg, a princess in training to be a queen, a real tough bitch, into a robotic pin-up. there is fan art everywhere for Seven of Nine. she became a fanboi fantasy and one of the sexiest characters to come out of Star Trek. Everyone paints her as she is better known, corsetted with the small, cute, borg accessories. I wanted to show the original Seven of Nine. I painted her at the cusp of becoming human, as she works with Voyager. I wanted to remove the sexiness and show the indecision, the corruption, the raw human underneath. I think many fan art pictures of her focus on the sexy and in showing her as a human remove her personality. I wished to show her as a borg and show her humanity in that.
Come see this painting and other Sci-Fi themed works this Friday at ArtBoy Gallery! FanBoy vs ArtBoy: Science Fiction Opens Friday night 6-8 and runs through to the 4th of December. I will be at the opening and I’d love to see you there!
Friday Nude Quotes
Her husband, he’s German you know. When her husband came to me, I said, ‘John, you don’t mind me painting your wife.’ And he said, ‘No, that’s fine, just don’t paint her nude.
Friday Nude Quotes
As much as things change, they stay the same. There is still controversy about, maybe even more than before, not just nudity — a nude statue.
Warp – 13x19cm Watercolor on Paper
Warp I
19×13
Watercolor and Pencil on Cold Pressed paper
It’s been a challenge creating and uploading these small artworks, but a real pleasure as well. the color and delightful shapes of the human form just continue to thrill me. this one is available on my website, along with all the others at http://www.jennierosenbaum.com and they’re only $50 each!
Profound – 19×13 cm Watercolor and Pencil on Cold Pressed paper
Profound
19×13 cm Watercolor and Pencil on Cold Pressed paper
Every Day for 50 days I will be posting a watercolor for $50. stay tuned to my 50/50/50 project on my website, on my Facebook page, or on twitter!
Look, even I paint men from time to time! this project is really helping me expand my horizons in terms of models, and in terms of seeing. I’m exploring color, shape, halftomes, lines and more but mostly I’m just explaoring the joy of the human figure. check out all my works to date on my website!
Looking for small, unique gifts? these watercolor nudes will brighten up your holidays! buy them as a present for yourself or for someone special. they are ideal for slipping into a card or framing in a set or on their own. they work beautifully in small spaces. these works are colorful, bright and unique. show your individual flair this holidays and give the gift of original art.
Crouch III watercolors and pencil on paper
19×13 cm Watercolor and Pencil on Cold Pressed paper
On my website I am publishing a new watercolor every day for 50 days. These watercolors make perfect Christmas presents and are small and bright unique original and affordable artworks! Each one is 13×19 cm and is painted on cold pressed paper. Each is signed by me and ready to frame!
I am really enjoying this challenge as I go forward, it’s a wonderful way to beat back my winter blues and stave off the spring lethargy. I am also challenging myself by painting different types of nudes and stepping outside of my comfort zone in terms of color, lighting, angle and so on. Revisiting different poses several times, I can really focus on the anatomy and the minutae of light and shadow and form. This is a technical excercise in seeing as well as a joy to explore!
Did I mention that each one is only $50? That’s 50 works, 50 days for $50 each! You can see and buy them all on my website, and watch Facebook, or twitter for more 
I will also, of course, be publishing a couple here.
Friday nude quotes
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
Steve Jobs in his Stanford Graduation Speech
Written on my iPad. Thankyou Steve, you will be missed.
Too rude? Speech part 3: nude models and artistic merit.
Part one and part two have already been published. This is the third and final part of my 10 minute speech for Sydney University’s Tuesday Talks program. Frequent readers may recognize some passages here, I couldn’t improve on them!
When I initially wrote about the Bill Henson scandal a number of people told me that I would feel differently once I was a parent. As if that would change who I am. I am proud to say that i am now the mother of a little girl and my views have not changed. I believe, as I did then, that if she were approached by an artist to be a model I would support her. That isn’t to say that I wouldn’t do my due diligence on the artist to ensure they were on the level, and I would be there with her. But the decision is not mine, it would be hers.
One thing that struck me about the model known as N, the adolescent in the image seen on the invitations that caused much of the furor, is that when interviewed she discussed all the considerations she made before modeling. She considered how she felt about her body, how she may feel about school mates seeing her in the nude and how she might feel about it years later.
The most important thing to realize is that what you take away from viewing an artwork is not just what the artist puts in, it’s what you bring to it as well.
Your past affects it as much or even more than the artist’s intentions.
Everyone sees art differently which is why it is difficult to judge, and why it should never be stifled.
artistic merit should not become a goto excuse for pornographers, that harms us artists more than anyone – but it must be allowed. we cannot create under a blanket of censorship and we cannot be the artists we need to be without freedom to create. art has the power to challenge our views, to make us think and and to change the world. I believe that the arts are one of the most powerful forces of humanity and should never be denied.
There is a difference, too, between sexual and sensual. There are as many shades of gray as there are stages of undress. Art can be arousing. It should be arousing. It should inspire passion. Not just sexually, but in all things. Arousal and passion are not just the pervue of sexuality, but of life. And art is life
Suspension WIP – 24×30 Oils on Canvas (detail)
Suspension Work in Progress
Oils on Canvas
Filigree and Lace and Cogs oh my. I’m keeping the lace lighter and airier than last time, a contrast from the steel filigree goggles and the heavy cog above it all. This was last weeks work, blocking in the background, glazing details and starting the massive cog undertaking. the figure is almost complete, it’s really about the detailing now. I have yet to use any black, a complete change for me. deeper tones have been blended using umbres and paynes gray or ultramarine. they are creating some very alive warm and cool blacks. I’m paying a great deal of attention to temperature in this piece, even more than I usually do, as it seems that slightly different hues go a long way towards making metal look convincing.
I have a lot of projects coming up at the moment, so while I will be continuing this series (I do love it so!) I will be working on some other things as well.
Too rude? Speech part two – adolescent nudity in art
Part one is here..
These days the nude appears to have become more controversial as the line between nudity and sexuality has been blurred. The prevalence of porn and sexualized images In the media have led to an automatic association between nudity and sex. A belief that nudity is dirty, wrong, and disgraceful. All of this has led to nude art being pushed to the back corner, far from being the classic and honored subject of artists everywhere.
There is no image of vulnerability more powerful than that of a naked child. Take for example the iconic Vietnam Napalm photograph. Would this picture have as much impact if she was an adult? If she was clothed? The image of her running down the street, naked and screaming, is real, it’s powerful and it’s become a symbol for the horrors of war everywhere. This photograph won the Pulitzer and world press photo of the year.
A nude child is the image of vulnerability, of change. It automatically triggers protective instincts. Good art has the power to move us. It inspires emotion.
Would Bill Henson’s works be as emotive if the children were clothed? if they were small breasted adults? His works capture a moment in time. A fragile period in a teen’s life. These works make us empathize with the subject, I have heard abuse sufferers consider them both triggering works and uplifting and encouraging. Other see a coming of age, loss of innocence. fragile, strong. Whatever you see in this work you cannot deny that it has an emotional impact and that is the purpose of art.
The scandal with Brook Shields and the Gary Gross/Richard prince photographs is another good example. Gary Gross took photographs of a pre-teen Brook Shields for a magazine. These works were highly sexualized, with brook painted with oil and makeup. They were exceptionally adult, and in very poor taste. Brook shields did not get a say in modeling for these works, nor how they were used later on. Many years later Richard Prince took a photograph of the original Gary Gross, then changed it. The final work was seedier and turned the original on it’s ear. Where the first seemed to celebrate child pornography, the Prince version used the same image to condemn it. It still uses a sexualized image of an adolescent, but by using that image to make the viewers uncomfortable it made an excellent point about not turning a blind eye to child pornography.
Suspension WIP – 24×30 Oils on Canvas
Suspension 24×30 Oils on Canvas
So I have begun the massive process. the work is further along than this now, but I have been slack in photographing and uploading my WIPs. I’m too busy working to catalogue it all! we have also started putting up a ceiling in my studio. this should help protect against the australian summer, and protect my neighbors against all the singing and swearing that emerges from my studio.
Too rude? Speech part one – my work
As I edited my speech from last week for posting, I realized it was way too long for a single post! This is the first part, about my work. I was introduced beautifully so I only needed to discuss my work itself. Some of these phrases will form part of my new artist statement.
“My artwork explores the nude figure. I find the human body to be a marvel, not just of engineering and design, but also of poetry and emotion. I am endlessly fascinated by what lies beneath, beneath clothes, beneath the layers of pain and beneath the masks we wear.
Nude Art is our history. It is our expression and our drive. It shows our growth as human beings and our evolution emotionally.
I mostly paint women. Strong, elegant and emotional, I capture different aspects of what it is to be a woman. I have been drawn to a difficult arena as censorship grows and fear over the nude body reaches fever pitch.
That is why I have dedicated myself to debunking myths about nude art. I want to show the world the beauty I see in the human body and share my firm belief that nudity is not threatening, it is not always sexual and it is here to stay.”
Friday Nude Quotes
How can he remember naked paintings and not remember you’re supposed to keep your shirt on in public?
Kvothe – The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
Why being obsessive produces better art
The more I get absorbed in this complex steampunk series the more I wonder about my obsessive tendencies and artists in general.
Recently, I’ve been having a hard time painting, something was gnawing at the back of my mind. Like a face I couldn’t put a name to it was elusive and irritating.
Something was Not Quite Right in my last painting. The geometry of the gear was off. I didn’t like the model I chose to begin with and have since gotten some better gears, so I decided to redo from start. Or at least, redo the gear.
Just the act of making this decision was galvanizing. suddenly I wanted to be in the studio all the time again! On a roll, i also decided to revisit the gold embellishments on the bustle, to bring them into the shadows better and connect the shapes more. I painted furiously, and it has paid off. A little obsessive prod that was poking me has subsided. The itch stopping me from continuing to the next painting, that was thawing doubt up in the way has passed and I am fired up and ready to continue.
Sometimes obsessiveness can harm a piece, it can lead to overworking and losing a sense of motion, spontaneity and immediacy that draws people in.
Friday Nude Quotes
‘I wasn’t supposed to say that, was I’ I said …’But that doesn’t make any sense… Women are naked in paintings. People buy paintings, don’t they? Women pose for them.’
Kvothe – The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
Flip – Daz Render
Flip – Daz Studio 4 Render
and.. because the last piece wasn’t complex enough I’ve thrown another spanner in the works. oh yes it’s raining fiddly bits here! I’ve been dreaming of the day I could get this harness and wingset, I’ve been planning works against them coming on sale. then they did and I pretty much had to spend a few weeks rendering my ideas. tell me if I’m crazy! I’m mildly worried about working with such a recognizable product in the 3D universe but you cannot deny the compelling delight of these wings!
if I’m not around much at the moment now you know why…
Figure: Victoria 4 *free*
Character: Reby Sky
Morphs: Morphs++ NGM for V4
Wings, Helmet, Harness, Boots and Hair: Apteromata Flight
Textures: Acherontia Atropos Flight
Friday Nude Quotes
We did extensive test marketing and truly believe that the public has an insatiable desire for this particular body part. After years of predominately featuring younger actresses going nude, the baby boom generation is excited to see a vagina it can relate to
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