Jamie Wyeth-His Style and Technique-How I Am Inspired by Jamie Wyeth

I first came across James Wyeth years ago when I purchased a book called "The Helga Pictures" by his dad Andrew Wyeth. I am always searching for books that tell me how to find inspiration from art. I want to know more about other artist's style and technique.. Jamie Wyeth has quotes below, that helps a lot!

What an amazing family! N.C. Wyeth a renowned illustrator, being his grandfather,and Andrew his dad... wow! He comes from great artistic stock!

One of the most fascinating thing about Jamie Wyeth as is the same for a lot of artists is the life they lead or have led. Andy Warhol was a real presence in James Wyeth's life... and that is indeed darn interesting. They say that if you want to learn how to do great art from anyone who you esteem to emulate... read about their life and who they are or were. What inspires them and what they deem to be important. I have posted some quotes below by Jamie Wyeth that are all of these things because they come directly from him.

James Browning Wyeth (1946--) is a contemporary American realist painter. He was born in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, son of Andrew Wyeth and grandson of N.C. Wyeth. He is artistic heir to the Brandywine Tradition, painters who worked in the rural Brandywine River area of Delaware and Pennsylvania, portraying its people, animals, and landscape.

Childhood/ Early career

James "Jamie" Wyeth was the second child of Andrew and Betsy Wyeth, born three years after brother Nicholas (an art dealer later). He was raised on his parents farm "The Mill" in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, in much the same way as his father had been brought up, and with much the same influences. Early on, he showed the same remarkable skill in drawing as his father did at a comparable age. He attended public school for six years and afterwards was privately tutored by his family, concentrating on art.
At age 12, Jamie studied with his aunt Carolyn Wyeth, a well-known artist in her own right, and the resident at that time of the N.C. Wyeth home and studio, filled with the art work and props of his grandfather. In the morning, he would study English and history at his home and in the afternoon go to the studio and join other students in learning the fundamentals of drawing and composition. He stated later, "She was very restrictive. It wasn't interesting, but it was important." [1]
With advice from his father, always his closest friend but always frank, Wyeth quickly developed his technique and style. In 1963, at the age of 17, he painted Portrait of Shorty, a bravura picture of a local railroad worker. Two years later, he lived for a few months in New York City, to better study the artistic resources of the city and to learn human anatomy from visits to the city morgue. He met Andy Warhol, and later in the 1970's, the two did portraits of each other. continued at:

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Wyeth

Style and Technique

Early on, Wyeth became interested in oil, his grandfather's primary medium, although he became extremely adept in watercolor and tempera, his father's preferred media. In describing his aunt's way of thickly applying oil to her palette, he stated, "I could eat it. Tempera never looked particularly edible. You have to love a medium to work in it. I love the feel and smell of oil." [4]In addition to studying his aunt's oil technique, he also admired his father's and grandfather's work, and that of Howard Pyle, his grandfather's teacher, as well as American masters Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins. What inspired Wyeth most was not the subject matter or technique of his grandfather, but his "sense of total personal involvement with and intuitive grasp of his subjects". [5]Jamie Wyeth adopted a wider palette of colors than his father's and closer to his aunt's and grandfather's.
Wyeth's artistic reach is broader than his father's and grandfather's. He excels in drawing, lithography, etching, egg tempera, watercolor, and mixed media. Though grounded in this family's artist tradition and subjects, and bound by the same solitude of his art, his wider travels and experiences have shaped a more rounded artist. In travels to Europe, he studied the Flemish and Dutch masters, and learned the intricate and exacting process of lithography, producing a substantial amount of graphic work.". [6]
On portrait painting, Wyeth stated, "To me, a portrait is not so much the actual painting, but just spending the time with the person, traveling with him, watching him eat, watching him sleep. When I work on a portrait, it's really osmosis. I try to become the person I'm painting. A successful portrait isn't about the sitter's physical characteristics--his nose, eyeballs and whatnot--but more the mood and the overall effect. I try not to impose anything of mine on him. I try to get to the point where if the sitter painted, he'd paint a portrait just the way I'm doing it." [7]
Jamie Wyeth's critics level some of the same charges as they do against his father-to some, both artists seem anachronistic, too close to illustration, and out of touch with the 20th century evolution of Post-Picasso modernism. He answers, "We're charged, my father and I, with being a pack of illustrators. I've always taken it as a supreme compliment. What's wrong with illustration? There's this thing now that illustrations are sort of secondary to art and I think it's a bunch of crap."[8] But supporters see Wyeth art as timeless, accessible, grounded in classical technique, and purposefully devoid of fadism.

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Wyeth