Michael John Angel: 0:00

If something is well drawn, then of course people will will will admire it. There was a wow, look at that, but they won't buy it. Very few people will buy it just because of that. But if it moves them, if it's an emotional experience, then they will buy it. And that is pictorial composition.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:19

Welcome to the BoldBrush podcast where we believe that fortune favors the bold brush. My name is Laura Arango Baier, and I'm your host. Recently, I sat down with living Master Michael John angel to talk about his school in Italy, the angel Academy of Art. We talk business and marketing tips for artists as well as how to price your work. We also talk about his time learning under Pietro Annigoni. And he also gives us a few tips on composition and how to understand the real thing that moves people when it comes to painting. Hello, Maestro, how are you? Okay.

Michael John Angel: 0:52

Fine. Thank you. And thank you. How are you?

Laura Arango Baier: 0:56

I'm doing all right. I'm doing all right. I'm happy to see you. I'm always happy to see you

Michael John Angel: 1:02

want me to be tall? Okay, well, you know, what, what can I say?

Laura Arango Baier: 1:07

So, for people who aren't familiar with you and your work, I wanted you to please give me a brief overview of you and your work.

Michael John Angel: 1:17

All right. Well, a brief overview of me and my work. I started under Pietro Annigoni back in the in the 1960s. And he only was easily the most famous portrait painter in the world back then. And I'd known about him forever ever since he painted the his first portrait of Queen Elizabeth of England back in 1956. World famous I was a kid of 10 at that time, but you know, everybody talked about Hanny gonna and he was a real showman. He was a real bohemian as well. But a real showman. Long story short, I came to Italy, actually to go to university but I had a letter of introduction to Antigoni written by a painter friend, Canadian painter, who had studied actually for eight years under Salvador Dali, and then two years under Antigoni but when when Tim Phillips heard that I was coming to Italy, he said, You have to go and see the knife through his letter of interest. So I went to I went to Annigoni studio and showed him some drawings. I mean, I'm sure some horrible drawing was back. And he said that they were working on a fresco in a church in a in a little village. Wantable journeys, say just 50 kilometers to the west of Florence. And what I like to join them, so you know, what I'd like to so of course, I said, Yes, well, I'd like them having unscented I became really shy and said, Well, you you're sure I don't get in your way. And he looked right at me, Laura. And he said, Well, if you do I kill you. So I thought that was fair enough. So that was it. He almost did once he threw me off the off the scaffolding we were only we were only a metre and a half off the ground. He was just beside himself a man it hurt when they landed on that marble floor man. Yeah, it wasn't you can imagine is 2021 at the time, you know, so you can imagine that the the lot the excitement, the like, fantasy land, living in Italy, working with a real nice little painting christ, a deep position and resurrection of Christ. We were usually drunk out of our minds and yeah, so I mean, it was an instant it was very different back then from how it is not very different. You know, there were no tourists in Florence. There were there were foreigners, you know, people who came to really really see the work of bots and there were students you know, they're very serious. I don't mean to say that they weren't fun you know, but but very serious minded people unlike kind of the the hordes was terrible thing to say, but still, the hogs that come today yeah. And there were no cars so virtually no cars, nobody could afford a car. You know, Florence was very, very inexpensive, very cheap. I lived on Now granted, this is what 5060 years ago, but I lived on$100 a month I think my mother and then a Yoni Annigoni paid for everything. And we were when we work in on the fresco or when we were working in his studio, whatever, but he was away a lot, you know, so there were definitely fallow periods. Yeah, it was great. It was. It was like a dream. One thing that I one thing I really picked up on while While working under him and it was very much you know and on the on the job education was the fact that there was no training in realism back then in the in the universities in the art schools I mean, there's virtually none today in the in the established universities, but there were no Italians or anything like that. The first one I think it was started in America by Richard lac in Minneapolis. So 1970s I think I've got it that's not true. Because the was here in Florida stimuli No, see me left Signorina. Her she was always referred to and she, she she taught as well. So there was that. And as it turns out, there were two others. There was one in Russia, St. Petersburg, I want to say but maybe Moscow. And there was one in China, weirdly started in the 19th century by an American. Yeah, I know. Very, very, very strange. But there was that but nobody, nobody knew about them, you know, and anyway, no, none of spelt either Russian or Chinese. So there was no no chance of going there. Anyway, the because of because of this, because I was made aware that there wasn't nowhere really to learn the stuff in a kind of formal structured way that I am, as it turns out, several others to my generation started to somehow put together the NEA and other big the basis of very basic ideas about how to structure a teaching institution a way to teach art, because you know, they used to do it. They used to do it. So the Yeah, so there has to be has to be like, you know, even even Salvador Dali, you know, when he was in, in art school in Madrid, he used to throw himself down the stairs, apparently to protest the fact that there was no teaching. There was no instruction on how to release. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 6:56

I also heard, I also heard that he didn't present a final drawing or painting in front of the committee, because they had to present like a final project. He didn't present anything, because he he said, I can paint better than all of you and I don't have to prove myself. Yes,

Michael John Angel: 7:13

I wouldn't be surprised.

Laura Arango Baier: 7:18

So, I was curious to know why you decided to become a painter? Is it something you had always wanted to do?

Michael John Angel: 7:24

Um, yeah. I mean, I came here to go to university to study Medieval and Renaissance poetry. You know, get your job anywhere, man. And just, it's not actually not the most practical thing to study. But as I say, I've had since I was coming out of a letter of introduction to the, to the maps, and then once once I started with him, that was kind of the that was done, you know, that was, that was me committed to, to becoming of becoming an artist. And the teacher, you know, I mean, yeah, I I've always, I've always drawn, you know, since I was a little kid, and painted as well, but then again, you know, pretty well, all kids draw. But yeah, it was a passion, I guess.

Laura Arango Baier: 8:16

Yeah, and you never stopped. So that's what

Michael John Angel: 8:23

then, you know, coming back to my generation, very proud of my generation, for a number of reasons that we didn't know each other. We either painters now the old guys, we didn't know each other back in the day, there was no computers, none of none of us had any computers or definitely no internet, you know. So there was really no communication. And of course, the art establishment then was now was very much against what we were trying to do. The other representation was, so there was no way for us to know each other. So it's really a delight us as we got older and older, found out more and more about each other that we that we need existed, you know, it's very nice to, to have this this, this reinforcement of that, oh, my goodness, you discovered that too. You figured that out too. And then of course, you get all of the oh, I can think of that, right? So you start to put things together to structure things. And I mean, it's an ongoing, it's an ongoing thing. The angel Academy of Arts Florence started that about 22 years ago, and we were 2223 years ago, and we've been doing, we've been going well, you know, ever since I mean, the COVID thing that's hits us a little bit but but normally we have anywhere from 60 to 70 students, there really is a need for this. Now, the angel Academy is a little different from most academies in as much as we look more to the old masters way of painting the way actually teaching the way that the teachers of the 19th century academies were taught. Or and people like Uber are very wrong. have various underpinning over painting methods. And I'm not that big a fan of site size either. I mean site size has definitely has its use its uses. It was not contrary to popular belief, it was not the way that was taught. In the old days, you know, you there's zillions of photographs of the old Italian is and and academies working away in the in the studio, nobody's working site size, you know, there's you down or one behind the other and so on, you know, you just go Pat studios, there just no real site site. However sites is a really good for teaching how to render things, you know how to see the nuances of value, the nuances and color of the form terms, it's marvelous for that, I don't believe in using it for the figure, you know it because site sites would not teach you to draw, it teaches you to copy. All right, which is very useful, very much part of an artist and artists training, but drawing design your as it used to be called, you know, the Italian word designer is more about invention about interpretation. In fact, the fact that, you know, as you know, Desi Miata is to use the draw, we get our design from it. So, so design eo is really a way of redesigning the figure, to make it into a work of art, as opposed to

Laura Arango Baier: 11:32

I know, originally, I mean, you had been mentioning how, since you didn't have internet, you know, the way that you connected with other painters, I'm guessing was when you moved to Florence, you came across them? Right. So I was curious to know what got you to start Angel Academy?

Michael John Angel: 11:47

Well, first of all, I was modest to maintain I was I was a very successful portrait painter in North America, one of the highest paid for, for about 20 years, I guess. We my first wife, and I used to come to to Florence a lot. And at that time, like in between, while there was never any in between portrait, so I usually had about four on the go at any at any given time. And this too, is what we'll get to this, I hope is what made me aware that business is a very important thing. You know, making a living is a very important thing for an artist because it really is, you know, otherwise, you have to have another job, like a day job as they say, which of course, a lot of people do that. But then you have no energy. No time to paint. Yeah, yeah. And time and you don't have the focus, you know, you need, you're going to paint a painting, you need at least stretches of days to do it. And you can put it aside for another day or two, like to whatever, get it and then come back to it. But still, you need that. So if you have to go to work, he kind of interrupts all that. So I but of course, the catch is like everything has its has its positive side and its negative side is that you have to paint for the markets, you know, but then again, again, something that's often overlooked, is that's what all the old people did. You know, they painted for the market. Remember, painted for the market middle Angela paint, sculpted for the market painted walls. They don't I mean, name the vegetables, professional painters, and professional means painting for money. That's what it means. Yep. So anyway, having some having been a professional painter, or being one made me very much aware of how important it is to teach, teach students how to do that. So you find that there really is the, the art world divides itself into into two parts, really, there's the arts establishment, which is what gets all the news and all the spotlight. And then there is what I like to call the working artist, which is a vast majority of artists, so working artists, you know, so the, these are these options, these are choices that one must make. Do you want to play up to the magazines and the museums and you know, be the talk of the town for a year, year and a half? Or do you want to have a living spend your time painting the rest of your life and, and and make enough money to live you know now in both in both camps are superstars. There's no doubt about it, but talking about about the majority of painters. So I think it's very important that students understand that and that what One must learn how to budget. I don't mean like budgets and eat Tony, every other Thursday or Sunday, I mean, how to do the accounting, you know, if I need, if I need, I don't know, 3000 euros a month to live as a basic thing, then how many paintings do I have to make in order to do that? What are the odds, the arithmetic, you know, good gallery takes 50%. So they've lost 50%. And then the government's done their souls, take 30, the CENTUM your heart, you know, and things like studio and materials, they were relatively small compared to the other two. Also, though there is promotion and promotion costs a lot of money. If people don't, they're not going to come to you. Now, that's partly what the gallery is for, but it's still the the artist has to has to budget. All this in factor all his sin. But it's doable. You know, it comes it's doable. It's what people don't know. And, as you know, definitely now is that it's really labor intensive. You know, the hours that you have to put in, in order to produce enough enough work, you know, that's the catch. Very nice work.

Laura Arango Baier: 16:24

Yeah. and years and years of experience you've accumulated on top of that, that you've paid for, because you paid for the schooling. So when someone complains, oh, this is too expensive. It's like you're paying for my experience.

Michael John Angel: 16:38

Exactly, exactly. Yeah. But you know, I mean, it's still like, for instance, a weldon still lives. I mean, it was beautiful. And this is you see what we're teaching. I've one of my one of my main interests is actually pictorial composition. And I teach you two mornings a week at school online. And because, you know, if something is well drawn, then of course, people will will will admire it, there was a wow, look at that, but they won't buy it. Very few people will buy it just because of that. But if it moves them, if it's an emotional experience, then they will buy it. And that is pictorial composition. One has to one has to learn how to the principles and compositional principles, like fetal color, Mother color. You know, so if you can create these emotional painting, you will make a living, you know, absolutely. Yeah. You have to find an outlet. And that's the beginning. You know, that's a drag. It's just market research, you know, and it's

Laura Arango Baier: 17:45

it's a little bit easier today, though, with Instagram and Facebook and the internet to find, you know, that niche and those collectors for sure. I feel like in your time, it was a million times more challenging to market yourself compared to

Michael John Angel: 18:00

Yeah, yeah. Very definitely. I was lucky actually. Because out of the I had a phone call out of the blue from an American corporation. Sears Roebuck country skiing, how much I would charge to paint the chairman of the board. They just came out of nowhere I had applied to universities living in Canada then. So close York University for advanced standing early in art history. And York was one of the only two universities at that time in North America that taught the history of portrait painting. So that was the that was the link because they were teaching portrait painting the agents who were representing Sears got in touch with York, and I just been talking to the History Department about studying art history. So that was the conduit, you notice I say pure luck? Because exactly as you say, Laura, you know, the there was just no communication. You know, we wouldn't use all isolated really much better.

Laura Arango Baier: 19:06

Oh, yeah, it's it's a lot. I'd say a lot easier to navigate now, but I do want to pull you back to why the school began.

Michael John Angel: 19:13

Oh, right. In my visits here, I've met Daniel graves and Charles Cecil, Daniel and Charles I had met back in the back in the 60s. They came in the early 70s came here to price. But of course, I heard that they they had the studios through your Cecil graves. And so naturally, I looked, looked them up and got to know it. And then Daniel and Charles had a huge falling out. They've been together for I think, 11 years, maybe longer. They had a huge following. And so Daniel, then started the Florence Academy and asked me if I'd be interested in in being a co director. And I just moved We're back. This is a 1989. So I just moved back to Italy permanently. So yeah, so I said, and then it turned out that Daniel and I, you know, he's a lovely, lovely man, and wonderful Peter. But we had, we're both realists, of course, again, whatever the difficult word we are. We had we were different, you know, different ideas. We thought it would be good for the students, you know that they would hear his ideas and my ideas. And we kind of alternated, he knew Monday, I do choose a new webzine. But it just confuses students. So we decided to split, I had just received a big commission to to paint a ceiling for a villa in Chicago. I painted a studio here, and then rolled it up and shipped it and took a few years to paint. Oh, wow. So I've rented this, too. So I took some students, some came with me from the Florence Academy, you know, we tried to do something of the traditional way, they painted some odds and ends and little bits of the head, the ceiling piece. And then yeah, then I started to look, when during this period, I started to look for an investor, really, because I didn't have the money to actually start a school or you know, I didn't have that much money. And yeah, long story short, I found eventually, after looking for a couple of years, I found found an investor, and Italian company, feeder calm. And so yeah, we started, we started the school, and let's just say this was what 20 I should have looked it up at 2223 24 years ago, something like that.

Laura Arango Baier: 21:47

So my stroke, since you had this experience of you know, working with Daniel graves, I'm guessing and also because you you studied with Annigoni, you must have had an idea of how the old masters and how, especially the academics at the end of the 1800s how they had structured their teaching. So I was wondering how you decided to structure the curriculum at Angel? Well,

Michael John Angel: 22:15

that actually goes both way before I met Daniel, trying to figure out for myself really how the hell this stuff is done, you know, because I say my training with Antigoni was very much kind of on the job training. So it covered some things and not others. I mean, typically i i We like gunden Somebody was one point, you know, Annigoni had about six or eight I was hanging around trying to help doing stuff. opening bottles of wine, you know? Yeah. It is making, making the tempura. Does he always works in well, he, when he wakes up when he worked in fresco, he always worked in in a temporary temporary grass. So that was a Yeah, so that was at the same time. You know, I wanted to learn how to be a little more formal, well, a lot more formally actually get some instruction rather than yes, he's very nice, but you could carry it further era. Or, you know, he would say you have to find the mystery, the mystery and everything. Yeah, thanks. I'll do that. Very helpful. Right. I mean, I learned a lot watching him. Yeah. For us. That was the that was the big thing. But still so research, you know, there must be books written on there. So sure enough, you know, the, in the old days people used to used to write books on on the old techniques. Now, as it turns out, a lot of them were rubbish, rarely. Even some great painters. Like Sir Charles Eastlake, for instance, who wrote a book on painting technique. He, I mean, he was a great painter. He's a NEO classicist, which I don't like neoclassicism, but, you know, he would say how he wrote how he thought that the Venetians would an underpainting using Earth, reds and whites, you know, and then coat that when that was dry coat that with a with a semi transparent veil of whites, which gives you this beautiful purple underpinning, and that sounds lovely, and it works but that's not what they did. You know, now that we can actually examine the paint films, it just didn't happen. Yeah, so so there was a lot of that but still, it got it got. Oh, so I mean, I really have to speak in the plural because you know, people like Daniel graves Jeffrey Mims, Charles Cecil, they were doing their own research at the same time unbeknownst to each other, and of course, we were all painted. So it was as though we would just accept this stuff as being gospel, we will actually be able to try it. You know, so if they, you know, if the instructions were Why do you make a drawing by measuring this and this and this? And so we try it. And if it worked, then yes, great. That sounds right. But if it just didn't work like the Eastlake thing, for instance, then no, that probably wasn't. Was it? So a lot of a lot of that. And I mean, a big discovery from for me, was Thomas Boswell's book, Thomas bottle that was a British courtroom paints 18th century portrait painter, who didn't actually study under under rentals, but but studied under somebody who had studied my route. And he wrote a book on how, how to how to paint a portrait. Now, of course, it was out of print, but just by I can't even remember how but by happenstance, I came across a scholarly doctorate paper, I came across a mention of it on Thomas Bardwell book. And then don't ask me how I did this, because again, this is all pre computer, but still, the little guy found out yeah, there's a copy of it in London, in, I can't even remember where there's no point may say, I'd be making it loud, make it up the Royal Academy at it. So I was able to ride for them. And may God bless them sent me a photo photocopy, you know, that kind of thing. That's how that's how we researched it, and building, you know, over over decades, building curriculum. And then with the discovery of the rediscovery of the Bob drawings, that too, was a big leap forward. It was Daniel graves, actually, who came across them in if I'm remembering correctly in a, in a market in Paris, you know, he came across these these lithographs, that boy, these seem really good because oh, well, you know, by this time, everybody, we all knew that, that the old studios had this how to do it, book books, you know, you would make this simple thing and then make it more complicated and start to add, toning to it, you know, but these are really, really good. And Daniel showed them to me, I remember this was still in Daniel and trials where we were partners, because then I was there on holiday, I guess, because I remember looking see some graves studio that Daniel showed me this, this saint Jesus Christ, these are the bog joins, you know, we're gonna see seen, but I'd come across, and there was, you know, if a vote, whatever little coat of arms kind of thing, and he has his name on that. So that was a big discovery as well, you know. And actually, you know, the stuff is ongoing. The, as you know, there are above drawings of figures, there are figural bug drawings, most of them are just outline, some of them have some shading on it, but he didn't, he didn't carry it all the way. All the way through as far as I know, I mean, maybe he did well, and it just hasn't, you know, has yet still to the rest of them have still been. But just recently, you know, looking at the, at the figural outlines, you realize these aren't copied from nature, they're invented that they are, they are drawings that are made from C curves, S curves, and straight lines. And each one has a beginning and an end, a very visible thing so that you can appreciate that lifts. Alright, so you can have a short one, a long one, a medium one, medium one, long one, that kind of, which gives you the rhythm of the finger. All right. So so what he's teaching us and what people like Bouguereau learn from I mean, I know bargain Bouguereau concert contemporaries but but they had learned in that said how to make the make the drawing into work without making it not it's not a copy of a nature. It is actually a reinvention, a rhythmic reinvention of the mural. Yeah, so so that's just, that's something now that we're stressing that angels are the angel Academy, which nobody else says nobody seems to tumble to the end. It's all about design.

Laura Arango Baier: 29:35

Yeah. And is that how you differentiate naturalism and realism?

Michael John Angel: 29:40

Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean, representational ism. It's too long the word to to have this. But anyway, yeah, falls into all kinds of different categories through our photo realists, dislike personally, the photo realist concentrates on details. Wow, look at all those hairs, look at all those spots or whatever, look at all those wrinkles, whatever it's on yet it's not my cup of tea, but still, you know, it's it's that's what it does. And dad concentrates on details, what we might call the form of traditional realism concentrates on form. You know, and rather than drawing individual hair, for instance, the hair is treated as blocks and form as the US is everything else, you know, these are you looking at drawings by Colleen Berry, for instance, you know, to name one of the greats, they're very, very, very solid for looking but they're not realistic, you know, you compare them to a photograph, and they're not realistic at all. Not in that sense. You have also, what can we call narrative painting where, you know, the it's the there are figures in whatever there are, I mean, it could be also landscape, but they're not realistic, no matter what the figures might be metal Angeles, for instance, which again, is not realistic from and then the other what I call the naturalists, which are the people who just, you know, paint pictures of people sitting around, you know, and make them look real. Again, it's not my not my cup of tea. So yeah, you have these four, these four different, different types. But we definitely teach the traditional way. Form the emphasis on form. And again, I keep coming back to this I know, like a broken record, but design and composition, total composition, you know, the manipulation of visuals, to create an emotional response.

Laura Arango Baier: 31:55

Yes, yeah. And that's what I miss about your program, like having your your two lectures per trimester on one, I remember, we would have one always about teaching students how they can make money as painters. So you had, I remember, you would have this presentation on how to how much to charge for portrait, comparative pricing, and then the other one would always be on composition. And I haven't found that anywhere else. And I miss it so much. Because it's so useful, especially the multi figure composition, explanation you would give and using you know, the colors. I miss that.

Michael John Angel: 32:39

Well, I teach that to the Academy for people who are not in farms. I teach Wednesday mornings composition. Yeah. So should you be interested? should anybody be interested in that? Wednesday morning, Italian time, just get in touch with the school?

Laura Arango Baier: 32:57

Yeah, we can include the link in the show notes as well. So if anyone's interested, they can sign up. I mean, I'm probably going to sign up, at least until you publish your amazing book that I'm waiting for. Because that's so exciting. Because it's all on composition. And again, it's something that's really uncommon. I do have a couple books on composition, but I feel like the vocabulary is so hard to reach for me that it sorry, I just get focused on the complexity of the words rather than what there's. Yeah. You always simplified it, which I appreciate. Yeah, I

Michael John Angel: 33:32

mean, you know, one pin, one can use all kinds of fancy words, whatever. But you can also say things very straightforwardly, yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 33:42

definitely. So what has been the greatest challenge and you know, it as you have been teaching at this atelier?

Michael John Angel: 33:51

Oh god Sure, it's very it's, it's really challenging. That's a good word actually stays in English, a language that is actually visual. Yes. And particularly something as definitive as shapes. You know, I mean, there are some shapes. Always a circle, it's an oval, but you know, what about a tree shape? Like whatever you know, really irregular shape is the shape. So you know, to unify things you have to echo that shape everywhere, but it becomes very difficult to talk about it when there's no actual name for it. So we ended up talking terms of let's say, ovals, you know, Raphael composed in ovals which and and following, but that can very often mislead the student thing. Ah, well, there are only Oh, so squares and neurons resilience of different kinds of odd color even even more. So. Oh, particularly is not able to see this color the same way we deal you know, we deal with a huge scheme looking at a color, what is called a color wheel, it should really just be called a Huey. And and that not only does it turn things into a circle, which is not in nature, I mean, you're looking at a rainbow, it doesn't turn back on itself. Also, we talk about a division between red and red, orange. And there's no such thing in nature, one of the lines into the other of the spectrum, there's no way you could no way you can point and say, Ah, read ends here, you know, an art starts here. It doesn't, but in art it does. And people do crafts. I mean, one of the things is the principles in composition are actually really straightforward. Once they're pointed out to you, you know, learning how to do them is a whole different thing, learning the skill, you know, I like to compare it to a carpenter, you know, one can easily read and understand how one cuts 45 degree angle and a piece of wood. Alright, you fascinate down, you make a measurement. You take a song, you learn how to do it properly, though, takes practice. Yeah. All right. That's that's the that's the thing. So to get people to understand what they're looking at, to get them to remember, actually, students had a terrible habit of forgetting. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, to really not exaggerating, actually, when I say that, they learn how to how to make what we call the construct. So a two dimensional mannequin from the figure in the first, the first term, you know, so the first third of their first year, by the time they get to the third. Yeah, they've completely forgotten to do it. Again, the proportions are like, rather than, like having built on this, and just getting better at it later. So I've done that, you know, I don't have to worry about that. Yeah. So yeah, so I'm not allowed to smack them anymore. You know, the old days. You could

Laura Arango Baier: 37:13

like Annigoni again. Yeah. So what is your favorite thing about teaching?

Michael John Angel: 37:21

Well, I'd love the odds. That's I don't know if that just sounds daft. But I just love it. And the fact that people are there, and they weren't bloody hard, you know, long hours and living in Florence. I don't know when you're young, I guess it's okay. But when you're older, and we have, you know, middle aged students, and even even some people that are my age or close to, it's hard, you know, I mean, Lawrence isn't the most comfortable place in the world unless you unless you have a lot of money to spend.

Laura Arango Baier: 37:52

Yeah, this podcast is brought to you by FASO. If you're listening to this, it's safe to say that you're probably an artist. And you've probably struggled like most of us have to sell your work online using some random website building platform that isn't even made for artists. If this sounds like you, then check out faso.com forward slash podcast, FASO is an art marketing platform specifically designed for artists to help showcase your work. And not only that, it will also help you sell your work things through. They're really easy built in E commerce and marketing channels that help promote your work to over 48,000 collectors. On top of that, you'll also get access to marketing tips and help with your social media from top people in the industry. So if this sounds like a really great thing, and you want to take your artwork to the next level, and sell as much as you can, then go check out faso.com forward slash podcast BoldBrush would also like to give a huge thank you and shout out to Chelsea classical studio for their continued support in this podcast. If you're interested in archival painting supplies handmade with a lot of patience. Go check out their Instagram at CCS fine art materials. It is a truth though. When I was living in Florence, I don't think I ever had an apartment that was absolutely perfect. So Right. Yeah, they always had problems. It was either mold or the sink is just a mess. Or just there were just a bunch of problems.

Michael John Angel: 39:16

Oh, sure. One of our students just a few weeks ago, the ceiling failure, you know, part of the the buildings are old. Yeah. You know, I live I live just outside of the center in 19th century places. This house has the dates on the hammer thing. 1887 I guess which is new, you know, for Florence. And but yeah, man. Oh, man. The plumbing isn't the greatest.

Laura Arango Baier: 39:49

Oh, no. They need some, some help. I mean, I know that just before I go to the next topic, but I know that Florence basically just has a bunch of septic tanks. So

Michael John Angel: 40:00

Yes, so good. Yeah, they're called Black wells actually. Yeah, no. Athlete name.

Laura Arango Baier: 40:07

Yeah, I've had the pleasure of smelling one once that they were cleaning it out just outside of my apartment.

Michael John Angel: 40:17

Yeah. Well, you can imagine you know, in the in the flood back in 1966 happened just a few months before I came here. What isn't generally broadcast is of course the flood the the the waters from the north just brought all the stuff from the pazzi nati up like it was full of shit. Oh, full Yes. Yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 40:43

Oh my gosh. Well, that was talking about. Yes. So okay, so since you specialize in portraiture, what tips do you think you can give a recent graduate who is interested in portraiture, what do you recommend that they do? And how can they approach selling their work and living from it?

Michael John Angel: 41:07

Yeah. All right. Well, I mean, now, as you said earlier, there are wonderful outlets through the internet, you know, and, quite frankly, it seems as though there's a new one every, every other week kind of thing. So I wasn't really on top of that, although I encourage people to do the research, you know, I mean, I get my young students who know more about that stuff than I do. But that's how you how you do your outreach. There are portrait brokers, portrait galleries, so to speak, the most famous one is portraits Incorporated, I guess, which is in use. They handle hundreds, yeah, many hundreds of portrait painters. So one can one can approach those, but then you're in competition with only with all the others, you know, and the price ranges are very wide, they go from 4000 to 200,000. You know, in between so so that's, that's that until the until the internet, that was one of the one of the ways that a portrait painter would would make his or her presence known. You know, it's like any other kind of marketing Any, any, any other kind of products, which is what you're doing. Yeah, you just have to get the word out. So nowadays, yeah, do YouTube stuff.

Laura Arango Baier: 42:28

Yeah. And then also, I think the greatest, most important part would be painting. Well, I think, yeah, that's so important.

Michael John Angel: 42:40

Yeah, yeah. Also, pricing properly. You know, if you could paint somebody's children for 50 euros, now, let's say even 10 euros, you would have more work than you could handle for the rest of your life, you know, but obviously, you can't wait, and euros and portrait. So you have to find a place that is going to bring a price range that's going to bring in enough money for you to live. However, you know, as well or as or as simply as you want, but that's readily affordable, so that the price isn't term isn't a question. You know, I mean, if if you go out and charge 200,000 euros for portrait, you have very, very limited market, you know, and also people don't realize that if you're charging that amount of money, you've got a huge overhead. So you know, 200,000 you would probably just end up with 10,000 in your pocket, you know, after your promotion. And yeah, I mean, it's the same as anything you know, you can sell anything for a million euros if you spend 900,000 euros promoting it, you know? Yeah, it's it's not difficult. It's boring. Yeah, so setting it up finding a finding the other way to but yeah, it's so it's doable. It's very doable. Very doable. People make a living. I mean, my interest is painting nudes, which is crazy because no market these days for nudes. Not at all, which is really why Portrait Painting appealed to me it was kind of the closest I could get to painting nudes. So it leaves the head is naked

Laura Arango Baier: 44:24

face.

Michael John Angel: 44:28

But yeah, I still really love to paint kids. I mean, actually coming back to an earlier earlier thing. This reproduction recreation of Leightons flaming June for clients in Canada. And I mean, if you look at her, she is not realistic at all. Not at all. Not not not not a detail. You know her fingers don't look like him like fingers her feet don't like her hope. It isn't. Right and I mean, once you start to paint this bloody drapery it's like it's it's it's from out of space. I mean, it's just nothing like drapery looks it's absolutely gorgeous. Yeah, of course is what I what I keep saying that's what painting gives its design its creation based on observation, but

Laura Arango Baier: 45:25

yeah, it's an interpretation instead of a direct copy.

Michael John Angel: 45:29

Yes indeed. Yeah. And this this this particular painting you know, is so moving it's so emotional. It's it would be as I say, I'm doing it on commission but it would be an easy sell something like this something as powerful as this wonderful, rich colors.

Laura Arango Baier: 45:49

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's also something else that I miss from from Angel Academy, which is you always emphasize when we were in the figure room, the emotional expression of the figure not just copying it, do you think that's also something that the school offers that not many other athletes offer?

Michael John Angel: 46:08

I do. I do indeed. You know, I mean, the concerns what is COVID gesture, you know, you have to you have to manipulate the the gesture, and that how much or how little you can do that depends on your, on your aesthetic, you know, if you're into more Reubens like glandular like look, then you can really exaggerate the gesture because you know, you're not trying to make a personal look like a boast but if you are a figure look like a person, but if you if you want something to look photographically real then your limits to the the amount of gesture you can, you can exaggerate, you know, yeah, this is all part of the part of learning the craft. How to how to make your elements emote, you know how to increase and when I say gesture, it includes lamps and landscape, but I'm still life as well. You know, I mean, Sherry McGraw, for instance of great still live painter and her gestural paintings, and her color is breathtaking. You know, she is, again, if anybody doesn't know her Sherry McGraw. Look, she's gonna make sure American.

Laura Arango Baier: 47:27

Oh, I look her up too. Because I mean, I also really loved especially an angel, I really loved learning the still lives. I feel like the way that it's it's taught is so it makes so much sense in hindsight, like when you're doing, when you're doing you're like, why? But then in hindsight, you look at you know, what, by the time you reach your third painting, you're like, Ah, this is this makes perfect sense. Good, good. Good. Yeah. Yeah. You had mentioned last time we spoke that you were thinking about, hopefully, changing something in the program, or making it even more like the old masters. And I was wondering how you plan on doing that?

Michael John Angel: 48:07

Well, I'm in process of doing it. This says the thing I was saying about the draw of the bog figural drawings, for instance, you know, the having the students definitely interpret the figure in terms of C curves as curves and straight lines so that immediately they realize that they're actually creating the work of bots, they're not. They're composing a work of art. They're not copying, copying a figure. And it's hard, you know, because it's, it's difficult when you have to think horrifying to many people. Yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 48:45

I mean, I have this very vivid memory of one of your lectures where it was an image of Bouguereau painting, I believe it was dusk and don't actual model. And she was just like, this one isn't this beautiful, exaggerated, but it makes sense. Like, physically, she doesn't look like she's breaking. She still looks like she you know, she can still move that way. But the model is just standing there really boring.

Michael John Angel: 49:11

Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. Well, whatever ropes wrote to hold her on. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly exactly the thing. You know, you grow, or the artists would take whatever you take modeling inflammation for rendering motivation from the model, but you've got to reinvent the gesture. Really? Yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 49:37

And that's where the emotion is, like you said, that's what we're all attracted to the emotional aspect of human nature, because that's what unites us. In the end, we all look a little different, but in the end, we all feel the same. And I feel like that's also why, you know, capturing a feeling is a lot more powerful than just copying.

Michael John Angel: 49:57

Yeah, to me, it's crucial to To me, it's crucial and the difficult thing to learn, you have anything to teach. But that's that's really the challenge of learning how to how to paint, you know? Yeah, yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 50:13

And then I wanted to know a little bit more about your book on composition. I know, it's still a work in progress. I did, I did want to hear why you started writing it. And you also mentioned how, you know, your ideas have evolved. But mostly, I'm curious to know why you started writing it, and then how it's been going with

Michael John Angel: 50:37

it, I've been working on it on and off for, well, I say 12 years, but haven't seen same 12 years for a few years now. So it's more than more than 12 years, but very much on and off, I started because, well, there's no book out there on composition. There are lots of books. And each one has something to teach, you know, but they don't really get down to the, to the nitty gritty, they don't really get down to the abstract quality of pictorial composition, you know, are the underlying principles. For instance, two basic principles that the, well, let's say, three basic principles, first of all, one enters a painting from the front, there's a lot of things you'll read about how we in the West read a painting from left to right, just as we read about this nonsense, you enter a painting from the front and your intention goes immediately to the area of greatest contrast, and it's usually usually value contrast, but not always, the area of greatest contrast closest to the center. So you know, if you have to contrast see things one is near the center, and the other one is further away, you will go to the one near the center, first of all, and then the second principle is the eye always rises. And if you as a composer don't want the eye to rise, and you have to use other principles that are going to keep the eye down or else bring it back down, you know, that kind of thing. That's, as I say, that's the very, very beginning basis of o.com position. Yeah, yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 52:17

it's so it sounds like composition is is more like, since you're guiding the eye, it's kind of like being an author and you're, you're guiding a person through a story, you know,

Michael John Angel: 52:29

very much so very much any gonna use to say there is only one art by which he meant you know, that there's all the principles in music and in literature in painting and sculpture, in dance, the principles are the same, you know, giving rhythm to police saying create mystery, and that was his way to create emotion and emotional response in the, in the viewer or in the reader or in the audience. There are you know, in composition, you get things like counterpoint where which means you have two separate systems working at the same time. In music, it's it happens a lot. You have kind of a backup thing like a backup band, and then you get the vocal, I don't know you've got this in in painting as well. You have to have unity and the you have to have a unified system. And a unified system is the hardest thing to design. Because without a unified system, you can't introduce a variety You can't introduce an anomaly. You have no system before you can have a Marion also you need a unified system to illusionist Stickley move things in and out of space. And so very, very difficult thing to design in an interesting way. You know, so these these kind of general presidential snot dealt with so I thought, well, let's, let's write them down. Let's see what we can see how we can organize this.

Laura Arango Baier: 54:01

Yeah, yeah, and I think there is a great need for that today. Especially because I feel like it a lot about TAS it is very much focused on here's a figure just copy it or just make it pretty but there's there's absolutely no teaching in terms of one composition, which I think it's extremely important since it is so convoluted, you know, there's color and then there's value and then there's, you know, the actual grouping of figures and grouping of things and guiding the eye like we just mentioned, but then also they don't emphasize either how to make money as an artist. You know, they just say oh, like you're you're done okay by they don't really tell you like hey, what's the first step was I feel like a lot of Antilles would do a lot better if they taught that because at least when I was you know, learning an angel I did have a very good idea of okay, this is how I price my paintings, which is something that we all ask or like, I've had that again, if people ask me online like How do you price your paintings? And I'm like, wow. Well, there's a lot of things into it. But yeah, I feel like I have a lot that I'm very thankful for when I studied it, Angel.

Michael John Angel: 55:13

I'm glad to hear that. Thank you. It's nice to welcome. Students believe me. Oh,

Laura Arango Baier: 55:19

thank you.

Michael John Angel: 55:21

You know me, I don't actually say I don't give compliments unless I need them. If I don't like something. I don't say anything.

Laura Arango Baier: 55:29

You're very direct.

Michael John Angel: 55:31

I am very direct. Yes. Yes. Although the owner was telling me I shouldn't be that way. But

Laura Arango Baier: 55:41

I think no, I think it's better to be honest and to be direct than to let someone unknowingly suffer.

Michael John Angel: 55:49

You know? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, I was telling the Office Admin in the office, you know, if you don't tell people what's going on, you can't expect them to act intelligently. Yeah, so

Laura Arango Baier: 56:06

they don't know what's going on.

Michael John Angel: 56:08

But those are me very briefly have a wonderful story with Jared. Oh, Jared. You know, I used to, I used to have two schools, all right, one in Canada, one here. And I would go backwards, forwards, like two months and two months at a time. So during the two months that I was in Canada, Jared would look up to things in Florence. This is really early days, you know, so we were really just still in the Donatella Pizzarelli not a ton of studio anyway, a Canadian painter, strangely Canadian, because Canadians are known to be lovely people. And she wasn't, apparently. And Jared said, Well, you know, you'll have to start with these bar drawings. She said, No, no, no, I've been painting. I've been painting for years. I want to start advanced. And Jared said, Well, no, no, we don't do it that way. You know, you'll begin at the beginning. If you zoom through them, that's fine. But you have to No, no, no. Anyway, make a long story short talking to Jared on the phone. I was in Canada, he told me that the woman had left and her husband's a mercenary soldier. And he was going to come to Florence and killed Jared. So that's Oh, you'll see even even threatened with death. We don't give people advance standing. Right. A month later, like sold short while before I returned to Florence, again, talking to Jared on the phone about things. I said, By the way, by the way, how did that guy have a turn up? And he said, My stroke. Nice. So I've been walking around on to the teeth for the last month and the guy just hasn't shown up.

Laura Arango Baier: 57:50

He was already. Oh my gosh. But yeah, I actually really liked the the program. And it's something that you advertise also on the website, which is it's for all levels. It's it really is important, even if you've been painting forever to go back to the basics. And like you said, you know, you can zip through the basics, that's fine. But getting back to the basics to really focus on those tiny weaknesses is so key.

Michael John Angel: 58:18

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, there's a wonderful story of Pablo Casals, one of the Great's cello players in the 20th century when he was 92, a reporter asked him why he still does the scales every morning on his cello. And he said, because I think I'm starting to hear an improvement. One of the greatest cello players in the world still doing the scales because he thinks he's starting to hear. Yeah, you have to keep going back. It's a skill.

Laura Arango Baier: 58:55

Yeah, everyone thinks that once you're an expert, you never have to go back to the basics, but that's not true. I think that's when the basics become even more important. Yeah. So since we're in the pandemic, and you mentioned your teaching online, how has that been better? Or how like, what are the pros and cons of teaching through zoom rather than at the studio?

Michael John Angel: 59:22

I frankly think it's better online. You're closer to the students, individual students. You can literally well I want is literally looking over their shoulder watching what they're doing. So as soon as they start to do something crazy, you can scream. Stop doing that. Secondly, they the students themselves, can you no one gives demonstrations every in every class painting demonstrations, and they can they can see they are very close to you again, so it's reciprocal, you know, they can see it exactly what you're what you're painting, you don't have to look at it from across the studio, from the other side of the studio, you know, and consider close and personal. The one can just conjure up JPEGs, you know, that illustrate what you're what you're talking about, I usually have a whole bunch of them set up before the class. But more often than not, I realized, Oh, my God, no, I need more, I have this one that will really show there. So I can go into my, my external thing of about, you know, and just bring up the JPEG that illustrates that, or I might have a demo video that I haven't thought we did. So you can just pull it you can't do that class. You know, that's true. So it's much, much, much better. There are some glitches, the color is tricky, because, you know, everybody is sitting in different colors and lights are the field color actually is different, like mine is, as we're looking now mine is yellower than yours, for instance, that influences how your paintings will look the colors on your painting. Now to you, or me sitting in my my field color situation, the colors look as they shouldn't be, you know, what, you who are outside my field color, you are seeing a different color thing. So that makes it that makes it very difficult to, to stay on top of things. And also, you know, people sometimes I will say, Well, you know, your dogs aren't dark enough to say, well, you know, I let me turn this light off, and then they turn the light off, they just have the spotlight quite close to their ears. Right now they're fine. Now we get across that bye. For the moment, I can't think of a bit of solution by the students sending the main JPEGs just emailing me JPEGs. And I can see it on my screen and have a look at what's going on, you know, so yes. So apart from that, apart from the color, everything is better, I think online. And it's also very convenient for people I have you know, on Thursday is I have two classes to private classes. One in the morning, one, one in the afternoon in the morning. One is for people who live east of Italy. And the afternoon. One is for people who live the west of habits just for the time difference, you know, this the same class, the same lesson, so to speak, from that point of view, you know, 111 can reach out more when it's more available to people in the world. So you don't have a lot of advantages. Yeah, I'm taking a break. Well, I have three, a three Thursday break from my private classes, but we'll be starting again on the third of March. I mean, anybody who little commercial ambered here, anybody who would be interested in finding out more, just email me. My email address is m John Angel one word@gmail.com. You could also you could also get me through the school. And you can also you know find out about the composition classes, because I don't teach composition in the private class this painting. But the composition classes in the school. All right, perfect.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:03:21

Yeah. Then with a pandemic, is the school still open? Like is it still taking students? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Michael John Angel: 1:03:30

As I say it's a tendency is down because because people don't travel people that love to travel and yeah, we're not in a lockdown exactly here in Tuscany, but it's pretty close as I did. I'd say it's 100 euros fine. If you're if you haven't been if you've discovered without your it's called a green pass without proof that you've had three vaccinations. Oh, wow. Yeah. So they're they're taking it pretty seriously very seriously.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:04:01

Well, yeah, there are a lot of elderly people in Italy and Italy was hit really hard when the pandemic started, so I can understand the fear. Yeah, and at least you get to teach from home which is much more comfortable for you and you get to be in your studio and you get to take a nap and hang out. Right, which is my situation also, I like working from home

Michael John Angel: 1:04:24

from the gym.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:04:27

Yep, so why I have to hire some students to open wine bottles for me now.

Michael John Angel: 1:04:33

That's That's right. That's that's part of the part of the training man. Yeah, yeah. I remember as a as a, as I said, he was a real boozer. We leave the studio would go to dinner, the local restaurant, and after dinner, Annigoni would get up he'd reach over get the bottle of wine, he'd say, I go to work. Now you You come with me to the point Oh.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:05:03

Oh, Annigoni. Oh my gosh, it must have been amazing to work under him because he Wow. I mean, he paid the queen. He painted the Queen like two or three times. Yeah.

Michael John Angel: 1:05:15

Amazing. Yeah. And I mean, after he painted the first point, the beautiful portrait of gorgeous, he was just the culture painter of the of all society, you know, everybody wants to be painted by him. Yeah. And he lived like a, like a king, really. I mean, he was very bohemian. But immensely well, for Italy. Italy was very, very inexpensive back there very cheap. So the money that he was paid for his international portraits were kept in. Well, well stocked him.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:05:51

Whoa. Yeah. Yeah, I think you showed us a picture of or maybe it was the documentary, we saw that he had this amazing penthouse apartment, I think in the center of Florence. And he refused to leave during World War Two. He's amazing.

Michael John Angel: 1:06:08

It was very, very different. Yeah. People downstairs so anyway, even if somebody is thrown Nobody, Nobody could touch him. You know? Yeah. Fine. The good old days. Nowadays, you have to be a politician for nobody. Senate.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:06:29

Oh, my gosh, most of this has been such a wonderful conversation. You too, it's, it's awesome to talk to you, especially now that I've experienced, you know, the painting world post Angel Academy. And I can, in hindsight, be like, Wow, this made such a big difference for me. Yeah. Especially in the understanding of color and mixing color and how to color match, even though no one can perfectly color match reality. But I gained so much from Angel academy that I'm absolutely thankful and grateful for the experience.

Michael John Angel: 1:07:09

Lovely, thank you for saying that. Yes, I'm very proud of what we do there as a metric. Yes.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:07:17

I think it's, it's a wonderful place. Thank you so much. miasto you're so wonderful. And I will make sure that I put all the links so people can hopefully join your composition class or even your Thursday class. And yeah, thank you so much,

Michael John Angel: 1:07:31

Laura. Thank you. It was really really wonderful talking to you.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:07:35

Oh, you too. Thank you so much.

Michael John Angel: 1:07:39

Because bad Johnny to Barbara. A battery update