Watch Wallace Ejoh execute a quick oil painting.

Hello everyone.
How are you? I'm involved in some new projects, so have been quite lazy blogging. Ma binu.

Meet Mr. Wallace Ejoh, a master of live drawing and painting (seriously, it's to beg him to teach me live portrait painting, a skill for only the most gangster of champions. Live portrait painting is like Arsenal winning EPL, UEFA cup, Champions League, not impossible, but haaarrrrrddddd).

Mr. Ejoh used Winsor and Newton paints, which can be bought from AB Artworld, in Surulere and I know there's a store on Awolowo way. I'll post my humble pastel sketch, it's my first, so go easy, art critics.

Anatomy of a Painting

I thought I would share with you guys how I developed one of my most recent paintings.

Below is my setup, I was trying to get a good lighting position. In the foreground is my pastel box, filled with soft pastels and a few hard pastel sticks. Yep, I know it looks crazy, blame it on no space, lol.

That's my initial sketch, of the final arrangement. I wanted to know how the highlights and shadows would look. I am working on toned Winsor and Newton paper.

There's much of the painting done. It still needs a few tweaks, but I like it. 

What do you think? It's part of my series exploring my womanhood and art.

Tola Wewe: A beautiful mind

Tola Wewe is an amazing artist. He's exhibited internationally in several countries including Nigeria, USA, Germany and France. He started out as a cartoonist ( cartoonists have a special place in my heart).

"Pattern of Peace II", acrylic on canvas

"Untitled" oil on canvas

"Waiting"

"Hope Rising"

He's amazing, and I love his use of colour. Tola Wewe is one of the founding members of the Ona movement, a yoruba-based art movement. I will do more research on him, and hopefully, we may get an interview.

Antique Beauty

Hello.

Gosh, it's been a while. I've been busy and not prioritizing properly. And I do sincerely apologise. Merry Christmas, too.

In today's Art world, we talk about contemporary artists, we drop names of exhibitions we've attended, glibly. But we, Nigerians, we do something very, very wrong.

We never look back.

100 year old Olowe statue, yoruba tribe

60 year old Yoruba warrior and horse statue

65-70 year old mirror statue, Igalla tribe

80 year old Igbo-Ukwu brass vase

Before you cry "oh the fetishness of it all!", please remember you avidly watched tv shows and movies about mythological greek deities (yep, you paid money to watch an Anglicised version of Sango, in a red cape, fall in love with a human woman, defeat his half brother, ad save the world with other superheros). We know sooo much about Zeus, and are not overly worried Christmas Day used to be a pagan celebration the Catholic church appropriated. So, let's respect those who believed in other religions, because you're dreaming of going to Egypt to one day see the Pyramids and the Sphinx. Amirite?

I'm glad to say some of these came home with me, and what I learnt about their history and the people who made them came along too, and I will pass that information to my children's children, so they know they are not lost.

"...A people's relationship to their heritage is the same as the relationship of a child to its mother..." 

John Henrike Clarke


Ye me ike.

The Evolution of a Drawing

So I attempted a section of Michaelangelo's sculpture "The Pieta", I really love his works because they bring such life and emotion to sculptures.

New pastel studies

I got my set of Rembrandt pastels a few months ago, but I'm just getting into using them. I'm planning a still-life, so decided to do some pastel studies of my favourite fruit, apples.

I set this apple up and did a quick sketch, using Rembrandt and Winsor and Newton soft pastels

This study was done after Deborah Bays, a wonderful pastel painter

I'm enjoying my pastels. There's so much to learn, and weirdly my style of painting in this is so different from my watercolour style. I'll keep you updated on how my journey goes.

Later, everyone.

Back Again

Hello, my lovelies.
I'm sorry I disappeared for such a long time. I was working as a makeup artist on a great new film, titled "October 1". It's set in 1960, and is an social-thriller. It had a great cast and crew, and though it was gruelling, I learned a lot.

I did makeup, special effects, prop-making, set-building and even learned what storyboarding and costuming were about. This experience highlighted how much an artist and an art student can do on a film and movie set. So many career choices.

The research was awesome and I met incredible people like Kunle Afolayan (a visionary director), Yinka Edwards (Cinematographer), Mr. Pat Nebo (former art teacher and legendary production and set designer), Victor, Jide, Yinka, Mike Steve, Kulanen, Susie Q, Dotun, Jacob and Ekpo and so many more people. It was an honour working side by side with these guys.

But I'm back to the blog, and we will talk even more about Nigerian Art, and its role in the world.