Snow of Memory

Snowy Walk, egg tempera on panel, 30x20, 

I was asked how I worked recently. Did I draw, did I work plein air, did I use photos? I use all those strategies but I don't work in a straight line, visualising an outcome. I begin with something I want to try out and then things happen and I need to make choices and find ways to solve problems. 

I have tried to keep the snowy light in my head so that I could make a little series of pictures of walking in the morning light. I did some drawings and took some pictures and tried to look and look. I looked through paintings and kept two books open as I worked on this: Wolf Khan, pastels and particularly: Looking towards St Peters (1963) and Bonnard (Phillips Collection exhibition) Piazza del Popolo, Rome.

Wolf Khan, Looking towards St Peters

Pierre Bonnard, Piazza del Popolo, Rome

The place and the situation are a collage of memories, stitched together to make a believable moment. The figure with the hat was added later and I removed some things that were distracting. The moon was a happy accident.  a drop of water that removed the tempera.

The Figure in Context

 Conversation with View, 23x16, egg tempera on panel

I painted a landscape of Manningtree months ago and I couldn't resolve it.  I finished it, but it wasn't resolved so it sat in my box of incomplete egg tempera panels.  When I visited the Bonnard, ten days ago, I particularly loved the figures in context and the way he paints light. So I wondered whether the idea of  'light behind' would work in this case and whether some figures might complete it.

I printed a photo of the panel and drew some figures in with a pastel pencil so I began.  what i love about working on egg tempera that has set is that you can actually wipe off the bad drawing and it reamins exactly the same.  It is permanent! and there is a differnt kind of underpainting to explore.

When something works it's time to try it another way

Snowy Walk, egg tempera on panel, 30x20 cm, 

For the past few years I have stuck to particular media to use for different subjects.  I use pastels for still life, landscapes in Maine (mostly) and life drawings, egg tempera for portraits, monotypes for UK landscapes and life drawing. Oils are for everything. I've also made a few egg tempera paintings of still lifes and Maine landscapes since I began using the medium   Today I tried it for snow light. What I was trying to do was to create the surface interest that I love from egg tempera, to try to get the luminosity you find in snow and to find colour that would provide interest.  I used a few drawings I made when the snow was on the ground and photos from walks. The image was a collage of some of these images. 

When I went to the Bonnard I saw how he used drawings to do the same thing and how he used animals as devices for colour and shape within the painting. 

I think I'll do a series of these if I can find different things to say about it all.

News From England

News From England, pastel on opened altered book

We've had a little snow over the past few days and we live on a hill so it stuck around enough to whiten the ground.  Our dog, Lyra, loves the snow and charged ahead, rolling on her back and sniffing wildly. Early morning with a dusting of snow is certainly news and the milky pink light delights us all. 

And I'm still filling up my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project. The mug was a gift from my friend who accompanied me to the Bonnard exhibition!

Record what interests you (quickly), consider it, make changes and slow down

Tiger at the Table, pastel on paper 30x37cm

 I'm keeping up with my sketchbook drawings.  What I notice is that the energy of looking for something interesting (because I have to) and recording it so it says something exciting QUICKLY is opening up lots of possibilities for more sustained drawings like the one above, Tiger at the Table. It's not always possible to transfer the energy and excitement that comes from an quick sketch, but I think there may be a better chance to find that when you are doing lots of the quick sketches and only choose the ones that feels particularly inspiring to inspire the bigger drawing.

I visited the wonderful, beautiful Bonnard at the TATE today with Bridget Moore.  We were there for more than 2 hours and it was never unpleasantly crowded, really.  How inspiring to be beside them all. SO much to think about.

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The freedom of gifting your drawings

Deciding to make a sketchbook with a theme, in my opinion, creates a momentum of its own. Another thing I've found is that knowing that I am 'releasing' the drawings makes me freer and sometimes better. I discovered The Sketchbook Project https://www.sketchbookproject.com/ before Christmas and began putting my sketchbook together, due early March, over the weekend.  They say you can rebind your sketchbook with different paper so I began doing that.  After a hiccup I decided I needed four signatures for the pages to sit right and prepared them for pastel with gouache and ground. There are 32 pages so I need to make at least one drawing a day.

If you don't know about the Sketchbook project, you pay, they send you a sketchbook, you draw like mad and send your sketchbook back to them, in Brooklyn, and you never see it again unless you visit the Sketchbook project, or find it digitally online. Good thing I have no problems with letting go. 

Using a drawing to inspire a painting

The House with Green Shutters, pastel on opened book, 23x16 cm

Occasionally when I do a drawing I think, 'Maybe I could make a painting from that idea'. That's what happened when I made the opened book above, over the weekend. The title of the book, The House with Green Shutters, inspired the drawings and led me to trawl back through images I had taken or drawn in America over the years. When I think of green shutters I think of America. In Maine every other year there are open gardens on the mainland and if I am there at the right time I love to follow my mother through the gardens and past the mansions. I'm noyt sure if I am more enchanted by the spaces or my mother in her hat and bespoke tops.

I made the drawing on the left first and when considering what to put on the right I knew I needed to make something bolder. Hydrangeas and peonies are the two flowers I think of when I think bold. I liked the scale of the figure and the acid green and purple. Still not sure about the sky. I've looked at Milton Avery, Dorothy Eisner and Fairfield Porter but will wait to let the paint dry again to test some alternatives.

Hydrangeas and Hat,  oil on canvas, 30x40cm