Alexei Nikolaevich and Joy 2010

My painting of Alexei Nikolaevich and Joy is finished!It is 36 inches tall by 18inches wide. I had expert help with his coat colour as military uniforms need to be correct. It's type of grey /green...not easy to achieve. A friend made an interesting remark. They said Joy looks sad because of Alexei's death...though it seems fanciful, I was taken aback. Because I had tried for weeks to get Joy to look alert as he always did, but I could not get the sadness out of his portrait. In the creation of art there is the usual time line of course, but art is not limited to our usual sense of time by any means. So it's not really fanciful to say Joy's sadness comes though, in spite of my efforts. Many times a painting has a mind of its own and the artist finds themselves a facilitator of these other ideas...at least that has been my experience .
Art is such a mystery...even as we make it



Joy, of course was the only one marked for death the early morning of July 17,1918 who some how escaped . Here is what Baroness Sophie Buxhoevedon related about meeting up with Joy in Omsk while she was with the British military, who helped her leave Russia

General Dietrichs told me that the Tsarevich's small spaniel, Joy, was with him at Omsk. The dog had been his small master's constant companion, and had been taken both to Tobolsk and to Ekaterinburg. At Tobolsk the Tsarevich had often been highly amused at the dog's contempt of the Kommissars' orders, for whenever Joy espied me passing the house he would manage to slip through the gates and greet me boisterously.

The poor little beast had been found by the Czechs when they took Ekaterinburg, wandering about half famished in the courtyard of the Ipatieff house. He seemed to be always looking for his master, and this had made him so sad and dejected that he would scarcely touch his food even when he was lovingly cared for.

I went to see Joy, and he, evidently connecting me in his dog's brain with his masters, imagined that my coming announced theirs. Never did I see an animal in such ecstasy. When I called him he made one bound out of the carriage and tore down the platform towards me, jumping in the air and running about me in wide circles, when he did not cling to me with his forepaws, walking upright like a circus dog. General Dietrichs said that he had never given such a welcome to anyone before, and I attributed this solely to the fact that my clothes, which were the same that I had worn at Tobolsk, had still kept a familiar smell, for I had never specially petted him.

When I left, Joy lay for a whole day near the door through which I had gone. He refused his food and relapsed again into his usual despondency. What had little Joy seen on that terrible night of July 16? He had been with the Imperial Family to the last. Had he witnessed the tragedy? His brain had evidently kept the memory of a great shock, and his heart was broken. It was pathetic seeing this dumb friend, who brought back the memory of the Tsarevich so vividly. Little Joy was well cared for. He was taken to England by Colonel Rodzianko and spent his last years in the utmost canine comfort, but still never recovered his spirits



We know Joy was especially exuberant dog because of his very name: Joy, and because of many anecdotes. So it's extra sad to learn of his deep depresstion afterwards. I believe his habit of giving the guards the slip is what saved him that night. And perhaps Joy was "out" yet again when that knock on the door came while Dr. Botkin was writing his last letter. I believe Alexei would have been hugely pleased his Joy escaped. Joy had been almost a surrogate for Alexei Nikolaevich for years already. In that the little dog could throw himself heedlessly into any physical activity, while his master certainly could not...and Alexei always loved it when he did.

I haven't spoken about Alexei Nikolaevich's portrait yet. It came though almost immediately and that surprised me. Usually one has at least a struggle. But not this time. I had more difficulty with his coat colour and Joy. I always make a video of a paintings process and the story of its subject and here is the one for Alexei Nikolaevich and his Joy.

A close up portrait of Olga Nikolaevna is next

<

Alexei and Joy : painting update

While my painting of the Tsarevich is far from finished, I thought I would post an in progress image. There is still much to do. But I just wrote to a Russia uniform expert to ask if Alexei Nikolaevich's great coat is the correct color before I proceed further. the Tsarevich is depicted with his beloved, spaniel, Joy. The painting is 18 inches, by 36 inches.

As always, painting Romanovs is both a challenge and greatly rewarding

Alexei Nikolaevich and Joy

My current painting in progress is of the Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich and his spaniel, Joy. Of all those at Ipatiev House , only Joy survived. Indeed, the dog lived its final years at Windsor and is buried there today. I think that would have pleased Alexei. He was devoted to this little dog, who could be so much freer in its movements than its master.

When I making a painting from a Romanov photo, it's as if the photo picks me, rather than I do the picking. I look at a great many, and I have seen most of them for many years. One will give me that go ahead feeling, like it has been waiting.


It's an adventure to paint a photo you have known for some time...well you think you know it. But one really comes to see a photograph if you are making a painting of it. Everything has to hang together properly and make visual sense. I also find something new in these photos almost every painting session and as I say I have been looking at them for years.

I also tell others who wish to make art from a photo, to look at the reference photo at least as much, if not more than their art work. It is easy to be lead astray and other parts of the picture will not add up if one area is incorrect. When having trouble , look where the part giving you a hard time lines up with another area in the photo as a guide. It's always a help.

In a crucial way, Alexei Nikolaevich is the saddest Romanov. At least during their short lives, His sisters knew wonderful health. They threw themselves into hiking, tennis, sledding, horse back riding and rough housing! This young man could not. Because of his hemophilia, any bump could cause a life threatening crisis and so there were countless activities his sisters enjoyed, that were denied to Alexei Nikolaevich.

Still when well,he shared in full measure their enthusiasm, exuberance and of course , bravery. However his illness fostered within Alexei a philosophy way beyond his years. As author Robert K. Massie In his book,Nicholas and Alexandra relates:

Alexei was well aware that he might not live to adulthood. When he was ten, his older sister Olga found him lying on his back looking at the clouds and asked him what he was doing. "I like to think and wonder," Alexei replied. Olga asked him what he liked to think about. "Oh, so many things," the boy responded. "I enjoy the sun and the beauty of summer as long as I can. Who knows whether one of these days I shall not be prevented from doing it?"[

The photo I am using was taken during the war. Alexei Nikolaevich is in a Russian army great coat. It has a particular khaki green color.

This example was sent to me by a kind fellow member of the Alexander Palace Forum. When working with black and white photos, this sort of help is enormous. Military outfits must be as correct as possible.


Alexei Nikolaevichis also wearing an St George meal. and a Cossack wool hat. There is no question the young man in the photo is a Russian!

The painting is 18x 36 and will take some time to do.

Alexei Nikolaevich was two weeks shy of his fourteenth birthday when he was murdered on 17 July 1918 in the cellar room of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg.

Anastasia Nikolaevna 2010

My Anastasia painting is finished. Here is a memoir of someone who knew Anastasia from the hospital she and Marie would visit. I think he has caught her quite well!
One feels she's just rushed out sight to play a new prank else where


“When the Grand Duchesses came, in particular the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, there would begin a terrible fuss and endless lines of pranks. The Grand Duchess was a desperate ‘minx’ and a loyal friend to others, especially to the tsesarevich. The two elder ones have completed courses for being “Sisters of Mercy” while she and the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna worked at sewing clothes for the wounded men and their families, helped prepare bandages and lint, and lamented for being too young to be true Sisters of Mercy like their sisters Olga and Tatiana […] So, the little princess was not able to be very naughty those days. She was given lighter work than that of her two elder sisters. One day, I sat beside the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna. Her pretty face is full of life and cheerfulness. Her quick eyes which always sparkle with irrepressible joy and indefatigable enthusiasm, look sharply at everything they see and made her naughtiness apparent. Her acute, sometimes, merciless tongue tells everything she sees. She can enliven any place she sets foot in by her uncontrollable cheerful laughter. In her mischief, she would even dance with the wounded men and once said that she doesn’t like to sit just to sew! While the pale thin hands of Tatiana can quickly knit mittens, the graceful head of Olga bending low to the sewing machine, and Maria Nikolaevna was choosing a new job to do, Anastasia would not think ‘We need to sit and work..’ Instead, her quick mind would devise pranks”.

Here is her video, but also an over view of my three paintings that depict OTMA. As always as a group, OTMA packs a wallop

Romanov Children as Muse

Since I started painting Romanovs in late 2009, I kept a photographic record of the process. I have rarely painted seriously in a 45 year art career...I was a ceramic artist. So when I felt the urge to paint Romanovs, I decided to record it since I had no idea of it would work out. Well it has worked out pretty well. And I now discover I love painting and I love painting Romanovs.

It's a powerful experience to bring these young people back into being and in color even if it's just with paint. I have been interested on and off in the Russian Royal family for 40 years. But what captured my heart and always will, is their example of grace under fire during the 16 months of their ever worsening captivity after the Russian revolution. The more I learn of this period of their lives, the more I admire them.

I made two videos of the process The first one for the 36x26 inch painting of Olga & Tatiana Nikolaevna in their WW1 nurses uniforms.



I then painted a smaller, 9x12 painting of the third daughter , Maria Nikolaevna. Also known as Marie and "Mashka"



I am currently working on Anastasia's portrait and then will do Alexis.