Martin Shellabarger

Personal Information:

Born in Missouri, USA, 1950s, my father was a Professor of Architecture and practicing architect in Oklahoma, while my mother was a fiber artist.

Started drawing at age four.

First life class at Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas in 1960.

Scholarship to Midwest Music and Art Camp (University of Kansas), Lawrence, Kansas, Summer, 1965.

Studied Fine Arts (Painting), University of Kansas, 1973.

Member, Arts Co-op, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1975.

Silversmith, Topeka Kansas, 1978 – 1979.

Silversmith, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1990 – 1994, sold through Montez Gallery, Plaza Sena.

Partner in trophy buckle and silversmithing factory in charge of casting, acid etching and design, Grants, New Mexico, 1993 –1994.

Studied landscape painting with Jerral Derryberry in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1994 – 1996.

Member, Santa Fe Society of Artists, 1995 –1996.

Landscape workshop with Terry Fegan, Academy of Realist Art, Taos and northern New Mexico, fall 1994.

Equine painting workshop with Ned Jacobs, Scottsdale, Arizona, fall, 1995.

Landscape workshop with Scott Christensen, Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, summer, 1996.

Studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1995 –1996.

Artwork photography, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1995 – 1996, including much work with Douglas Hyde, Native American sculptor of note, and other sculptors.

Student, Art Institute of Southern California, painting major, 1997 – 2000.

Independent study abroad for Art Institute of California in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Paris, France and Madrid, Spain, winter through summer, 1999.

Independent study abroad for Art Institute of California in Madrid, Spain, summer and fall, 2000.

Member, Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, Spain, 2000 –2001.

B.A. in Liberal Studies with a concentration in Visual Arts, Vermont College of The Union Institute and University, Montpelier, Vermont.

Exhibitions:

Minneapolis Arts Co-op, 1975.

Art Institute of Southern California Juried Student Exhibitions 1997, 1998.

Airport of Newport Beach, California, gallery, 1999.

Competitions:

Rapid Open Air Painting Competition, El Escorial, Spain, 1999, 2000.

Comissions:

Several landscape commissions in Santa Fe to various people.

Building sketches for advertisments.

Commercial art for a realitor.

Portrait of gypsy flamenco guitarrist Curro de Jerez for an album cover in Madrid.

Portrait of gypsy singer Jose El Duende for an album cover in Madrid.

Currently working on a ceiling painting for a client in Bordeaux, France.

Currently working on an easel painting commission for a General of the French Forgein Legion in Bordeaux, France.

Artist’s Statement

Like many artists, I have been drawing and painting all my life. After aborted attempts to study formally in my twenties, and after a forteen year career as a Systems Analyst and Computer Programmer, a car accident forced me to reconsider my options. Fortunately for me I met an incredible landscape painter, Jerry Derryberry, who graciously nursed my interest for three years. Today Mr. Derryberry is a regionally known landscape painter in the United States. After Jerry moved back to Dallas, Texas in 1996, I packed up my paints and enrolled at the Art Institute of Southern California in Laguna Beach, California. The Institute was tiny (less than 150 students), and concentrated on preparing students in classical painting methods.

In nineteen ninety-nine, I proposed an independent study curriculum to copy, if possible at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, study the paintings at the Louvre and Musee d’Orsay in Paris, and copy the masters at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. Unfortunately I could get permission to copy in neither the Rijksmuseum nor the Prado (in this case mainly due to poor Spanish skills!), but I did spend six weeks in Amsterdam absorbing the Dutch masters, especially Rembrandt. I spent about four weeks, on and off, in Paris (the trip lasted from early March until late September), where I was constantly at either the Louvre, Museé d’Orsay or at the Museé Delacroix.

In Spain, where I spent four-and-a-half months, I managed to get permission to copy a sketch by Fragonard after his Academy entrance piece (the large painting is in the Louvre), The Sacrifice of Caliroe in the incredible Real Museo de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. I also copied, in my hostel room, Velasquez’s The Coronation of the Virgin, (full sized) and Titan’s Danae by alternatively using books, slides and literally running back and forth to the Prado, which was four short blocks from my hostel. I also painted many portraits of friends, and several cityscapes, as well as competing in the Open Air Rapid Painting Competition held annually at the Escorial.

Upon returning to school, nothing was the same. I had been bitten by the bug of the old masters, and nothing less than a thorough understanding of the techniques they used would suffice for me. Opaque, alla prima painting was no longer a challenge. I rewrote my independent study request to return to Madrid to work exclusively on large-scale paintings using old master techniques, and was granted an unprecedented second semester to pursue my interests once again in Madrid.

After a disagreement on the conditions of the contract with the school, I decided to take one of my professor’s recommendations to look into Vermont College, which specializes in distance learning programs. Today I am still in Madrid, copying the old masters and painting in my studio using the information I glean from trips to the museums. Most wonderful of all, I met my future wife, a native of Ecuador, while studying here. We were married in Hoyo de Manzanares, with a banderillero (the insane man who puts the darts into the bull in the corrida) friend serving as my Best Man, and a picador (the man who spears the bull at the outset of the corrida) in the audience! My good friends include well-known torerros, gypsy flamenco singers, dancers, percussionists and guitarrists and many, many Madridenos.

I paint a wide variety of subject matter including nudes, social commentary, landscapes, still-lifes and portraits. My favorite subjects are people, especially the female figure and portraits. I find the challenge of painting the nude as attractive as the masters of the past whom I so admire did four-hundred years ago. The complex, multi-layered techniques which I employ require extended working times, with a life-sized figure taking anywhere from three to six months of posing time, fifteen hours per week. These techniques require the artist to “think ahead” often five or even ten paint layers! Each layer has a distinct effect on the subsequent layers over it, and must be carefully factored in, often by doing small sketches, paint swatches, and most importantly, experience. Curiously, the underpainting in monochrome often takes the longest, while I search for the most correct and faithful drawing of what I see before me. This part of the painting alone may have five or more layers of correction and application for the requisite depth effects to achieve a believable illusion of three dimensions.

The materials I employ are those which I have found through consultation with professors, professional artists, art historians, conservators and restorers, a custom paint manufacturer and my own extensive research. I utilize walnut oil for its non-yellowing and fluid paint handling properties (many masters, including Da Vinci used this as their oil), combined with special semi-fossilized and fossilized resins such as Congo Copal and Baltic Amber to ensure the permanence of my paint layers. More and more I tend to grind my own colors and manufacture my own materials by hand to ensure adherence to the old workshop practices and paint quality. This includes sizing and priming my own Belgium linen canvases with the highest quality rabbit skin glue and lead white and mica primer, a tedious and lengthy process which results in the very best surface possible.

The pigments I employ are all straight off the old master’s palettes (with the exception of some of the greens): earth colors such as the umbers and siennas, ochers, transparent oxides, real rose madder lake, vermillion, lapis lazuli, lead-tin yellow, sinopia, charcol black, flake lead white with various additives such as ground leaded glass or mica for irridescence, calcium carbonate for transparency, blanc fixe for brushstokes, and special clays for impastos. Most of my paints, pigments, oils and mediums are made to my specifications by the tiny custom firm of Robert Doak and Associates in Brooklyn, New York. I paint using both Chinese Chung-King hog-hair bristles and the finest winter male Kolinsky sables, depending on the effect desired. Rarely do I use more than two or three colors on my small palette at a time, and a painting may well require the skillful manupliation of just six or seven hues. My rule is, “Use the very best materials in the very best manner.”

My long search and obsession with materials and techniques has paid off. Little by little I am starting to gain insight into the techniques which produced the rich color, the inner light and subtle compositions of the greatest masters. I have not succeeded fully by an immensely wide margin, but at least it seems that I am on the right track. My work of the past two years exhibits a marked improvement over my previous alla prima technique, and I look forward to sharing the results of my experiments with those clients who appreciate fine art in the style of the old masters.