Category Archives: Part III

More artists: Abstract paintings

Working on the Part 4 Assignment piece confronted me again with the topic of abstraction. Getting back to my tutor’s feedback on assignment 3, I took the opportunity to look at the abstract painters suggested and reflect about the meaning of ‘abstract’.

Contemporary: Tomma Abts, Tauba Auerbach

I’m not particularly into this kind of painting. It is decorative but doesn’t talk to me.

Tauba Auerbach (England, Contemp.) http://taubaauerbach.com/works.php

Tomma Abts (England, Contemp.) http://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/tomma-abts/

20th Century: Kandinsky, Miro, O’Keeffe, Martin

Wassily Kandinski (Russian, 1866 – 1944)

I remembered the very graphical and geometrical, colourful works by Kandinsky from other occasions, but don’t like the geometrical style. But my taste seems to have changed with age, because I remember that in my twenties I was quite fond of playing with shapes and colours in similar ways. While researching, I was surprised to find paintings with more realistic forms that referred to real objects, as for example in the landscape below, which I actually like for its expressive colours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky
http://www.wassilykandinsky.net

Joan Miro (Spanish/Catalan, 1893-1983)

Miro was also known to me and I can’t say anything else but that I like the colourful and playful paintings, of which I’m including two typical examples. About two years ago I experimented with printmaking and watercolour layers using the ‘Wall for David Fernandez Miró’ as a starting point. I loved the various shades of blue background tiles and the black linework and abstract creature shapes on top of it.

Dominant blue tone: Woman in front of the sun, 1950
Earth tones: Constellation Awakening at Dawn, 1941

Ceramics: The Wall for David Fernández Miró, 1983
http://catalogue.successiomiro.com/catalogues/ceramics/mur-pour-david-fernandez-miro-1983-436.html

Georgia O’Keeffe (North American, 1887 – 1986)

I had come across Georgia O’Keeffe last year in November, when I had been deliberately researching American painters for the drawing course. I have also been to an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, ‘American Legens: From Calder to O’Keeffe’ where some of her colourful floral works were shown.

I am quite fascinated by her work, but with few exceptions don’t think they are abstract in the same sense as the geometrical works by Kandinsky or Miro. I rather see them as based on observation of natural shapes and reduction to basic forms. As an example, I’m including one of the more abstract ones (compared to her floral or landscape paintings).

Blue and green music, 1919-21 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_and_Green_Music

Agnes Martin (Canadian-American, 1912 – 2004)

I have never heard of Agnes Martin before. Her works seem to be mostly in soft colours, creating fabric-like patterns. I find them aesthetically pleasing, but cannot relate personally to this style.

The islands, undated: Presentation of works online at Pace Gallery http://www.pacegallery.com/artists/290/agnes-martin
Untitled, 2001 (blue stripes): from http://drawingroomlondon.blogspot.com/2010/05/agnes-martin-at-timothy-taylor-gallery.html

A different concept of abstraction?

I was quite stunned when I followed up the suggestions from tutor feedback. At first sight, they had nothing to do with what I had in mind when stating that I’d like to develop towards abstraction. I wouldn’t count these artists among my favourit painters, although I’m generally fond of abstract paintings, maybe even more than realistic paintings. I began to analyse what may have been the reason for the apparent contradiction.

Firstly, it may have been the choice of artists. When I think of abstract paintings, I think of Picasso, Richter, de Kooning, but also Cézanne or other painters whose style is very different from the geometrical style of Kandinsky or Miro. It is abstract, but still there’s much reference to real world objects (Picasso, Cézanne), or the abstraction is very organic and open, almost like withered by nature (de Kooning).

Then I realized how difficult it is to actually define the meaning of ‘abstract art’. The easy way would be something like ‘no real object recognizable’, but this would exclude many paintings I’d consider abstract, and it wouldn’t even be a clear demarcation. For example, Georgia O’Keeffe depicted organic forms of flowers in a way that changed them to something very abstract. I see much realism and observational skills in these paintings, so according to the simple definition, they wouldn’t be abstract. Or what about Picasso whose abstract women have their eyes and noses at unusual places and still remain recognizable and convey emotion.

It occurred to me that what I had been referring to was something dfferent: The process of abstraction during work on a drawing or painting. At the heart of my struggle was the inability to depict the objects as I saw them, because I wasn’t able to properly analyse what I saw, or maybe I didn’t even see properly (due to far-sightedness), or maybe it was also the technical problem of transferring to paper what I actually saw. I remember this vividly as it happened while I was working on the assignment 3 watercolour (The Cloisters, an ancient building surrounded by trees and with a group of trees in the foreground).

My idea of developing towards abstraction was not to abandon realistic depiction in favour of a focus on geometrical shapes and colour. Or maybe yes it was, exactly this, but in a style quite different from late Kandinsky, Miro or Mondrian. I would like to simplify and ‘paint what I see, not what I know’ about the objects. How this relates to watercolour is still a different question. So actually I’m more confused than ever by the various meanings of the terms ‘Abstraction’ and ‘Abstract Art’. What remains is that I would like to improve on observational and technical skills, and I hope that with more practice, I’ll also develop a style that suits me. I’m definitely not into photorealism, but I can’t say what I’m actually aiming at, maybe I will only recognize little steps towards the direction that ‘feels right’ for me.

Assignment 3 follow up work

Encouraged my tutor’s comment “How would you have done it differently with more freedom?”, I did some follow-up work on the assignment 3 painting, the landscape painting for which I chose a winter view on The Cloisters. I had several ideas what I could improve:

–        Invention with colours to get away from the dull atmosphere of a gray winter’s day
–        Reduction of detail to clear up the painting, focus on larger shapes. But retain the characteristic broken lines and shapes of the trees
–        More variation/experimentation in the application of paint – maybe trying different types of mark making or tools other than the brush
–        Experiment with tonal gradations and contrast

To support futher development of the painting, I went back to the original photos of the place and manipulated them using photoshop. My aim was to bring out more clearly those aspects I found interesting to serve as basis for new paitings. I made one version in black and white with increased contrast to make the shapes and tonal values come out clearer. I made a second version in colour with exaggerated and modified hues, as a starting point for colour inventions

I wanted to simplify shapes and obtain more intense colours, but not too much because I wanted to retain the wintery atmosphere. I built on the pallette I had developed in an earlier pastel study, where I discovered a yellow tone in the sky and purple in the dried woods.

I made two more paintings. They are more like quick sketches. The most difficult aspect was the trees before the background, and I struggled with giving them a lighter tone before a darker background. In the second painting, I tried a different approach by drawing the tree silhouettes using pen and ink over the watercolour background.

Both drawings are not worked out. I abandoned the second because it felt too repetitive drawing the tree shapes again and again, and I lost patience and interest for the topic. Basically I think there was a compositional problem. I think for watercolours, an open view with simple shapes works better. Maybe I should have left out the trees in the foreground altogether.

I agree with my tutor that I have probably learned a lot from the assignment 3 painting, despite the only moderate results. In particular, I begin to get a feeling what doesn’t work with watercolour and what kind of painting style I prefer. I will try to incorporate the other ideas on how to improve paintings in subsequent works, but for now I think it’s better to proceed to a different painting subject and free up my mind.

Tutor report: Assignment 3

Overall Comments

Hello Patricia, thank you for submitting your work for Assignment 3. You have uploaded a substantial amount of work to your blog for me to assess and feedback on. It is great to see the amount of preparation and research that you are doing, well done.

Feedback on assignment 3. Landscape painting from mixed sources.

For this assignment you are required to:

Use a variety of sources, such as plein-air work, photographs, written notes and pencil sketches, to create a landscape painting.

Prep work.

Very good to see that you are aware of the differences that come with scaling up work, (assignment 3 notes, learning log) .

Also good that you focus on a particular aspects of the overall painting in your sketches and try to work out how best to capture different areas in watercolour. A close study of each element of the painting is always worth doing. The charcoal sketch has a strong composition, you have captured an angularity in the branches which contrasts well with the curve of the road and the abbey is well positioned. It’s fine to do a sketch study in other media than the final choice of media to get an idea of where the main colour areas are and how they fit together but you do also need to do colour tests and prep work in the actual media you are going to use too. (I see now that this comes lower down in your blog)

The later posts with small sketches in sketch book are too small to see properly.

You have done a lot of work on the tonal gradations, composition of the piece, and three larger scale paintings. You have thoroughly explored several different aspects of this scene. To push yourself further I think you needed to try different methods of paint application at this sketch stage and more inventive approaches in terms of the subject matter. From your written log entries I get the sense you yourself want to push your work further but are not sure how to do it. I will follow this up further on in the feedback.

Final painting

Some good qualities coming through Patricia. First attempt. The background has worked very well and the contrast between the light background and the dark foreground is effective, the branches set against a pale sky really bring out the spikey quality of the branches. I think the mid ground possibly doesn’t have enough differentiation in it from the distance as it comes towards the foreground, the maroon makes it look more detailed towards the back. The marks on the road give the painting a muddy appearance and it is difficult to read what is happening in that area. The actual trees seem to merge into the road

Your second attempt is clearer, and the background even better I would say. I can see you have tried to differentiate more in the mid ground between distant and near mid ground (if that makes sense!) but I’m still a little confused by the central tree like stump. The one that cuts across the middle of the ‘s’ bend in the road. The road would change colour and become less intense in color as it goes into the distance.

Careful painted detailed observation of just one tree in the foreground and how that compares with the colours around it may help you to get a clearer understanding of how to paint the foreground. I don’t know about this image as I haven’t seen a photograph or the original scene, but sometimes tree trunks are a lot lighter than the foliage around them. I think you have learnt quite a lot from this painting Patricia about how to start looking at perspective in landscape. I can see from your notes that you too have picked up on many of the things I have mentioned and it is really good that you are aware of all these things. Despite you being unhappy with the finished result I don’t think that is necessarily a negative thing as you are working through techniques and starting to find out what works and what doesn’t.

I definitely think you would have benefited from sketches on the spot. Even quick watercolour sketches, there is always so much more vibrancy to painting in situe, but also you cut out all the unnecessary detail that can come when working from photographs and you just paint the main elements required to get a good sense of the scene. You mention using invention at one point in your blog in your prep for this assignment and I would like to have seen some examples of invention in the colour composition for example

Well done for having a third attempt. The foreground is much easier to understand now. And the mid ground is clearer too. However I agree with you that it is much pleasanter to paint with more freedom to interpret the subject and wonder slightly what stopped you from taking that approach here? How would you have done it differently with more freedom? I’m sure that is what I would have wanted to see.

Thank you for sending the photo through. It is as I had thought and that is that the trees in the foreground are actually lighter than the foliage around them. You have captured this much more successfully in the second and third attempts and it makes all the difference. Sometimes it is necessary to leave to some of the things in the actual view you are painting as they don’t really add to the painting. In this case I think you could have left out the green ivy coloured trunks as they have become more of a focal point of this painting and I’m not sure if that is what you wanted.

Overall you have rendered this image quite well technically. It doesn’t have the life and vibrancy of some of your past work, but that is probably due to the subdued nature of the colours in the scene anyway. Also I think you are at a stage now where you probably need to start experimenting quite a lot more with how you apply the paint. Try very quick sketch paintings in situe and see what this throws up. Suggestions of objects are often more accurate at capturing the essence of a thing than laborious detailed painting. Play with the paint.

Feedback in on other work in the section .

Fairly brief feedback here Patricia as I have given more extensive feedback on the three pieces submitted for assignment 3.

The bridge in Central Park.

I have read your own comments and agree with them all. I too would like to see you experiment with more abstraction. But I understand that it is difficult to know where to start with this. However your first A4 watercolour sketch has some thing of the bridge in it, yet is almost entirely abstract too. Look at this a little further. I have attached a painting of mine which is moving toward abstraction, but isn’t completely abstract, This is one way to approach abstraction. Try to get the bare essentials of an image and then try to feel the rest of what you paint. There are other more methodical approaches to abstraction too which I will include some links too example of.

The mangos

These are beautiful little paintings with life and vibrancy in the colour. The paint application is spontaneous and captures my interest and the different approach to the shadows is also a good exercise too. Well done.

The bottles.

This work is coming along really well Patricia. You are working very hard, exploring the capabilities of the paint and you very successfully capture the glassy and reflective qualities of many of the bottles here. The five bottles is a well composed painting. You have approached it in different ways, pre mixed and not. The brown bottles are particularly effective and the wet in wet here adds a lovely watery quality to the glass. Well done for your courage – as you note!

Overall you are being very thorough in your approach. I feel you tighten up a lot in your final paintings whereas your sketch work has a more fluid and energetic feel to it. This often happens, in P1070093 – there is a lightness to the painting, whilst still being a good painting this is lost to some extent in P1070099, can you see the difference here? This is still a good rendition with a variety of convincing green. The left hand chair is slightly awkwardly positioned and perhaps some of the greens could have been a little less intense as they moved towards the back to enhance the perspective but overall this is very good. P1070121 is very tight. Some of my feedback from Ass 1 is still relevant Patricia, read through it again and see what there is that you can still act upon regarding quick painting exercises etc. You have covered each of the exercises in Part two very thoroughly Patricia.

Sketchbooks

Commented on above. It is difficult to get a real sense of a sketch book from a blog entry but some of the work above is from the sketch book. My overall impression is that the prep work you have done for the assignment is very comprehensive. Make sure you also do lots of sketching generally Patricia, just to develop a drawing vocabulary and to increase confidence in bold composition and colour observation, this will all come in useful in abstraction too.

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays

Your research and reflection on the artists in the gallery visits you have made is very insightful. You question the motivations and compare their work with their contemporaries and do further research after your visits. This is excellent and exactly what you should be doing. You mention the German artist Frieseke and question how his work is so cheerful given the political environment at the time (World War). This is an excellent question Patricia. What I also want to know is, how do the current politics affect your approach to painting? How does it affect what you choose to paint and the colours you use? Is it at all relevant to your work or is it something else that influences your subject matter and approach, if so what? What would you like your work to evoke, question or record? When you discuss the work of other artists remember to think about how it impacts on your own work too and comment on this in your log. You mention you aren’t able to predict how this gallery visit will impact on Ass 3. Perhaps not, but do think about how it impacts on your approach to art and painting as a whole.

I am interested to read that you would like to work in a more abstract way and I would recommend you try doing this as part of the course work. Try and approach some of the assignments in that way, do two versions of exercises if you are not confident about submitting abstract work at this stage as a final piece. I would be very interested to see this. You are following up recommended artists and thinking about and commenting on their work, this is great and I think it will have been very useful in your progress in terms of deciding what you do and don’t like and the direction of your own work.

Suggested reading/viewing

Thinking about the abstract interest you have mentioned. Kandinsky, Georgia O’Keefe, Agnes Martin, Miro just for starters.

Admittedly not working in watercolour but they will give you an idea of how they used colour and composition. A more modern day approach would be Tomma Abts work and Tauba Auerbach http://taubaauerbach.com/works.php

I think at this stage it would be useful for you to look them up and read about their influences and how they approached their painting.

Pointers for the next assignment. You are working well Patricia.

Continue to experiment with the paint application
Be braver with taking risks in your approach to the overall painting, have a go at a more abstract approaches.
Try the loosening up exercises from ass 2 feedback
Keep up the very good work!

Tutor name: Lisa O’Brien
Date: 29/1/14

At the end of part 3

I think part 3 of this course was quite important for me. The beginning focused on technical skills with mixing colour, and I enjoyed these exercises. I think I made nice progress in my use of the medium, colour intensity has improved and I can now mix and include a multitude of different colours in a painting. My washes have also improved and I feel much more comfortable with watercolours.

What I would like to improve on is the painting style. I think I have not yet really understood how to give room for the medium to develop its own life. I’m still too much trying to control, rather than letting watercolour effects do some of the work. To improve this, I think I will have to do more paintings on my own beyond the course exercises. Maybe choose simple topics and few colours and practice a quicker and looser style, just as my tutor suggested. I’m really eager to work with vivid colours, and the research I’ve done during this part of the course was highly inspirational.

But I will take a small break from coursework before tackling part 4. This is because part 4 is about landscape elements, and I want to wait until the winter is over before I get back to landscape topics. I want to make excursions outside the city to make new photographs and also to paint outside. Maybe I’ll change my mind later on, but for now I have different plans.

For now, I’m intending to switch focus from watercolour to the drawing course and complete its final assignment. While doing this and as time permits, I would like to review the basics in watercolours, making simple studies to practice washes and maybe also experiment a bit. I will also see whether I can include some research and exhibition visits.

I’ve also finally taken up the suggestion of having a small sketchbook that I can take always with me. But it is very difficult to fit drawing into everyday life, because I’m usually busy and stressed. The first two drawings were made recently during lunchtime, at the Ford Foundation building. This building has an atrium with tropical plants and trees, and people are allowed to sit and have a break. I drew the top of a tree and a flower.

While working on assignment three, I also made three small pastel studies of fruit. The assignment painting was so dull in its colours that I needed something to counterbalance this, so I chose arrangements in vivid colours. The next step will be to do this kind of mini-still life in watercolour as well.

A first attempt was made with the Lemons and Tangerines. As a start, I made some sketches and experimented with composition in my sketchbook. I had in mind to use a square format for the watercolour, but this meant placing the bowl somewhat awkwardly to the left or cutting the shade off. On the sketches it looked as if the landscape format was better able to accommodate the shapes of bowl with shade, but I found the square format more interesting and therefore stuck with it.

Recently I bought sable brushes, and this was the first time I used them. It made a huge difference. I used a large brush, which was just great. It was able to take up a lot of paint so I was able to paint large areas in a single go, but with its fine tip, I could also make very fine lines. I overworked the study so the difference is not very visible, but in its earlier stages the painting was really magnificent with the bright colours of lemon and orange against the light green tone of the bowl.

I read so often that synthetic brushes are comparable to natural brushes, and I have used synthetic brushes exclusively until now. But I think I will switch, because the difference is remarkable and I seem to get along much better with sable brushes.

The painting is a bit overworked and I think I will repeat it, trying to get the effects that I want with less layering. My main focus was on the tonal values and I think while trying to get these correct, I overcomplicated the painting. In particular, I saw that the green sheet of paper under the bowl had a dark tone where it met the white table, but under the bowl, its tone was lighter than the lower contour of the green bowl. I tried to capture this in graded washes, but these became irregular with brush strokes and unpredictable flow of pigment, so I added more layers which resulted in a dull tone.

The problem is that there are very soft gradations in tone which could be worked out more easily with graphite, coloured pencil or opaque paint, because these media permit more control and reworking. With watercolours, I have not yet found out how to approach the problem. There were these earlier exercises of monochrome tonal studies which focused on the issue, and I remember how technically difficult I found them. There was an artificial element in that they demanded to make a firm decision where one tonal area ended and another begun. But when I look at my objects, there are soft gradations not clear boundaries within a coloured area. So I’m not sure how I’m going to tackle this in the future.

But despite the overworking, I found the reflection and three-dimensionality of the lemon quite successful.

Roses

I bought a bouquet of roses – rose petals with a yellow inside. They look wonderful. I made sketches in coloured pencil and HB pencil before painting them in watercolour. The sketches belong to the drawing course, so I won’t include them here, but I’ll include the watercolours.

The first rose became a bit too dark for my taste in some areas. I still have to experiment with getting the tones right. I used Winsor & Newton watercolours in tubes and a big sable brush, with rose madder and Turner’s yellow and sepia for the background as main tones, plus chromoxide green and some more red and brown tones for the shades and the stem. With the second painting, I used fewer colours, trying to improve the clarity of overall impression, but this was compromised by the uneven background wash. Need more practice…

Assignment 3

I had been at odds with the suggested exercises to prepare Assignment 3. I wasn’t able to follow the procedure due to weather conditions, and had to adapt to what was possible within the time available. After the compositional sketches and line and colour studies I did not feel sufficiently prepared for tackling the assignment. I also found my chosen scene only moderately attractive and did not know how I might develop it into an interesting painting.

The suggested types of studies hadn’t felt right for my scene, because they didn’t seem to address its particular difficulties. For example, there were the complex tree shapes which merited closer study, because I hadn’t been able to disentangle them with the line study. I also wanted to do a close-up of the building to look at the size relationships of main forms and smaller elements. Then I wanted to test techniques how to paint the mid-ground silhouette of trees against the Hudson river to the left – it might work well if done wet-in-wet to let the darker colour soak into the lighter background area, but I felt this needed some experimentation.

I had detected an area of negative background behind a light tree shape in my photograph, and I thought a close-up of this might help for the final painting. Then there was the challenge of sizing up – so far, my studies had been small in the 23 x 30 standard or the A4 watercolour sketchbook. It’s a different thing combining these elements into a picture of A3 or larger, and I felt I needed some practice on the larger scale as well.

I decided to devote some more time for these aspects, before proceeding to the assignment painting. For me, this meant attempting to find my own way of approaching the topic, beyond the suggestions in the course materials. One of the aims was to develop a style and technique that would work for me, and I did not want to go into photorealism. I thought about trying out an approach of omitting detail altogether and focus only on main forms and colours.

More studies

My first study was a technical sketch in the A4 watercolour sketchbook. I wanted to try out an alternative to using masking fluid for the lighter areas of the branches. The idea was to scratch into a layer of wet watercolour to create light marks. I tried a wooden stick (did not work), my fingernails (not bad, but messy because they are too short and I smeared the paint), and a knife (worked best). Using two fine brushes, I tried to delineate some branches by adding a fine dark contour and dissolving one side of it over the ligther area. The technique created nice effects, but I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to apply it to the final painting.

Next, I made a detail study of the Cloister building’s main architectural shapes (6B pencil, 23 x 30 sketchbook). I found this helpful for getting better acquainted with the building. On the other hand, I knew I wouldn’t include all the details in the final painting because the building would appear only very small.

To prepare sizing up to the larger assignment piece, I made a charcoal sketch of the entire scene in A3. I think this was quite successful in its composition and how it outlined the main elements and their size relationships.

Then I did a pastel study with the aim of testing colour relationships. By some intuition, I chose dark green paper for this sketch, and this proved to be a difficult choice. The light colours came out nicely, but all the darker tones sank into the background and made the compositional elements almost unrecognizable. I worked over the sketch by blending lighter tones into the dark areas, and this lifted the entire sketch. I exaggerated some colours which were only slightly apparent in the photo, for example the touch of violet in the branches before the Cloisters, or an orange tone in the earth tones of the ground close to the viewer. This gives the sketch an almost psychedelic ambience, which I found interesting but did not want to introduce into the final painting. What I liked about this study was that the pastels forced me to omit details and focus on the main shapes.

The final painting ?

After a day’s break, I felt ready to approach the final watercolour painting. I started with a pencil outline and used a bit of masking fluid for the windows of the cloister tower and the light areas of some branches. I then layed a light blue-grey wash for the sky and river in the background, and added the distant background shapes to the sides of the river. I also laid a wash for the road and diluted the contours to avoid having them cutting through the trees of the foreground.

I found painting the Cloister building and the upper branches relatively straightforward, but had enormous difficulties with the foreground trees and the mid-tones in the middle ground. There is a central tree who changes its value from lighter than the background to darker than the background, and I couldn’t get to grips how to paint this. Similarly, I constantly lost focus which tree or branch I was painting and felt as if I always had the wrong colour intensity on the brush.

Overall, I am quite skeptical about this painting. There are successful elements, for example the sky and the distant background shapes, which capture the light gray overall atmosphere of the winter’s day. But I’m not very satisfied with how I painted the foreground and middle ground with all the trees and branches. There was also a problem with the colours, because I tried to capture those grey-brown tones of the winter scene and this resulted in very muddy overall colours.

I felt that I had been focusing too much on details and decided to make another painting of the same scene. I wanted to focus more on the larger shapes and use pigments and water more generously. This second painting is lighter and more fluid, but it repeats the overall muddy colour impression. I stopped painting because I was so dissatisfied with my attempts and felt that I had enough of my chosen scene for that moment. In particular, I found that the dark branches looked dead if they were not accompanied by lighter areas, but I was not in the mood to work out all those details for a second time.

Interestingly, the pencil underdrawing for the second study was much clearer in the tree shapes. But the coloured wash for the middle ground covered it and so I had lost my guides for those shapes, which made me lose confidence for the entire painting. The subject I chose proved very difficult to paint and I was really struggling with technical problems and how to handle watercolours in a painting of that size.

I’m not sure what to do about the assignment. The paintings I’ve made so far are not really to my satisfaction, but I’m finding it difficult to keep up interest and enthusiasm for the scene I chose. I’d rather continue with something else – a subject with friendlier colours and more positive overall mood than those winter landscapes with bare branches and muddy colours. I’d love to paint some flowers and maybe focus on details to avoid being overwhelmed by observational and technical difficulties.

Some more reflections

I wasn’t very confident to approach Assignment 3 after I had made the suggested preparatory work, which in my case consisted in a series of compositional sketches from the photographs I had taken on the spot, plus a line and a watercolour study of my chosen scene. Maybe it would have been different if I had made studies on the spot and visited The Cloisters several times to take photos on different times of the day and under different weather conditions, and also had collected some objects. It would certainly have added more pictures to choose from for the final painting.

I’m considering having a second go and doing an entirely different painting for assignment three, maybe getting back to my initial idea of using photos of Tuscany landscapes gathered from the web. Another idea was to make another try with the chosen photo of The Cloisters, but approach it in a different style – focusing on clear cut shapes and clean colours, no mixing on the fly. I also think it would be better to soak the paper and tape it onto a board, because my paper buckles on the block when wet and this makes painting difficult.

The Cloisters, third try

I decided to stay with my chosen topic and just give it another try. I painted this one in several sessions distributed over a week. I tried to be more cautious with the light and dark tones and the light and dark twigs. I seem to get along quite well with painting only for a short time and then making a pause. It protected me from getting exhausted and impatient. The final session in which I finished the painting was longer. Maybe I could still improve the painting by intensifying the contrasts, but I decided to stop and leave it at that because I felt that I’ve exhausted my enthusiasm for the topic.

I think it was good to try again and overall the result has improved. But I also think that this was not my best choice of topic. I’d have preferred to paint something more colourful and visually appealing. I felt obliged to remain truthful to the colours of my photo because I see the assignment as a technical exercise rather than a piece of art, but I must also say that I find this type of work not really satisfying. I understand that Level 1 courses are about acquiring technical skills and I have focused on this task, but for the future I’d like to develop more freedom in interpreting my subject.

Exhibition visit: Metropolitan Museum of Art

To prepare assignment 3, which will develop a landscape painting, I decided to focus on landscapes on my first visit to the museum. Apparently the entire collection of the museum can be viewed and searched online, including listings of each individual room in that huge museum. From my online preparation, I decided to focus on gallery 769, which presents several landscape oil paintings. I had only 2 hours time before work, so found it made sense to focus on a topic particularly relevant for the assignment. On my way through the museum to my chosen gallery, I couldn’t resist visiting a special exhibition of 18^th century pastels, and also had a quick look at the musical instruments galleries. I’ll certainly return to the museum, there was so much more to see.

Special exhibition: 18^th century pastels

I like to use pastels from time to time, and have made one or two pastel colour and tonal studies for watercolour works, but I have no formal training how to use the medium. I thought it was a good idea to look at this exhibition to see real works from close. There were mostly portraits, but also some landscapes and waterscapes. At first I just admired the delicacy of the portraits, but after the fifth or sixth my attention shifted to technical details and I discovered that they seemed to follow a technical principle: There was a background of larger shapes for face, hair, areas of clothes in their particular colour and tonal value. Then on top of this were finer linear details to indicate contours, highlights and reflections. I was surprised to see the same principle appear also in the landscape paintings.

Adélaide Labille-Guiard, Madame Élisabeth de France
Jean Pillement, Shipwreck

The painter’s table

Very nice was the painter’s table also presented in that room: A small table with 3 drawers that had many compartments. These tables were used by pastel artists to group their pastels by colour. Artists did not mix their tones from selected base colours as with oils, but needed the exact hue readily prepared, and so built up huge collections.

Seeing this table resonated with my recent thoughts about organizing my watercolour materials by colour groups. Before part three, I had only 6 base colours of artist quality watercolours, plus my ancient Schmincke selection of pans with some more hues. But at the occasion of the mixing exercise, I had added many small tubes in different colour hues, and had put them all together in a box. This became a bit chaotic. I made notes in my book how I might organize them by base colours. Later I put the tubes in a tray with six compartments – red tones, blue tones, green tones and so on. This may sound quite obvious, but I felt as if I had made a real discovery. It made working with so many hues much easier.

Then recently when I prepared to use oil pastels for a watercolour painting, my first step was to re-organize each pastel set by colour groups. Analysing a set of pastels in this way was excellent to anticipate what I would be able to do with that particular set, very different from earlier approaches where I just saw that I had 2 different sets of 24 and one of 48, but wasn’t able to analyse the differences between each set in a systematic way.

Musical instruments

Among the many instruments, I was particularly attracted by the grand pianos. There were several historic grands presented, including some of the very early stages in the technical development of this instrument. I had a light bulb moment when I saw two large harps presented right next to the grands… A grand piano is a harp laid to one side with a wooden box around for resonance, and a keyboard attached instead of the musician directly touching the strings!

Gallery 769, American Impressionism (1880 – 1920)

Based on my notes made on the spot

William Merrit Chase (1849 – 1916): At the seaside (ca. 1892)

This was the first picture in the gallery and my point of entry to the topic of American Impressionism. Looking at this painting, I became again strongly aware of the difference between the two mediums oil on vanvas vs watercolour on paper. The clouds: solid and “man made”, deliberately shaped and massive, as opposed to the fluidity of watercolours.

Maurice Prendergast (1858 – 1924): Picnic by the Inlet (ca. 1918 – 1923)

According to the accompanying info, this painter had much experience with watercolours and monotype before turning to oil painting, and this paintings showed his increased proficiency with the medium. I found it a very modern painting. Modern in its looseness, in the omission of detail in faces, figures, trees. I also recognized the impressionist style of composing objects from dots of colour rather than as massive shapes.

Mary Cassatt (1844 – 1926): Lilacs in a window (ca. 1880 – 1935)

Just a lovely painting. I like flowers so much and am planning to take up this topic as soon as possible. My first attempts in various mediums were not so overly successful, but I’ll have another go. Shirley Trevena’s watercolour flowers impressed me so much and I can’t wait for the moment when I’ll have a little extra time for this.

There were several paintings of Childe Hassam (1859 – 1935) in this gallery, and I had been curious to see them. Childe Hassam had lived in Long Island, The Hamptons, which is the location I’d like to explore for the assignment.

Childe Hassam : July Fourteenth, Rue Daunou, 1910 (left painting)

This painting was made in Paris on the French National Holiday. It depicts crowds of people, flags, and the typical 5-story 19^th century Paris buildings, “Le vieux Paris”.

The painting ”Avenue of the Allies” (Great Britain, 1918) (middle) intrigued me by the thin application of paint, a different technique compared to the first painting although the painting style was similar. I found it very impressionistic, the scene was vibrant in colour despite the thin material on the canvas.

The subsequent paintings were made in a similar technique. The grey-brown unprimed canvas seemed to show through everywhere. Nevertheless the paintings were colourful and vibrant. I wondered wether this had to do with financial hardship – a technique developed to make the most effective use of paint when it was difficult to finance a thick layer of material? On the other hand, when looking close, there were also thick blobs of paint applied, which could have covered a much larger area if applied evenly.

Frederick Carl Frieseke (1874 – 1939): Summer (1914)

The painting showed a nude figure in a summer garden, with an impressionistic sunlight pattern on her body. The info table talked about painting style as if the painting showed a still life with vase on a table. I was puzzled: Had the nude not been perceived as scandalous in puritan America by the time it was painted? How came that a painter with a German name showed up in the gallery of American Impressionism? How was it possible he had the nerve to paint a nude in a summer garden as if paradise was on earth, in the year where World War I began?

From later research about the artist I found out that his German parents had emigrated to America, so that puzzle was solved. I concluded that the artist must have been able to close out political developments from his life and work. Maybe life in America wasn’t as affected by the approaching war as I thought. I perceive the great contrast in the depiction of nature, compared to the dark and sinister landscape paintings of Paul Nash, John Piper and Eric Ravilious whom I had explored in the previous research.

Robert Reid (1862 – 1929): Fleur de Lis (ca. 1895 – 1900)

This painting shows a young woman inmidst the flowers. The info table points out the correspondence between the softness of the flowers and the fragility of the woman, and this was really very impressive. The correspondence was supported by the choice of colours. Lovely painting.

Concluding remarks

I’m not able to anticipate if and how this exhibition visit may influence the sketches and studies or the final painting I’m going to make for assignment three. The paintings presented were quite varied in subject and united by the “Impressionism” label, interesting in their own right. I had no knockout effect with any particular painting or artist in this gallery, and I was reminded again of the difference between oils and watercolours as a painting medium. I think I’ll be able to sense the influence later on, once I’m under way and working on the assignment.

Resources

Metropolitan Museum of Art: http://www.metmuseum.org

Gallery 769, American Impressionism: http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections?ft=*&gallerynos=769&rpp=40&pg=1

More artists: Paul Nash, John Piper, Eric Ravilious

Taking up another recommendation from my tutor to look at for part 3 of the course, I made a quick Google image search on Paul Nash, John Piper and Eric Ravilious. I was very perplexed by the similarity of the images that turned up. My first impression were that they were all depicting landscape in muddy green-grey-brown tones and created a depressed atmosphere, which could not be further away from my idea of “the joy of nature”. Having researched Eric Ravilious earlier for my drawing course, I remembered that he lived in the early 20^th century and was a contemporary of two world wars. I thought, maybe the choice of colours reflected how he felt about the world: An unfriendly place full of enemies. And maybe the other two painters made their works at around the same time?

Paul Nash, The Menin Road (1919)
John Piper, A Cotswold River Valley (1946)
Eric Ravilious, Beachy Head (1939)

And indeed. Paul Nash (1889 – 1946) was almost an exact contemporary of Eric Ravilious (1903 – 1942). John Piper was born at the same time, but lived into his late eighties (1903-1992). All three had been official war artists of British Ministries, and experienced both World Wars.

They painted landscape entirely different from the romantic ideal of healthy, protective nature, and this is very apparent in their choice of colour and elements they chose to depict.

Sources

Paul Nash, The Menin Road (1919): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nash,_Paul_-_The_Menin_Road_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

John Piper, A Cotswold River Valley (1946): http://www.lucy-johnson.com/available-pieces/d/a-cotswold-river-valley-the-coln-at-coln-st-aldwyns-1946/54251

Blog Article on Eric Ravilious, including the painting Beachy Head (1939): http://jamesrussellontheweb.blogspot.com/2011/09/eric-ravilious-at-belle-tout-lighthouse.html

More artists: Lucy Willis

I’m researching this artist following a tutor recommendation from Assignment 2 feedback. She pointed me to Lucy Willis’ interior paintings. My first impression when looking at the overview page of the interiors was they were very well made, much more worked out than my first attempts at interiors. I realized the potential of this theme and into what direction I might develop my own interior paintings.

I chose The Music Room, China (37 x 28 cm), The Kitchen Door (56 x 41 cm), The midday Hour (no size given) and the Striped Armchair (43 x 63.5) for a closer look. Looking at the larger web pictures reveals that they are much less detailed than the thumbnails appear to be, which I like even better. The larger and smaller shapes are clearly painted, and this is something I still have to learn. I think it has to do with decision making while painting. I think I am still very hesitant to just paint shapes and make a decision about its colour and value.

There are also nice colour contrasts, for example the orange and blue in the Kitchen Door painting, and this is another aspect I’d like to develop further in my own works.

I was quite impressed reading Lucy Willis’ biography. Born 1954, she was trained in fine art in Britain and then travelled a lot to paint. She also did projects and many commissioned works, and received several prizes. I found her prison project particularly interesting, where she gave drawing lessons to inmates over a period of one and a half year. As there was no formal enrolment, the group was constantly changing, but there seems to have been a lot going on psychologically for the men after they overcame their initial reluctance. I found this interesting because I thought about going into art therapy to combine art practice and teaching with my psychology background. Reading the article was a good reminder of what art is capable to do.

Looking over her other works, I particularly liked the landscape paintings, and chose River Lussa (38 x 56 cm) and The Drop Gate (28 x 37). They are the ones with the most intense contrast and values from very dark to very light, which I think is why I found them appealing.

After seeing so many works by Lucy Willis, I think that I like her paintings a lot and realize that I’m currently working in a similar, realistic style. But I have some reservations about the paintings I made recently and think that perfectioning the realist style is not my goal. I see it as a necessary stage while developing a more personal and abstract way of painting. I don’t know exactly what I’m aiming for, but it should be more generous and more exciting, less laborious with detail work.

Sources

Lucy Willis interior paintings: http://www.lucywillis.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=22&Itemid=47

More artists: Karen Armitage

After the pointer from my tutor in her feedback to Assignment 1, it is only now that I find the time to include a blog entry for my research on this artist. Karen Armitage is a contemporary British painter. Her works include not only watercolours, but also pastels and oil paintings. I’m including a selection of her works from an art prints site to illustrate my thoughts and findings. The quality of these web images is not very convincing. Better resolutions can be found at Bridgeman Education Library.

A dominant theme in Armitage’s works are flowers. I particularly liked the Magnolias, and also the Cyclamens. There’s an airiness in these watercolours that I find very interesting. Some areas are worked out, others are withered and pale. It reminds me of the photographic effect termed depth of field. With a short depth of field, only elements at one particular distance appear sharp in all details, while everything closer and everything further away is increasingly blurred.

What I liked less with these paintings was a tendency of overworking the watercolours to reach perfection. There’s not much to see of an original brushstroke or chance effects inherent to the medium. It is a very controlled approach. It has beautiful results, but they are almost too perfect and this takes away a lot of the liveliness that could be achieved in a painting of flowers.

Interestingly, the oil paintings appear much less overworked, as for example the Myosotis Bleu (2002). It may be a question of the medium. I have learned that watercolour quickly looses the charming immediacy when there’s too much layering and brushwork. Whereas oil paint seems to permit endless reworking without loosing it’s freshness, maybe even the opposite – reworking seems to add depth and lead to the essence of what is supposed to be depicted.

The pastels: I like that they are not detailed and how they include bright colours and strong contrasts, for example the Carpet Factory in Morocco (2000) or the Libary at Thorpeperrow.

I’m quite unsure about my own attempts with using pastels, but when I compare, I feel that I’m heading towards the right direction – overlays to create different colours and tones, but not closing up the paper under a thick layer of pigment, or smudging.

From the watercolours, I’d like to take away how nicely the compositions fill the picture space. The focus is on what the artist found essential, but this is nicely framed in a receding context. The Pansies in a Conservatory are included as a reminder.

Sources

Magnolia Box, an art print site, with quite a selection of Karen Armitage’s works: http://www.magnoliabox.com/artist/2864/Karen_Armitage

More artists: Elizabeth Blackadder

Elizabeth Blackadder was pointed out to me by my tutor in the feedback on Assignment 1. I did some research but then lost track of it due to the relocation to New York. Luckily I later found what I had prepared, so the blog entry comes just a little later than originally intended.

Born in 1931, Elizabeth Blackadder is a Scottish painter and printmaker. My search in Bridgeman Education Library returned many results, mostly watercolour works but also some other techniques, for example oil paintings and woodcuts.

Some of her earlier works looked very modern to me, for example the Still Life with Fish (watercolour, 77.5 x 56 cm, 1972), or the Flowers and Red Table (oil on canvas, 86 x 111 cm, 1969)

There are very delicate watercolour paintings of flowers, for example the Hellebores (1987-88). Sometimes they have extremely fine details, which is revealed when looking from very close (or in large magnification), as in Cat and Flowers (1981).

Like the Cat with Flowers, the Early Spring Anemone (1977) is a compositions that is somewhat lost in space, with its small objects before an essentially empty background. I found more paintings in this style and found them a bit disturbing. It’s as if the objects were too shy to occupy their space. The Camellias (1974) are different: Much more massive, and the objects fill the image space better. I’d have guessed this painting was made later than the Spring Anemones, but the dates indicate the opposite.

I also found a lovely woodcut with Lilies. I’m very interested in printmaking and have experimented a bit with linocuts and simple etchings. So I always like to look at artist’s printwork as well. Via a Google search, I found more prints by Elizabeth Blackadder, for example a lithograph, titled Roman Wall II, Walltown (1960) or the Abessynian Cat, an etching made 2003 at the Glasgow Print Studio.

I also found a really lovely watercolour of a Cat, titled Abessynian Cat Asleep (13.5 x 18.5 cm, 1985). The format is very small, but I double checked and it’s correct. The closeup picture shows the dark pencil underdrawing. I find this interesting because it certainly helped to build up the shapes, yet it does not disturb in the slightest the overall impression. It even adds another dimension which I like.

The link to Elizabeth Blackadders works which I was given for reference by my tutor points to a blog entry which presents an impressive variety in Elizabeth Blackadder’s works. One wouldn’t think that these were all made by the same artist.

The pointer to the Dragon Fruit watercolour was supposed to illustrate the intensity that is possible with watercolours. At the time, I tended to use watercolours in very pale washes, and looking at the painting, I realized that I was missing out much of the appeal of watercolour paintings. I remember that I was quite impressed seeing this painting. It had a good effect – I think that my application of colour has improved, and I’m beginning to get really intense tones and strong contrasts in my paintings. Still some way to go to achieve that kind of delicacy that I see in Blackadder’s (and other’s works), but I’m on my way!

Sources

Dragon Fruit watercolour: http://pinkpagodastudio.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/dame-elizabeth-blackadder.html

Roman Wall II, Walltown (1960): http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blackadder-roman-wall-ii-walltown-p06038

Abessynian Cat (etching, 2003): http://www.glasgowprintstudio.co.uk/Shop/DisplayPrint/4?requestType=eArtistPage

Abessynian Cat Asleep: http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20487/lot/65/