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Bete Noire!
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Message
Posted
Someone commented that the forum seems to have lost it's sparkle and I suggested that we need a fun thread that everyone can join in with.
Some years ago, I posted one called Bete Noire in which I said that wild horses couldn't drag me to paint a nude - definitely a bete noire in my book. I asked what subjects that other people just couldn't bring themselves to paint or had no interest in painting and the responses were very funny.
It did end with some of us doing paintings that incorporated several people's bete noire's and we all had a good giggle at them.
So how about it - 'fess up - what's your bete noire subject??
Posted
Children. Especially portraits of children taken from photographs and gazing at us with rictus grins - cutesy little mop-tops; oh, and coy nudes - if you're going to paint a nude, don't drape gauze over the front bottom/droopy danglers area, or conceal them with artfully contrived splashes of surf: this just makes me feel you've not actually looked at the real thing because no one would let you. These of course are things I don't like in other people's paintings,but are also representative of things I don't want to paint.
Machinery and cars - I have painted cars, never from choice, but have no interest in them technically, and get quickly bored.
Apart from that, it's more about how than what - even a boardroom portrait of our founder, Sir Bottomley Wide-Gussett KCB, can be interesting if well-painted; the vast majority of them aren't, though - there have been some ghastly portraits of US Presidents, by the same artist who painted an unutterably hideous portrait of Margaret Thatcher (it may be Nelson Shanks of whom I'm thinking) - they look like repulsively over-elaborate stills taken from especially cheesy B-movies.
Posted
With you Thea on animals (which includes humans and so-called celebrities ) and you can add to this modern attempts at religious paintings. Also agree with you Robert regarding Sir Bottomley Wide-Gussett KCB - I have seen (or did I dream it?) a great painting of the MD of the Roman Toga Company: Splitterus Nickeratus VD & Scar
Posted
For my own struggles, perhaps in 10 years time I hope that I might have a bete noir. Or even just a few of these beasts. All I have is a bete blanc. Landscapes - or at least brown and blue landscapes, so even here I have a choice cut from my white beast! Could I have moved to Skye because I won't run out of subjects that are just rocks, skies & sea........
My bete noir in others is Scottish (or any other I suppose) landscapes based around vivid orange and turquoise which just scream NO!!! at me.
Posted
Ah yes - if you've not seen these paintings, you won't know what Bill's talking about - but I have, and I hate them. There are three painters that I know of who use extremely "colourful" - ie, brash - palettes in their work, and they seem all the more inappropriate, and pointless, when applied to a Scottish landscape: Scotland is ideal for subtle colour treatment of its rugged landscape features; it doesn't need, nor does it benefit from, skies and land being painted a bright orange, or pink.
One of these characters recently really annoyed one of the others, by saying that she'd copied his work - in fact, she had been employing very bright, strong colours for many years; it appeared to be coincidence that they painted the same thing from round about the same viewpoint, and their paintings looked very similar because they both use this, frankly vile, palette.
If you want to make money, I'm told this stuff sells - it must, because I can't believe anybody would paint like this for their own pleasure. As for those who buy it - probably they think it's "edgy" (it should be tipped over a convenient edge...) and will appreciate in value. And perhaps it will. But it's still ghastly. Someone should tell these painters that being a "colourist", which they think themselves to be, doesn't mean you need to buy a manufacturer's complete range and use all of it on one unfortunate, cringing canvas.
Posted
Take a look at Scott Naismith's work - I think he's perfectly genuine, I don't doubt his talent, but he's one of the artists whose main body of work repels me: he doesn't always paint the same way by any means, but I think he's got into a groove which he finds fairly profitable. Lord knows, I wish him luck with it, not that he needs my good wishes, but - well, look at it and see what you think. I shall prejudice you no more. While you're at it, take a look at Louise Collis, and Linda (I think) Davenport - who has a slightly irritating habit of wishing her admirers "colourhugs". I don't like their work, but you might: you might even love it, who knows?
This is MY bete noire, after all ....
In progress. Commision. 30x40cm. Acrylic. Brush.
Bloomin' tricky!
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