Highs and Lows of early 2019

Since mid Feb I have sold these ten pieces.  I sold at Thorpe Morieux Creation https://www.facebook.com/ThorpeMorieuxCreation/,  the Cocobelle event at Boxted Hall https://www.cocobelleevents.co.uk, a private sale from Instagram, and Suffolk Open Studios 2019 Showcase Exhibition at the Apex, Bury St Edmunds. https://suffolkopenstudios.org That's a high!

Here are some facts:

• all of the exhibitions have been local
• I showed a total of 22 pieces at the exhibitions
• I showed 1 portrait
• I showed 13 stilllifes
• I showed 3 landscapes
• I showed 6 'opened books'
• I showed 3 egg temperas
• I showed 13 pastels on paper or board
• 1 monotype miniprint from the browser was sold.  I think there were about 12 things in the browser.
• prices ranged from £150 - 340, framed.

Meanwhile, although I had a piece preselected for the Royal Portrait, ultimately I was unsuccessful. This was an egg tempera of Figgy. I submitted just below the maximum for the New English Art Club annual open exhibition, and had nothing preselected.  I sold three things as a drawing scholar last year at that event. I continue to submit for shows outside my local area but it's tough to get noticed. It's all 'art tax' but my success rate in early 2019 is certainly a low!

Outcomes from Charles Williams' Workshop

The Human Stain I

Charles Williams' class was about drawing and thinking about drawing.  Why have people made the art they have and what role does drawing play in the paintings they make?  As you will recall, this is my biggest question! 

Charles went at the issue by showing us slides of artists who have different sets of values when they make their art. Charles described his own training and compared that with other artists and how that context can be a lens through which to look at their work.  

At the Royal Academy, Charles was taught to draw tonally. Our first exercise was to use only tone (no lines at all) to hone our perception of two or three ping pong balls on a surface.  My surface was a folded paper box on top of a stand. We had quite a long time, about 45 minutes, for this. I was working in an A4 sketchbook. I masked the edges and worked right up to them.  Although I was told not to focus on the composition I just couldn't help myself! This was not meant to be expressive.  It was meant to be objective.  Of course I was most interested in the expressive moments but I worked to refine and reassess the shapes. I love working tonally.  I find it almost therapeutic.

tonal drawing - no line

Riot

Next we made quick drawings responding to words.  This was not meant to be an illustration of the words but something else.  I found there was a lot of talking going on in my head as I worked on this.  Although it was intuitive I was curious how you make something feel riotous, or hidden without a gimmick. I was exploring ways of making marks to say something without reproducing an image... We could use any material and I introduced colour with the word 'lover'. 

annhilation

Lovers

Boundaries

Examination

The next reductive task was to use only dots to respond to the subsequent set of words. Drawing is always thoughtful but I found these exercises even more so. I don't like rules and I kept thinking that using recognisable forms might enhance the work because in using one strategy I felt as if one hand was tied behind my back, but I followed Charles' rules

Aggression

Silent

Hidden

The Human Stain II - A1

'The Human Stain' was the final exercise and I made two drawings in the 45 minutes.  The first was small and in my book (at top).  Charles wanted me to make something bigger next. I interpreted this task as a working and re-working that left a trace of my journey, across the paper and through the day. I was thinking more about the vocabulary of mark making and how to exploit it to create interest.  I kept turning the paper around and I'm not sure which way it goes, probably in the bin.

Countdown to the New English 2018 Exhibition

Today was the hanging of the New English Art Club's annual exhibition, and I was there! It was great fun to see how the show gets hung and to meet a few more of the members. Paul (the other scholar) and I will share a wall and we arranged our work and affixed labels to the back. All the while members were carrying paintings from one place to another to see what worked best. It was amazing to see how fabulous the little wall looked hung and slowly other walls appeared.  I left before our was hung but will be back tomorrow to see it completed!

I picked up a catalogue while there and was obviously delighted to have my work and some words in it!

unimpeded by weather, I work from life

Valentina, oil on panel 30 x 40 cm

It was certainly cold and maybe even already snowing on Monday but I was keen to make mono prints in preparation for my Friday NEAC session. I decided I wasn't going to work backwards and found myself using whatever supplies I had (I had forgotten many) to make quick studies of Emily. I had to use the only paper I had, cartridge, and a metal spoon which, incidentally gets very hot when you rub with it… 

Back in the studio I printed the ghosts using release agent, wiping it away to get some pure whites back where I had wiped previously.   I also printed one that had been hanging around from the week before, with Esme. That seemed to work!

On Friday, even though we were advised not to travel, I went to London.  The morning was spent at the British Museum and after seeing the Victorian photos, I went to the Mall where I made a few prints, following on from Monday. The print below is the best of the bunch and IMHO one of my best!

And on Saturday, I was back in London at Heatherley's for a brilliant painting workshop with Peter Clossick. This time I braved snow and bus replacements, travelling for 7 1/2 hours for the workshop!  Still, totally worth it.  The suggested technique was similar to the way I make a mono print to begin, putting on a neutral and then removing the light with a rag.  I was very susprised how thinly I painted after that, considering I was taught by Peter. I had imagined working in thick paint… I think I never really got the structure aspect of the technique but I was enjoying what the paint was doing and was chasing the light. At the beginning I had decided to make two paintings.  Peter stopped me with the top one (reclining nude)  about an hour before the end of the session.  I didn't resolve the head but it has triggered a chain reaction of ideas. Hopefully more soon!

Emily, monotype, akua intaglio on cartridge paper

Mary, akua intaglio on Rives 10 x 15cm, NEAC

Emily, monotype, akua intaglio on heritage paper, printed with press using release agent

Emily, monotype, akua intaglio on heritage paper, printed with press using release agent

Emily, monotype, akua intaglio on cartridge paper

Emily, monotype, akua intaglio on cartridge paper

Emily, monotype, akua intaglio on cartridge paper

Emily, monotype, akua intaglio on cartridge paper

Esme, monotype, akua intaglio on heritage paper, printed with press using release agent

Valentina, oil on canvas 30 x 23 cm

Looking for the meaning

I attended a brilliant life drawing workshop with John Dobbs on saturday at Heatherley's Art School. John is interested in capturing the essence of the subject .  You can see his work here: http://www.johndobbs.net . The day began with a series of really quick sketches (1 minute timed) where we tried to work intuitively to find a way to indicate what the key element in the subject and pose were.  Richard held a rope, crouched, stretched and I used scrap paper and a stick of vine charcoal to indicate direction. weight, light.  

John showed us some of the artists he thinks do what he is interested in best including Park, Lobdell, William Theophilus Brown, Rembrant - there were about ten.

John wasn't so interested in whether the drawing was accurate but more whether we could say something about the subject that was meaningful.  He had us do an exercise that I won't share as I think doing it is the important thing but it helped me to experience the difference between 'copying' and 'observational drawing'. 

The above drawing was the penultimate and longer than anything previously, nearly an hour.  My goal was to get Richard to READ THE BOOK and to show the mood through his posture.  I like the pieces of the drawings below as I believe them too.

At Sudbury life drawing I decided I needed a colour fix so only used pastel for the two hours. What I wanted to address was combining light and colour more effectively.  One of the stand out messages in the workshops has been YOU NEED MORE DARKS. The last drawing, the one at the top may be more effective although Pete's left thigh doesn't do what it should.  I like the gesture of the three last drawings.

I was still a little sick when I wen to my last NEAC drawing school session with Mick Kirkbride on the 24th of November. It had been a long day with visits to the Modigliani and lunch at the RSA with some family friends and Patrick. It's interesting that with a big piece of paper and an hour, I run out of time now.  It's a case of constantly adjusting. I know I need to look more, though.

Last drawing with John Dobbs

John Dobbs with former scholar

And Carol Webb invited me back to a daytime portrait session.  She's had models who can only sit in the evening this term.  David Stone, an artist: http://davidstone-art.co.uk, sat for us for a few hours last Wednesday.  I had planned to paint but in the mad rush from refugees and school meeting I forgot half my supplies so drew instead.

Drawing London with Paul Newland

Just back from a two day workshop with Paul Newland, thanks to the New English Art Club. Paul's  course description intrigued me.  However, it was with some trepidation that I went to London, the day after getting back from Maine, to draw plein air somewhere near the Mall Galleries. 

                                      

This is a 2-day workshop about investigation and exploration, it will take place near or within St James's, with the Mall Galleries Learning Centre as a base. The aim is to record your evolving perceptions of place. The space, changing light, architecture, traffic and human activity may all be seen in numerous ways and in the course of these these two days we want you to explore your own vision of these phenomena. This may be done with numerous studies, or with one large work. You may enrol for one day only if you wish. There will be a plenery session at lunchtime and at the end of each working day.

After speaking to Paul, my goal was to make a series of what I will call 'gestures' to establish a sense of place that I will work from to make a small painting back in my studio.

I stood across from a few dynamic streets so there was a stream of traffic between me and the subject.  I learned quickly about how big the closest buses are and how much they obscure what I am trying to see.  

Paul wanted us to consider 'space' first and although he asked us to use line to begin with, I used pastel. Without even deciding to, I edited much of what I saw.  The goal was to get many done quickly. 

Next I moved onto light and what I noticed was that the sky was the lightest area - a little swathe of blue might appear, but the sky was mainly white with grey punctuation.  The cream coloured stone of the buildings and the column appeared darker than I might expect.  I limited my palette in both cases as the light seemed to require that. I never felt finished and I have included everything I did over the course of the two days here, even the things that don't work!

All of the drawings are contained in an altered sketchbook I'd prepared the day before: A Silent Traveler in London by Chiang Yee. Most measure 12 x 18 cm - with one taking two pages, so 24 x 18cm.

Paul wanted us to capture elements of human activity and traffic as well as the architecture and folliage that characterised the space. He encouraged us to experiment, to gather a range of drawings.  As a countryside dweller and never having drawn plein air in a bustling place, suggesting, let alone pinning down a bus, a car, a person on their way somewhere else was thrilling, exhausting and difficult. I tried tone, I tried line and I tried colour. Much of time I was in full struggle mode trying to juggle all the competing demands.  I wished I knew more about perspective and spent lots of time holding my pastels up to check the acute angles of the roads, realising the scale was all wrong or the distance between things didn't make sense.

All the individuals in the group were drawing in different places and Paul had to find them.  He found me quite easily, I think, and he and I had a series of short talks about different directions I might explore and he helped me to see where something didn't work.

I have to tell you that to make the sight of me even more comical than simply a scruffy middle aged woman with a trolley and a table easel drawing in a book (with lots of people, traffic and delivery carts going by), I was wearing two sets of glasses, one on top of the other in order to see the scene. I believe this version of me is not an intimidating version, as I had many curious onlookers and quite a few conversations.  One young man took a panoramic video of me, my subject and all the chaos.  Another handed me his phone and asked me to type my name in it.

The person I spoke with longest was a man named Skye from Bejing. He designs museums and was in the UK for a month.  He had been to Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London at least. He showed me some gorgeous photos of museum art, his parents and their acupunture images. We spoke twice, once before he played a game of table tennis with a man who found him on the street and then again after.  I nearly missed my train… 

Skye noticed that my book had Chinese writing in it, which you can see in the drawing below on the top page.  This thrilled him! We'll see what I can make of all of this… I'm not feeling very confident but Paul in standing by to give me input.

I took a slightly later train back.  After dinner I noticed the sun setting over the hedge - of course the light faded fast but it felt good to position my easel right outside the front door and to observe my non-urban view,the sun going down behind the hedge for a short time, pastels in hand, no head torch this time.