View From My Window

The Christmas tree is lit up this morning and the world is beautiful and white.  I’ve enjoyed my coffee in the quiet.  Last night was late; rum and eggnog, the smell of nutmeg, the tree ornaments hung with care on the tree.  This morning, the adult children sleep and I enjoy the quiet and some reading.  It’s a perfect day for pancakes and bacon, absolutely perfect.

While the house was quiet, I visited Tim O’Brien’s website and looked closely at the details of his portraits.  It is a wonderful thing to be able to pour over his blog entries and to realize the research required to arrive at such polished work.  Also, I enjoyed watching the film centered on the creation of the Krampus…seeing the exploration of a single piece from its original concept.  If my readers follow this process and then read O’Brien’s perceptions, after watching his own video, it is an amazing thing to discover that truly, an artist gets ‘lost’ in the creation of great works.  The process of creating is many-layered and ‘magical’.  An example of his work is the Young Lincoln below, borrowed from here.  I highly recommend reading this post as it captures the research and the process, as well as provides a close-up detail of the work.

Tim O’Brien’s Young Lincoln

I have such an appreciation for the technique that O’Brien uses and can’t help but recognize an affinity with  Attila Richard Lukacs portraits. It appears that there is a distinctive difference in the brush work, with Lukac’s being more fluid, but the intensity and clarity of images by both artist feels, for me, similar.  I want to be clear that Attila Richard Lukacs has explored a variety of things including polaroids and a collection of abstract works, so I am making reference to a specific body of his work.

Attila Richard Lukacs

Attila Richard Lukacs image collected from here.

While Lukac’s work has been deemed controversial, I also think that Tim O’Brien’s work certainly invites a conversation.  While the viewer may get completely drawn into the highly technical work, there is also an edge to the work that can not be denied.  I’m not certain with either Lukac’s or O’Brien’s work, which of these attractions is stronger.  It’s a ‘chicken or the egg’ kind of experience.

Suffice it to say, I treasure a day that begins with beautiful things…a tree, snow and art.