Robie Benve Art

"Castellammare II" 8"x10", oil on panel SOLD I took a photo of this sunset a couple of years ago  in Castellammare di Stabia, the Italian city where my husband grew up. Since then it has been one of my favorite photos from our vacation. I used the photo as fb cover, I had it printed on our family calendar, and of course I painted it, at least a couple of times. This painting was done in one morning, a day where I started out with brushes, but then I decided that I wanted to do something bold. So I painted  with a knife, in thick impasto strokes. The panel was toned orange and that still comes through in many places adding a very warm glow to everything. I love the result, it's colorful and a little abstract. Thanks for visiting! :)

pastel portrait of model Last Friday I woke up in the morning and I was craving color. I wore a very colorful top by Rising International (I loove that brand!), I packed my never-used-before box of pastels, and headed to the figure drawing class. In one class I made two portraits of the model. Pastel portrait of model One looks more like him, the other looks like some relative of his, maybe his brother lol - but that's besides the point. What I really wanted to do is create a colorful portrait, using colors based on their value, not on their hues. So if it's light, it does not matter if it's yellow, blue or lime green, it will go on an area in full light. If it's a darker color it goes in the shade, no matter the color. Overall I was very happy with these first attempts of colorful portraits. Considering that it was my first time using pastels, I did pretty good I think.

"Man Seated" 12"x18" Drawing, Charcoal on Paper Usually our models are all females, it's nice to have a male every once in a while for a change. I made this drawing pretty quickly with charcoal vine. If you are not familiar with charcoal vine soft , it is a pleasure to draw with and very forgiving - you can erase quite easily - but it smudges a lot!  I did not spray any fixative, so when I got the drawing out again to take a photo I realized it was quite smudged up. I fixed it up a little and here he is. Thanks for stopping by! Have a happy and creative day! :)