Author Archives: patriciakarsten

Looking back

It’s now a few weeks since I completed the watercolour course and received tutor feedback. I was glad to read that assignment 5 was well received and about the generally positive tutor feedback.

Looking back over my work for the course, I think that I made progress in some areas. When starting, I had practically nonexistent experience with watercolours, and feel now much better acquainted with the medium. I also like the departure towards some mixed media experimentation. But I also think I may not have given myself enough opportunity to play around with watercolours beyond course exercises. It is certainly due to my overall very tight schedule and the necessity of focused time management, but I rarely do things “just for fun” and this playful aspect is missing in my work for the course.

I wasn’t aware of it during the course, it has only recently dawned on me that I’m in no way obliged to do only project-relevant exercises in my sketchbooks. I’m currently studying printmaking as an extra, on-top module besides the courses I’m doing for the painting degree. Only now I’m beginning to become a bit looser, experimental and more playful in approach. It may also be related to my mature age and a life dominated by my non-artistic full time job. It requires much effort to develop my creative activities and the different mindset that’s needed.

It’s a pity that I have no “official reason” to continue with watercolours. I feel there’s still so much to learn and to discover, but the courses I’ll be taking subsequently do not develop watercolour painting any further. I was hoping that I might integrate the habit of regular sketchbook work using watercolours, will see whether this is going to suit me in future work. I’ve recently began researching into chinese and japanese ink paintings and found the emphasis on expressive brushstrokes very interesting and worth further exploration. I’ll also get back to the human figure and life drawing (or painting) classes, because I would like to take the subject of my final assignment further.

So overall, I’m full of ideas and topics for continued work with watercolours after the course, curious where this might take me in the future.

Tutor report: Assignment 5

Overall Comments

Hello Patricia, thank you for submitting your work for Assignment 5 online. The work is clearly presented, as has been the case throughout the course, well done. All work has been presented in your online blog due to you currently living in New York and the postage being prohibitive. You have worked through all of the exercises on this section and have grappled with areas you have found difficult. You have worked hard and conscientiously throughout the course. There have been times when you have struggled with some of the exercises but you have kept working and tried different approaches. You have tried to push yourself out of your comfort zone on several occasions and have shown some willingness to experiment and explore the medium.

Remember the assessors will want to see evidence of experimentation, exploration and progress over the life of the course. I think you can confidently show that you have made progress and that your work has developed.

Feedback on assignment

Develop a series of paintings using methods and a subject of your own choice.
Establish what links the pieces. Before you begin think about

Size
Medium

As you start concentrate on observation and research of the subject

Prep work

Great that you had arranged to attend a life drawing class. And a good idea to use it as a basis for your set of themed paintings. You have done a substantial amount of preparation work and have thought about several different approaches to the final piece.

The series of five minute poses are a really exciting set of drawings. The energy is there, the subtlety of the tone in describing form has come through, really accurately rendered proportions , excellent Patricia. Much much more of this approach and experimentation would greatly benefit your style development. The male figure set of sketches, particularly no 8, are also interesting.

Final Assignment pieces.

Good that you identified a connection with de Lempicka and followed this up. Your notes on how you developed your work and ideas are very informative. There is attention to composition, medium, tone and abstraction. The pose you have chosen is a strong composition and you have also experimented with this to some extent. Each painting has its own qualities. The styles are very different and this was intentional. The connecting factor was the figure. I think it may also have been interesting to select one of these styles and try using it to depict a series of five different poses. I can see from your writing why you have chosen the different styles you have. As a series, 3 and 4 seem to work well together. And also 1 and 4. Think about this and how you might develop it. There are myriad combinations of painting that could be developed from this set.

I note you have gone on to do additional life drawing and have entered that on your blog too, good. Your work has come together well on this section Patricia, well done. Be sure to include all of the prep work and final pieces in your final submission for assessment.

Comments on some of the other project work.

It’s good to try new techniques and then incorporate them in to your existing style, to widen your own vocabulary of mark making and in order to develop what will become your signature in painting. Your own unique style will develop by exploring what marks you are capable of making and that feel natural to you. I can see you are exploring this throughout your work.

Drawing on coloured ground.

Despite you not being happy with how these two pieces have turned out, and I can understand why, I do still think you have clearly shown the effect of the ground on the final piece and this is the point of the exercise.

Tonal studies on a coloured ground.

Blue shoes on coloured ground. Final piece. Very accomplished. Lovely application of paint. Good use of the coloured ground coming through, excellent tonal qualities. Good rendition of the shoe texture.

The onions. Img 0851, despite looking a little like pomegranates I actually think this painting is really good Patricia. The application of the watercolour is beautiful. It is more fluid and confident than in the final image which has more detail. This is a lovely style. I would recommend you have a nother go at the two onions several attempts until you feel completely happy that they look like onions but still have this beautiful expressive paint quality. I think it is some of the detail which is a little too random, the amount of definition is perfect but where it is, is a little misleading. The brown squiggle on the right hand bulb perhaps needs to be done with a much smaller brush for example.

Collage exercises

Good to read that you felt you had learnt from this experience Patricia. You say that you thought it might be better to do the exercise first and then the research. The thing I noted here was that the research you did seemed to have little impact on your own collage, or at least in your blog you didn’t relate the research with the exercise. Was your approach influenced by what you had seen in any way? Please do make that connection in writing in the blog as this is exactly what the assessors will be looking for. Sometimes try things out that other artists have tried out in your own way and make a note when you do that.

Using resists experimentally.

Some beautiful and subtle work here Patricia in the flowers and the pineapple in particular. The portraits conceptually too are very interesting, ghostly pieces. Lots and lots of potential for further experimentation here!

Mixed media on coloured and white paper.

In img 0977 I can see you really beginning to pull together several of the techniques and approaches you have been introduced to over the course.

Img 1003 – the shadow on the right hand side is excellent Patricia, so soft and evocative of the edges of feathery flowers. Excellent.

Img 1008 – very unusual and effective technique. The pale blue wash provides a solid clam background and the use of the blue pen for detail gives a very illustrative quality to the painting. Interesting.

Img 1016 also very effective, the combination of wet paint application and the fine detail, works well.

Free expression.

You express your thoughts and concerns over the concept behind the Ebola piece very well. This is a worthy topic for research and exploration of people’s thoughts and fears and an interesting topic for a visual art project. I personally wouldn’t have guessed what this was about without a title. I think the spidery line work is definitely unsettling but the choice of colour makes me think more of a fairy’s. The use of wet blurred technique is good and effective but again, the colour needed to reflect more the feelings of anxiety, fear, despair. And the blue/pink /yellow combination doesn’t get this across. Dental surgery is much more effective from a colour point of view. Even though it uses some of the same colour scheme it is more intense, perhaps because they are alongside the black too. The sharp black lines also get across pain, and the blocks of yellow work well. As a stand alone abstract piece, it is quite child like in its delivery, but as an expression of emotions, which this exercise asks for it works well.

Magnification

Interesting series of work Patricia. I can see you are working hard here to develop the series. You experiment to some extent with different styles of watercolor paint application and mixed media. I think you are starting to get somewhere with it but haven’t quite arrived. Further development could have taken an even more magnified approach, very close up. However you are starting to develop a confidence with trying out different approaches here and the final image comes across as assured. The idea of making the rocks look watery by using a wash technique works well too. Good work.

Sketchbooks

I haven’t seen an actual set of sketch books face to face, I don’t think. Perhaps the first assessment? What I can see from the blog is that you do a fair amount of sketch and prep work. Much of it is commented on above. You will be expected to have several sketch books of varying sizes to send in to support your work for the final assessment.

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays Context

Your online logbook continues to be very comprehensive. You include gallery visits, and brief biographies/info on artists whose work you have come across. I don’t always look at the whole logbook in detail but have skimmed through most of it this time. I can see that you have reflected on other artists work. When you get onto the section about ‘Lightbulb’ moments you start to talk about how you might apply techniques and ideas in other artists work to your own. Excellent Patricia, this is exactly the way the assessors want you to be thinking as you continue your studies (and beyond). This needs to happen regularly. It is not always, by any means, essential to be thinking of other artists work when you make your own work, but at this stage as a student it is essential to be constantly learning from other artists and recognizing what it is you that you do learn from them. Sometimes their work subconsciously affects your own and it is not until after, some times a long time after, that you realise this. Remain open to it.

I think your comments on Kiefer’s work are insightful. He’s a very topical artist in the UK at the moment due to his retrospective at the Royal Academy. He’s an excellent example of mixed work too, and his watercolour sketch books are my favourite, they a pronounced fragility and vulnerabitliy. Look them up if you haven’t already seen them, particualry as several of them are books of watercolour figure work. Also look at Tracey Emins watercolour figure work. Though often not pleasant subject matter Emin is very good at capturing emotion in her application of line and paint in her figure work

As an artist, is some times hard to know what your own work is about (I mean all artists in general) , and at these times, it is just important to keep going. Sometimes it only becomes apparent afterwards what the purpose or point of the work is. At other times you have a definite plan in mind, but not all the time by any means.

Your reflective comments are well considered, your research provides you with lots of good starting points for future exploration. The blog is very good Patricia.

Pointers for assessment.

Read the notes online regarding submission of work and quantity of work to submit. The original handbook suggests 10-15 paintings or final work along with carefully selected preparatory work, including sketchbooks and learning logs. If you have further questions about this do get in touch.

Follow up: Life drawing class

After completing the assignment, I went to the fourth session of the life drawing class. We had a female model and today Matthew Fischer, our instructor, suggested we’d use pencil for a change, if we’d like. He explained how we could obtain deep tones by cross-hatching in layers, starting with hard pencils and using increasingly soft pencils.

I liked the suggestion and wanted to try it out, but then was too busy getting the proportions right and so lost track of it. The model stayed in a single pose which she retained for 20 minutes. After each pose, she had a brief pause of 5 minutes to relax, then returned. But as it was, the pose was always slightly changed and in a group of 5 persons, I wasn’t in the mood of fiddling with directions how she might change this or that until it was as before. But the changes were too gross to continue with the drawing, so I decided to start anew each time. So in the end, I had 4 separate quick drawings of the same pose, rather than one worked out study with shadings.

The third one was made in charcoal for a change, when I felt that I was too timid with the pencil. This one I like best from the series and I’m also happy with the moment I chose to stop, rather than continue and overwork. For the final drawing, Matthew suggested I’d make a close-up of the face, and I agreed because I thought he was right that I had neglected the face so far, and I could manage this in the final 20 minute session. But then by accident I kneeled and the new view of the model was so interesting that I decided to do just another complete figure. All drawings are on 45 x 60 cm paper.

Another aspect was that of ‘planes in three dimensional space’ to construct the figure, I had been so impressed when this had been mentioned last time and I wanted to use the approach in my drawing. But somehow I wasn’t able to, so the fourth drawing looks again similar to 1 and 2. I like it a bit better because I used a softer pencil which made a somewhat darker line. I think the drawing is also slightly more confident with the construction of the body and the pose, so I see some improvement over 1 and 2.

There’s yet another life drawing session to come, before the class terminates. I found out about some ongoing drop-in life drawing sessions and think it would be good if I continued to practice. I feel that the figure topic is still open and interesting for me beyond the assignment series of paintings. I might take this further in future work for myself and OCA courses.

Final life drawing class session

It won’t be the last life drawing session I’ll do, but this was the final class of the course at the 92Y Art School to which I had enrolled. We had the same female model as the week before, and I had brought with me huge paper sheets cut from a roll. They were about 80 x 100 cm, easily three times as large as I usually draw. I had taped two huge foamboards together and put the sheets inside for transporting them to the class, and then used the same improvised foamboard portfolio as a support for drawing. This went quite well. The huge formate was scary at first, but then I just did my best to capture the figure on the sheet.

This time, I stayed with my drawing over consecutive sittings despite slight variations in the position after each short break. I think I worked two 20 minute sessions on it. Honestly I’m quite happy with the result.

I really enjoyed working large scale and would have wanted to extend this to my watercolour practice as well. Instructor Matthew had introduced indian ink in that final class and I did give it a try, but felt stressed during that last half hour of the class and wasn’t happy with the result. Although, looking at it now a few weeks later, I see interesting qualities in it which I wasn’t able to see at the time.

Assignment 5: Series of five paintings

The general idea I had was do work towards abstraction from my photo, starting out with an observational painting and then increasingly follow what I might discover while studying my subject. I chose a large format (18 x 24 inches / 45 x 60 cm or roughly A2) for my series based on the experience that I like to have a bit of space to work on.

Figure I

This painting started with a pencil underdrawing, focusing on accurately capturing proportions and tonal areas. The idea of abstracting by neatly separating tonal areas lingered through my head and informed the approach. But soon after some layers of watercolour, I felt that the entire painting had become too dark and too tight, therefore decided to wash it all off and rework on top. But then looking at the washed off painting, it looked so natural that I just added the contour lines of the figure with charcoal pencil, spray fixed it and stayed with the result.

At this point, I made a break and did some research on Tamara de Lempicka (blog article), because my charcoal drawings of the female nude had reminded me of her paintings. It was very interesting to learn that she had also painted in cubist style. I spent quite some time reviewing her paintings and was impressed by their strong visual language without ambiguities and the intense colours.

Reflecting on my own first painting, I made some notes about what I wanted to take further:

Move towards abstraction. I had in mind the progression I developed in the series of paintings from the rocks at the seaside, where I tried to follow up visual ideas and depart from accurate representation
Experiment with media and colour. I was interested in using transparent wax to retain white areas while being able to work with broad strokes over the entire surface. I also wanted to experiment with the technique of a charcoal underdrawing to create lines and shades, then use watercolours to emphasize shapes and perspective. I also thought about using ink to obtain real deep, waterproof black marks and clear lines. Pen and ink combined with a wet-in-wet technique was might also be interesting
Try out different approaches towards ‘painting a figure’. One idea was inspired by the life drawing class instructor, who pointed to the concept of ‘surface planes’ to depict the three-dimensionality of the body. These surfaces were oriented in different orientations and angles in space and he suggested to train our eyes to perceive these surfaces when looking at the model. Another approach I considered was to try and find increasing simplification of shapes and reduction of detail.

Figure II

The second painting was also based on a pencil underdrawing for the figure, but I tried to loosen up a bit. I used transparent wax for the lighter areas, then made a wash over the entire surface, and after letting it all dry, used black ink to block in the shadows of the figure. I tried to simplify the shapes and reworked lighter areas with white oil pastels, and darkened the background with a layer of charcoal.

I felt the drawing was still too naturalistic but I liked that there was an increase in dynamics and ‘presence’. Somehow this figure felt closer, intensified and more real than the first one.

Figure III

This one was definitely inspired by Tamara de Lempickas figure drawings in its bold approach to shape. I used charcoal for the outlines and to block in areas of shadows. The process of drawing was very different from earlier drawings because I mentally prepared each stroke and where I wanted to place it on the paper. There were some corrections involved to make the lines for different parts of the body correspond to each other. The charcoal layer was fixed and then worked over with watercolours. The approach was kind of ‘naturalistic abstraction’ – the forms and shapes are distorted, but they convey much energy and movement and the figure remained recognizable as a female nude in her seated position. There was also a compositional effort to ‘fill the plane’ with the figure, reducing the amount of background area.

Figure IV

I wanted to develop the abstraction further and spend a lot of time looking at my photo source. I was aware of the danger of monotony by working from a single photo and retaining the same pose for all paintings. So I began to explore compositional alternatives and followed ‘visual phantasies’ I developed while looking at the painting. There was an idea of dissolving the unity of the figure by bringing its components closer to the edges, thus transforming the overall shape. I imagined the face turned upwards to the sky, the arms oriented vertically, parallel to the left and right edges of the surface, and the bent leg parallel to the lower edge of the surface. Another aspect that interested me was the interplay of hard and soft edges to indicate figure versus ground.

These ideas were integrated gradually into the painting. It started again with a pencil drawing where I tried to develop a different shape of the figure, following these ideas. It resulted in distortion and a ‘strange body’. I retained the correctly placed right arm and added a second displaced silhouette with the arm closer to the right edge. I used colour to dissolve the strict distinction between figure and ground, letting the blue background develop into the back figure and taking up the orange of the foreground figure as a second background colour. Then I employed black ink for the shades and edges of contrast. I used a dagger brush and moved it around to approximate the shapes of the shadows. These marks indicate the background behind a shape, but also the shades within the figure.

I intensified the blue and orange colours with several layers of watercolours and finally added a layer of black oil pastel over the background which greatly improved the overall effect because it helps the eye to distinguish between figure and ground.

What I like about this painting is that it depicts phantasies and imagery, there’s a dream-like quality to it and I feel there are lots of interpretations possible around female identity and self-perception.

On the other hand, after these four paintings, I felt that I had made considerable progress towards abstraction and imposing my ideas and phantasies on the subject, but it all did not make use of the particular qualities of watercolour as a medium. So far, I had used watercolour only to bring selected plain colours into the composition, but I missed qualities like transparency, running colours into one another, and accidental shapes. So I set out to develop a different approach for the final painting of the series.

Figure V

Before starting with the painting, I paused for some research on ‘watercolour figure drawing’ to see how others approached this. I was looking for works that looked like actual watercolour paintings, lighter and more subtle than what I’d done so far. My findings are summarized in this article.

When I had some guiding ideas how I could possibly treat my materials differently, I started with an underdrawing using a watersoluble graphite stick. This time, I made energetic, broad movements, trying to get the main traits of the figure right, but not worrying about details. I was following through a different visual perception of the photo which I had developed over the time working on the series. This is hard to describe. It works like a different reading of light and dark shapes, maybe similar to what happens when a familiar image is turned upside down and the brain tries to make sense of the unusual patterns that no longer resemble known objects. Actually my brain was switching between my standard perception and this new abstract perception, and I tried to focus on the abstract reading of patterns to guide my work.

My colour selection was guided by the idea of having a cooler colour for the background (Indigo blue) to make it recede, and warmer colours for the figure to bring it closer (Perylene Violet and New Gambogue yellow). I used a large round brush and worked fast, with broad strokes. The painting was quickly finished.

The difference was that I didn’t fiddle around with details, and painting felt more like throwing darts – first concentration to aim, then quickly execute, then pause to breathe. It was a very different experience of painting compared to how I usually work. It reminded me of the cliché of artistic genius, where the artist is celebrated for simple strokes that have high expressive value, but I just let myself go for it.

I think I slightly overworked the painting and the yellow turned out less friendly than I wanted it, but overall I’m quite satisfied with the result. It does look more like a watercolour painting and it’s energetic. I also captured elements of the abstract shapes I perceived. This might not make a difference to other viewers because after all the abstract shapes are just different interpretations of the same object. A possible path for extended work on this subject might be to further emphasize these abstract elements and make them more prominent and easier to detect for others. I remember that part of a quote: ‘Art (is not …), Art makes visible’. I’m not sure what this would lead to, but it could be an interesting task.

References

More Artists: Tamara de Lempicka
Some research on watercolour figure drawing

Some research on watercolour figure drawing

While working on Assignment 5, the series of five paintings, I made a pause to research for a more ‘watercolour style’ approach to figure drawing. To gain a quick first impression, I did a Google image search which came up with several interesting leads I could follow up. None of the hits were by more widely known artists, but nevertheless they helped me forming ideas how to tackle my task differently. Of the many I saw, I selected works from three artists that came close to the qualities I wanted to have in my watercolour painting.

This nude by Charlene Thomforder (Rose I, 2008) appealed to me for the interplay of delicate, expressive lines and the subtle watercolour washes.

I like how she uses fairly light washes to differenciate between figure and ground: The white paper is left for the highlights of the right shoulder, where the wash denotes the background tones. By contrast, the lower part of the body is indicated through coloured shadows, and the background is just white paper.

The two watercolour figures by Christina Havens (2011) convey a more impressionistic, soft overall impression. The background and the linework are more integrated with the figure, which is a consequence of using watercolour pencils which dissolve when water is applied, as opposed to using pen and ink for lines.

The nude by Steve Fleming reminded me of Egon Schiele’s expressionist line qualities. On his website, Steve Fleming’s watercolour figures show his development from a conventional to a much looser and expressionist approach. I find this one very appealing for its focus on the essential elements of the pose – the head resting on the arms, and the bent body. There were more on the website with darker colours as well, which I liked a lot.

References

Charlene Thomforder: Watercolourways blog
Kristina Havens: Watercolour drawings from the live model
Steve Fleming: Alternative approaches to the figure

More artists: Andy Warhol

I did some research on Andy Warhol to follow up the resemblance I recognized to my experiments for Assignment 5, where I combined charcoal with watercolours. I think I remembered some of his silkscreen portraits. Looking up his works on wikiarts, I found quite a few that were in that style of grayscale photos colorized with bright colours and no gradations. There were portraits but also images of flowers as well as seemingly arbitrary everyday subjects like shoes. I felt quite close to this idea of seeing the interest in everyday items that surround us and are normally taken for granted and receive no attention. I guess this informed some of my own subject choices, for example when I painted a pair of shoes in the coloured grounds project. I think the research encouraged me to employ bold colours and simple shapes when I worked towards abstraction in Assignment 5.

Besides the silkscreen works, I discovered that Warhol also had made mixed media portraits, using collage and drawing. I’m including those of Albert Einstein and Mick Jagger. I find them quite fascinating in their combination of elements and also in their lightness and simplicity. As I’m now finished with the watercolour course, the inspiration will not become visible in this context anymore, but I’m quite sure that I’ll get back to this in my printmaking work and in painting/mixed media as well.

References

Images from Wikiart: http://www.wikiart.org/en/andy-warhol

More artists: Tamara de Lempicka

The charcoal rendering I had employed in the worked out drawings of the male figure and the female nude reminded me of Tamara de Lempicka – the strong contrasts, the shadings vs edges, the style. Therefore I was taking a closer look. at this artist after the first nude painting which I found somewhat “expressionless”.

My memories of Tamara de Lempicka’s works were faint, but looking at her works, I find the resemblance to these charcoal renderings striking. I think her 1932 Self Portrait (Tamara in the green Bugatti) comes close to the essence of what I remembered.

I found a website that presented her works in chronological order, and going through these, I was impressed by the bold figure drawings which were quite different from my own attempts so far.

It was interesting to see that de Lempicka had also been working in Cubist style.

Later in her life she experimented with a different painting technique, which I actually prefer over those works for which she’s become well known.

While continuing to paint I hadn’t been aware of it, but there was obviously quite some influence on the approach I took. This concerns particularly my treatment of shadows and lights and figure vs. ground. It’s not that I had de Lempickas paintings in mind while I was working on my series. I think the influence was rather due to similarity in approach so that the resulting images show resemblance. I think seeing her works has also encouraged me to go bold with the female form, in particular with Figure III, the orange figure with green background.

References

Images from http://www.delempicka.org

Themes and series

I approached this project still unsure which topic might work for a series of five paintings. I felt uncomfortable because over the course of part 5, I hadn’t been able to decide on anything particular. Though I had enjoyed the experimental aspects in the projects, finding a topic had always been complicated. Indeed, I seemed to get along best if there was no neatly defined subject at all and I could simply play with visual effects, for example when I experimented with wax resist.

A recurrent subject are flowers, but somehow I did not feel like developing a series from them. Landscape would have interested me most, but there was the problem of organizing my spare free time and being lucky with the weather. I was also not overly confident about my landscape painting skills.

But I had enrolled to a life drawing class starting in October and this turned out to be so interesting that I wanted to base project 4 and the final assignment on the subject of ‘figure’.

Preparatory work

Approaching the figure subject and first experiments

In the first life drawing session, there was a female model and we were instructed to draw short poses (5 minutes). This was my first life drawing class ever in my life and the time restriction made me choose an approach that was very fast, using the flat side of my charcoal piece to capture the main traits of the pose, without details. The drawings were made on 18×24 inch newsprint, which is approximately A2 size.

This session inspired my first experiments with the subject and technique. I liked the energy that was conveyed by the broad charcoal marks. I had not used charcoal with watercolours so far because I thought the charcoal would smudge and produce a mess when it comes into contact with water. So I used charcoal first, then spray fixed it, and applied watercolour washes afterwards.

These were made in the A3 sketchbook. From the first sheet, I particularly liked the flower shape and how it was based on a play with figure/ground in tone, and I explored this idea further in a second sheet. I liked the bold forms and the strong colour contrast between the dark green background and the soft, fleshy orange of the flowers. It reminded me of Andy Warhol’s screenprints and I made a mental note to rmyself, to research this artist later.

Fascinated by the visual effect of watercolour over charcoal, I made a self portrait (A3 format). But I felt that I was struggling with resemblance and all the effort resulted in a somewhat overworked drawing.

Then I went ahead and worked from selected sketches of the life drawing class to incorporate elements of the figure into a painting. I started with a standing pose and then proceeded to the seated pose, and finally incorporated several poses into a single painting. I used sketchbooks of different sizes and loose watercolour sheets for these experiments with technique, colour and composition. I liked the ideas I was developing, but found it difficult to have only my own sketches to work from, and not a real model.

Trying to develop a focal point – the male figure

A week later, there was a male model in the life drawing class and we were instructed to do line drawings, initially blind (hence the distortion) and then increasingly “peeking” on the subject to make the representation more accurate. The final task was to make a rendering of an interesting section of the body. I chose the arm and elbow because of an interesting pattern of shadow and light. I had to spray with me and by the time I arrived at home, the drawing had been almost erased, so I reworked that one from memory, then spray fixed it.

I made attempts to develop ideas from these sketches for the watercolour project, but copying my own drawings for the purpose wasn’t interesting and I felt dried out again without a model. Despite feeling engaged with my figure subject, I did not know how I might develop the idea into a concept that would work for a series of five paintings.

Clothed figure and working from photos

Addressing the problem of model availability, I found a drop-in drawing class with clothed models and attended. This class had a single pose for 2 hours with breaks every 20 minutes so the model could stretch. I saw no immediate connection to my idea for the assignment, but nevertheless enjoyed the session and the possibility to explore one pose more fully.

I made a charcoal drawing of the upper body, a pencil drawing of the head (here shown in full and close up), and a final coloured oil pastel drawing, all on 18 x 24 inches paper format. I liked the pencil drawing and felt that I had captured something of the model’s personality – a somewhat rebellious attitude, I think.

At home, I made an A3 watercolour sketch from my drawings (the one with the red background), but this felt rather pointless, without the model present and nothing particular I wanted to express.

Since the classes where a model was available were only once a week and I wanted to get on with the project, I began searching for online resources that I might use to practice skills and continue working on ideas for the subject. I finally chose 4 black & white nude photographs, two male and two female, for further work.

Starting with the male models, I made a few charcoal sketches of the full figures, head and parts of the torso, focusing on the volume of shapes and accurate representation. I also made a watercolour tonal sketch.

Full figure rendering and final subject choice

The next life drawing class was with the previous male model again, a single pose and the instruction to make a fully worked out rendering of the entire figure. This time I started by making a layer of charcoal on the paper for a medium starting tone, and worked out the figure from that using eraser and chamois cloth for lights and more charcoal for darker tones. The practice from photos came in handy and despite some struggles with getting proportions right and finding the paper size (18×24 inches too small), I like the result overall.

From this, I developed a concept for the final series. Starting with a similar idea and using the photo of a female model, I stopped the first drawing at a point where I felt I should leave it as open and unfinished as it was. I knew that I could continue and obtain a worked out drawing of the figure, but I liked the unfinished state because it kind of captures the elements of my process: How I had started with laying the background, then drawn in the main outlines quite roughly, and then begun to work out the shapes and give them volume. I also liked that it was the bust and not the face which was worked out because it was a breach of the convention in classical drawing and reflected what I had unadvertedly/unconcsciously perceived as the most relevant aspect of the image.

I continued with an new sheet, same technique, and completed a fully worked out drawing. I felt ready to approach the final series of five paintings with this subject.

Working with music

The outcome of this exercise were five watercolour paintings.

1) Electronic Pop/Dance music – Faithless: Bombs (from the Album ‘To all new arrivals’)

2) Electronic Pop/Dance music – Paul Kalkbrenner: Sky and Sand (Single)

3) Jazz/Dance music – Metropolitan Jazz Affair: Moanin’ Darkness (from the Album ‘MJA’)

4) Classical piano music – Edvard Grieg: Lyrical Pieces Collection, played by Emil Gilels

5) The same music, later hearing

Assessment of my experience of working with music

I had been looking forward to this exercise because I love music and thought it must be very pleasant to paint while listening. But the practical side began with practical problems: My stereo is from Europe and doesn’t work with the lower US voltage, and I have no speakers for the PC. The PC alone has horrible sound quality. So I used headphones, attached with a long cable to the PC. The sound quality was good, but I felt disturbed by hanging on the line.

The second problem was the choice of music. I have some choice of music: popular/electronic/dance music, some jazz, some ethnic music, and also classical orchestral and piano music. My liking of the dance music is more a memory of liking music – at the time, I heard those pieces again and again and loved them, but now years later I have trouble listening because it gets on my nerves. With the other types of music it’s very mood-dependent, but actually I tend to hear no music at all because I’m typically working on something in full concentration and don’t like the distraction, besides knowing most of the pieces by heart already. I also usually don’t listen to the radio, because I prefer being in a quiet environment.

So I had some trouble selecting pieces I cound stand listening to and working on the paintings in parallel. I pre-selected a pack of 10 CDs of different types and wanted to choose from them after some initial listening. It turned out that from these, only one was later retained for painting because I simply couldn’t stand the others. So I switched strategy and just went through the collection on the PC. I started with an electropop/dance piece, then found another which was heavier on rhythm. Then came a piece of Jazz/Dance mix, and finally I made two paintings while listening to a classical piano recording.

Overall, I found working with music quite irritating because when I listen, this absorbs my concentration and painting at the same time becomes like dancing on the paper, guided by rhythm and the mix of sounds I perceive. This did not work very well with the technicalities of watercolour painting like having to dissolve a hardened piece of paint by rubbing the brush over it before the intensity is good for painting. The dance pieces also made it hard to focus on anything particular to paint and the watercolour sheet was full of paint in a few minutes. This changed a bit with the Jazz/Dance piece, where I chose watersoluble coloured pencil and graphite with which it takes longer to fill a page. I had more time to follow the swing of the music with my movements before the paper was covered with marks.

The character of the experience changed completely with the switch to piano music. The first painting reflects my irritation with the different style after being in the swing of the dance music then thrown into the soberness and brilliancy of classical solo piano music. I decided to make a second one with the same music after having listened for a while, and the second one is more in line with how I perceived the music. It was the ‘Lyrical Pieces’ by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, played by Emil Gilels. I always thought that this music was very orderly and clearly structured, but my paintings tell a different story and it made me perceive different qualities in the music. I realized that they must have been quite modern and disturbing at the time they were created, because they are very improvisational and atmospheric. I think the second painting looks a bit like a lawn with summer flowers on a bright day, and that’s how I perceived the music. The music also has darker and melancholic parts, they seem to be more prominent in the first painting.

I don’t think that working to music is currently an option for me, because I’m so disconnected from the musical world and have a hard time finding something I actually like to hear. This may change, because as said at the beginning, I like music a lot, and if I had something I wanted to hear, I’d certainly enjoy hearing it. But there are also the practical problems as mentioned. It might work better if I used a simple medium like graphite or charcoal because there wouldn’t be interruptions from having to prepare a brush with paint, but then I’d miss out the possibilities of colour in the painting altogether. So overall, I guess working with music is not for me at this time. Nevertheless, I found the experience interesting and would certainly be open to try again now and then.

Free expression

I finished these paintings over two days and got along quite well. I did not select one of the suggested titles but tried to find my own themes. In all cases, I had a broad idea and a keyword for my painting, but the actual title developed while I was painting and trying to get to the core of the subject. All three paintings are 33 x 43 cm, landscape format.

The devastating virus (Ebola)

The first painting takes up a subject that concerns me since reports about the current Ebola outbreak appeared in the media. It’s not so much the fear of contracting the illness but rather a sense of horror when thinking about the effects of the virus on the human body.

I had mixed feelings whether I could allow myself to choose this topic and considered using a different title to mask what it was really about, out of respect and empathy with those who are ill or at risk. There is a notion of shame in my knowledge that I live in a relatively safe part of the world and can luxuriously paint something of which I have no real idea. But then again, the sense of concern and empathy for others is real for me, as is the scariness of the virus’ activity. So I decided to stay with the subject and hope it is not perceived as lacking respect.

I used black ink and a bamboo pen for the virus-like creatures and their tentacles and made additional tentacles in transparent wax. I continued with watercolours on wet paper by hitting the colour-loaded brush so it would make drops and splashes that would run into each other. The wax lines created an interesting barrier effect in some spots.

To me, the choice of media, technique and colours works well to convey the destructive work of the virus to turn healthy tissue into a bleeding mess. These drastic words correspond well to what I had in mind. But I’m also surprised about the aesthetic effect of the applied technique and wonder whether anyone would have so grave associations if I’d choose a more innocent title.

Sunny autumn day

This painting was inspired by my idea of the colourful autumn foliage in upstate New York. It’s an imaginary landscape with a postcard blue sky, a view on trees whose foliage is about to turn from green to yellow and red, and an earthy ground. It was painted in a wet in wet technique over some yellow oil pastel and transparent wax marks intended to create a glittery light effect.

I like how the colours run into each other and the technique is something I’d have wanted to explore much earlier, so this was a welcome late occasion. I’m less sure wether the image idea comes across, because the tree area also looks a bit like a burning wood. There is a lack of visual clues for the size of the trees and and the depth of field is unclear. My conclusion is that abstract landscape paintings would benefit if I had more practice with landscape painting. I’m quite sure that I’ll get back to the landscape subject again, I’m just having so many practical issues with making excursions that I keep postponing it.

Dental surgery

This may sound like an even weirder idea than that of the virus, but I chose this subject because it refers to a recent incident of very intense emotions of fear. I had to undergo a medical procedure involving all teeth and I experienced the minutes when I received the numbing injections as very painful and frightening. Making this painting brought back the emotions, and writing about it does so as well. Luckily the surgery went well, it was necessary and I’m glad it’s behind me!

What made me choose this topic was the memory for the intense feelings I had, and I wanted to try whether I could capture and convey them. The emotions are reflected in the way I painted. I started with the black lines using oil pastels. They were made in violent, rushing gestures and stand for those moments of consecutive painful injections. These were followed by feelings of dark numbness, interrupted by tinglings through the mouth when nerves responded to the Novocain, before they went numb. The tinglings are symbolized in the yellow broader oil pastel marks surrounding the center, made with equally forceful, quick gestures.

From a compositional point of view, there’s something like a center of pain, followed by numbness in the middle, surrounded by quieter, unaffected areas of both my body and my mind.

I think this painting works really well even without saying anything about the actual story behind it. There’s much energy conveyed in the black lines, and it’s quite disturbing, thus creating an interesting contrast to the abstract shapes and flow of colours. Maybe a less obvious, more abstract title to capture the essence would be ‘numbness and pain’, or ‘fear, numbness and pain’. But again there’s a striking contrast between the bright and exciting colours and the more or less horrific subject.

Some thoughts about free expression

What I particularly liked about this exercise was the freedom to choose my own subject, combined with the relief of not having to worry about resemblance with observed objects. It allowed me to concentrate on colour, on brush movements and on what happened on the paper. It was also naturally more open to an experimental approach. I’m realizing that I feel much more at ease with the abstract approach than with the observational approach, that’s quite interesting and highly appreciated experience.

I also see the correspondence of this exercise with using art as a therapeutic instrument. It was impressive how I was able to connect to lived emotions and how powerful these emotions still were.

Guided reflections

Did the title summon up images before you began?

Yes I think so. I started with searching for feelings/memories that would work and when I had decided on a topic then some imagery developed. It was quite faint and abstract, rather a quality/perception of visual movements than concreate objects.

Did the title suggest colour, line or shapes?

It wasn’t the title but the suggestions came when I immersed myself in memories and feelings associated with the title. This guided my pre-selection of colours and choice of media.

How did you progress with the painting?

I tried to stay focused on my subject and live through the associated emotions while painting. I also tried to let the emotions guide the gestures I made with the painting media.

Did one gesture lead to another or did you have clear idea of your intentions from the outset?

Some elements were clear at the outset, but then the painting developed gesture by gesture. In the virus painting, I started with the black spots and created the tentacles. The colour splashes then developed out of this. The autumn painting started with an idea for the blue sky, the burning foliage area and the earthy ground. The surgery painting began with an idea of lines or arrows and a central dark area. The coloured areas developed around this.

Are there figurative elements to your painting? If so, what?

Yes, there are the black virus elements and the black lines representing the injection needles.

What has influenced your painting?

The first painting took up imagery developed in the ‘Collage from random elements’ where I was inspired to draw ink tentacles out of the paper strips glued on the surface. I was very impressed by the sense of illness and morbidity it conveyed and apparently there was a need for me to get back to the topic.

The influences for the autumnn painting are more difficult to trace. Maybe it was the friendly sunny atmosphere that morning, where I looked at the potted plants outside which are now with green, yellow, red and brown leaves. It makes me think of the beautiful autumn foliage for which this area of the US is well known. I wish I’d be better organized and get myself out for a trip to actually see this, rather than just fantasizing about it!

The final painting might have been influenced by my research on Robert Delaunay the evening before. I was quite impressed by the colourful abstract paintings and remembered the paintings of rings and circles in bright intense colours. Before starting I went through more abstract ideas and was considering to make a painting in the style of Delaunay, but decided against it in favour of an emotionally more intense subject. I think the influence manifests itself in the intensity of the colours I painted.