American Artist's Workshop Magazine featured one of Rob's Ireland workshops in their Spring 2006 issue. He teaches at The Art League of Virginia and holds workshops throughout the United States and abroad. Rob is known for his inspiring and informative teaching style. Rob lives with his wife, illustrator Lina Liberace, and their two daughters in their 1910 Virginia home which has turned out to be a never-ending renovation project. He is represented by the Arcadia Gallery in New York City, the John Pence Gallery in San Francisco, and the M Gallery in Charleston. Rob has been selected to be an honorary member of the America China Oil Painting Artists League. He works in a variety of mediums including pencil, chalk, pen and ink, watercolor, and oil. His work is inspired by the centuries of knowledge, skill, and elegance of the old masters. "I don't want to plan things too much.Robert Liberace is equally accomplished in drawing, painting, and sculpture. On halftones he is careful not to leave heavy block ins Loves TwinRocker heavy text, light art weight, calligraphy cream paper Ties a lot of the elements of the eye together to simplify Thinks in planes, color & temperature all the time Will add half tones in when there is not a lot of shadow to delineate form Goes back and forth between different temperatures
On the nob of the nose uses a little extra redĭrops in extra water for the fold of the eyes-orbital foldĭraws eye, ties it in to the shadow then carefully marks the lower lid with it Shadow on face, a warm green made of black & yellow & sienna Liberally throws crimson wash over the whole face & "melts" it out When sketching his gesture he holds his pencil at the end You can add a little water to a brush and dilute an area of a graphite drawing (works the same way as in a watercolor), good for evening tones or for contoursĬadmium Yellow Light (or similar bright yellow), If you ever need to steady your drawing or watercolor readdress area with a contour line Zorn used monochromatic watercolor with opaque white on top for emphasis & highlight (Tiepolo) Begins with charcoal before inkįortuny used black, umber & sienna in his watercolors, shadow always finding form Looser shadow & animated but still differentiation of light & dark Tieopolo liked to add "marks of 3" in his drawings, very Venetian technique. Make shapes that are so clear & obvious, terminator shading Really study Ingres-get a good book on Ingres' drawings!
Ingres faces are almost decorative-like and engraving but with "spots of action" Likes to paint in watercolor on a smaller scale like Fortunyīox out your shadows, map them out then slowly add midtones Treat every detail of the picture like a portrait Liberace loves TwinRocker paper, Canson "Mi Tientes" too Works mostly in HB, uses harder or softer pencils occasionally to achieve his valuesĪnything beyond 2B gets too dark in his opinion And how could we not when we are privy to the inner thoughts of a modern day master? It is my honest wish dear reader, that something in the post will resonate with you (and with me) and we'll walk away as better artists or at least more enlightened ones. Here are the notes and photos I took from the workshop (click on the photos to enlarge). Every stroke has its purpose and I am working towards accomplishing that same thing (er. Specifically for me I am interested in learning how Liberace makes his work look so elegant and at the same time so dynamic. Every time I find myself in one of Liberace's classes, I am made aware of how much there is to learn about this thing we call "art". Several weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending yet another of Robert Liberace's fabulous workshops at the Art League in Alexandria VA, this one on drawing & painting portraits (watercolor).