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