Abstracting and turning

So I continue to explore the theory that if you start from something you know and have seen then abstraction becomes believable. I began with my ruler and looked for the shapes.  Turning reality on its side was obvious.

Almost Achromatic Interior

I find myself looking for ambiguous interiors that get me close to abstraction. Because there were larger shapes, I challenged myself to use colour believably but not entirely based on the local colour.  I wanted to capture the feeling of the space and light in colour. I shifted between applying pastel, rubbing it off with a eraser and fixing it with surgical spirit.

Meanwhile we have been talking about minimalism at IUOMA. De Villo assembled  mail art that is minimalist. I was wondering if anything I ever do or imagine might be minimalist, thinking that it wouldn't and then I thought of a beautiful stained ink box  that i'd saved.  I titled it 'Spirit of Morandi'. Perhaps our minds pair ideas, images… 

Another view of Gurney in Somerset

Another drawing session where I used an image (taken recently) and  projected it on the wall; I translated the colours into tone and line. This drawing is 9 x 13.5.  Next I tried to change tone into colours using a previous colour study. I cut and fused the shapes as I saw them.  The initial result didn't suggest the space or the light so I cut it all up again and tried to feel the space and use some but not all of the elements in the drawing to suggest what to do next. When sewing, I made a conscious effort not to repeat myself and to use the stiches as lines more intentionally than sometimes. The edges of the fused plastic were not even once I'd made a back.  It was a wiggly organic form and I thought it might be a fragment, but in the end that didn't work.

Drawing Erin inpsires me.

I've only drawn Erin once before and that time I had a satisfying life drawing session too.  There were about 15 of us in the group today and it's customary to wander around in the break and look at each other's work.  I had a few compliments about this one, a ten minute sketch (5.5 X 6").  Sue wondered if I was inspired by one of the other artist's outfits, chartreuse and black.  It might work that way…

Sue asked Erin to do a 15 minute sequence of movement and we drew it.  We do this sometimes and it takes more concentration than anything.  The 'chartreuse' Erin was drawn shortly after that sequence.  I think drawing movement does something to your brain.

My 'style' of drawing doesn't really lend it self to movement drawing so results are never really anything, but the process seems to help, even more than a series of quick sketches.

This was my final drawing.  I think I managed to loosen things up again.  I think the other two are less successful, but they may have something for later.

Fused plastic response

Following on from drawing the Somerset space, I used the drawing to inform this larger (6x8") fused plastic piece, mounted onto cardboard and then sewn.

Exploring the rectangle

A few nights ago I woke at some ungodly hour and had one of those 'eureka moments'.  I realised that there was a way to feed my over-arching interest in breaking up the space of a rectangle with areas of colour and my need to work in lots of mediums and ways simultaneously that might not end up in an amateurish mishmash.

What if I hone in on motifs that break up the space in ways that remind me of what I like in my fused plastic collages and use those to draw from. Once I have a drawing I can use it as stimulus for whichever medium I feel the urge to work in.  It makes things simpler (eliminates lots of motifs) and hopefully will give me a body of work that holds together.

I took lots of photos in just that way while in Somerset and my home and studio are rich with material.  Today, to begin the theme I projected a photo of a hallway of a house we stayed in in Somerset on the wall of the studio and set up my drawing board some way away.  I tried to think of the rhythm of the place.  I wanted to get lots of information so I could make choices later. I was documenting the space first. I looked at Annabel Gault and Emily Nelligen.

I didn't want to use local colour as a starting point when I began my follow-up monoprint.  I looked at some Deibenkorn and tried to keep the rhythm idea and to select harmonious colours that would play in the rectangle in a believable way.  This was the first Akua Ink print made with wet paper in my new press. I rushed things a bit, because I was impatient to see how it would work. I am delighted with the intesity of the colour and can see lots of possibilities, even if this print is a bit lame. And I forgot to work backwards!

In a 2nd print (too awful to show), I used the ghost and worked with the leftover ink, working backwards this time.  I'm not too keen on the colours, cleaning brushes with Akua is a bit of a hassle and needs more determination on my part! 

Trying to think like Simon (Carter)

About 16 of us are painting the space with Simon Warren at Firstsite. I'm interested in discovering how Simon takes a drawing back into the studio and works it up into a painting.  I find it difficult to create something 'real' without being terribly literal. 

At Firstsite we have been going into the space (an architectural space) and drawing.  At the first session we did quick drawings and then painted from those, using those school watercolour boxes.  We just had a go.  Unsurprisingly, I found myself falling back on my literal approach, almost copying the drawing.  I didn't use local colour but I didn't like the results at all anyway.  

I felt uncomfortable on a number of levels.  Although drawing anything is great, I do not feel inspired by the Firstsite space, particularly.  And when Simon used the word 'domestic' about the way I had collapsed the space, thinking shapes etc, rather than using the available space to inform the drawing accurately, I felt a bit trapped.  Nevertheless, the point of the class, for me, is to look from a different perspective and to explore the problem of studio painting.

I enjoyed the second week more, as I let go and felt and then drew the architectural space (in one drawing)  for pretty much all of the session.

We've just returned from Cornwall where the landscape is archetectural in its feel and scale.  Now there's a subject I can relate to.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to make drawings as we walked in Lands End, Penzance and elsewhere, but I did photograph as I walked.  

On the drive home I wondered about projecting the photos onto the studio wall to feel the scale of the landscape and then to draw from it, trying to take Simon's approach to heart. Tomorrow I will take one of these drawing and see what they do in paint. 

My Firstsite drawing suggeted Diebenkorn to Simon.  The one below might be a bit more Milton Avery.