Well, Jeanine 's artwork immediately captured my eye when I first came across it. I think that it wasn't so much the fact that she is mainly a traditional artist, but more that the nudes she depicts in her sketches, drawing and paintings, are not of your usual pretty, flawless models that just make you wish you were more like them, but that hers are of your every-day off-the-street type of models, lumps and bumps, and all! I could relate!!! Hmmm...

On questioning her and reading some of her articles, it became apparent too, that she has a very specific modus operandi, and to that end I asked her if she would agree to this News Article.

Jeanine Browning's Biography in Short

Ive been doing some form of art all of my life. I remember my third grade teacher submitting a drawing I had done in her class to the high school art contest which I won... needless to say they didn't give me the prize. But that was when I actually took my skill for something that might actually get me somewhere in life. I've been pursuing art in various forms since then both as a traditional artist, as an illustrator and as an art instructor.

I am the only person in my family that pursues art. No-one else can even draw a stick figure (their words not mine) so I was quite an anomaly in my family. An exception though, is that my father designed sets for Hollywood but I don't have a close relationship to him and didn't meet him until later in life. So he had no influence on me artistically. My family thought it was strange that I would spend hours alone drawing instead of playing outside.

I have a degree in Graphic Design and a second degree in fine art. I have also spent summers studying art in Florence, Italy. I pursue technical information about the origins and techniques of painting and spend much time researching various artists palettes and working methods which I can then pass on to my students.

Art has always been my means of earning a living but never directly through my painting. I worked for ten years as an Illustrator doing work with watercolor pencil, pen, Photoshop and Illustrator. Five years ago I started teaching both digital and traditional art at a local art college. So I have always been a working artist. I have had my art in several shows but as yet Ive not had any commercial success as a traditional artist because I hate to sell my paintings

Influences, Inspirations and Preferences

Many artists that I've seen in my travels have influenced my work but the those who did so the most are as follows -

For classical artists, Rubens, Caravaggio, Raphael (who is a master draughtsman and painter), Rembrandt, Artemisia Gentileschi, Ribera, Titian, among others.

For more modern artists I look at the work of Steven Assael whom I've had the pleasure to watch paint, David Leffel, Jerome Witkin (who is a master of composition), Odd Nerdrum, Richard Schmidt, Nelson Shanks, Juliette Aristides, Gregg Kruetz, Daniel Graves and any of the Florence Academy of Art instructors are among some that come to mind.

I look for models (primarily women) who have a certain wisdom, or sense of self in their demeanor. I also paint themes that have to do with religion (raised Catholic and am a recovering Catholic) and how it affects a woman's sexuality and sensuality. I think older women were raised not to feel comfortable with their sensuality... "the old good girls don't" idea. I love painting variations on this theme and am working on a triptych about it now. Some of my early works in this vein are...

Crucifix and

Concordence

My natural tendency is to build color slowly via a lot of thinly applied layers of paint as in Diana. I occasionally paint much more opaquely and expressively as in Untitled but then I scare myself and I go back to what I feel comfortable with and paint slowly again . Im working on moving past the tendency to just illustrate and paint pretty pictures which I did as an illustrator... and to push myself to handle much more complex subjects. I'm working also on a self portrait right now which I rarely do because I find they always reveal something new about myself spiritually that I then have to take a look at

My technique, as I said, is to start a painting with a fairly well drawn and detailed underpainting with the shadows blocked in very translucently and then to build color in a process of glazing, which requires a tremendous knowledge of color theory to know how the layers of translucent color will optically mix. Im lucky in that my boyfriend is also an artist (*scaryink here o DA) and can take wonderful photos of my artwork for me. I use Photoshop to just color-correct them, I never enhance the color just correct to what the painting actually looks like. I also always have going a Bargue study, which is a drawing of an Illustration of a cast as in this picture. It always keeps my eye trained to accuracy. I also draw from life at least once a week at an open life drawing session. This keeps me making accurate assessments in my drawing. I'm a firm believer that an artist needs to draw from life to learn how to take a three dimensional object and convert it onto a two dimensional surface. If you only draw from reference photos they have done all the work for you and you are in essence just copying the information that is already there. To truly learn how to draw, you should allow yourself the opportunity to draw from life whenever possible as you will progress much further as an artist this way by understanding value, how to turn the planes of a figure, proportion, gesture, anatomy, expressive mark making, etc. This is when my students really develop as artists.

Three Favourites and Why

- Untitled
This is one of my most expressive pieces and I think the color works quite well. It actually started out as a very tight drawing that wasn't working. I figured.. what the hell... and just went for it. I painted this in about 5 hours and it literally just painted itself.

- Diana
This was painted in a very limited color palette which is quite different then the one I normally use. I used vermilion, naples yellow, burnt Sienna, alizeran crimson, white, black and Ultramarine blue. Because of experimenting with this palette I now use naples yellow in all of my flesh palettes instead of yellow ochre. I find working with a real limited palette and mixing your own greens, purples etc allows you to get instant color harmony in your painting because all of the colors are from a basic triad. You also understand color theory better. I only use transparent pigments when I can and try to avoid earth colors because they make flesh look opaque and muddy instead of translucent and glowing.

- Insecurity
This is a composition study I did of a triptych idea I have for a painting. I used my daughter as the model (she was in a bikini in real life) but I love the vulnerable look I was able to capture as she was moving into becoming a young lady. She has never looked vulnerable since she became 18 and has decided she knows everything

Advice And The Future

My advice to aspiring artists is to draw every chance you get, especially from life. Learn anatomy and take some life drawing and/or drawing classes rather then to try to draw from photographs. You will at first get frustrated, but in the end you will wind up such a better artist. I have nothing against working from photographs as long as you have spent time drawing from life and know what you need to add to the photograph in terms of line quality, expressive mark making, value, temperature, color etc, in order to make it more than a copy of the original image but a real work of art. You must bring something of yourself to the art, not just duplicate what you see. A camera is always going to do that much better and quicker than you. Also spend lots and lots of time in art museums looking at the master artists. Reproductions will never let you understand how amazing these painters were. Try to learn composition, color and technique from them. They have a lot to teach us.

As for the future, I'm not quite certain what direction I'm moving into. I think right now its in the direction of exploring more composition and themes. I'm really inspired by the work of Jerome Witkin who is a modern day master of composition. I would recommend the book of his work called Life lessons for anyone who wants to look at some complex compositions.

I think teaching is a wonderful gift.. I learn so much from my students. Also I enjoy talking to young upcoming artists here on DA and sharing my methods with them as well as learning from more accomplished artists here. Its an amazing community and a wonderful opportunity for us to grow and learn from each other!

Sampling from =Darkdesyre's Gallery

(Note: =Darkdesyre has also written a series of News Articles on various aspects of traditional art, including useful instruction for would-be students. See her Profile page for details of these.)


<sub>Readers.. PLEASE THINK CAREFULLY BEFORE DOING THIS..

It can seem insulting to the Artist who is being featured, and done without any explanation is unhelpful to either the artist or the publisher of any article. If you feel the urge to go ahead and make use of that button, then please have the courage to note me with the reason why - maybe there is something I need to know? Thank you.

PREVIOUS NEWS BIOGRAPHIES AND INTERVIEWS - there is a list of these in my Journal.

Here is a stampie made by me, which anyone who has been interviewed by me is very welcome to use:</sub>