The Figure in Context

 Conversation with View, 23x16, egg tempera on panel

I painted a landscape of Manningtree months ago and I couldn't resolve it.  I finished it, but it wasn't resolved so it sat in my box of incomplete egg tempera panels.  When I visited the Bonnard, ten days ago, I particularly loved the figures in context and the way he paints light. So I wondered whether the idea of  'light behind' would work in this case and whether some figures might complete it.

I printed a photo of the panel and drew some figures in with a pastel pencil so I began.  what i love about working on egg tempera that has set is that you can actually wipe off the bad drawing and it reamins exactly the same.  It is permanent! and there is a differnt kind of underpainting to explore.

When something works it's time to try it another way

Snowy Walk, egg tempera on panel, 30x20 cm, 

For the past few years I have stuck to particular media to use for different subjects.  I use pastels for still life, landscapes in Maine (mostly) and life drawings, egg tempera for portraits, monotypes for UK landscapes and life drawing. Oils are for everything. I've also made a few egg tempera paintings of still lifes and Maine landscapes since I began using the medium   Today I tried it for snow light. What I was trying to do was to create the surface interest that I love from egg tempera, to try to get the luminosity you find in snow and to find colour that would provide interest.  I used a few drawings I made when the snow was on the ground and photos from walks. The image was a collage of some of these images. 

When I went to the Bonnard I saw how he used drawings to do the same thing and how he used animals as devices for colour and shape within the painting. 

I think I'll do a series of these if I can find different things to say about it all.

News From England

News From England, pastel on opened altered book

We've had a little snow over the past few days and we live on a hill so it stuck around enough to whiten the ground.  Our dog, Lyra, loves the snow and charged ahead, rolling on her back and sniffing wildly. Early morning with a dusting of snow is certainly news and the milky pink light delights us all. 

And I'm still filling up my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project. The mug was a gift from my friend who accompanied me to the Bonnard exhibition!

Record what interests you (quickly), consider it, make changes and slow down

Tiger at the Table, pastel on paper 30x37cm

 I'm keeping up with my sketchbook drawings.  What I notice is that the energy of looking for something interesting (because I have to) and recording it so it says something exciting QUICKLY is opening up lots of possibilities for more sustained drawings like the one above, Tiger at the Table. It's not always possible to transfer the energy and excitement that comes from an quick sketch, but I think there may be a better chance to find that when you are doing lots of the quick sketches and only choose the ones that feels particularly inspiring to inspire the bigger drawing.

I visited the wonderful, beautiful Bonnard at the TATE today with Bridget Moore.  We were there for more than 2 hours and it was never unpleasantly crowded, really.  How inspiring to be beside them all. SO much to think about.

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The freedom of gifting your drawings

Deciding to make a sketchbook with a theme, in my opinion, creates a momentum of its own. Another thing I've found is that knowing that I am 'releasing' the drawings makes me freer and sometimes better. I discovered The Sketchbook Project https://www.sketchbookproject.com/ before Christmas and began putting my sketchbook together, due early March, over the weekend.  They say you can rebind your sketchbook with different paper so I began doing that.  After a hiccup I decided I needed four signatures for the pages to sit right and prepared them for pastel with gouache and ground. There are 32 pages so I need to make at least one drawing a day.

If you don't know about the Sketchbook project, you pay, they send you a sketchbook, you draw like mad and send your sketchbook back to them, in Brooklyn, and you never see it again unless you visit the Sketchbook project, or find it digitally online. Good thing I have no problems with letting go. 

Using a drawing to inspire a painting

The House with Green Shutters, pastel on opened book, 23x16 cm

Occasionally when I do a drawing I think, 'Maybe I could make a painting from that idea'. That's what happened when I made the opened book above, over the weekend. The title of the book, The House with Green Shutters, inspired the drawings and led me to trawl back through images I had taken or drawn in America over the years. When I think of green shutters I think of America. In Maine every other year there are open gardens on the mainland and if I am there at the right time I love to follow my mother through the gardens and past the mansions. I'm noyt sure if I am more enchanted by the spaces or my mother in her hat and bespoke tops.

I made the drawing on the left first and when considering what to put on the right I knew I needed to make something bolder. Hydrangeas and peonies are the two flowers I think of when I think bold. I liked the scale of the figure and the acid green and purple. Still not sure about the sky. I've looked at Milton Avery, Dorothy Eisner and Fairfield Porter but will wait to let the paint dry again to test some alternatives.

Hydrangeas and Hat,  oil on canvas, 30x40cm

Looking at myself

(study) Self Portrait in Red Chair - egg tempera on panel - 15x20

So I had lots of goals when I began the little egg tempera study. Reading Bonnard I thought about this statement: 'The artist who paints the emotions creates an enclosed world... the picture... which, like a book, has the same interest no matter where it happens to be. Such an artist, we may imagine, spends a great deal of time doing nothing but looking, both around him and inside him.' Patrick took a photo and using that in black and white, a mirror and my intuition I tried to project something about myself. I looked at Bonnard, in particular ' Vivette Terrasse c.1916.https://my-museum-of-art.blogspot.com/2014/02/pierre-bonnard-vivette-terrasse-c1916.html 

I wanted to make the surface exciting but to draw the viewer to my gaze.

Self Portrait in Red Chair - oil on canvas - 40 x 50

When I  finished the egg tempera I primed a canvas with kings blue and used the leftover paints from before Christmas that were still on my glass palette. I think I did that to avoid delay and maybe because I could blame the colour choices on that… mostly though I just wanted to get something down. At first it was really loose but I found that I wanted to do something that felt complete at the end and I didn't know how to do that without getting more explicit. I looked at Bonnard more and I looked at Julie Held. I have worked on this a bit more - the left side of the chair and the wall and the vase all  work better, but haven't photographed it yet. 

Jettisoning local colour for January

According to the Nabis from: https://www.theartstory.org/movement-les-nabis.htm, a painting was a harmonious grouping of lines and colors, with outcomes to include many different solutions. An artist's personal style was, in fact, accomplished through the choice of how to arrange these lines and colors. As an example of the Nabi approach, at the beginning of their meetings, they would recite the following "mantra" together: "sounds, colors, and words have a miraculously expressive power beyond all representation and even beyond the literal meaning of the words." 

When I visited the Barber Institute last week, in Birmingham, to see the current Vuillard exhibition, I came away remembering that I don't have to stick to local colour and that my instinct, even my handwriting has always been about colour and pattern primarily. I reflected  that last year taught me how to see acccurately and how to record what I see better but that my personality can sometimes be obscured when I think too hard about all of that.

Today, arriving late to drawing, I worked quickly to put something authentic down. The two rectangular drawings below, 19 x 28cm were 20 minute poses made before the break. The square below those, 17 x 17 cm, was a challenge in that it was a 1/2 hour pose and I had to look hard to find something to say about it. The moment that I chose the blue, I began to feel it was about shapes and colour and no longer a model.  The image at the top was the final drawing and it was about 25 minutes, 28 x 19cm, and the surfaces and the design elements of the arrangement inspired me. The ground was a lime green which guided me in colour relationships.

January objects and artifiical light

What I found in January, pastel on tinted paper 16 x 16cm

When I picked a little bouquet of what I had in the garden it occured to me that I wanted to make the shapes of the hellebores stand out from the background.  I have a cupboard in the studio with cloth (clothes and pieces of fabric) and most of it is pattered and highly coloured. I don't have many solids and I don't have any velvets. That was what I was hankering after.  When I started, the colours were actually quite light and punchy.  In the end I migrated towards local colour, although the colour and light were never the same yesterday and again this morning - they were  grey days and I needed to turn on the natural light lamp before long. This drawing was a puzzle and when I finally introduced the ceramic lemon squeezer for balance I felt I had found the January feel of stillness indoors, and had done as much as I could with this arrangement.

Zooming, changing the focus, abstracting shapes

charcoal on paper, 16x14 cm

I have a bunch of ideas I want to explore and one of them is about memories of my young family. I began this project by looking through one of many boxes of old photos. From there I drew a memory by choosing elements from a few photos, creating a mood and story that never really existed but feels true, with lots of truths within it.

B & W print of oil pastel, crop

B & W print of oil pastel, crop

I am using lots of different media, including those fat oil pastels that are like using a big paintbrush to get a feeling rather than a detail.  Ultimately I want to paint from these ideas but for the moment I am trying to keep it open so I can figure out what I want to say and how I might say it.

B & W print of oil pastel, crop

B & W print of oil pastel, crop

watercolour and gouache on book page

pencil on paper 16 x 25 cm

oil pastel on paper 17 x 12 cm

Distemper as a medium

Capricorn Bouquet, distemper on panel, 20 x 25 cm

Before the holidays I took a class with Mick Kirkbride using egg tempera and distemper. This is the first chance I've had to use distemper since the course. I have been preparing surfaces for the past few days, ready for the new year and have a few books I'm using for warm up activities but today was a full painting day. 

I loved the start of the distemper process. Everything was loose and exciting.  The rabbit skin glue mixed easily and the light was good. As the day wore on the glue got pesky (I think my studio was a little cool), the light faded and I tightened up. I think the main problem is I wasn't sure what I wanted to accomplish, not knowing the medium, it's hard to know how to use it. On top of all that, I had a bouquet of flowers I bought on sale from the grocery store ( three days ago) still in their wrapping, in the sink, and although I wanted to find an interior, I felt I should use the flowers. Also, when distemper doesn't cooperate, it REALLY doesn't cooperate.  At first I thought of it like working with monotype ink - fighting the medium - In the end I had to get out a hotplate to keep the glue  and the mixed distemper warm enough to use and then it dryed out and flaked off the piece of glass. Glass is cold, so perhaps not the best surface to mix on.

I have some other ideas and motifs I want to explore with distemper and it was only my first effort but I have the sense that it may be an uphill battle.  You never know I might get up tomorrow and have a way to strengthen this, on the other hand it's probably best to move on.

Armchair travelling

January Road Trip, pastel on paper, 16 x 16 cm

It felt great to light my log burner, open my new box of extra fine Jaxell pastels, find a few objects (some new charity shop Christmas present finds) and some paper and fabric so I could create a world or even a story... all by myself, all day. 

I sized both sides of the paper and then gessoed one side before tinting the 'drawing window' with some ultramarine, yellow ochre and pastel ground. I was too impatient to locate my erasers (rubbers in the UK) so used the one on my crossword pencil when the pastel got too thick. 

I wanted to have a good first drawing experience of 2019.  I have done a few quick sketches in between things, but this is truly the first opportunity to do anything sustained for weeks. As you can imagine, this didn't draw itself at all.  As usual I nearly gave up a few times but eventually I began to feel I knew the objects and they were beginning to speak to each other.  At first the colours were a bit too bold for my goal  - to create lush but subdued colour.  Layers and patience prevailed.

Capturing the Weight of Flesh

 Erin is an athlete.  She is tall and slim with broad shoulders. As I draw I try to show the weight of the pose and that weight can be in the feet, the hips below the frame, forward or backward.  Esme is petit, slim and athletic. Erin (above) and Esme (below) are the models we drew at Sudbury life drawing this week and last. Because I've had a headcold and been very busy preparing for the Heart of Suffolk Exhibition, my expectations for product have been even less than usual.  I have tried to do one thing… to show the weight of flesh.  Colour, line, marks and gesture are some of the tactics I have used.

Opened Books

Touched with Poetry, opened book, pastel on prepared book pages

I'm not sure what drives me to glue the pages of books together and then to draw on them but for the past few years that has been something that I have loved to do. Mostly I use the title as a theme and the glue pages together, gesso them and use a tinted ground so I can use it as a sketchbook.  I think doing this narrows the parameters of what I am looking at, and I love having an artifact that says something more than the pieces. Lately I have been trying to make pieces on the book pages that stand alone.

The most interesting part of this project may be that in some cases I have worked from drawings instead of from life which is something I find problematic.  Maybe it's the playful nature of the book surface, even if it takes a long time to create,  that helps me to 'let go?' 

The top pages are what I might do in an altered sketchbook, two drawings side by side that are related and work together (for me). The bottom image is a vista, a drawing made from drawings and photos taken while climbing a mountain in the lake district. 

I am trying to decide what to submit for the pastel society annual show.  I am feeling poor so will only choose a couple this year, entry is £18 per item! I can't make my mind up about whether to choose what  I do or the other thing I do… I will find it hard to sleep tonight even though whatever I do is bound to be not quite the right thing for the group of people in the room who select.

Fairfield and her Friends, opened book, pastel on prepared book pages

One More Summer

One More Summer, altered book pages with pastel, 19 x 27 cm

As I've kept reading Contemporary Drawing, I have been preparing surfaces to work on. I prepared about twenty panels with rabbit skin glue and gesso. I prepared book pages. I have worked bigger, smaller, roughe,r smoother. I love reading alongside working as I think a little more about choices I make in light of the text. 

In this, I glued pages together in a book I began altering ten years ago. It was no longer relevant and I didn't feel I needed to preserve the pages any longer.  I could imagine the name and some of the words on the page in a double page spread - it could be something relevant now, something intentional that would use the surface to say something more. I went through my sketchbooks and found a drawing that felt like the title then I found some photos from the area to change the composition and choose some specifics from.   The original drawing is vertical. I know this scene.  It is a windy day and the summer is ebbing so I was looking at the pastel and making choices from my memory mostly.

Using the Colour of Autumn for Seasons' Greetings

Fried Green Tomatoes, pastel on paper, 16.5 x 16.5 cm,October 2018

It's that time of year again when I need to send an image off for a christmas card. I had an idea to use red foliage but on walking around the property, discovered that we don't really have any.  I toyed with the idea of buying one of those bushes that turns flame red at this time of year...  I could plant it, I thought (after I gave it a haircut), but that seemed silly.  I  wondered about knocking on a neighbours door with my pruning shears at the ready, but that felt like procrastination. Instead  I gathered what we had and thought about how the shapes could create a different kind of arrangement. In the end I couldn't resist picking one of my roses, a daisy and a dahlia too. It was a confusing mish mash  that took more focus than ever to untangle.

I made a few changes to this image but it was too dark to photograph the final product, but you get the idea.

Materials and surface

pastel on board 54 x 34 cm, Category Four, October 10, 2018

After what felt like a busy week, making Pauline's book cover, going to London twice and having a friend (and her mother) who I haven't seen in 30 years visit, everything was a bit on top of me.  To avoid feeling hysterical, or paralysed I started a weekly habit of thinking about what I need to do over the week and spent my first free evening making a book to put those lists in. Ah, the art of distraction!

After Charles' class, one of the things on my list was to read ( or probably re-read) a book on contemporary drawing my mother bought for me or our daughter. 

Much of what Charles said or hinted at or  maybe what I was thinking about as I went through his exercises is the focus of the book. I began taking notes…

Contemporary drawing:

Margaret Davidson, 2011

1.    ‘What the surface is determines the nature of the mark. Furthermore, a focus on both the surface and the mark and the relationship between the two is one of the hallmarks of contemporary drawing, and one of the most fundamental abstract issues drawing artists deal with.’ p 10

2.    ‘One distinguishing feature of contemporary drawing is the choice being made by some artists of the source of the mark-making.  Some artists let natural forces produce, or help produce their drawing marks.  Others look for cultural influences to map out or even control their mark-making. Many combine those two factors into a third realm of mark-making wherein they set up the parameters but cannot foresee the outcome… (these) contemporary choices add a significant layer of meaning to the drawings.’ P 10

3.    ‘The relationship between space and surface is a key thing, as well as the artists’ intentions with illusion and reality.’ P 10

4.    ‘Composition is a structure of one kind or another within which artists present their imagery and clarify their ideas.’  P. 10

5.    Scale – 3 points of view:‘how the scale relates to the artist, how the scale relates to the mark (which has to be quite different, depending on the size of the drawing), and how the scale relates to the viewer of the art, upon whom the impact is, maybe, the greatest.’ P. 11

6.    ‘the concept of materials (and tools)’ p. 11

7.    ‘some artists today are crossing media boundaries, making drawings that are also sculptures… if you find that following the direction the art is taking you means going outside the boundaries, well do it.  In the end, the boundaries don’t matter.’ P. 11

8.    Intentionality:  ‘must be learned, and then practiced on one’s own art, and when looking at other art.’ P. 11

So today when I began drawing, all of that was in my mind. I went through the usual stages of feeling overwhelmed, sick, disgusted and then slowly found my bearings. I think the image here is a little greyer than it is in the flesh. 

At one point when I thought it was garish and all was lost, I looked at Matisse for answers.  Seeing his riot of colour helped calm my nerves…

Below is my experiment using pigment mixed with pva and methyl cellulose in an altered book. I liked the freshness and it feels like the pigment will stick to the page!