Fernando Botero - First Art Source

Fernando Botero
Fernando Botero was born in Medelín, Colombia, on April 19, 1932. His father was a travelling salesman, who died of a heart attack when Fernando was two. Known today for its cocaine dealers, Medelín was a small mountain village during Botero's childhood. He educated at a Jesuit secondary school, where he began drawing and painting. His first source of artistic inspiration was bullfighting, which led to his first art sales, selling watercolors of bullfights at the arena gates. Fernando Botero, like Picasso, uses appropriation in many of his works. Most notable are his appropriations of the work of Diego Velázquez. Also present in many of Botero's works are visions of sensuality, specifically images of nude females. While most people view the figures in Botero's works to be fat, he prefers to view them as sensual people in a world where no one is fat. Botero does several sketches before beginning a painting. He works by painting on an unstretched canvas, providing him with more versatility in the painting process. He first sponges on an ochre background layer, then using turpentine to outline the figures, before finally beginning to paint with linseed oil. Botero works on several paintings at a time, sometimes leaving partial works for months. It is only when he feels that the work is finished that the canvas is mounted on a stretcher.