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.

Another new model!

5.5 x 10 "

A3

Another fabulous new model today!  Below some of the responses to Andrew Vass' drawing the space class last week.  He gave us short amounts of time and lots of rules. I had never drawn Blue clothed and that was different and fun!

A3

A3

A3

Drawing the Space with Andrew Vass

It has been a long time since I have taken a drawing class.  As I clicked the submit button to register and pay for Andrew Vass' class at Firstsite I was hoping that I would come away from the class with some new ideas, having tried approaches that I didn't know or had not used in a while. I was looking to be shaken up.  Apparently Andrew stopped in a layby and collected the agricultural material he had us draw from in the first session. I liked the chaos and having to make order of objects that didn't make sense.  We had short drawing sessions of 15 minutes or so, materials weren't brilliant, but those obstacles interfere with 'knowing' and I like that feeling of being overwhelmed.

Andrew mentioned that he thought we should be applying some of what we did in the sessions during the week.  I spent about 15 mins working big, A2, with ink in a chaotic part of the studio, no mixing tray, a bucket of water and jar of poor quality ink, from The Works.

This week we were asked to bring in two objects. One was to be something important to us and personal, the other something random, perhaps to juxtapose.  As I had been working on unfurling, I brought along my African matchbox book and the 'foil' object was in fact a rice packet - foil/plastic.

Andrew had us photocopy these in a variety of ways, but the copier made things quite black so we abandoned that. Instead we drew our 'special' object from memory.  Urgh. I guess I need to be told to look intently.  My drawing was really quite non-specific, but the process was interesting and revealing. 

We were asked to scale up our objects on to really big paper (A1).  I had brought some pastels but only used the ones in my charcoal tin, a very limited palette, so tried to get the feel of colour as well as a range of tones.  Before beginning I knew I could never finish in 15 mins, so I just tried to follow the rules, 'work from the inside out'.

Our next task was to again work from the inside out, Andrew came around and poured ink on our paper and we were asked to use the blob and a medium sized brush to draw our second object - the foil packet. My paper was on vertical drawing board so the ink ran down and pooled in the lip.

A2

Like the week before, there was some resistence to Andrew's process driven session.  Most of the people in the class want to emerge better artists. One woman was quite stressed that the ink wasn't working for her. My advice was to banish the idea that she would produce a masterpiece and just have fun with the challenge. What does a 'better artist' look like?

Finally we were given the task of drawing one or more objects using ink again but we could apply it ourselves!  Andrew suggested I use two blobs of two colours and to work outwards.  I placed the photocopies under my objects.

A2

A2

Today I took the black and white ink drawing and added other ink and gouache to it. I decided to use the rice packet, my iron and a piece of fused plastic as motifs. I had never worked pastel over ink, and liked the energy the ink had, so used it as an undercoat. I loved the happy accident of some orange under the blue and kept thinking Whistler as I chose bits of the background to draw out.

Painting from mail

Just before stuffing one of those clear envelopes with something for Marie, I unfurled the upcycled mylar - a Lloyds bank advertisement, cut down to make an accordion book, and placed it on yesterday's collage color study. "I could paint from that," I thought. 

small painting from new model

Every morning I get up and make a list of things I really hope I will do, but my discipline stops there.  I do things all day but if something takes my fancy, I will not stick to the list. Some kind of response to Monday's new model not been on my list but if the list said 'paint' 'draw' 'monotype', I might have read 'return to that model.' The thing that has been on my list since H and F have been back at uni has been colour studies and I haven't ticked it on one single day.   I don't think this is finished, yet, but I have enjoyed stroking colours of paint next to colours of paint in a pastel approach, maybe it counts as a colour study?

A new Model

2 min

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2 X 2 min

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10 min

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 I remembered to bring my smaller pad with under-painted pages and attempted to apply my summer drawing approach to the model.  Looking at Vuillard before the session evident.

Loosening up

10X12

12X18

After a long hiatus from painting (2+ months), it's fun to see where I begin. I approached the start by beginning as freely as I could, with a loose idea in my head and some drawings to set me off.  As ever I feel like I can't remember what I've learned in the past, which may be a good thing.  I think I need lots of little canvases for the moment, a few colour studies and lots of drawing.