One of the teachers we had for a short while in the studio where I used to paint in Madrid was the artist Antonio Tordesillas. 

When he first came to the studio I was working on something much less realistic and completely different from what I am doing now, and I wasn't always in a good mood. I must have been an annoying student to work with, no patience and very stubborn- sorry for that! Now that I have "cleared the air" I just want to share my admiration for his work. Tordesillas hyperrealistic paintings are to die for. If I ever would consider doing nude modeling it would be for someone like him...

 I couldn't find his web page so I took a print screen from google images. What you can see above is art NOT photos! I think many of them are made in oil with an airbrush. On the second row you can see Mr. Tordesillas himself. 

This is something I can't live without - the mottler! The ones I like are soft, flat (not too thick) and with thin bristles.

I use them for painting larger areas, blending, varnishing and much more. 

I paint with whatever I have at hand, cheap brushes as well as more expensive ones, but when it comes to mottlers I haven't found any I like at the "normal" stores/grocery stores. The ones I have come from art shops and they are my precious little darlings :) 

This is from Saturday's figure drawing in Stockholm. I love how challenging it is to get the proportions and angles right. Also, how fast can you draw? How much can you accomplish in 2 minutes?

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Some are drawn with charcoal and others with pencil.

You get so into the moment that you forget about the nakedness. You don't see arms, breasts or feet, you see forms.There is no other place where you can talk about the distance between the nipples and the navel, or the length of an ankle without sounding judgemental.

Would you dare to be a naked model? It isn't just about the obvious challenge of throwing your clothes in front of a lot of people, it is an art knowing how to pose and to hold that pose. Really still. This girl was a real inspiration!

How does it work? Meanwhile you are drawing there is an artist walking around giving helpfull critique. One session lasts for 2 hours and 15 minutes, with a break included. The model changes position every 2-5-10 or 15 minutes (they clock it). Drawing fast requires a lot of concentration but since it is so fun the time just flies by!

This was my second time and I would loove to do more of this. Maybe there are sessions in Wermland too.

I only use these five buckets of color when I put on the first layer of paint (white, yellow, red, blue and sometimes black). There are several reasons why I choose to do this (I haven't always done it); 

1) You can really mix a lot of different new colors out of these ones; skin tones, greens, browns, purple, orange, pink etc.  
2) This type of color dries very quickly so you have to hurry up and cover the canvas in paint before it is too late, or you´re not going to be able to blend them well. When you only work with a few colors I have found it easier to paint rapidly and not to waste color from the palette. 
3) From an economical point of view, I prefer to buy BIG but few buckets of paint which I know I use on a regular basis.
4) If I cannot mix a certain shade of lets say green, I can always fix it when I paint the following layers in oil.

I would love to hear how others reason about this :) 

This is part of something I am working on right now. I have asked about 8 people if they can see what it is and only 1 out of 8 had the correct answer (it is even trickier to guess for you because the others got to see the whole painting). Does it make me disappointed? Rather the opposite! I've enjoyed listening to their interpretations. "Claws" was one of them :)

A little hint, it has to do with sports! Can you see what it is?