Bouquet and Spy Notebook (2 versions)

Oil on canvas 30 x 30 cm

pastel on paper 6 x 6 inches

Using a drawing as a starting place for a painting is fraught with pitfalls.  I've been reading about Degas and there was a comment about how it is commonly agreed that drawings are 'inferior' to paintings. The statement wasn't made as a value judgement, simply as reflection. The book went onto say that Degas, contrary to most artists, managed to make drawings that were accepted and appreciated as much as any painting.   

Although I call myself a painter, I draw more than I paint.  I love paint and to paint, but I find the immediacy of drawing helps me to get down the esssentials and quite often those essentials say it all. For me, with painting, there seem to be more things that need to come together and I can't pull it off as often. 

A painting takes on a life of its own, distinct from the drawing.  I could paint the painting exactly like the drawing, but it doesn't really work, the idea becomes lifeless.  It's like paint by number. Instead, I try to let go but also must admit to making the mistake of hanging onto well painted or exciting passages even when they are no longer relevant.  And then that conflict between making it real and making it correct is always a struggle, too. 

orange journal and stamps

In love with a new (old) vase I found at the Needham Market car boot sale. On the right is the journal Carina sent me, beloved airmail stickers and new 97p purple-blue stamps.  Inside the tin are a stack of new cards I've made from crumpled, altered trash and plastic. I found that the tablecloth had a mind of its own and did not care about the pattern but was more determined to rely on brush strokes and value.

The Hellebore Palette

I love the acid green of euphorbia and the dusky pink of early spring hellebores.  The garden limited my palette and the other items I assembled were chosen to develop the mood from the little bouquet.  I found the new vase at the Needham Market car boot sale for 50 p and that's where it all began.  The card spilling out of my bag is a note from my friend and framer Jo Hollis, who bought a little pastel I am showing at Stowhealth. I wanted to include a trace from the previous painting so the blue above the cannister is one of those quick painting sketch afterthoughts from before. This painting is another 50 X 60 cm canvas!

painting from drawing

The first job is to look back over what I've done before.  I was surprised to see that in my paintings value and line  have been very secondary to my thinking, not always, but often.  My drawings are about colour too but line and value are much more dominant aspects.  So, I decided to work on that.

the top painting is very close to the original drawing.  The one below began with a drawing and then took on a life of its own. 

Painting from mail

Just before stuffing one of those clear envelopes with something for Marie, I unfurled the upcycled mylar - a Lloyds bank advertisement, cut down to make an accordion book, and placed it on yesterday's collage color study. "I could paint from that," I thought. 

small painting from new model

Every morning I get up and make a list of things I really hope I will do, but my discipline stops there.  I do things all day but if something takes my fancy, I will not stick to the list. Some kind of response to Monday's new model not been on my list but if the list said 'paint' 'draw' 'monotype', I might have read 'return to that model.' The thing that has been on my list since H and F have been back at uni has been colour studies and I haven't ticked it on one single day.   I don't think this is finished, yet, but I have enjoyed stroking colours of paint next to colours of paint in a pastel approach, maybe it counts as a colour study?

Loosening up

10X12

12X18

After a long hiatus from painting (2+ months), it's fun to see where I begin. I approached the start by beginning as freely as I could, with a loose idea in my head and some drawings to set me off.  As ever I feel like I can't remember what I've learned in the past, which may be a good thing.  I think I need lots of little canvases for the moment, a few colour studies and lots of drawing.

Painting by plastic

In a whimsical departure, I was inspired by my plastic to paint a larger canvas 15 1/2 X 20). As I worked from the plastic I tried to let my love of Milton Avery and Richard Diebenkorn (and of course Pierre Bonnard) guide me in interpreting the little cardboard sketch with sewn plastic. The cardboard pieces (in the previous post) began as a series of 'free' colour studies.   When I began painting, my colour study mind went out the window. 

The thing is, for me this was a satisfying experience. So, I know I'm not finished with this idea and I think I can see what to do next. The title of this post 'painting by plastic' alludes to painting by numbers.  Working from a little image is a bit like working from a photograph and in my mind you have to be careful not to 'paint by number', copying what is front of you without thinking about what the painting needs - a challenge.

Before I take this idea forward, I need to do some more little things and after my conversation with potter friend Caroline, I think I'm ready to let go of a few things in the mail this time!

using life drawings in a large painting

This is a painting that is certainly not painting itself, but am enjoying the challenge of trying to juggle lots of ideas and experiments at the same time. Beginning with a life drawing I painted over another painting that had been painted over another painting.  If I think about it I can see traces of each. Somewhere along the way I decided the nude needed some clothing.  I will go and do a colour study and see if I can figure out what colour I need on the cloth over the chair and then I will decide about the shape of the clothing that it needs to become... I also need to find the life drawing that I filed somewhere and can't find so I can think about those feet.

When to stop?

The struggle over how much to say, the memory, in my ear, of Dorothy Eisner telling me not to model.  The way people like a particular painting that painted itself ... I took my pastels into the room with the loved painting and drew on top of a scan of where I'd got to on this painting in the hope of finding what should happen next, wondering if the loved painting would offer answers. Back in the studio I didn't look at the pastel result as I worked, but it had warmed me up, probably. Later I compared and took from the pastel what seemed to be missing. Still not sure if it's finished.

Snowlight in Maine summer

Woke up to white and the pink light of sun on snow.  Not sure why I took today's big blank canvas and painted summer in Maine but the snow colours were definately on my mind.  I think Figgy calls them 'sweet' colours.  I worked the same way I had yesterday, inventing a scene in charcoal from drawings, memory/imagination and  parts of a few photos.  My challenge was to use some yellow green and make it believable.  

New beginning colour and shape

Working from drawings, imagination and parts photos I began today with charcoal. It is drawing group Monday but what with the snow and not having the regular car I decided to stay home.  
I began drawing because I wanted to consider the light and shapes. When I finished I realised I'd done what I often do, put a line down the middle of the space.  Not sure why but I thought an ironing board would unify things, create some more complication and create a reason for the woman on the chair. 
This is only a few hours of painting so will come back to it again, and probably again.

Figure with Deckchair

This painting was stalled for some time.  I wondered what would happen if I collaged some pastel drawing motifs onto it.  It was obviously Maine so I found a few drawings and attempted to translate the energy to the painting. I put one of Rose Hilton's catalogs at my feet and began.

Oriental lillies

This is my painting response to my earlier post, Notwithstanding Local Colour.  This painting has layers of paint under it, a tree painting a very loose vibrant overpainting over that and this which has tightened up but has some interest for me anyway.  I hope I can return to it and resolve it, but for now I'll turn it towards the wall.  It's mysterious the way you can paint many different ways  in a short space of time...

Revisiting old territory

It's always exciting when you breathe new life into a painting you've put aside. Still not sure where this is going, but like the energy so far.

How do I use life drawings?

The barrier of reproducing something REAL from a brief life-drawing experience has meant that I have avoided using my life drawing in my painting and printmaking work, except to get the gesture of a figure to use in a monotype.  Patrick thinks this is untapped territory. I think I am sensitive about being branded 'nostalgic' or 'romantic' too, so hundreds of sketches languish in folders and sketchbooks.  
But this morning I decided to try to put all that aside and to do something finished with a life drawing.  
I can still remember Keith Boyle, one of my painting teachers, and our discussion about my love of Bonnard.  He used the word 'decorative'. I suppose Mattise, Modigliani, Gaugin they might be branded with that same word. 

The struggle of working big

So this one is big - 24 x 36 Inches and has been a few different paintings. The original painting was landscape, with some interesting shapes and some painting that I liked, but the subject was ultimately unappealing to me.  So I turned it portrait direction and in Bob Lahotan style I looked for something, somewhere in the original painting to begin with again.  Eventually it happened but the second image referred to a 5 minute sketch from life drawing and although it had potential, I didn't believe it. In Septmeber, I  had thought I'd do a series of hat paintings based on a trip to a day of open gardens when I followed a hat around.  That felt like another place to begin again  so I painted in the figure. It needed more stuff, so amoung other things, our bowl, lamp and sideboard appeared today. 

I continue to struggle with tight and loose, how much to define, colour and grey, line and all that decorative.

I think my mother would recognize similar painting on her folding screen, so maybe this is how I paint, my handwriting?

Snowlight by woodshed

These 'snowlight' oil sketches have become a part of my day.  The snow is still pristine in our Nayland Farm micro-climate. the original is a bit duller, a bit more like the grey snowlight of today.

Snowlight in studio

Heavy snow last night and overcast today. I only have titanium white, I wonder what lead white would do? 

Also making snowlight mailart, drawing on colour studies and gouache painted paper.

Snowlight (inside) 2

The snowlight is flat today.  They say snow is coming and in 'pathetic fallacy' terms the snowscape looks malevolent, not playful.
I realised I don't have a col red (carmine) in my oils, so found it difficult to get a low key fuscia.  In the end I turned to my neocolour.  Love the colour studies book! Also finding it manageable to do 5 X 7 oil sketches.