Monthly Archives: January 2014

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.