Elizabeth Peyton: Aire and Angels at National Portrait Gallery from 3rd October until 5th January 2020 (2nd November)

Featured photo: detail from ‘Alizarin Kurt’ by Elizabeth Peyton, 1995, private collection. © Elizabeth Peyton

I went because I loved her work and was including her in my final essay, and wanted to see her paintings in the flesh.

Sadly I came away very disappointed, shocked at how varied her work was and with the realization that when she’s mentioned in articles they nearly always draw illustrations from a very narrow body of work from the around 1995 to 2005 when she first rose to fame. Maybe her famous work was the result of years of struggle and artistic endeavor and when she hit the financial jackpot she made her art (the eyes have it) into a business? The comparison to somebody like Picasso who remained connected to his art, you can see it on his canvases and in his pottery, and was an innovative genius throughout his career was striking.

Something that doesn’t come across (and I’ve never seen mentioned) in the articles is how she prepares her own small boards to a fine shiny-smooth gessoed finish and uses very thin paint. And when you see them face to face just how much she’s worked the eyes… and how loose, to the point of losing form, her backgrounds are.

Overall the exhibition was very mixed, her work from 1995 to 2005 is lovely but after that it’s as if she rode on her success and some of her later paintings would struggle to get in a local show if she didn’t have a name.

The exhibition is split up (I think) because there are not enough paintings for a whole exhibition and it’s too poor to stand up as a single body of work. And while it’s interesting to see her work alongside traditional portraits I don’t buy into the National Portrait Gallery’s explanation that they’re positioning her in the context of historical portraiture because there’s no meaningful contextual analysis. It feels like a gimmick, scattering her paintings among their collection to get bodies through the door.

Classical portraits are mainly about glorification, status and wealth (or telling a particular self narrative) while her portraits are all about humanizing stars, if she’d been alive in the 17th and 18th century she’d would have been painting kings and saints as if they were your mate having a beer in your mud hut.

The curation felt very lazy.

However, her famous portraits were great and it was lovely to see some of my favorite paintings that I’d only seen on my Mac.

The use of time in Constable’s oil sketches and Elizabeth Peyton’s finished paintings.

With a swish of his brush Constable conjures up a moody beach in 1824 and Peyton a pop star in 1996. But though both Constable’s sketches and Elizabeth Peyton’s finished paintings look quick and sketchy, have they used oil paint in the same way?

I was fascinated by the way Constable’s sketches and Elizabeth Peyton’s finished paintings both appeared to be painted quickly and capture a fleeting moment. It is as if you were in the room with the pop star or strolling on the beach with Constable.

Elizabeth Peyton, Blue Liam, 1996

However, when I visited the Elizabeth Peyton exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery it was obvious that the eyes were painted slowly and carefully while the background was generic (visual shorthand for a body in a room) rather than a specific moment like Constable’s sketch.

This made me consider the way I am beginning to use time in my work. Below is a very quick acrylic sketch (but it could as easily be thinned oil) that captures my connection to the moment.

Acrylic on A3 paper

IMG_20191030_151833

Next, I looked at a Constable oil sketch:

Brighton Beach, 1824

The painting is stylistically coherent; it was all done quickly, and I can feel myself walking on the beach. I think the lack of finish means Constable is able to focus on the colours and mood (he is living in his body rather than his head) to capture the fleeting moment. However, Peyton was working from a photograph and her sketchy background is visual shorthand, a dead image. In contrast, Constable’s oil sketches are a shorthand for his sensory and emotional experiences of the lived moment.
.
This made me consider my own practice and how quick on the spot sketches capture a moment that would be impossible from a found photograph because you are living the moment… not copying a dead photograph. I then thought how I could extend my sketchbook work by using thin oils.

Here are a couple of my sketches, A5 sketchbook

A5 sketchbook:

IMG_20191109_133318

IMG_20191109_133329

Copying people from a photograph would have produced a tight, flat, stiff and lifeless sketch, as would drawing seagulls from a book.

Relating this to the course as a whole, I realised that medium and technique are just vehicles for achieving an artistic end. Thinned oil paint is as good for quick sketch work now as it was in Constable’s time. But the really important factor is the positioning of the artist, not the speed. Are they working from the head (Peyton’s

work is basically a highly finished intellectual work passing itself off as spontaneous) or from the body, like Constable, where they capture their present reality?

Peyton is using speed as a finishing technique to suggest spontaneity (the photograph is not going to go away) whereas Constable is using speed to capture a fleeting moment.

Constable’s oil sketches have impressed me with how one can quickly capture the mood and emotion of a moment using thin oils, so I will incorporate this way of working into my practice. I love colour, and am an emotional painter, so colour sketches are more suited to my artistic voice than line sketches.

Bibliography:

BBC (no date) ‘BBC – History – John Constable’. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/constable_john.shtml (Accessed: 7 November 2019).

Elizabeth Peyton: Aire and Angels – National Portrait Gallery (no date). Available at: https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2019/elizabeth-peyton (Accessed: 8 November 2019).

Frist Art Museum (2012) Curator’s View on Constable: Oil Sketches from the Victoria and Albert Museum. Youtube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLsxp2gRP4k (Accessed: 9 November 2019).

John Constable | Brighton Beach (1824) | Artsy (no date). Available at: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/john-constable-brighton-beach (Accessed: 9 November 2019).

Lack, J. (2009) ‘Artist of the week 36: Elizabeth Peyton’, The Guardian, 8 April. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/apr/08/artist-elizabeth-peyton (Accessed: 9 November 2019).

Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton (no date). Available at: https://walkerart.org/calendar/2009/live-forever-elizabeth-peyton (Accessed: 9 November 2019).

Plc, G. B. (1996) Techniques of the Great Masters of Art. Grange Books.

Assignment 5

IMG_20191104_193032

This Assignment is meant to be seen as a unit, that is all five paintings make one reaction and should be seen as a whole not five separate paintings.

The five paintings are different aspects of my environment which I reacted to in different ways which show my environment as a whole.

In short there’s the photograph of the model of me in black space as my self awareness is what gives this space meaning (for me); the leaves show my garden and the peace and tranquility it gives me; my self portrait made of rubbish acknowledges my waste as part of my environment (it has to be managed and holds a record of my consumption); the fiery house is my digital world, so different from the garden; and finally the collaged bedroom is playing with the idea of real objects rather than painted representations… it stands for my bedroom and is extending into sculpture (it has a 3D element) that allows me to ‘see’ the objects in my bedroom that I normally take for granted and a painting wouldn’t capture because it’s primarily visual and illusionary.

So, these five paintings are all linked to give a single picture of my environment.

Depicting your environment

When my son left for university I moved to a small village and sometimes miss town… walking down the road to Cambridge Utd, biking to the cinema or the swimming pool and chatting to all my neighbours and friends. This can make my house feel more like a box than a home as I haven’t built up all the connections I used to have.

For my Assignment I’m going to make five paintings:

(1) A home is made of people, memories and relationships so one way of looking at my environment is as a black box, somewhere empty of memories and connections.

(2) I love trees so am going to paint the sunshine through the leaves of my cherry tree.

(3) My environment is also all the packaging I throw away so I’m going to make a self portrait out of bottle tops and packaging.

(4) Part of my environment is the digital connections I have with all my friends. You can’t normally ‘see’ these so I’m going to try and paint them.

(5) Leaflets and envelopes pop through my letterbox and normally get thrown away without a second look, so I thought it would be fun to use them to for a collage of my bedroom.

(1) Boxed In, photographs of man made of bottle tops, tissue and PVA glue (18.5 H x 9 W x 7 D cm) standing inside a posting box painted with acrylic Mars Black and varnish (34 x 44 x 16 cm).

For my photographs I’m going to pick three 19th century lighting formats that I’ve read about in my Essential Reading book Techniques of the Great Masters by Waldemar Januszeczak. This will show how different lighting can radically change not only the image but how we view a situation too.

Chiaroscuro: traditional muted high cool northern light which gives the model deep warm shadows and lots of half tones ideal for classical tonal painting.

Technically this was very difficult because I ended up on ISO 12800 and it was still too slow for camera shake at 1/15… F 5.6 so quite a shallow depth of field to let in lots of light… but I didn’t want to put the camera on a stand as that restricted my freedom to move around.

In the end I went for the one that had the most half tones and was the nearest to being in focus.

This has directional light, high on the right through tissue paper, and modelling. It’s as close as I can get to chiaroscuro lighting; though in classical lighting there wouldn’t be any reflected light on the model’s right arm.

Visually I find this very interesting with the light grey high up on the back wall as the ‘window’ light brushes against it, the reflected red on the background, and the figure is nicely modelled.

2. Early photographic: bright lighting from behind the artist which killed the mid tones, gave a flat image with dark contours and (mainly) hid the shadows behind the subject.

I’ve chosen the one that most closely resembles early photographic lighting: flat, from the front and with the shadow hidden behind the subject.

There’s something hard and brittle about this lighting that I like.

3. Natural lighting (I’ll take the box outside). This will give me ambient lighting, blue from the sky, and reflected light bouncing in from outside. It brings the garden into my house and should make the box and any shadows on the model much lighter and cooler.

I took several but this is the one I liked best.

I chose it for three reasons.

Only my head is in focus so it mirrors how we see naturally, which seems like a good way of using natural light.

2. It visually translates the concept that the house has no meaning (is not a home) until I fill it with memories.

3. I like the way my black shoes catch a highlight. This gives them form and differentiates them from the background void.

(2) Sunlight, oil on canvas, 60 H x 60 W cm

I made several quick drawings in my A5 sketchbook standing in front of the tree and then painted these up as watercolour sketches in my A3 sketchbook.

I made them square as I’m going to use a square canvas and the canvas shape (as I discovered with the tondos) dictates the composition.

I was surprised by how effective the thin suggestive wash of the shadow on the wall is, though I don’t want to do a ‘realistic’ painting for this.

The leaf pattern is beginning to work especially where I haven’t drawn in the shape of the colours and the overlapping leaves are dissolving into an abstract pattern.

I don’t like the single leaf blown up as its become more design than art. And the abstract painting (using the colours and forms) has lost its connection with the leaves.

So, I painted up the leaves in acrylic in my A3 sketchbook.

IMG_20191030_151833

I really like this as it’s joyous and beginning to capture the effect of sunlight through moving leaves so works both visually and emotionally.

Technical notes: the rough brushwork is effective… the ‘blue’ patch doesn’t work… 2 or 3 colours in a leaf works, more doesn’t… suggestive, blurred edges are good… keeping the same base green on each leaf is effective… I used four different green but one green lightened and darkened would be much better.

Sunlight through leaves, oil on canvas, 60 H x 60 W cm

This was a combination of using my annotated sketches (I can’t mix the colours quickly enough as the light changes but I can jot them down and then ‘see’ them back in the studio).

Technically this was very difficult as it’s my first big oil painting using hog’s hair brushes and the techniques I’ve read about in my Techniques of the Great Masters of Art rather than adapting watercolour and acrylic techniques. It was wet in wet with a tiny bit of wet on dry; as I painted it over three days some patches had started to dry. I corrected the whole canvas as I went along.

The book makes much more sense now and I could imagine working on six or seven paintings simultaneously leaving each to dry for a couple of weeks while I worked on another. It’s the first time I’ve imagined I could work professionally in oil one day, which is very exciting.

This is an all-over painting with a very shallow depth of field and a surface pattern, so it sets up a dynamic between the picture plane (2D) and the (3D) leaves. I modelled the leaves using a warm/cold contrast and didn’t use any brown or black. There’s also some touches of orange on the blue green leaves (complementary colours) which give it a ping of extra energy.

I think it works in capturing both how the leaves in sunshine feel to me and their physical reality, so both a subjective and objective painting of my environment.

(3) Self Portrait, mixed media, paper, bottle tops, flour, packaging and PVA glue on canvas, 50.8 H x 40.6 W cm

As this is my first concept painting it’s very hard for me to judge how successful it is.

In what way is it a self-portrait?

It reflects my life by using rubbish from milk cartons to coke bottles; food packaging like the tinned tomatoes for my lips; health products such as vitamin tablets (prime man 50+) and (cavity protection) toothpaste; my email from the OCA saying I’ve completed Assignment 3 with a scribbled note to say I’ve passed Assignment 4.; and a tag from a painting for sale.

So, it is a self-portrait that captures something important about what I am now.

Does it depict my environment?

Yes, as long as you define my environment as including ‘rubbish’.

Is it art?

If art is a question, message, abstraction or personal representation then this is art. And even though it doesn’t capture a physical representation it is still a portrait as it says a lot about me.

Is it good art?

I have no idea.

As it’s my first attempt at anything like this and I don’t know the language it’s bound to be beginner level – but my hope is that I’ve absorbed enough about ‘art’ over Level 1 for it to have some value.

(4) Visual portrayal of my digital environment

A3 sketchbook – six preliminary ideas in ink.

I wanted to try and convey all the online connections (internet, WhatsApp, text, Facebook, video messages, emails etc) that come into my home. Just because they are digital doesn’t make them any less part of my environment. In fact, because they are invisible (unlike the flooring, a painting hanging on the wall or my possessions) but all pervasive – how often do we check our phones? And they wouldn’t have been in a painting of anybody’s environment pre about 1970 – it probably means it’s even more important to try and paint them.

I like top left and bottom right sketches.

The first one works because the black squares could represent bricks, and there’s a house shape, though I think I should put the ‘white’ square inside the house. ‘Digitising’ my environment by using dashes works as it echoes digital language, and the colouring shows the emotional effect of the connections. I like the orange around the house which could be a glorious sunset or stand for a ‘digital glow’.

The final sketch is simpler. The triangle inside the rectangle places me inside my house (I don’t know why I like the triangle more than the circle to represent me)? I like that my environment is coloured by the digital world.

First and last small sketch developed in ink in A3 sketchbook.

The first sketch the clear winner as it has much more meaning.

I’m going to make the physical world of ‘matter’ black (Mars black not mixed from burnt umber and ultramarine, as I want it as neutral as possible) and for the internet I’m going to use colour straight from the tube.

My Internet Environment, acrylic on canvas, 41 H x 51 W cm

This was the most fun as I was completely free to let the paintbrush do the talking. It was like having a conversation in colour instead of words.

I love the way the canvas show through and the white makes the yellow and red luminous. Playing with the brush strokes and working intuitively is the way to go, at least for part of my practice and I’d love to do more like this.

It captures the concept I was after, that the internet is part of my environment.

Technically the difficulty is that it’s a bit like watercolour. You have to get the brushstrokes right first time, working over them muddies the colour and and you lose the texture of the canvas which I was using to harmonise the canvas.

(5) Bedroom, mixed media including: post, leaflets, rubbish and PVA glue on canvas, 40.6 H x 50.8 W cm

This is not a traditional single perspective painting, I’ve tried to capture the whole of my bedroom.

By using collage I’m forcing myself to look, think and visualise in a different way (because I can’t use paper like paint like paint) and I hope this will enrich my practice as well as teach me something new about my environment.

This is starting to do some very interesting things, such as read like a book, a cartoon and a painting all at the same time. When you look at any one part of the painting it makes sense and you build the bedroom in your head from all the pieces. I found I was also projecting real tables and chairs onto my schematic suggestions.

So, even though it’s non-realist, is making its own artistic conventions, and has multiple viewpoints, it could be argued it’s better than a conventional painting because it packs in more information.

However it’s not a beautifully crafted aesthetic object.

Which raises the question of what is a painting and what is its job? Does it have to be beautiful? Does it have to be well crafted and does it have to please the viewer?

It can be aesthetic (and beautifully crafted aesthetic objects sell) but I’m learning on this course that art can also be lots of other things. Though I haven’t yet worked out how you can make money out of poorly crafted ugly objects however meaningful they are… unless maybe you have very rich friends, critical acclaim (the gatekeepers) and the ear of the museums?

I should add that this took eight hours and was much more difficult than I’d imagined. This was not only the cutting and sticking but (perhaps even more) working out a new visual language.

Considering my bedroom in this way has changed my relationship to it. It’s difficult to describe but by painting it through a new ‘frame’ it’s changed how I look at it.

It’s almost as if before I saw my bedroom (the world) as it would appear in a painting or photograph, using a learned visual language, and that that was unquestioned as the only way of seeing. But now I have a new way of seeing. The nearest I can describe it is as if the single viewpoint is a word in a sentence, and the bedroom is the whole sentence.

Five different ways of curating my paintings:

I’m going to curate them on the wall, on a stand and on a table.

On the wall:

The curation is both the arrangement of the paintings and the photograph of the paintings – there are numerous ways you could photograph a collection and each one would change how you ‘read’ the paintings.

This is is a traditional wall or gallery hanging, flat paintings presented on a flat white wall. So the curation is both in the internal relationship between the paintings, and in their external relationship to the space.

I’ve tried to get the viewer to walk through my house (at least a little). The light on the bedroom painting hopefully draws the eye up the stairs to the right. After resting there they walk back down the stairs and out towards the leaves (the tree is just outside by the patio). Next I suspect the bright red and yellow will draw their eye which is my internet environment… then there’s the photograph of me standing in a void (I create my environment)… and finally we make eye contact.

My aim is to make the viewer think about my environment, me, and then about their environment. Therefore it raises their awareness of their environment, just as this Assignment has raised my awareness of my environment.

2. On a stand:

This is using the idea of a ‘person’ as a unifying concept.

My head is on the top, the leaves are the widest part of me (my chest and tummy), the photograph (it is also a body in itself) bends to link the body with the two paintings below which stand in for my legs.

Rather than moving through the house the paintings have to be read like a book, a page at a time (only vertically rather than horizontally). The viewer looks at one painting, studies it, and then moves on.

It doesn’t matter where the viewer starts though I suspect they’d start with the top as we naturally look at peoples eyes first.

By making the viewer stop and look at the paintings separately it mirrors the gallery experience. The viewer will naturally linger on the ones they find more interesting… one at a time, rather than see them as a group.

My hope with this curation is that the viewer would piece together my environment from the individual paintings. The weakness is that I don’t think this curation asks them questions about their environment… they remain outsiders looking in.

So, I’m not going to pick this curation.

3. On a table:

The unifying idea here is that the paintings are in a table top sale. I also thought it would be fun to play with overlapping paintings… in real life you’d have to move around (or pick them up) to see them properly. By flagging them as ‘objects’ it also de-iconises them and makes them into ordinary things rather than revered objects.

It’s also a fun arrangement as the bedroom window looks out onto the tree, I’m peeping over the orange painting… and there I am proudly standing in the front.

I think it also emphasises that you have to get in and around my environment to really experience it; it’s not a neat arrangement of flat surfaces, it’s a physical space you live in. It almost has echos of a model of my house with rooms and walls.

I’m not sure it works (so I’m not going to choose it), but I think with proper mounting and lighting this could be an interesting way of displaying paintings.

Reflection using assessment criteria:

Visual skills… materials, design, composition.

In using a variety of media to make five paintings I think I’ve shown good visual skills.

I have used a variety of techniques from direct observation, sketches, developmental drawings, oil painting, collage, acrylic and photography… and combined everything I’ve learned so far to compose and produce a range of effective well-composed paintings.

2. Quality of outcome… application of knowledge and presentation of work in a coherent manner.

I’m quite pleased with the quality of outcome as in challenging myself with new media I’ve had to both apply new knowledge and adapt knowledge I’ve learned over the last four years. In all five paintings I think the outcome is coherent and much looser than I’ve ever managed before.

3. Creativity… imagination, experimentation and invention.

It’s difficult for me to judge but in covering both my physical environment such as the leaves, rubbish, developing a new way of seeing for my bedroom, and visualising the invisible in my internet painting I think I’ve shown imagination.

4. Reflection, research and critical thinking.

My research has been in-depth and I have written extensive notes in my logbook both on painters and techniques.

As I’ve gone through the assignment I’ve reflected fully on my work. I find that I learn as much from my reflection and looking as I do from actually painting. My reflection and reading informs all my painting.

Review my work for Part 5

My personal voice:

It’s easier to say where my personal voice isn’t rather than where it is.

It’s not realism.

I like suggestive work, the boundary between realism and abstraction, ‘suggestive figuration’, narrative, meanings which can range from my personal take on beauty (How I see the world) to an emotional ‘message’,… I’d like to capture movement, and create beautiful objects…

My ‘voice’ is multi faceted and depends on what I want to say and who I’m having the conversation with. I would use different ‘voices’ to say different things to different people; just as in life we use different languages and styles depending on what we’re talking about and to whom.

I may have a dominant voice for commercial work (something I repeat that sells) but as far as art is concerned I believe in finding the best voice for what I want to say.

What really motivates me?

Producing beautiful work that communicates with an audience.

What three words describe your practice at the moment?

Learning, growing, excited.

Which parts of this course would you choose to develop?

All of it.

However, it can all be applied to everything I do and will inform all my future practice. So, in that way, I will be constantly developing what the course has given me.

Have you fulfilled the criteria and and do any of the images you’ve collated merit further development?

Yes, I think I have challenged myself and learned enough of the concepts in each exercise to allow me to move forward and apply them in future.

This is the first Part of level 1 where I feel I’ve stepped away from playing safe. I’ve flapped my artistic wings and it feels great.

There’s many things I’d like to do and skills I need to develop (such as quick oil sketches), drawing and painting from imagination, creating magical worlds. But I feel the foundations are laid and now I can start really moving forward at Level 2.

…………..

Success criteria:

1) Demonstration of visual skills:

I feel my experimentation with painting from life and different techniques such as David Hockney type acrylic for the detailed plant, through watercolour (which I loved), to capturing light and painting rubbish alla prima in oil has produced much looser and more effective paintings.

This has drawn on everything I’ve learned and read at level 1.

I particularly like my watercolours and oil paintings of rubbish.

2) Quality of outcome:

I think my reflection shows that I have achieved what I set out to in the exercises.

The viewer can grasp my intent, which isn’t realism, but a suggestive figuration that captures the moment (and my relationship to nature) in the case of the bramble bushes. And the essence of the rubbish in the oil paintings.

My work on light isn’t as effective but even here it’s clear that the changing direction and quality of light radically changes the visual information in front of the artist.

3) Demonstration of creativity

Apart from the exercise on a corner of the room with changing light I think I did really well on this element.

One of my big failings throughout Level 1 has been how I’ve clinged on to tight realist painting even when I’ve emotionally and psychologically moved on to much looser and suggestive painting.

In this exercise I finally managed to start painting more freely.

I painted all of the exercises from life and used different techniques like impasto, and different media like oil and watercolour, to capture my reality. I’m very pleased with the results which look totally different to when I started the course.

On my last unit I painted tight copies of photographs which looked like a good Sunday painter in a local art club and for Part 5 I produced paintings I would happily stand up against any art student.

I have last year’s paintings hanging in my living room (I’m selling them) and some of my new ones drying. Side by side you wouldn’t think they were by the same person, which in a way they’re not.

4) Context:

This is something that I’ve developed as I’ve moved through level 1.

I started without A level art or an art Foundation and little art knowledge and no skill. As I’ve moved through the course not only have I researched in depth all the artists suggested I’ve also read all the Essential and extra reading books and many other books so that I now constantly refer to art and artists, with reference to my own work.

And I have a good basic mind map of art and artists that I can hang new bits of information on.

My blog is full of artists whose work I admire or not, but then that’s equally useful.

The next step with is to transform my artistic knowledge from a general background into an academic tool, and I’m looking forward to my tutor at Level 2 helping me with that.

Exercise 5.4 – Make three oil or acrylic studies of packaging or rubbish from something you’ve bought or found near your house.

Three quick tonal studies:

(Three quick tonal studies using 3B pencil or softer. Identify at least ten different tones.)

1) Paracetamol blister pack: 4B pencil in sketchbook (this about a post card size photograph), putter rubber and ‘blending’ stick.

I enjoyed this – next time I’d draw it bigger as my pencil, ‘smudger’ and putty rubber were too big for the detail. But I’m pleased for a quick sketch, even with the obvious mistakes such as the tablets being different sizes, as it gets the feel of the pack.

There were lots of tones I could see that my media wasn’t fine enough to add because the space was too small.

I can see how this could easily be adapted to an abstract and like the fine balance between pattern, order and disorder; and the rhythms this sets up.

2) Crinkled up KitKat wrapper and foil in A4 sketchbook.

IMG_20191016_202627

I really enjoyed doing this but it was a little too small to see, and my pencil and rubber were too big.

The tones between the mid grey silver and light red are similar but I think I’ve got the idea of the difference between the red paper and the tinfoil through the texture.

I will definitely try painting something with tinfoil for the oil study but will go bigger.

PS: When I was doing it I made the mistake of breathing too hard and blew the wrapper away, and then couldn’t put it back in the same position so had to complete it from memory. I used my memory of the pattern of light and shade and how the paper and tinfoil were very differently textures with totally different patterns.

3) 4B pencil on A3 sketchbook – 1 hour sketch of scrunched up fish and chip paper from Aldeburgh East of England OCA sketch day.

The instructions said a short sketch and I don’t want to be too literal but an hour seemed long enough.

I could easily have spent all day on this so had to make the decision to stop.

It’s taught me that drawing crumpled paper (and by extension fabric) is all about tiny tonal differences. That lines are conventions when the real differences are the juxtaposition light and dark areas… so when you put a line to define a boundary it looks false on a tonal drawing, and is very difficult to rub out. I tried using a ‘stick’ to blur the hard lines and indicate subtle shadows by blending and using a putty rubber.

I think a whole chip wrapper would be too hard for my painting so I’m going to do something smaller.

Three oil studies:

(Choose something of a fairly neutral colour – place on white paper on strong light.)

1) Oil paint, A4 on on card pre-painted with brown gesso.

I can see lots wrong with this and could work on it for hours… but given my time constraints I had to stop.

This is oil paint wet in wet.

I spent a long time just looking at the whites and trying to discern the subtle colour and tonal differences. The white of the pill packet was very different to the white of the ‘brilliant white’ paper I’d put it on.

The paper had a blue tinge so I took the tiniest bit of coerilium blue (I couldn’t see any red in the paper) and mixed it with a big squeeze of titanium white and linseed oil. I then laid down a base leaving a space in the middle for my pills. I experimented with different mark making with my palette knife (as I wanted some interest in the background and didn’t want to go for table edge). Nothing worked so I had another think and decided I would have a colour gradient from front to back as this would give an idea of distance on the flat paper.

So I added titanium white and linseed oil and smeared this at the front and worked it into the paint already on the canvas to produce an even gradient.

Next I mixed up nine different greys and a black with equal steps between them and laid them on my palette (I’m now routinely using a piece of window glass).

I then painted straight onto the card.

The really difficult bit was that when you’re painting wet on wet the colours mix almost by magic. This gives you three options… to paint into the underlying paint and mix the together, to lay the new paint on top, or half way between those two.

Really, I just tried to problem solve to get the effect I wanted. Brushstrokes really gave structure and different brushes had very different effects.

I’m pleased with how the tablets stand out against the background because they are a different white, with the tonal transitions within the tablets and the general look of the whole piece.

Less successful are the heavy shadows on the corners of some pills. However, when I had them lighter the painting lost definition and din’t quite work so I put them back in. This means there are almost two different visual languages (subtle and gestural) going on in this painting and they don’t quite mix.

By comparison to my tight realistic painting s from photographs in my last unit it’s a huge success, but in terms of where I want to be it’s barely a beginning.

2) Oil paint, oil on canvas prepped by painting with a thin wash of red paint so it was pink, W 30 x H 22.5 cm

This time I tried using some of the techniques that I’ve read about in my Techniques of the Great Masters of Art by Waldemar Januszczak.

As I hadn’t got a couple of weeks to let it touch dry and go through the processes of glazing, scumbling and building up tones, half tones and highlights I had to paint it alla prima (wet in wet). However, I could use some of the techniques.

I drew the wrapper in very thin red oil paint, then blocked in areas of colour using tones and half tones (and adapting what I learned from watercolour leaving the bits I wanted pure white unpainted. Also as I was painting it up I didn’t worry about bits of the canvas showing through.

Once I’d laid in the rough blocks of toned colour I worked in areas: red first, then white and finally the tinfoil. To differentiate the shadows I used a brown black and added red for the paper shadows in the wrapper where; plain brown grey for the shadow on the surface and blue grey for the tinfoil. I used a variety of brushes on the main painting applying it in dabs and strokes, and mixed a lemon yellow/cerulean blue/titanium white light green for the background which I half mixed, thinned and then applied with a palette knife.

I’m pleased with the result as it’s suggestive rather than tight realist, yet is obviously a Kit Kat wrapper, and it has personality and energy. I don’t know if it would classify as an artistic voice but it’s certainly a large croak, and is a huge step from when I started this unit.

Even though it took me about six hours to paint it, so wasn’t quick, I tried to work loosely and interpretively.

My biggest problem was painting it in two session, one in daylight and one under a spotlight from a similar, but not quite the same, position. The moving light and the changing quality of light were quite difficult to incorporate as it changed both the ‘shapes’ I could see, the shadows, and all the local colours. This meant I had to be aware of the changes and keep the shadows and colours I started with in mind and try and paint those.

3) Acrylic on white canvas , W 30 x H 22.5 cm

I don’t want to single out CokeCola but they’re a global brand, perhaps the most recognisable brand on the planet? This may be an exercise in painting rubbish near home, but my rubbish has world wide consequences. Blister packs and Kit Kat wrappers end up in the bin… but my coke bottle float away to Hawaii.

This wasn’t about beauty like the pills or the KitKat.

I decided that the only way was to jazz up the background. Coke sells itself with bright colours so I’ll do the same, it pollutes the ocean so I’ll have some blue… and the question I hope to raise is, why celebrate an empty coke bottle?

The bright background gives it importance, but it’s rubbish, this raises a visual question and hopefully sets up a mental itch. Scratching the itch (and this doesn’t have to be on a conscious level) tells us that what we do with our rubbish and how we package our food is important.

I’m not sure my colour knowledge in terms of the background is up to the job and can’t decide if I like it or not. I think maybe it’s beginning to work and with more time and lots of sketches I could pull it off. But maybe it does work?

I used acrylics because I couldn’t think of any other way of showing transparency than with a glaze over a painted background and oil paints wouldn’t dry for a couple of weeks.

As the sun was in and out and this took about four hours to paint I had he same problem as yesterday, the highlights and shapes were constantly changing. I tried to overcome this by making washes and quickly sketching it in so I captured a moment (and made mental notes to myself about where the light and darks were) and then painted that up my sketch rather than whatever the bottle was before me later in the day.

My brushes were too course for the size of canvas the viscosity, being acrylic was constantly changing, but the bottle is recognisably a coke bottle so I’m happy with that, even though there’s lots of room for improvement.

I’m enjoying drawing with my paintbrushes now.

———————————————————-

Research

Kurt Schwitters:

(b. 1887 – d. 1948) – his Wikipedia entry says: Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including dadaism, constructivism, surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography, and what came to be known as installation art. He is most famous for his collages, called Merz Pictures.

An avant guard artist who’s family had a private rental income for the whole of his life so he never had to sell any of his work. This meant that he didn’t have to make beautiful objects to sell and was driven by status and social recognition.

You would therefore expect his art to grab the attention, be witty, be current, be clever and be talked about… to register with the elite and the thinkers, shakers and art makers.

As he didn’t have to make anything anybody wanted to buy there was no drive to make aesthetically pleasing objects and artistically he was free to roam wherever he wanted, which is reflected in his different media and genres.

He seems to have been politically driven early in his career with dadaism and constructivism.

Another factor influencing his art was that he wasn’t drafted in the army due to ill health so didn’t have the experience of fighting in the same way as many contemporary artists.

All that said, he has a very high profile in the establishment/museum/academic art world, so his ideas are considered important.

Opened by Customs, 1937–8

This is of its time as it is meaningless now without decoding. It’s like a historical time capsule or a dusty file, which may be full of gems of understanding and witty comment on the society in which it was created. But to anybody without the context is unappealing bits of rubbish stuck on a canvas.

As with any ‘conceptual’ art – where the meaning is word based rather than visually based it comes with a long explanation at the Tate: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/schwitters-opened-by-customs-t00214

This has no use for me… yes you can use the rubbish you find around you to make satirical comments on society (and like a newspaper cartoon it may be fleetingly relevant) but this doesn’t feed the soul… is not beautiful… doesn’t use visual language…and would never sell unless you had a big reputation with the museums.

I’m studying for a painting degree because I want to use visual language and make beautiful objects with accessible meanings that everybody can share, so Mr Schwitters is not for me.

Arman:

(b. 1928 – d. 2005)

He learned painting from his dad, who was an amateur painter, was awarded a BA in philosophy and mathematics and went on to study archeology and oriental art at École du Louvre. So, although he had been around art he never studied as an artist.

Arman had three trademark ways of working, his brand identity if you will… Accumulations, Poubelles (Trash bin) and Coléres (Cuts). Accumulation was where he used lots of the same object arranged/sculpted together, ‘Trash bin’ was accumulations of rubbish and ‘Cuts’ was where he sliced, burned and slashed objects and then arranged them on a canvas. He also did this with violins and bronze statues.

In 1960 he was a member of “new perspective approaches of reality” who questioned the concept of art and the artist in 20th-century consumer society by reaffirming humanism in an industrial society. However, I can’t see how any of his work relates to this group, or how it reaffirms humanism.

Here we have an accumulation of cars in concrete.

And some rubbish…

Petits Déchets Bourgeois, 1959

This looks like a box of rubbish and would have no value out of the museum context validated by language. You have to be a member of a very select club with a high level of education (and buy into that education and value system) for this to have any value and not be what it is, rubbish.

I can see his work is a curiosity (and some of his accumulations have an inherent beauty) but his work has no meaning for me… unless it’s that with a good idea and a strong brand identity (and the right marketing) you can earn a good living.

For this exercise and as a painting student it’s not relevant.

Alex Hanna:

(b. 1964)

The Wikipedia entry says: … Alex Hanna is an English artist. He studied Fine Art at Sunderland Polytechnic from 1983 to 1986. His paintings display arrangements of disposable packaging and objects which have little or no material value. These objects are arranged in a traditional still life format and painted using process based and traditional painting techniques.

(He also seems to do a few portraits)

I looked at his work in one of my earlier exercises and in painting monochrome ‘rubbish’ tonally he is very relevant to this exercise.

Looking at his Wikipedia entry I’m not sure I agree about a traditional still life arrangement as he often paints single objects rather than an arrangement, and even when he paints two or three objects they seem to be placed in a basic line rather than ‘beautifully’ arranged. Giorgio Morandi’s work is not really in a line and is stunningly and beautifully arranged, there’s certainly not that level of composition in Alex’s work.

Also, in his recent work on his website he is producing tonal abstract work rather than monochrome rubbish.

Recent work:

untitled P1904.jpg

Older, traditional work:

3_empty_pill_packs_a.jpg-nggid041034-ngg0dyn-555x555x100-00f0w010c010r110f110r010t010.jpg

It’s interesting and from a novelty perspective will sell but sadly, I think, a gimmick. His brand is ‘the rubbish man’. Which begs the questions as to why rubbish? And would he have been as successful in the more crowded traditional field where success is based on competitive talent rather than a novel idea?

This reaffirms the power of a unique idea (a USP), if all you want to do is sell then get an idea and stick to it. A powerful and consistent brand is essential. But then… are we artists asking questions or manufacturer shifting product?

Being that I need to earn some money from my art I’m going to try and be both, have a brand to pay some bills and make art to feed the soul.

As a tonal study it’s very clever {and helps me with this exercise} but doesn’t have the beauty of Morandi or the visual meaning of an impressionistic view of ‘reality’, or any other meaning.

Tanya Wood:

Is a contemporary female artist and teacher working in drawing.

Unless she hovered above her subjects she works from photographs and transcribes them in pencil, a painstaking work of love and art.

In being a tonal work this is useful for me however in terms of style it’s not what I want to pursue.

This is not a meditation on life, but meticulous craft. There’s no movement in her drawings, no human reality, no breath of life… when I stop, look and listen to the world. When I step off the conveyer belt this is not what I see. I see people with thoughts and feelings, jobs to go to, meetings to make, jokes in their heads. These people remind me of dead sculptures not living beings, and though I am in awe at the time and skill I don’t want to work like this.

Tim Noble & Susan Webster:

( Noble – b. 1966 and Webster – b. 1967)

Reading their biography and CV is very interesting… I think I’d probably quite like their work which is contemporary and questioning. However, I’ve no way of judging it apart from accepting establishment’s critical acclaim which I’m not going to do without any understanding.

For instance:

AFRICAN HEAD STUDIES, Diptych, 2017, Bronze

Tim: 41 x 35 x 12 cm (161/8 x 133/4 x 43/8 in)
Sue: 47 x 35 x 10 cm (181/2 x 133/4 x 4 in)
Base: 21.5 x 21.5 cm (81/2 x 81/2 in)

african_head_studies_2017_timA

… although fun I can’t see why this is any better than similar sculptures I’ve seen in student shows. I know Saatchi bought some of their work and they worked with Gilbert and George and are beloved of the current art market. But I don’t have the skill to make my own judgement and am not going to take their genius (given what I know of the art market) at face value.

Their sculptural/light work is fun (and very clever) but I’m not sure what it’s saying. It reminds me of a novelty in an upmarket theme park.

My reaction is more one of amusement and, oh isn’t that clever, there’s nothing I can really connect with. I might go see it but I wouldn’t buy it, and like an action film it wouldn’t make me think about anything though I might be lost in the moment for a few seconds.

Miss Understood & Mr. Meanor

I picked this because it features rubbish and this exercise is about rubbish. And I’m going to use rubbish in my final assignment.

But again, this strikes me as fine art rather than painting, and I specifically chose to do a painting degree.

Catherine Bertola:

( b. 1976)

Her Wikipedia entry says: Exploring the idea of existence, Bertola works with dust, glue, interior building fragments and other detritus of human existence within site specific installations to evoke history and evoke memory. Bertola follows in the tradition of British artists like Cornelia Parker and Rachel Whiteread “who excavate the landscape and narratives of the past and present, exploring histories through objects, place and recordings.” Bertola was one of 18 artists-in-residence in the Further Up in the Air project in the Sheil Park housing block, Liverpool, one of the artists invited to live and work in the flats of the housing project slated for demolition.

That sounds like she uses dust and building fragments set in glue as her media instead of pigment in oil. So, another branding… it could be a gimmick, it’s certainly unique and makes her stand out.

I wonder whether her media enhances her meaning? Whether using dust and building fragments really does evoke memory? Or evoke it more than a traditional painting?

Catherine’s artistic statement: https://www.axisweb.org/p/catherinebertola/#info

What she seems to be doing is researching the history of a building and using dust as a metaphor (in that forensic scientists recreate the past out of examining dust) applying the dust to paper to make patterned wallpaper in a site specific display.

Also the dust has accumulated over time and ‘holds’ the history of the building.

Walls are Talking at The Whitworth – a new work for the show, Bertola developed Beyond the Looking Glass – a little room covered in floral wallpaper where overlapping designs tumble to the floor and envelop the space in a blossoming motif. Viewable only through a small window, it is a quiet, self-contained world within the exhibition’s otherwise boisterous display of patterns and papers.

I understand that you can use anything as a painting media (dust and glue) and that the choice of media can affect the ‘framing’ of the work by the viewer. Knowledge changes perspectives and interpretation.

However, the only meaning this could take on (it’s a lovely craft work) is within a written context where the history of the house was explained and the relevance of the pattern linked ‘with words’ to the history of the house. As such it is illustrative and not self contained, nor is painting.

Again, it’s fun, but is coming from a direction I don’t want to come from for a market I don’t want to serve. Interesting but not helpful for tonal drawing of rubbish.

OCA East of England Study visit to Aldeburgh: Oct 12 2019

Boat… A4 ink pen and watercolour sketch in sketchbook.

72382600_3105964122807988_7720571445364916224_o-1

Another quick post.

We have been meeting up every two months for about a year, normally in the Hub at Melbourn with Andrea Norrington leading a session. This was our first jolly, sorry… sketchbook day.

There were two elements to this… meeting other students and sketching.

Meeting the other students was key for me. We’d all had a bit of an adventure driving to the coast in the rain and were hunkered up in a posh hotel with good coffee and lots of smiles. Without a set time to start (we always chat before a session and at breaks in the hub but that always has a cut off point) we had a big round table discussion – and lots of split offs – which was qualitatively different to the discussions we’d had round one small coffee table in Melbourn or at an ‘official’ event.

The context of just getting together (though Andrea did a noble job and supplied us with a little booklet of ideas and a tutor chat) as an informal group for a day changed the whole dynamics.

Without going into details about individual chats – we stayed about an hour before we drifted out into the cold and wet – my main takeaway (and the best bit of the day) was how supported I felt. I was an art student with other art students. Everything I do art wise outside the OCA is with adults doing art as a relaxing hobby, the official meetings feel like going to a lecture/talk, but this felt like a social event with fellow students… or my first day at uni when you start to get to know people. It helped me feel that I’m an art student studying with the OCA… the OCA/UCA is my university and I’m part of a cohort not a loner taking a correspondence course.

We are a very disparate group but we all have the OCA in common.

Secondly it was brilliant to talk to other students about specific issues… lack of library access, increasing academic demands since the UCA took over, the clunkiness of the OCA website, variability of OCA tutors, specific problems with work other students could help with (thanks to my creative friend for finding an emotional connection for me on my current Assignment)… suddenly you find that other people have the same concerns and issues and you are not alone.

Sketchbook wise I’d decided I wanted to sketch a boat and then make an abstract blocky sketch of the colours of the beach and sea. So I headed off alone, I could have paired up but it didn’t happen naturally and I didn’t feel the need to.

Fish and chips were first – I only mention this as being part of a group (even if they weren’t there) made me a lot more confident. I announced to the waitress I was part of a sketching group, asked about the weather (she’s a local… it would rain all day… and yes, it’s always busy at weekends)… and was told the best and driest place to sketch. Had I been on my own, I might have been embarrassed but everybody I spoke to was friendly and helpful and in my shelter visitors were interested or just let me get on. So, this will make it easier for me to sketch in public on my own, which I need to be able to do.

The boat was so difficult and I had so many alterations I decided to overpaint it, so spent all day in my beach shelter with various visitors.

At the end of the day we had a show and tell session which was interesting, but by then the day was really over.

All in all a great idea (at first I’d not been too sure how it would be without a teaching element) with just the right structure and input from Andrea. It just goes to show you can’t tell what something will give you without trying it.

Sketch books – Anglia Ruskin students

A very quick blog – a note really – about sketch books.

My life drawing group ‘POSERS’ is run by an ex Anglia Ruskin painting tutor and the profit (about £2000?) goes to help sponsor a group of full time students to go to Portugal. They’d just got back so they brought in their sketchbooks at half time

What was striking was not the ability – in terms of traditional drawing./painting they were no more skilled than any second year OCA student but they were much freer and looser than any OCA sketchbook I’ve seen, and had no inhibitions. They’d just had a go at anything and everything. Colours in a landscape in blocks, collages made from scraps of paper in the bar/floor, blocky ink sketches, drawings, letters on doorways, copies of patterns… no sense of any of the sketches being finished or that anybody would see them.

They looked more like free visual free play than an important sketchbook.

It made me realise how tied (as an adult) I was to being judged and only wanting to produce ‘art’ or ‘good sketches’ in my sketchbook. And how inhibited that was.

I shall try and do much better on my Diploma and inject a ‘I don’t care I’m having fun’ element.

Very liberating!

My first (non village) exhibition: Cambridge Open Art Exhibition

Screenshot 2019-10-07 at 13.37.38

This is quite a tricky exhibition to reflect on as I didn’t talk to many artist’s but built my response out of my experience, watching the visitors, seeing what sold and looking at the artwork… however, as it’s an open exhibition rather than a commercial one I’m aware of sensibilities and don’t want to upset anyone.

That said, if it’s to be a useful reflection it has to be honest.

The exhibition is organised by the local Village College which serves several villages around Cambridge, the students organise it as part of their GCSE studies, and there is some kind of grant help… and the council chips in too. It is well advertised (they even have a preview night with sparkling wine and students with trays of nibbles) and a few awards and prizes.

So, it’s organised like a professional show.

However, its remit is to support community arts and it is non selective. It’s bit like getting your film shown at a film festival, with all the usual film festival trappings, but instead of the 100 filmmakers being selected from 20,000 entries it’s the first 100 to email in and stump up £40.

That said the craft/skill level was very high compared to most village shows. This can only be because the artists were self selective.

I’m pleased that in four years and having no A level or Art foundation I can exhibit in a semi-pro show and stand my ground. On the other had it shows me just how far I have to go.

Prices were interesting… they mainly ranged between £100 and £300, with outriders both sides. It seemed that anything over £100 had to be over a certain quality threshold to sell. If you looked at it and said wow, yes, I needs a closer look… they sold. If you looked and said, oh yes, okay, that’s quite good, and passed on, they didn’t.

In past years I noticed that some of those that you ‘passed by’ sold if they were £50-£60.

This is very useful as its an objective test of my paintings. None of mine sold which puts them in the £50-£100 box. If I want to sell locally doing traditional scenes I’ll have to get considerably technically better, or sell them for under £100. Which doesn’t make any business sense, but is a price I could cover my materials.

I don’t want to paint traditional scenes but if I could sell the paintings I wanted to paint (if I can find a market?) for that price I could cover my costs and practice for free, which makes sense as a student.

If a gallery takes 50% you really need to be selling for over £500 – otherwise you might as well sell your own paintings direct to the public for £250. A gallery is also catering to a different buyer.

Which neatly leads me to two questions and a good deal of speculation.

The top 10% of artists in this show were professional; so why would they exhibit at an open show? If I were a professional selling paintings for £1200 and being represented by (at least) one gallery, I wouldn’t exhibit in an open show.

I think the answer must be it’s very difficult to earn you living full time as a fine artist. And if you don’t have a gallery deal (and at least a county reputation) you have to make money wherever you can be that in commercial art commissions, teaching, a full time non-art job, or raising your profile in any way possible such as the bigger open art shows.

2. Comparing the professional paintings in this show and gallery artists, is there any difference? (Apart from galley paintings being validated by being hung in a gallery with a big price tag.)

I think the answer is yes, there is a difference.

Just to be clear, I don’t mean the small galleries in tourist hot spots that sell realistic paintings of local beauty spots… any of the artists in this show could sell painting’s in those ‘galleries’, I mean fine art galleries in major cities and towns.

Firstly what strikes me about gallery paintings is they seem effortless. It’s very personal and something I can’t describe, but I know it when I see it. Secondly, even if the style and subject changes the artist has a distinctive voice (I’m not talking here of popular painters who basically paint the same painting over and over again in different subjects – and earn a very good living… but those artists whose personality shines through their work whatever that work is), it’s almost as if you are face to face with the artist rather than, or as well as, the painting; thirdly they all have meaning, be that a concept, a moment, a view, a joke; and finally there’s a huge difference between a painting I admire and a painting that physically and emotionally grabs me in the gut. They connect, they become part of me, not something I’m looking at and admire.

So, the exhibition… and it was still very nice to have a glass of sparkly wine and canapes and imagine, just for a moment, that I’d earned my place rather than bought it… has allowed me to position my work much better, realise how hard it is to earn your living as a painter and be much clearer about my artistic goals.

Techniques of the Great Masters of Art by Waldemar Januszczak

I’m so glad I squeezed this in before the end of the course as it means so much more having done the course, and makes me revisit the whole of this unit with fresh eyes.

Putting the thorny issue of what is painting today to one side, let’s just say it is somewhat fluid, this book takes you through the media and techniques of artists from medieval to modern times.

For me the revelation isn’t the detailed techniques of the different masters (interesting though that is) but the overwhelming sense of painting up to 1968 as being craft led and no different in many ways from making a fine piece of hand made furniture.

What I’ve come to realise is that what makes art is not the craft, pure skill of its own though awe inspiring doesn’t make art, but the ideas and visions that are expressed through that craft. A chair (however elegant) doesn’t question the world and cannot give us the beauty of a Monet or a Rothko. Craft on its own is shallow and at best entertaining, the transformative element comes from inside the artist. It’s the difference between a nice design on a pot or a photo realist copy of a photograph and Matisse’s, Vence’s Chapelle Du Rosaire or Picasso’s Guernica that makes us face up to the horror’s of war.

When I started the degree I thought it would teach me the craft of painting, and though I am picking up some craft skills this book makes me realise that’s not what an academic painting degree is about.

Much more important is my understanding of visual language (so that I can reference and incorporate the rich heritage of art) and the academic understanding that will inform what I paint. Painting, in short, isn’t about the craft it’s about what you are using that craft to say.

And anyway, if I just wanted to learn a craft skill I could do that by going on courses and watching videos on the internet.

It was a revelation how medieval art (and even some art today like Damien Hurst) is a factory process. The painting would be split into processes such as the making of the canvases, preparation of pigment, painting landscape, figures, sky, fabric… and mid level craftsmen would work on each step. The master painter (the artist) would be responsible for the composition and the face.

In the case of Damien Hurst he had the brand and supplied the idea and art graduates did the making.

It would probably take a two year full time apprentiship to learn the skills to paint traditionally in oil, and it’s absolutely not what this degree is designed to do.

And, in any case, it’s only relevant if you want to make a particular type of traditional oil painting. Painting today is not about making a traditional oil painting, that all died in 1968. Painting today is about how you use your materials to say what you want to say about the world.

And Understanding Painting Media has taught me that those media can be almost anything, on anything, and applied in almost any way.

(An amusing PS: here would be how Joshua Reynolds wanted to achieve the effects of the old masters, but much quicker. So he experimented with all sorts of new techniques and processes. Unfortunately, much of these haven’t stood the test of time and the paintings that he painted himself {rather than those produced more traditionally in his workshop/factory which have survived well} are in very poor condition. Modern artists are experimenting with new media and processes and lots of their work will also perish.)

Whether it’s a drip painting, a Peter Doig or an Elizabeth Peyton every artist has a process.

There is no such thing as ‘learning to paint’, no one answer.

As an artist you need to discover your voice and find an appropriate media and way of working that expresses what you want to say. And as you progress you will find ways of improving your process.

Finally, I’m picking up little tips, such as the use of glazing in traditional oil painting that could be used in acrylic now that glazes are available. And the whole panoply of ways of working (some of which give me ideas) and how fashion changes depending on the era, what media is available and what the market demands.

Nowadays the range of materials and techniques is so mind boggling that in the end you can only ever cut a narrow swathe through the possibilities… what matters is finding the best vehicle to express what you want to say.

Exercise 5.3 – Make a study of a corner of your room where the light changes. Watercolour on A5 paper at morning, midday, evening.

Watercolour sketches

I sketched the corner of my room in my A4 sketchbook then while sitting in a similar (but not the same as it was really awkward) position thinned down some watercolour paint and (looking at my sketch and the room) drew three sketches on A5 watercolour paper.

My reasoning was that the shapes didn’t change (though I guess my perception of them in different lights might affect what shapes I see?) so in order to focus on the changing light I’d sketch the shapes for all three before I started.

This has the disadvantage of having black outlines when on the last sketches I just had white and could ‘grow’ the painting organically rather than fill in shapes. However, I’ll try and be creative and responsive to the light.

I’ve not done every leaf as I want this to be suggestive rather than realist.

I noticed that when I stopped copying the sketch and focused on my drawing (whether it ‘felt’ right) and the underlying patterns of the leaves the sketches improved.

1st watercolour sketch on A5 watercolour paper: 3pm

As I thought the outlines were problematic but for this exercise I’ll let it go. I wouldn’t sketch out a watercolour again as it makes using the white of the paper difficult to use for edges.

Only just touching the possibilities of watercolour but it’s a really beautiful medium and discovering new techniques, such as when I dripped some paint on the ceiling and took it off with water. When it dried it had also taken off the this wash underneath and looks like the light was catching the ceiling in a perfect blend.

I tried to use thin washes instead of adding white, it’s much more effective than adding white for both highlights and lightning colour without making it muddy. Also, I discovered that if you use watered down colour in the background it desaturates the colour (obviously) which means if you use normal saturated colour in the foreground you naturally get a sense of depth without adding the complimentary or grey to your colour.

Made some huge and obvious mistakes such as not leaving the white paper clear for the sunlight on the inside of the window – I put it it the wrong place so painted it over.

But, all that said, I think it captures the low yellowy evening light from the right catching the leaves.

(If I did this as a painting I would crop off the top third of the painting but I wanted to see if I could manage light/shadow falling on a a plain flat surface).

Next I’ll paint morning and then try one in the evening or at night.

2nd watercolour sketch on A5 watercolour paper: Early morning.

For this I sat on my bed so I could see what I was drawing and tried painting the plants before the background.

The background doesn’t quite work as it’s difficult to wash it over the leaves and judge the tones without picking picking up the colours already laid down, so as a process I think I’ll do the back ground first.

I think looking at the plants has allowed me better colouration. I didn’t stick to local colour but tried to keep the tonal differences, saturation and highlights the same.

Watercolour is very difficult as much of it is about using the paper and diluting your paint, so that the dilution and paper almost become as important tools as the choice of brush.

I think I’ve definitely captured a different quality of light which I’m really pleased about. The early morning light is much bluer and more diffused as it’s not shining directly through the window but is to the left of the window at the side of the house.

What’s interesting is that the light shifts the focus of the painting, in the first painting the focus is on the middle of the watercolour where the yellowy light captures and plays on the leaves. Here, the focus has dropped to the bottom of the plants. I really like the bottom of the two plants on the right (the ones on the floor) as the colours are very suggestive and evocative.

I had thought about light changing the colours and the mood, and the shadows being different but I hadn’t thought about it as a device for directing the viewer’s focus.

If these were painted up they would be two (almost) completely different paintings. It’s making me think that shape is maybe not as important as I thought… or that its importance depends on style and context of the painting.

3rd watercolour sketch on A5 watercolour paper: Night

This is interesting as the light has reversed and is artificial.

I used white gouache which gave me another tool… I could mix it with colours to give lighter toners and more opacity, and I could also use it for highlights. So in effect I had two different styles going on in the same painting, watercolour washes and using the paper and oil painting laying down body colour.

There are no yellows and everything is flatter. The shadows are less pronounced.

I quite like the plant in the middle (and it’s plant pot which is quite well modelled) which is suggestive rather than realistic. The rubber plant takes this a stage further and is a bit David Hockney/Matisse pattern.

….

There are lots of things to take away from this exercise but I the biggest is not what I thought when I went into the exercise. I thought the direction and intensity of the light would be the most important factors but it’s the quality of light.

Different light changes everything in the painting.

Light isn’t white it’s a complex mix of colours and each white is different (it’s just that out software photoshops it back to white – which is a blessing and a curse). I find it easier to think of different whites as different colours than as white light.

It’s a blessing because it makes practical life easier, as we see the colours more consistently and can ‘decode’ what we see, a curse because the colours are totally different and effect us emotionally but, unless the change is dramatic like yellow evening light, our brain makes us see everything as if the light hasn’t changed

So we have to teach ourselves to be aware of the light and try and see it as it is.

The changing light (time of day, cloud… atmospheric effects) is like shining different coloured lights of whatever you’re painting. It unifies the whole painting like a coloured glaze and changes all the colours you’re looking at. Which in turn changes the mood, emotion and emphasis (where the interest is) of the painting.

When composing a painting, the choice of light – as painters we are Gods and can use any light we want – becomes essential. I’d not really thought of it in these terms so this exercise has been very useful.

——————————————————————–

Research:

Pierre Bonnard:

(b. 1867 – d. 1947) – Wikipedia says… Painter/illustrator/printmaker – stylised decorative quality and bold use colour.

Interestingly, I went to the Tate Modern exhibition of his work in the Tate Britain in May 2019, I was disappointed when I saw his paintings in the flesh. Having loved his works in reproduction (tiny by comparison as most of his paintings are quite big) they weren’t nearly as powerful in real life. The colours were more pastel and the whole compositions didn’t show up as well, leaving you to the parts which (for me) didn’t work in terms of shape/hue/colouration. But I would never have known this unless I’d seen them hanging in real life. I think that for some of the book illustrations they pump up the colour.

He seemed to paint mainly beautiful gardens, the countryside, his naked wife in the bath or open doorways and windows.

Pierre Bonnard Door Opening onto the Garden 1924

bonnoto_with_color_chart.cc_.3617_1_-_flora_shadbolt.jpg

This reminds me of a pastel Matisse in its decorative, flat, Japanese patterned sort of approach. I like the colouration, which is what it’s all about, but there was something off key (I never quite decided what it was) in the real painting that sapped it of its power.

It would be great to have a go in this style and try and entirely step away from realism.

I doubt whether the painted colours bear more than, if any, a passing resemblance to the local colours. So, I might have a problem as this exercise is about the quality of light and its effect on surfaces and it would be very difficult to imagine how the different qualities of light (light at different times of day, even though it appears ‘white’ to our eyes is very different) affect colours that aren’t there.

However, I could absorb the different light and abstract it onto my surfaces – the intensity, direction and ambience should come through. On a practical level maybe I could pin bit of coloured paper to see how the light affected the hue?

I’ll have to have a think.

Lee Maelzer:

From Collateral Drawing: “I am a painter and sometimes photographer and filmmaker, living and working in east London. I make figurative oil paintings, often very large, of ominous, mostly unpeopled spaces and the discarded objects therein. These comprise a body of work that relates to both a psychological and physical reality and celebrates the possibilities of the paint and surface.” Lee Maelzer

Waiting Room, 2011, oil on canvas, 25 x 35 cm

Her work is interesting and the rooms she paints remind me very strongly of Hopper as they look like the background of a Hopper painting. If a Hopper painting is the full the full symphony then Lee Maelzer is a couple of bars taken out of the middle.

‘Waiting Room’ has a feeling of empty space, isolation, and distance… and the painting style is similar to Hopper too.

Her discarded object paintings, often on paper, are something totally different and veer towards abstraction. For me, they don’t quite work but that would be an interesting discussion in itself. They use a very different visual language to her canvases, though her mark making is very similar to her painterly technique.

This painting is particularly useful for this exercise as it features blank walls and I was thinking I would have to find a corner full of ‘interesting’ objects. It’s a lesson in composition and surface where the walls though not at all ‘real’ (they are obviously painted) feel perfectly right.

Hayley-Field:

She’s an abstract painter (and I quite like her painted work). Not to be too literal but I don’t see how her work is relevant to this exercise. Unless it’s an invitation to paint the corner of my room as an abstract?

I could do that for fun… it’s an option.

On her website she says: My work hovers between specificity and openness. It represents intense, personal responses to observations, memories or events. I find a great challenge and joy in painting – mixing loose brushwork with fine detail and considerable re-working, often surfacing isolated figures and shapes.

Screenshot 2019-09-27 at 20.06.23.png

I chose this as it’s the only painting I could find on her website with any ‘house’ connection, you might have a noticeboard in the kitchen.

I find it difficult as it’s tonally, if it were black and white, so similar and don’t think the pallid hues make up for the lack of a visual skeleton. Or that the colours and slightly empty sickly feel is linked to any meaning… I can see that a noticeboard might have rectangular stickers on it.

It doesn’t work as an abstract (though the arrangement of shapes is balanced), it has no emotional effect, is not beautiful, is devoid of connection or meaning, and doesn’t work as a colourist piece.

Walter Sickert:

(b. 1860 – d. 1942)

I like his paintings in the flesh, though they seem a bit inconsistent. Like a raconteur who pours out material, most of which hits the mark… but not everything.

He was effectively apprenticed to Whistler as a studio assistant and painted wet in wet from life before moving into the influence of Degas who encouraged him to change his technique. He started in the studio from drawings made on the spot, a practice he kept up for the rest of his life. Though as an old man, from 1927 he increasingly used photographs as the basis for his compositions.

However, he seems to have kept the low tones of Whistler… just added highlights.

Ennui, c.1914

Ignoring the figures and the nonjudgemental narrative, an airless marriage suffocating in boredom, this is a painting of a corner of a room, from sketches. So perfect for this exercise.

What strikes me first is how even though this is two people apart there isn’t the distance and emptiness of a Hopper painting. They are connected, just bored. It would be fascinating to see how the composition and technique managed to put them separate but together as different from two isolated figures, which it could easily have been.

Even though this looks like it might be local colours I don’t think it is as the palette is so limited, maybe that’s what connects the figures? And creates the mood?

For some reason it reminds me a little bit of a dour Norman Rockwell?

It seems roughly painted, realistic but not realist… with a hint of impressionism. It also feels very free and loose while precisely capturing a moment.

I think my message to myself, which I keep coming back to, is that I don’t need to be so precise. I need to trust more and just go for it.

I also have to decide whether I paint from sketches or like the last exercise with the watercolours wet directly from life.