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Life drawing every monday. I've been going to the same group since I moved to England 13 years ago. When I was teaching full time it was impossible to get to Sudbury, but mostly I go now. There is the occasional new model, but Blue has been modeling for the group all along. I missed it but apparently she modeled when nine months pregnant, years ago. The sessions have a loose structure. Sue, a model herself, started the group 20 something years ago and is in charge. Usually I am in a rush in the morning and it's lucky if I remember everything but yesterday I decided to prepare something different for the session. I rubbed pastel into paper that I'd outlined with masking tape. I treated the pastel in three ways: I brushed mineral spirit on two rectangles, clear gesso over another and brushed fixative over the final one. Each was a different colour. There were two on a page. I had no idea what would happen at drawing or even if I would feel like using them. In the previous session I only used charcoal. I never really know which tool I'll grab when Sue says, 'this will be a three minute pose,' or whatever.
Sue strucutred things in a way she never has before. She asked Blue to pose three different ways and to hold each pose (in rotation) for 1 min, 5 minutes and 10 minutes. So, we would have three opportunities to draw Blue in each pose. The top drawing is one of the three ten minute poses. The other two are 20 minute poses (which is the routine) after our break.
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.
I expect some of this will serve as the basis for a painting. Tried to think colour studies rather than local colour while drawing a familiar interior. It reminds me of the interiors I made when I was a teenager. Same handwriting, same area of interest.
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.
Tina and Christopher wrote to thank us for a dinner we hosted recently. Tina writes, ' A postcard to join the collection.' I have a few of Tina's postcards but I suspect she is referring to my mail art collection.... Tina calls this beautiful pastel, one of many that she has created at the flat in Aldeburgh, Anemone Blanda. Many thanks Tina!
Another 6x8 monotype, this time trying to collage drawings and ideas in a painterly way. All the colour is invented. What I notice about working with Akua Intaglio inks is that cleaning between colours is problematic because although you can do it with water you really need warm soapy water and then the brush should dry and when I am working quickly I just never seem to realy clean my brushes properly so I get a muddy feel unless I am fastidious, which I never am...
I also forgot to roll the release agent onto the image before printing until I had the paper ontop of it, so I had to lift up the corners and roll and I got bits of red all over the place, accidentally.
I took a photo of the plate before I printed it. It's interesting to see how different the final print is...
The first thing to say is that this image isn't really accurate in terms of colour, the original being more subtle with richer oranges and not so much red. I need to calibrate/profile things better between camera, monitor and printer, but I don't want to invest in any more equipment until I am happy with the images I'm making...
The next thing to say is that this is that Akua Itaglio Ink and it just doesn't hold the line as well as oil based ink, so far. I used a zinc plate whihc does seem to help and I think I'm beginning to use the pigment better, but I had more detail in the face and during printing it smudged. I rolled the release agent over the top, pre-printing as I worried that the ink might have dried too much for spoon printing. Rolling a film of relase agent makes me nervous and it did throw up a few specks of random colour so I added a few finishing touches after, perhaps that contributed to the smudge problem.
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