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.

Inspired by Objects and Garden

Partisan Day, pastel on board, 27 x 27 cm

I've been drawing in pastel regularly over the past few weeks, taking inspiration from the objects I find and what is growing in the garden. I have tried new corners of the studio to set things up and although I intend not to use flowers in every drawing it turns out they are w ay for me to put colours together that make sense that it's hard to do any other way.  There's also the thing of not wanting the flowers to die before I have captured them.

The image above began as a matching exercise: I decided I was going to begin with Matisse's colour scheme, colours I might not gravitate to myself. 

Henri Matisse, The Piano Lesson

I moved around looking for objects and colour to compose something that would have my sensibility and evoke the Matisse. 

Cold Incessant Rain, pastel on board, 27 x 27 cm

Wednesday Carboot, pastel on paper, 17 x 18 cm

Tangerine Zinnia and Tie, pastel on paper, 16 x 16 cm

Seeing the model through the material

ink and pastel on pastel ground on paper 16 x 16 cm

I was describing to my friend, Jo, today about how when I draw I feel I am struggling against the materials. It is as if through the struggle I make sense of what I am seeing. It seems like the material I use results in a different way of seeing the subject. 

Today at life drawing in Sudbury as I prepared my materials for a three hour session, I decided on ink and pastels.  Jason Bowyer held a workshop in the summer and I found mixing those materials was an exciting lens to look through.  I think tonally and about the shapes and as I work and layer marks, colours and tones on top.

ink and pastel on pastel ground on paper 16 x 16 cm

ink and pastel on pastel ground on paper 17 x 25 cm

ink and pastel on pastel ground on paper 16 x 16 cm

ink and pastel on pastel ground on paper 14 x 13 cm

On Friday I went back to the NEAC life drawing class with Mick Kirkbride.  I thought we would be working in one of the gallery spaces and so did Mick so when it was changed back tot he usual space which is smaller, we had a bit of a squeeze to fit and I opted to sit in a chair to help out. I was looking up at the model.  The lights had been taken down but I liked my view and the lighting was fine for me. I began in charcoal and moved onto pastel.

charcoal on paper 20 x 30 cm 

Mary, the booked model, had goofed and was not in the country so we had a stand-in model at the last second. Roberta had modeled years ago but had not modeled in ten years - she was fabulous on Friday. Someone said she was like a statue and that's why I decided to do the second drawing, from the same place in my London altered sketchbook: The Silent Traveller in London' on the page about statues.

Since making the scans below I have recalibrated my colour profile so the images below are not very good… Still they show monotypes made last week in life drawing where I struggle the most to amek the material become the model.

montype 10 x 20 cm

Drawing on a Blustery Day

Curry Night, 27 x 27cm, pastel on card

I've been in a school this week; in the preparation phase I made an enormous mess.  Add that to the car full of untidy boxes (after three classes of children) and I spent the first few hours today cleaning up.  Before lunch I assembled a still life at the other end of the room from where I usually work, the end with more light.  It was darkish and windy today. I usually find it difficult to get going after I do a stint in a school.  I was determined not to let that happen today.

I decided to work on a piece of acid free mount board that I prepared by masking around an area of 27 x 27cm.  In the square, I did a few coats of pastel ground mixed with some pinky orange gouache. 

When it was time to name the piece I thought I'd try a new naming technique: using something from my day as a title, ignoring the image itself. It was curry night tonight.

As I was getting ready I wondered whether I should move all my tables to the other end of the studio so that I would have a bigger space with good light as the days get shorter and darker...

Different sketchbooks for different motifs

For some reason I like to keep my sketchbooks of a theme.  Earlier this year I piloted a sketchbook where I put everything in time order.  It was interesting and I could find everything but somehow if everything that is thought of in a particular way stays together, even if they each inhabit a page and don't 'talk to each other', I just like it that way better.

Yesterday I put little pieces of yarn (colour coordinated) through my spiral sketchbooks to indicate if they were Maine, still life, life drawing/portrait or landscape. I was tired of pulling all the sketchbooks off the shelf to find the one I wanted to look through or work in. I should have been getting ready for the school workshop I am doing next week but hey ho.

When I went to maine this summer I made three altered sketchbooks.  The drawings here are from the one titled, 'The Friendly Road'.  I put the drawings about people and places in Maine in that one and carried it around with me wherever I went. The other two are: "Gardens" and "Lady with the Lamp". Gardens is self-explanatory and focued mostly on my mother's garden.  I put one still life in it and one in the Friendly Road.  Lady with the Lamp is about night light. Unfortunately I didn't have time to do much night drawing this summer.

It makes we wonder how other people use their sketchbooks. I asked the NEAC members I met.  For me my drawings are personal and immediate and fix time right then and there.  I am not so keen on thinking about the past, maybe that's why I like to organise them in some other way.

Domestic Bliss

Nectarine and Dahlia 15 x 17cm

So I am back in the studio! The garden is full of flowers and before I went to Maine i reorganised the place and can remember where I put everything! That means I can find my stuff and have the time to arrange things and draw them.  My objects speak about domestic bliss, perhaps? 

Life drawing group began again today so the morning was devoted to that but yesterday and today I made these two pastel drawings. I used some prepared paper that I found in a sketchbook and a box of Jaxell and Rembrandt pastels.  Nectarine and Dahlia was made after e next few weeks I hope to make a series of drawings with the aim that I will find a few to submit to the Pastel Society exhibition. 

Echinacea Autumn Tea 15 x 17cm

Drawing Rye Harbour

Seaside England

Before heading to Sussex for Mick Kirkbride's drawing weekend, I prepared an old book to draw in. (you willknow that I remove pages, glue pages together with PVA and gesso the pages before masking off an area and painting on a coloured ground) I might have painted, but as ever it has been whirlwind speed around here and I found myself barely getting packed in time, making the decision that drawing in the little book would have to do. We set off before 6am and I was standing in the salt flats making sense of the pier and the boat shapes in the baking heat by 10:00.  Louise, Mick's wife, organised the weekend, including a room in their rental for Patrick and me.  All I had to do was draw and draw, and that's what I did.

Standing on the Seashore

We drew until lunch time and I looked one way and then directly into the light at the boat and boat shed.  The cafe allowed me to take a mug of tea to the salt flats.  It was very civilised. The pub filled.  The water rose and mud flats turned to reflections.

Excellent Cold Bath

The Bather's Name

After lunch we walked out to the jetty and the nature reserve. As I stood drawing the shed, which was so stark that I found myself struggling to get beyond a childish drawing.  Still, it felt important to capture the structure as it is a iconic part of the view.  The man who owns the shed arrived half way through the afternoon and began to paint the black sides.  

A Golden Shark

 I turned to the mud flats, again, looking into the light. 

Mrs Beale's Umbrella

The next morning Patrick and I went for a walk and on our way back from the nature reserve I saw the town and knew that I wanted to record that too. I had to climb down the bank of the jetty into the salt flats again. I started with the sky and its one little cloud.

Bathing Machine

 I walked a little further out the jetty and stood next to Anne.  There wasn't enough time to find anything different so I looked and tried to find something that interested me in the sparse landscape. I began tonally, with ink and then looked for the colour.

Merely Bathing

 On the final afternoon I was back with the people and the colour and seaside feel. Astrid was doing a beautiful painting of the paint-peeling boat.  Most people spent the last day working up a final piece. everything I did was in the pages of the Seaside book. I stood behind Astrid, part of a rambling drawing group. Then, a family made its way down the pier and looked for seals. 

Saline Effluvia

The titles are taken from the words on pages in the book.  I will need to look for my next seaside village to draw! I have 15 pages left in the book…

I even have a Brandy Toreador

Brandy Toreador Fiesta, 16 x 17cm, pastel on  paper, 

I didn't go to the carboot sale today, instead I put together some of my carboot sale spoils along with the first zinnias, nicotianas, daisies, carnations, and bachelor buttons.  When I painted with Alex Fowler and Tessa Coleman recently, Alex's technique of putting coloured paper to break up the spaces was something I thought I'd try at some point.  What a good trick, now I don't need to rely on the fabric I own.

The brandy toreador was one of someone's collection, hawked at the car boot.  It still has a little brandy to the glass figurine's knees. The book in the front is something I will alter one day; the embroidered shirt is something my mum brought back from Mexico and all the other things I've gathered here and there.

The drawing isn't very big and I worked on it all day so that thing where even when you erase and the colour doesn't want to adhere happened. Still I was pleased with the overall depth of colour and the way I created surfaces .  I had to change a plane because the reality was disturbing, though. 

** If you read my last post you might be wondering why I am back to pastels.  Actually I have been working in pastels all week but I guess I'm feeling a bit less determined to stop working the way I do, here and there, with this media and that because another person I respect (the husband of the other person who gave me advice) told me not to worry, to just keep drawing in whatever way I want to…

Exploring egg tempera landscape

Walking Around the Island I, egg tempera on panel, 16 x 23cm

Walking Around the Island II, egg tempera on panel, 16 x 23cm

At an exhibition opening this week I had a conversation with someone I respect who asked me the reasonable question… 'who is Rebecca Guyver going to become?'  She went on to point out that what I was presenting was going in lots of different directions at once and she wanted to know which way I would choose to go.

Unsurprisingly I found it difficult to declare a direction and as I stood in that uncomfortable place, knowing someone is right but not wanting to narrow, I remembered my conversations at Stanford.  Was I going to declare english, photography or painting and drawing? and would I please just focus on one with all my stamina and energy.

I woke up the morning after the exhibition opening with the task of making something based on the sea because I wanted to submit (something within those parameters) to an open call. Based on feedback lately, I decided to work in egg tempera. I had been to Manningtree recently and felt that would be a good place to start.  I had no drawings so I drew from a photo in the first instance and then worked from general to specific, trying to get my egg tempera muscle memory active.

The resulting image is OK, (not included) but I knew that it wasn't what I wanted.  I worked from morning until dinner on it … I may return. Since then I have made  two more but these are based on a place that is important to me, a place where I have lots of drawings and memories (above).

Drawings below are how I got started and are some of the resource material I used.

Walking Around the Island II,(preliminary) pastel on paper, 11 x 16cm

drawing in book (last summer) to information

preliminary oil pastel for Walking Around the Island II

Walking Around the Island II drawing for earlier painting 23 x 30 cm

Walking Around the Island I, oil pastel sketch, 12 x 18cm, 

So I guess I have a direction.  None of this was easy for me.  The egg temperas are always a struggle but for now the feel like a way to do and say what I am interested in. While I can't imagine forgoing the impulse to feel weepy about colour and form in a bouquet while using soft pastel (in an altered book) I think I can run with this and it will give me a focus

Deben, egg tempera on panel, 16 x 23 cm

The Second Pull Isn't Always the Ghost

Back at Home, Monotype: Akua Intaglio on Heritage Paper, 6 x 8 inches

When there is something on the etching plate, even just a hint of something (like there was when I returned to this), I  find I am more patient.  Today's second pull is crisper than yesterday's ghostly first print. It is hot and yesterday the ink was drying as I worked  - today I rolled the release agent on to begin with so the ink moved better and I used more blending oil.

In a way the way that edges blend is what interests me most of the time in monotypes, There isn't much of that in this… I may have overcompensated for something that bugged me in yesterday's print - the fuzzy, dark middle of yesterday's print - I was careful to make things intentional (sharper) where two colours met. 

I'm not sure, does this feel more like an illustration than a print… I was thinking Fairfield Porter and Alex Katz as I worked today.

Based on Home

I'm back in the studio after two weeks going down to London almost every day. My computer is dying and I had a grey screen all last week. 

There are  few things I need to make work for, but I also have some ideas I want to test, lots of ideas. There has been so much input recently that I need to explore my own responses to things, and play.  Today and tomorrow I have set aside for monoprints - above is 6 x 8inches and the first stab at going back to my starting place, the combination of landscape/figure, inspired by my most recent studio visit.

Last week I visited Bridget Moore. Bridget was in my original group of people I really, really wanted to visit but it was tough to organise and it is not an understatement to say that it lived up to my expectations and was worth the wait.  You can see a little of her work here: https://www.newenglishartclub.co.uk/artists/bridget-moore-neac-rba-rws?art=101

Bridget was a generous visit, feeding me and then letting me look through her work myself and showing me piece after piece, and explaining the context. I saw her gouache plate, her tubes and some absolutely exquisite paintings and drawings. We talked about using memory, drawings and old photos, something I used to do but have lost the confidence to do, these days. We talked about that and she is a role model for working that way.

What happened when I got home is that the things that I look at daily (or DON'T look at) became visible - I had never noticed how mysterious almost iconic, a semi detatched house can be, until Bridget showed me. She likes silouettes and the light around the edges.  So do I.