A week of working across media

Sound of Alcina

I discovered that I sold both of the fused plastic pieces I was showing at the gallery in Bermondsey earlier in the week. It was timely because I was in the process of trying to make something for an open call and working in fused plastic is usually fun but sometimes is confusing in that trying to say something too specific feels forced and at the same time, I can't necessarily believe in something that comes absolutely intuitively. A sale can be a reminder to trust your instincts.

C of plastic

Sorting Plastic

You'd laugh if you walked into my studio… it is about as chaotic as it gets.  I am literally stepping on top of plastic. Things are balanced all over the place and I have many tea cups, some still full, scattered. 

I seem to be moving from one idea to the next without a pause. Yesterday I was in London all day so today, after showing the recent egg tempera to Mick and Louise for feedback, I had some ideas and wanted to work on another panel to test them out. 

Yesterday I drew in Trafalgar Square in my silent traveller in london sketchbook after spending a very enjoyable few hours with Fig's friend Jonny and went to life drawing with Mick. 

Panel 2 (day 1)

I wanted to set up something without strong darks that I could build up with lots of layers to see if I could acheive a sense of luminance that I guess is the real point of egg tempera. Mick told me Ruth uses big brushes so I blocked in very pale colours to begin with. I guess it feels more like a water colour as it is.  I have fewer small marks and more variety, I suppose, but it may be a little saccharin. It got too dark to work anymore on this today, so we will see what happens tomorrow, maybe if I can deepen the colours it will feel stronger.

Matthew, monotype 

Below quick sketches in a small sketchbook to warm me up.  My first print was a bit of a failure, but I may work back into it… I was nearly late to drawing as got so involved trying to see everything in the dark in Trafalgar square (including the colours of the pastel (no head torch) that I was horrified to see it was 5:45 when I looked at my watch.  I was convinced it wasn't even five yet.

5:45 pm Trafalgar Square

Exploring The Surface with Egg Tempera

At the start of the week I finally got around to making some supports for egg tempera.  It required Patrick to cut MDF into even pieces and me to soak and then warm rabbit skin glue and then add whiting to make gesso.  I coated the boards the way Ruth Stage had taught me - about six layers -, sanded them down and planned to take one to my portrait group.  The nine prepared boards were going to be for nine portraits. As it turned out, our portrait group was cancelled so I adjusted  my previous still life to include a few daffodils and began.

I had forgotten that my previous experience of egg tempera was quite frustrating.  It made me even tighter than I can be. That time, I worked from a drawing, which is always hard for me.   I decided to think of this experiment as drawing with a brush rather than painting. I don't have tons of pigment.  Some of it is from limewashing the walls when Earth and Reed were in Needham Market.  Some of it I bought when I was wanting to use lime plaster on wattle and daub as a support, years ago. When I didn't have a colour I needed I took a bit of a broken pastel and crushed it in my mortar and pestle.  I had no cadmium yellow, for example. That seems to work. But I should get a good red and a good yellow for the next panel. I discovered that a Q-tip is good at rubbing back to the support white colour.  I learned that light on top doesn't seem to work, unless it's naples yellow. I used those pieces of glass from the IKEA frames leftover when I changed to UV glass, as palettes.

I worked pretty randomly, not knowing much and wonder if I went from bigger to smaller, which I kind of did, might result in more variety of strokes. That's what Anthony Williams does. Maybe you could focus the eye differently that way.

I began in the morning yesterday and then painted again last night - even though the light was totally different, finishing it off in today's light. Probably because of the colours and the brushstrokes (to me) it evokes Gaugin, or one of the Bloomsbury bunch. It's fascinating the way materials change the way you see, work and express yourself.

Basking in Doreen's Glow

Doreen, last drawing, 30 mins, pastel on paper 16 x 16cm

I was in Jane's seat today.  The table is a little small for my stuff but the light is good and the view was great today. I love drawing Doreen. I had prepared lots of pretty pieces of paper for pastel and watercolour last night. I had looked at Birdget Moore and Sargy Mann over the weekend so I was thinking in blocks of colour.  I felt more like myself.

Sue, before Doreen arrived, 5 mins, pastel on paper, 14 x 13cm

 Doreen was a little late so Sue sat for us briefly.  I could have carried on drawing Sue.  Her hair made a nice shape and her colours were delicious! 

a few mins, pastel on paper, 14 x 13cm

It was a bit ambitious to use watercolour in these quick poses but it made me work quickly and insisted that I really look for what was significant.

a few mins 2, pastel on paper, 14 x 13cm

a few mins 3, pastel on paper, 14 x 13cm

15 mins, pastel on paper, 14 x 13cm

I stuck to the same basic palette all morning but mostly avoided line unless it was absolutely necessary.

15 mins 2, pastel on paper, 14 x 13cm

Doreen moving slowly, pastel on altered book page

This was the first drawing of the day and rather than do lots of shapes as Doreen walked around the room I stuck to my initial first minute pose and tried to see the room around her in comparison to the colour of her skin. I think that set me up for my final drawing and was why the room came alive.

From Dining on Plastic to Seasonal Plastic

In December I put all the plastic bags I collected from charity shops, museums, supermarkets and the cheese shop inside one of the bags  and stashed it under my work table with the idea that I am going to do a snapshot of the months in plastic over the year. Not exactly dining on plastic, more seasonal plastic.  I wonder whether the attitude about plastic will change it, whether marketing, colour, size will change as the year wears on?

I love that the Waitrose bag had a winter theme and I chose to put some complete writing on this piece in case I decide to use it for something I am submitting to. It says holiday, winter, joyful abundance to me.

I worked in a furious sort of way following ideas one after the other for a day and half.  These are not in order of making. 

Having just spent a long time working mostly in an observational way, I enjoyed playing with all the same elements but in an inutitve and differently restricted way.  Most of these are first drafts.  I may free float them, put them on a surface and use paint to make them relate to their edge differently.  

front

back

 I wondered about mounting this one directly under glass so you could see both sides.  Which is 
'good plastic'?

And is there a male or female aesthetic in collage, in plastic? 

Art Made Now

A Few Orange things

Sometime after the Christmas, in one of my shopping opportunities in charity shops, I picked up these two unusual vases.  They are streaky grey with orange splodgy spots in a few places. My studio is full of vases and if I never drew anything else, I could draw and draw my vases. I am a collector intending to use all of my objects sometime in some way in something I make. I'm a bit obsessed.

I have a few things I want to submit to (in a few weeks) and I'm sort of trying to make work for those. In a nod to a recent exhibition where objects were on display along with output, I set up my subject trying to do three things: use those vases, make art that is on my mind now and use colour differently.  This drawing is my standard 16.5 x 16.5 cm. It is mostly what I saw,  except the blue horizon at the top was parallel to the book spine and that didn't work.

The dance of the Hyacinth, getting to grips with bigger pastels and plants with minds of their own

Hyacinth Inclination, pastel on fabriano,  40 x 37 cm 

In order to understand the anguish I sometimes have to go through to finish a bigger drawing I thought you might like to see what I began looking at and what I finished looking at and how far my drawing departs from reality in order to make the image come together… if it does.
Below you can see what I saw when I began drawing on Sunday morning, late afternoon and  today, when I think I have finished.

when I first set the still life up

at the end of the first drawing day

when I finished drawing today

When I visited Peter Clossick in his studio with the NEAC, he showed me three books that he felt I should read.  The other morning I downloaded Aesthetics and Painting by Jason Gaiger.  Because my painting and drawing degree was practical above all and I love looking at pictures and consult them primarily for advice, apart from painting book essays,  and what I read for the art history part of my degree, I am not overly genned up on the philosophy of painting.  I am finding the book enlightening and it's making me think in different ways.  For example, that old query: 'what are you trying to say' has a different set of questions, or at least they are expressed differently and they are making me ask them of myself differently.

So when I came to the studio yesterday evening, after reading another slug of the book, quite dejected about the ten-or-so hours I'd already put into the drawing and how much of a failure it was, I was wondering about whether the world should be expressed as it is or in a perfected way.  Do I need to bother with the colour of what I actually see or is the still life a stimulus for something I want to see.  I know I used to think that way…The NEAC scholarship has pushed me towards being accurate in my observation and that means I hit this snag.  What if the colour doesn't work?  

That's what happened yesterday, the colour didn't work.  I hated the colour in places.  The composition was bitty and I was ready to give up. The book with its analysis of opposing viewpoints helped me find a way around the snag - I would simplify what I was drawing - not wipe it out as Peter suggests (that makes pastels muddy depressing)- erase and use the side of the pastel to reject what I see in order to see what else can work. As John and Mick and Peter would say 'it's not a copy'.

I found something similar to the colour so that I could find a different 'reality' I and draped it behind.  The picture would become a postcard and I'd let the hyacinth collapse and the tulips splay. When I was done and it was dark (9pm) the left side and the right side weren't speaking to each other. This morning after reading another few pages of Gaiger I was thinking about the marks versus the objects and how to create excitement in the marks which add to but are distinct in themselves. That thought helped me to bring the sides together.

Bigger pastels of live things are troublesome but perhaps that working harder is a good thing? Sandy Larkman asked for something big and colourful for Brushstrokes, a charity that raises money through art exhibitions. Maybe I'll exhibit this one.

January light

It's one of those reassuring January things when the flower of the hellebore appears. As you know, it's been busy around Nayland Farm and frankly amazing that I have mananged to do anything let alone a little painting on book pages. I wedged myself in the corner of the studio while Figgy and Jonny made monotypes for the week they were home. Over a few days, before the hellebore drooped and closed I worked in spurts. I made a conscious decision not to have any pattern and wanted a feeling of white so chose my objects with that objective. I would have painted on (but needed to teach Figgy to frame her own gorgeous monotypes) and I still could but there is a certain freshness that I suspect I will just leave. But what do you think, should I crop it to the edge of the painting or not, or should I crop it into a square?

Meanwhile, I returned to London on Friday to visit John Dobbs (WONDERFUL) and to draw, or in this case make monotypes with the NEAC drawing school. Kate sat for the full two hours and I made two prints and two ghosts.