Monthly Archives: September 2014

Mixed media on coloured and white paper

This was another exercise I found quite hard. The most difficult part of it was to settle on a subject. I’m not overly happy with my final choice, but decided I simply had to get going even if it wasn’t the perfect subject for continued work on a longer series of paintings.

I briefly reconsidered the cats as subject but scared away from the difficulties, and instead decided to try some terrace views.

Terrace views

What I found interesting were all the potted plants and their “unorderly appearance”. My terrace is kind of a refuge because I can be outside, but feel safe and at home. I also thought it would be helpful to be close to my art materials for all the experimentation expected for the exercise.

In the first view, I particularly liked the shadows of the plants and pots. I started with a pencil drawing, which I colourized with dry pastels using my finger to smudge pigment on the paper. Then I dissolved the pigments and laid washes with watercolours.

The second view was made on blue ground. I started with watercolours and added some white gouache, but the only additional media I managed to employ was black felt pen for the handrails on the roof of the building opposite the terrace. I was so busy painting all the details of the scene that I wasn’t open for any experimentation.

The third view was made on rose ground and again I started with a pencil underdrawing, then added white gouache for highlights and laid darker washes for the pots and stuff. Same problem of not wanting to spoil the image with additional media… At this point I decided to abandon the subject for now.

Painting a bouquet of flowers

I had made a first quick tryout painting of the bouquet after the second small terrace study because I felt I didn’t get going with additional media. Part of the problem was the small size – I wasn’t comfortable with using bold media like oil pastels on a small surface for small elements. I thought I might get along better using a larger format, and that a colourful flower bouquet would help me to work a little more experimental.

Choosing a setting was the next problem because my study is small and there’s not much space for nice arrangements. I resigned to using two brown cardboards as background and placed the vase on the floor. I chose oil pastels for the flowerheads and watercolour washes for stems and leaves, the vase and the background. (Format: 38 x 28 cm on white ground)

I wasn’t very satisfied because I found the format still too small and was unsure about the quality of the painting, but at least I seemed to be able to integrate other media, so I decided to continue with the bouquet.

Flower bouquet: Four small studies (A4 watercolour sketchbook)

Study 1: White ground, grey felt pen and watercolours
Study 2: Ice blue ground, purple felt pen, white and coloured gouache, watercolours
Study 3: Brown ground, coloured pencil, gouache and watercolours
Study 4: White ground, coloured inks, watercolours, crayons

In studies 1 to 3 there’s a zooming in effect which was my response to finding the A4 format too small for the large bouquet. I thought focusing on a smaller part of the bouquet would help me capture the shapes, colours and textures better. The fourth one was back to including the entire bouquet and trying a dark background to bring out the colours more intensely. I made a real effort in overcoming my reluctance to use additional media and felt like being pushed out of my comfort zone.

Two larger paintings

The fourth small study was based on a slightly altered arrangement of the flowers, and I found this composition worked better. I also liked the dark background. So I chose that one for the larger study on coloured ground. I did not want to revert to the earlier flower arrangement, so stayed with that one for the second larger study as well.

Large study 1 (48 x 34 cm): Light blue ground, started with ink pen (non-waterproof), added white and yellow gouache, watercolours, crayons and oil pastels.

I was surprised that the ink pen wasn’t waterproof and bleeded into the gouache layer. But gradually adapting to experimental mode, I wanted to continue and see how the painting would develop. I applied oil pastels over the coloured areas to protect the colours before the final wash, but the blue undertone changed the bright yellows into a green tone which was not quite what I wanted. Nevertheless I think this painting looks quite interesting due to the bleeding of the ink. I also like the visible brush strokes in the flowers, they are energetic and make for a lively effect.

Large study 2 (48 x 34 cm): White ground, started with watercolours wet in wet, added pen & ink, crayons and watercolour. Used masking fluid and transparent wax as resists before applying a final wash in Payne’s grey.

The second study is somewhat more considerate. I used a wet in wet technique on white ground to obtain intensely coloured areas with undefined edges, and then added definition for flowers and stems with pen and ink. The technique was less energetic and the result is quite different in style from the first study, a little more delicate and subtle. The transparent wax worked well to protect the colours.

Guided reflections

The effect of coloured paper

I had already begun using coloured in the previous exercise and did so because I wanted an even background without brush marks. It had the effect of toning down all colours, which could be counterbalanced by using white gouache or intensified by employing even darker tones, or tilted by adding coloured layers for unusual mixes.

In the terrace views, I was not very happy with the colour changing effect of the blue and red grounds and found it added an awkward tone to the entire painting. I think the effect remained awkward throughout the bouquet paintings as well. The ice blue background tilted the yellows into green and mudded the red tones, and the brown background mudded the entire painting. Of course it is possible to make extended use of white gouache to neutralize this before adding more colours, and maybe it would have been the best solution. That would make it possible to have the best of both worlds: A smooth, dark background plus clean bright colours on top.

On the other hand, there’s also a certain charm and interest in the chance effects that can result from the coloured ground. The mixed media approach gives more options to work with the effects and change the painting in ways that would’t be possible with watercolours alone.

In this exercise what was the initial effect of working on a coloured ground as opposed to white?

The initial effect was clearly a darkening of the entire painting and change of any colour applied subsequently on the coloured ground.

Are either studies more successful than the other?

I think the first and the fourth small studies are better than the second and third because the colours are more natural and there’s more fluidity in approach. I also prefer the second large study over the first. In all cases, these are the ones on white background. I think it’s because of the strange change in colours resulting from the coloured ground that I prefer the white background.

Maybe this depends on the subject of the painting. I imagine that a dark and mysterious scene would benefit from a coloured ground.

Do any of your pictures show a strong sense of abstract composition? If so, which ones?

I think the first large study is the most abstract one. I think it’s because it has the least detail and the emphasis is on coloured areas. The energy of the brush strokes is more important than the similarity with the actual flowers. It’s also the painting with the least definition of details in the flowers.

Do you think any of your paintings or studies could be looked at primarily for their abstract qualities?

Probably again the first larger study, but maybe also the second. In the second I particularly like the underlying watercolour wet in wet effect. There were moments where I regretted to add ink lines into the colour clouds.

How could you develop greater abstraction in your work?

Choosing the right format may play a role. I have already observed that working on small scale has helped me to let go of detail when working with watercolours alone. Maybe it’s even in general helpful to choose a bold medium in relation to the format available that will promote a more generous approach. But I must admit that I felt quite uncomfortable with the idea of using bold oil pastel sticks in the terrace views, it just did not seem to work.

Interestingly, this time the larger format seemed to have helped me to work more generously. Maybe this was because I knew I couldn’t maintain a detail approach on that format. So maybe the mindset and intention for a painting are just as important.

The instruction to work quickly has also helped this time. I remember well that I often have my problems with time restrictions, because I want to study an object first and “it takes as long as it takes”. But this time at least in the two larger paintings, the time restriction felt beneficial to focus on the essentials and work more generously over the entire surface.

Research point: Examples of mixed media pictures

Look for other examples of mixed media pictures such as Henry Moore’s Pink and Green Sleepers (page 23) which uses wax resist, and John Marin’s The Singer Building (page 145) which uses pencil and charcoal.

Henry Moore 1941 Pink and green sleepers

I came across the series of drawings by Henry Moore (English, 1898 – 1986) to which this drawing belongs during the drawing course. The scenes depict people in the shelters during World War II bombings. This drawing was made using graphite, ink, gouache and wax on paper. It is very sombre in atmosphere and captures the Angst of the times. But there’s also a sense of comfort in seeing the two people in company and protected.

Technically, the watercolours are very pale and stand back, the painting is dominated by the tonality and the textured surfaces created through scratching.

Tate Britain http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/moore-pink-and-green-sleepers-n05713

John Marin 1921 The Singer Building

This painting by John Marin (American, 1870 – 1953) dates from the early Twenties of the 20th century and depicts a building in New York. It is very energetic and loose. The media were watercolour, charcoal, and black conté crayon on wove paper. Interesting is how these elements fall apart and seem to explode with energy. In the same way, the drawing is not tight and accurate, but fragmented and sketchy.

Philadelphia Museum of Art http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/50636.html

Having looked at the two suggested mixed media works, I was slightly unsure how to continue this research, because “mixed media” is a wide field and I did not know which artists to look at. I wanted to avoid getting back to my usual suspects and therefore did a Google search on the keywords “Mixed media” and “Mixed media painting”. One of the first hits was the website of Kellie Day, a contemporary mixed media artist. I was enchanted and surprised by this chance find as her style is very close to my understanding of mixed media today.

Kellie Day, a contemporary American mixed media artist

I’m including the first paintings I saw as a reminder, because they attracted me to stay on the website and look further into this artist’s work. I find her paintings light, colourful, energetic and very friendly.

There’s a short video “Peek into my studio” where she presents herself and her methods. She considers herself a mixed media artist and works in various techniques on canvas: Drawing, painting and collage, using multiple transparent and opaque layers of paint and ink. Kellie Day is a trained artist with a background in fine arts and illustration. She works from photos which are displayed on a wide-screen laptop that is placed next to a huge, high working table. This is quite similar to my setting when I work from photos, except that my studio space is tiny, compared to hers, with a much smaller and lower table. What I particularly liked was seeing that she works standing, not sitting at her desk! This confirmed my idea that standing is better when making art, because it is somehow liberating, it permits broader arm movements and helps to let go of fiddling with details.

Then, big surprise, there was actually a painting of sunflowers among her works! It is really beautiful and much lighter than my sunflower paintings so far. It’s a bit like my pencil sunflower sketch translated into paint.

Pablo Picasso, from the Guitar series (Moma Exhibition)

There were no more interesting hits in that search, so I went back to Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881 – 1973) because I remembered that he employed and combined many different media and was very inventive. My Google search turned up a link to an exhibition at the Moma New York in 2011, showing a series of increasingly abstract works around the topic of a guitar.

The works mostly combine drawing, collage and paint on canvas. Although no watercolour was used, I think they are inspiring even 100 years after they have been made. I see the beginnings of cubism in them and I like the composition/decomposition aspect of playing with partly recognizable shapes, adding colour and tone. They also have an element of openness and “breathing space” which my own drawings, paintings and prints often lack.

Guitar, Glas Jet, and bottle (1913): Oil, charcoal, tinted varnish, and grit on canvas
Head of a man (1913): Cut-and-pasted wallpaper, newspaper and paper, charcoal, ink and pencil on paper mounted on canvas

Moma exhibition website: http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2011/picassoguitars//index.php

Further Google search on mixed media did not turn up many interesting other hits so I decided to look into a more serious resource, the Oxford Art Libary and searched for mixed media there. This did not turn up any paintings so I searched for watercolours and from the result list, I selected those which looked like employing watercolours with additional media. One of the first results was a painting by Paul Klee

Paul Klee 1921 Tale à la Hoffman

This painting by Paul Klee (German/Swiss 1879 – 1940) was made using watercolours, pencil and transferred ink on paper. I found this very interesting because I know the technique from the printmaking course. It’s called “Backdrawing” or “Transfer drawing” and is achieved by placing the image on an inked surface and drawing lines on the backside. When the paper is pulled off the inked surface, the lines drawn appear on the face side of the paper, because the ink has transferred due to the drawing pressure. I now recognize that Klee must have used the technique in many of his paintings. The overall impression of this painting is very unique, very characteristic for Klee and very different from any other watercolour artist I’ve seen before.

John Lewis Krimmel c. 1813 Merrymaking at a wayside inn

This picture by John Lewis Krimmel (American/German born 1786-1821) combined watercolour and graphite on white laid paper. To me it is very characteristic for the classical 19th century watercolour illustrative drawing style. Watercolours serve to colorize a drawing, the graphite helps to achieve tonal differences. The graphite does not stand out on its own as separate medium, but serves to give structure to the image.

My approach of using additional media was similar in intention, although my style with watercolours was different.

Honoré Daumier c. 1860-65 The connaisseur

This drawing by Honoré Daumier (French, 1808-1879) is similar to that by Krimmel in its subtle combination of watercolour with other media. It used pen and ink, wash, watercolour, lithographic crayon on wove paper.

Concluding remarks

This was quite an interesting research point, although there’s the problem that once started, I could go on and on without any hope of ever covering the field in its entirety, because there’s so much art out there. But I think this brief starter covered several different approaches:

– The illustrative style where watercolour serves as a coloring medium for a drawing. This style was present in the two 19th century works by Krimmel and Daumier, but I’ve also seen it in contemporary illustrations, for example in children’s books
– A dynamic, loose and sketchy drawing approach like the work of John Marin.
– More painterly approaches like that employed by Kellie Day
– Abstract, graphical approaches similar to works by Picasso and Klee

Again I’m rethinking my choice of subject, whether to stay with the sunflowers or to switch to the cats (or even doing something completely different next time). Due to the near impossible of making detailed drawings or paintings of the cats without resigning to photos, the subject might actually help me to let go of accurate depiction and become more adventurous in approach.

On the other hand, the sunflower painting by Kellie Day is like a proof that the mindset is important, not the characteristics of the subject. I’m not sure. Maybe just give it another try with the cats and see what happens. I think my series of sunflowers somehow calls for a change of subject.

Exploring one subject in a variety of media

The exercise went very differently from what I had expected. I started with my cats as subjects because I had been enjoying painting animals and thought the cats were “convenient” because they’re always there and I don’t have to travel to a zoo, make up with the weather, or wait for the week-end because I can’t go to places during the week.

Deciding on a subject

I knew the subject was challenging and that so far I hadn’t been able to make more advanced drawings of my cats, because they’re moving constantly and I was drawing not fast enough. But I thought that doing a whole series on them would help to improve my skills. So I set out to make some drawings to see how far I’d get.

Although I liked these sketches, I found drawing the cats extremely difficult and I was very unsure whether they were appropriate for the task. For example, I couldn’t count on being able to draw the same cat in the same position twice or even several times, so the idea of comparing the effect of different media choices on a single composition would be compromised. The effectiveness of the painting would mostly depend on being lucky enough to depict enough before the moment was gone. I could draw the cats either very quick and sketchy because of their constant motion – or depict them sleeping which isn’t very interesting. Overall, I found the cats were too complex as subject for now and decided to switch to a different, unmoving subject: Sunflowers.

Sunflowers

I made studies of a single flower and a drawing of five flowers in their vase, plus a pastel sketch to try out a background arrangement. The pencil drawing of the bouquet was a novel approach. I stayed quite sketchy and tried to “feel the marks”: The softer flowerheads with softer marks and lighter tones against the more scratchy marks of the harder green leaves surrounding them.

What fascinated me were the irregular contours of the yellow flower leaves – as opposed to the “ideal” generic sunflower in my mind/memory which has perfectly even shapes.

Paintings using additional media

The main problem with mixing media was that I didn’t feel ready for it. The feeling of lacking basic watercolour skills which troubled me during the tinted paper project, continued to bother me. What I wanted was painting with watercolours and trying to get better with that medium – not messing around with additional media that would even exacerbate my difficulties with watercolours themselves.

At the same time, I was surprised by my inner resistance because in principle, I was very interested in experimenting with a variety of materials and techniques. I think the series reflects my reluctance to introduce additional media. I tried hard to integrate them into the painting so they would not dominate the result. I wanted the paintings to be watercolours, not oil pastel drawings or anything else. It felt like I couldn’t let go and was unwilling to do anything more experimental.

There was also a feeling of half-heartedness related to the course brief’s suggestions of using oil pastels, charcoal, and crayons with watercolours. For my chosen subject, I saw only very limited choices for employing these. Maybe charcoal for linear elements (could have used pen & ink to a similar effect), and oil pastels or crayons either for more intense colours or as resists, or both. I tried oil pastels for the background but scraped them off because they were overpowering the flowerheads. I even dissolved them further with mineral spirit on the paper to erase the spotty leftovers and make the background less busy.

Sunflowers v1 (5 flowers): Watercolours and coloured pencil, 33 x 43 cm. Just traces of coloured pencil in the yellow areas of the flowerheads.

Sunflowers v2 (3 flowers): Watercolours and partly dissolved oil pastel, 35.5 x 33 cm. Oil pastels for the yellows and the dark hearts. Dissolved oil pastel layer in the right background

Sunflowers v3 (wet on wet): Watercolours and charcoal, 33 x 43 cm. The charcoal was used as a linear element to give more structure where the different colours run into each other.

Sunflowers v4 (brown background): Watercolours and oil pastel, 28 x 35.5 cm. Oil pastels are used for the yellow in the flowerheads and for the texture of the dark brown hearts.

Colorized monotype

A step forward was the idea to combine watercolours with monotype. I liked the idea because it felt more like a true mixed media approach. I used a 30 x 40 cm perspex plate and Akua Intaglio inks. I employed a subtractive technique, wiping off ink using cloth (tarlatan), Q-tips, corrugated cardboard, foam pvc, and a spatula. The resulting print was in grey tones, made on firm, bright white printmaking paper. I then colourized the print using watercolours.

Sunflowers in a vase v5 (colorized), watercolours on b/w monoprint, 28 x 35.5 cm

Using a background wash

Another attempt at using additional media with watercolours was by preparing a coloured wash. The guiding idea was to work with a strong colour contrast and bring out the characteristic silhouette of the flowerheads. I chose a medium tone indigo background wash. The flowerhead contours were then drawn with felt pen, the yellow areas received an underpainting with white acrylics, then a layer of yellow watercolours with traces of cadmium red. Finally they were worked over with yellow oil pastels to intensify the colours.

To add more interest, I structured the background into an interior view, and included the entire glass vase. I added tone using white gouache for lights and Payne’s Grey for darker tones, with some yellow and red for the stuff on the drawers.

The painting incorporates what I reflected upon in the “lightbulb moments” post: I used the pale, dark background to bring out the orange-yellow of the flowers, and emphasized the silhouettes to capture the characteristics of my flowers. It’s not what I’d consider a true mixed media approach, because the additional media (felt pen, white acrylics, oil pastels) are deeply integrated and support the painting, but the overall effect remained that of a watercolour painting.

Maybe it’s as far as I can get with “mixed media” for now. It felt strange that by shifting the focus to other media, I develop more skills at conventional watercolour painting, and also the handling of tinted paper with watercolours seems to improve with a time lag – in this exercise rather than in the actual earlier project. Maybe some more experimental ideas will come along over the course of this project, or even later.

Sunflowers in a vase v6 (interior view), watercolour with felt pen, acrylics and oil pastels, 43 x 33 cm

Guided reflections

Which of your studies works best and why?

I’m hesitating between the colourized monoprint and the interior view with blue background. The monoprint works nicely because the grey textured background adds interest, and because it’s “painted” in an energetic and loose style. The yellows also look nice and warm.

By contrast, the interior view is a much more controlled and “exact” painting. I think it is technically quite good, for example how I depicted the glass vase with water, reflections and transparency. The sunflowers’ heads are defined, but irregular. Their yellow stands out really strong.

Adding the background was informed by a still life I recently saw somewhere on the internet and made me realize that my backgrounds were flat. So I wanted to give more depth to the entire painting. The painting I saw used only lighter and darker tones to create a sense of space around the arrangement. I took a different route and painted the actual view, but due to the muted colours it recedes sufficiently.

On what basis did you choose your various combinations of media?

My central idea was to use additional media to complement and support the watercolour painting. I did not want them to turn the picture into something different or to stand out as separate elements. I think I succeeded with this, but I’m aware that there’s much more to the concept of mixed media than just using a few charcoal lines to “save” a wet on wet watercolour painting. I’d be particularly interested in using materials with a haptic effect, like acrylics with various stuff added, or using different materials for collage.

I did not venture into this because I thought about the difficulties it would pose at assessment time, if I’d have to submit works not made on paper but on sturdier supports like thick cardboard or wood. So overall, I think I made interesting paintings but I’m a bit disappointed about my rather restricted use of other media.

Are there any effects that have especially pleased or surprised you?

I liked the effect of using coloured oil pastels together with watercolours in the yellow flowers. I chose slightly different yellow tones, which created an interesting texture effect. Similarly, the dark brown oil pastel layer in the flower’s hearts worked well to depict the somewhat grainy texture of that surface.

Which combinations of media will you want to use again?

I might get back to oil pastels. But overall I’m not very fond of adding other media to watercolours. Nevertheless, I think that I could use watercolours together with other media in a more liberal fashion. I’m only a little blank-headed right now how that might be.

In what way did this exercises succeed or otherwise?

The exercise was difficult because I did not feel like using additional media in my paintings. It was basically a struggle to overcome my resistance and then trying to control the effect. I guess this situation is responsible for the somewhat uncreative use of additional media. So from the aspect of “inventive use of a combination of media”, the exercise was only moderately successful. I’m still quite happy with the actual paintings I made, because I feel my use of watercolours is improving.

How have you found exploring this subject in different ways?

It was a challenge to remain motivated enough to draw and paint the same flowers many times. I introduced some variation like a slightly different viewpoint or adding the interior view in the final one. I was also alternating between a more loose and sketchy approach and my fascination with the irregular shapes which I wanted to study closely and depict accurately as they actually were. My interest was on the ways how I approached the subject and created an interesting painting. The mixed media aspect was rather distracting from what I considered the main task.

I think I’d have preferred the exercise without the mixed media requirement. Maybe I need much more watercolour practice to arrive at a point where additional media represent a welcome addition and expansion of possibilities. Or maybe it’s a matter of taste – I simply prefer ‘pure watercolours’ and have objections even against using white gouache for highlights.

Can you see further directions in exploring this subject?

Definitely yes. At times I thought “God invented sunflowers so that they can be painted”. I fell in love with the yellow-orange colours and how they look like flames. Further directions would be to find the right context for a bouquet of sunflowers. I’d prefer something more timeless than my interior view.

On the other hand, looking at my cat sketches from the beginning of the exercise, I realize that the cats would present me with much more variety by themselves. Compared to that, sunflowers are sunflowers and basically look always the same. I might change their colours, then they become surrealistic. I might change the background, this would create different colour contrasts and also different context interpretations. The interesting stuff might come when I “push the limits” to introduce all kinds of unexpected things. Maybe a different perspective, sizing up or down, colour effects, media effects.

From a practical point of view, they work well with the course requirements because I can paint at home and from life. I just have to regularly replace them when they’re wilted. Or maybe, continue with wilted sunflowers.

If I’d have stayed with the cats, there would have been certainly more variety in compositions and even using the same media combinations, the paintings would vary greatly.

Lightbulb moments: Lea Nixon and the purpose of art making

I came across Lea Nixon’s work through his posting to the Facebook group “En Plein Air Paintings”. Watercolours are not very often posted and I’m always attentive when some appear. These caught my interest because I found them technically very well executed and highly characteristic for a particular watercolour painting style. I don’t know if this style has already a name. I think it is very British and old school, and definitely like it.

Looking at these three paintings, I had some lightbulb moments about watercolour painting.

Work with the silhouette!

In this painting called “Behind hotel Le Negresco”, the building to the right is created as a blotch of watercolour in different tones from dark to light. What makes it look like a row of buildings is the silhouette, which follows the contours of those buildings in linear perspective. The second important element is the black detail for windows etc which is only suggested. Of course there are more interesting aspects in the painting, but the silhouette is what caught my attention.

I think I was sensitized because I made the first sunflower drawings this afternoon. I realized the contours of the flowerheads are important and I was collecting ideas how I might go on to paint them. One idea was to use a linear medium to draw outlines of leaves, the other was to work with intense yellow against a different coloured background. Maybe I can try the silhouette technique: Use much water and make sure that I get the silhouette of the yellow leaves in the flowerhead right, then add pigment and let it run through the wet area.

The similarities between using coloured paper and using washes for background!

It actually occurred to me somewhat earlier that painting on coloured ground is nothing else than painting over a wash. The main difference may be the intention in which it is done – washes seem to be used for skies or other backgrounds that are part of the picture, and lighter areas are protected with resists. But an artist will paint over his wash and so in effect he’s painting on coloured ground. He or she can then employ the techniques that were introduced in the previous project, like lightening up areas with gouache and creating new colours through layering.

I recognized the principle in the rose background colour of this painting titled “The carousel”. The rose hue is overpainted with trees and foliage. I think this painting is less successful but it contains nice elements, like the white roof of the carousel which is spared out.

I’ll just keep this in mind for the future when I consider using a wash – it has the effect of a coloured ground and is open for techniques to play with that.

Using dull colours makes the bright colours shine!

A principle that I’ve already heard of, but not applied myself and not recognized in other paintings. In this view, the technique is used to emphasize the yellow and red colours of the buildings in the foreground by placing them adjacent to a muted grey area.

I think I can make use of this technique of colour contrast for my sunflowers to bring out their intense warm yellow colours

The painting again has “important silhouettes” in the center area: The shadows of the group of trees, the truck and the building.

The purpose of art making

These paintings by Lea Nixon are not modern art and are not meant as political statements. They are very classical in approach, simply and skillfully representing a view the artist found interesting and inspiring. I wish I’ll arrive at that level of skills with watercolours one day. But having rejected “politics in art” so vehemently, I’m now realizing that I want to go beyond making nice paintings. I think I will not be satisfied with pure representation and building up technical skills, there has to be more to it.

Looking at Anselm Kiefer’s work in the previous research has triggered another lightbulb moment. I understood how Kiefer incorporated his personal concern with German history into his artwork. It made me realize that part of my journey will be to discover what my own concerns are. In German, deep concerns that are rooted in one’s past are called “dead bodies in the cellar” and they are something one has to come to terms with at one point in life. I think art making is a good way of doing this. That said, I still want to be enjoying myself and not overindulge in the dark side of things.

Sources:

Lea Nixon Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/leanixonwatercolours

Some sources of inspiration

About a year ago, I started using my Facebook page as a “visual diary” of interesting artwork I come across online. The idea was to have a reminder for later research on particular artists or other topics related to art.

What I tagged were mostly paintings, many rooted in the classical traditions but also abstract paintings. One very interesting Facegroup page I follow is “I Require Art” (https://www.facebook.com/IRequireArt?ref=profile). Over the last couple of months, they brought up several less known works by artist like Van Gogh or Picasso, but also pointed me to artists I had never heard of, both from the U.S. and other parts of the world, contemporary, “modern” and traditional.

Anselm Kiefer 1981 Margarete

Recently I tagged the painting “Margarete” (1981) by Anselm Kiefer (German, born 1945), because I wanted to keep track of it for Part 5 of this course, as an inspiration for mixed media approaches. It is an oil painting which includes bundles of straw. The painting’s subject is embedded in Kiefer’s engagement with German History and the Nazi era. Margarete refers to a personnage in Paul Celan’s poem “Death Fugue”. Much symbolism can be read in the intertwining of straw and oil colour. I’m particularly interested in the haptic qualities of that painting and the use of unusual materials. I guess I’m going to do more research on Kiefer.

Sue Hubbard on Anselm Kiefer’s work and the relationship to Paul Celan’s poem: http://suehubbard.com/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=109&cntnt01returnid=57

Brian Eskill 2014 Road close to home

A second important source of inspiration is the Facebook Group “En Plein Air Paintings”, where contemporary professional and amateur artists post their recent paintings. The group has around 11000 members mostly in the U.S., but also in other contries, with often 20 or more postings per day. The submissions cover a broad range of styles and are very interesting to follow. I haven’t posted there yet because I consider my attempts too weak to present them to a broader audience. But the value of the group for me is in seeing so many different styles and approaches, and I learn from looking at the paintings and how others solved problems I encountered myself.

Today there was a painting I found particularly interesting and very successful. It is by Brian Eskill, his first posting to the group. I think he’s relatively young and completely unknown as an artist, maybe an art student. But the painting impressed me because it is such a successful translation of an apparently uninteresting suburb road into a painting that’s pleasant to look at, with a great composition and harmonious choice of colours.

I appreciate how the artist has simplified the shapes of houses, cars and trees, and how he suggests rather than explicitly painting everything he sees. The painting style reminds me a bit of Edward Hopper but is livelier because it retains the “rough edges” where Hopper smoothed and cleaned. I’m totally impressed and think this is the way I’d like to go as well, apart from suspecting this artist will make his way. The style is not directly transferable to watercolours, but the approach would work for me similarly: Reduction of details, retaining the essentials, and keeping it light and lively.

Brian Eskill 2014 Road before the house
Posted to the Facebook group “En Plein Air” Paintings
https://www.facebook.com/groups/104484319588591/?fref=nf

Painting a landscape on coloured paper

I started this task based on the two landscape sketches I made recently while in Crestwood, a little town close to New York. It is a view over a water basin of the Bronx river which I painted while sitting on a huge fallen tree. A large branch of the tree formed an arc over the water, and there was a complex visual pattern of dark branches and their reflexions on the water.

On the spot I first made a watercolour sketch of the scene (A4) and then a pencil drawing of the tree in my brown square sketchbook (21 x 22 cm), and also took some pictures for later reference. I chose one of them for this exercise on coloured grounds.

I started with another watercolour sketch on white paper and then made a tonal study in grey pastels to help me sorting out colours, the lighter and darker tones and also the various textured areas.

Then I made two paintings on coloured ground. The first was on green, the second on light brown wash in the same A4 watercolour sketchbook. I employed some white gouache for the lightest areas and switched to a flat brush for the trees in the second painting.

While painting, I had some trouble with my choice of subject, because I found it too loaded with details and lacking an open view. I found it difficult to paint smaller elements or the narrow, lengthy shapes of reflecting areas on the water. These areas are not very recognizable in the paintings. I think the depiction of foliage, reflection, tree in the foreground become better over the paintings of the series. If I were to do it again, I think I’d choose a more open view and reduce the amount of details included in the painting.

Guided reflections

Which is the most successful landscape study and why?

I think the final one is the most successful, because this is where I achieved a more skillful depiction of the elements in the view, and also because the background colour (brown) blends into the painting without looking strange.

Is the atmoshpere different in any of the pictures? If so, say why you think this is.

Yes, I think the painting on the green paper has a bit of twilight appeal, while the final (on brown) looks bit sad. The most friendly atmosphere is probably in the paintings on white ground, because the colours look brightest.

What problems did the tinted papers present?

The tinted papers changed the colour hues and toned down the entire scene. One of the challenges was to brighten this up a bit and not produce a very dark painting, or an effect of all mudded colours. I think the painting on green paper looks quite artificial, probably because of the blueish green I used. The brown paper blended more naturally with the colours I added on top.

Were there ways in which the tinted papers helped you to find your landscape colours more easily?

Maybe I did not choose the best subject for this exercise, because my landscape was so dominated by green tones and there were not many other colours. I don’t think the tinted colours were particularly helpful for my colour choices.

How important to your paintings were the gouache and/or oil pastels?

I used less gouache than in the earlier two subjects (shoes and still life), and no oil pastels. I found my background colours relatively light so less need to brighten up larger areas with gouache. Maybe I could have included more light in the foliage of the trees on the opposite side of the water basin. It did not occur to me to use oil pastels here. Maybe they’d have worked for the non-reflective areas on the water surface.

Can you see how you might exploit some of these approaches in the future?

I did not feel very comfortable with the tinted grounds nor with the additional media. Difficulties with watercolour medium and the composition were too dominant. If I were to do it again, I’d prefer working on a larger scale and I’d choose a different composition with a more open view.

My aim for this course was to learn painting with watercolours and currently I don’t feel that my skills are very good. I feel I’d still have to do simple paintings to become better with the medium, before switching to experimental stuff. I enjoy experimenting but at this point I feel it’s a distraction from what I set out to learn. Maybe for me it would be better to take some time off and simply paint with watercolours, then come back to the experimental approaches. As this is not possible time-wise, I’ll see where this gets me. Currently my attempts with tinted papers and other media feel a bit half-hearted.

More Artists: Naiza Khan

Looking at this artist, I’m following up a suggestion by my tutor. I first looked at the recommended “Shifting Ground” series (from 2011) and liked it. I don’t include any pictures here because their download was blocked. Most paintings in this series consist of large watercolour blotches that are combined with very fine line drawings of buildings or other constructed elements. The buildings were small in size, compared to the watercolour blotches, and this creates a very interesting shift in perspective. I also like how this brings out the characteristic flowing effects of watercolours.

I find Naiza Khan’s work is interesting and unusual. In this series I like how watercolour as medium has been given room to speak for itself, the chance effects of pigments flowing in water onto the paper support. This is something I’d like to develop in my own work as well.

From skim reading, I understood that Naiza Khan’s biography of living in a politically unstable country has found its way into her artwork. On a second go, I went though the complete gallery of works and was quite impressed. The Ruskin Drawings (1987-90) from her time as an art student convey the imagery of being haunted – by nightmares or bad memories maybe. They are visually very appealing, with much energy and intense contrasts.

The series of works over her career are on varied topics, very sensual and in parts quite explicit. Not the kind of stuff I’d want to make but I appreciate that her themes follow ‘personal obsessions’, which is what I still have to discover for my own practice.

I also like the “emptyness” of some of the works. There’s open space and few marks that create larger entities. By contrast, my drawings and paintings tend to be “cluttered”, there’s too much squeezed into them. Another aspect I’d like to improve in my works.

Overall, quite an interesting excursion into the world of a modern artist. By personal preference, I’m more into traditional painting and would rather research classical artists. But looking at contemporary artists with non-traditional approaches is interesting nevertheless.

References

http://www.naizakhan.com/

Drawing on a coloured ground

I got back to my two onions and combined them with a spice mug and a pitcher, placed this on a black table and used a yellow towel for the background. Then I made a drawing in the sketchbook to test the composition and look at the tonal values. I wasn’t overly happy with the arrangement but thought it would work for the task.

The paintings did not turn out very well. I found the instructions confusing in that they did not make clear what the focus of the task was – colour temperature, tonal values, or combining drawing media with watercolours. Correspondingly, making the two paintings felt like muddling around without knowing on what to concentrate. I used Scarlet Red for the warm colour ground, and Indigo blue for the cold colour ground.

The main difficulty I had was that painting on these grounds felt like “fighting against” the background colour, rather than working with it. The scarlet red went totally Kitsch when I applied white gouache for the highligts. In the remaining time, I tried to “cool down” the overall effect of the intense red background. I added white to the background to prepare the yellow overlayer, which became a psychedelic orange tone in stark contrast to the blue-violet of the pitcher. By contrast, the Indigo in the second painting caused all colours I subsequently applied to look very weird and unhealthy, and I remember that I tried to “warm it all up”. The colours of the spice mug are quite good though.

I’m not satisfied with my watercolour technique in these two paintings. It felt like a step back into fiddling with detail and not applying enough water, so there’s no flow in the colours. I used coloured pencil in the first one to intensify the blue of the pitcher. In the actual painting the pitcher has a stronger violet tone, not the blue of the photo.

In the second one, I used yellow oil pastel to intensify the background colour.

Overall, I did not particularly like the effect of these coloured grounds. It may be due to the particular colours I chose, maybe they were too dominant. The background colours in the previous exercise worked much better for me.

There is indeed a difference in colour temperature of both paintings, the first has a much warmer overall effect than the second. But I wasn’t able to use this effect to bring elements to the fore or send them to the back. Maybe this has to do with the still life subject because the viewer knows that all elements are approximately at the same distance, so the distance effect of colour temperature does not work. I don’t think the cool versus the warm background convey a different sense of distance here. The distance effect might work better with landscape subjects.

I’m not sure what I’m going to make of this experiment. I don’t particularly like the outcome and feel that I have still so many basic things to learn with watercolour that coloured grounds are not something I would want to include in any painting for now. I do see some potential in creating interesting effects from layering and using opaque light colours over dark tones, like the yellow-orange background in the first painting. But maybe I’ll change my mind. It’s been very often that I did not like something right after completing it, but a few weeks later I was better able to see what might be interesting or valuable in it.

Brooklyn Museum Workshop, including exhibition visits: Swoon and Judy Chicago

This summer, I participated in a workshop at the Brooklyn Museum entitled ‘Abstraction from Nature’. The workshop encouraged us to engage with two current exhibitions, Swoon’s ‘Submerged Motherlands’ and Judy Chicago’s Early Works. We also went to the Brooklyn Botanical garden for a painting session.

The workshop extended over 8 weeks in July and August 2014 and we met Saturday afternoons for 2 hours. This was the first time I participated in an art making class since starting my studies with OCA. I very much enjoyed being part of a group, looking at other’s works and having a real person instructor who provided immediate feedback and help when we got stuck. Important was not only the individual feedback, but also listening to feedback others received and also the interactions among participants. I became aware what I was missing as a solitary student in distance education, which was not sufficiently compensated for through online interaction and written tutor feedback on assignments.

That said, I highly appreciate the possibility to study via distance education, but I more and more realize that I need to complement this with real-world interaction.

Starting out: Swoon’s ‘Submerged Motherlands’

In the first session, we went to the exhibition with the instruction to take some time for looking and then draw some elements with recognizable shapes from the installation. The task was not easy because of the sheer dimension of the installation. The photos can hardly convey how huge it was – the people on the lower left of the photo give an indication.

Students chose a wide variety of subjects. I opted for “easy shapes”, taking the instructions literally, whereas others ventured to draw sections of the huge tree or the upper lace-like parts of this monumental sculpture.

Later back in the studio we were supposed to work over the drawings using ink washes that should include different tonal values. We were told to cut these shapes out and later mount them on cardboard to include them in a three-dimensional group work, but this idea wasn’t actually followed up and so this session just served as a warm-up.

Painting from nature

In the next session, we went to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, which is just around the corner of the museum. Equipped with watercolours, we were advised to walk around a bit and then sketch out a landscape view we liked. As a second step, we should develop it further as a watercolour painting.

I painted a scene that included some stone benches and a view towards a pathway and some trees. I liked how the sunlight came through the trees and illuminated them. I also made a photograph of the scene, but the painting was made directly on location.

Developing the abstraction idea

The instructor’s ideas for our workshop became somewhat clearer to me when he outlined them again. He wanted us to develop something that extended from the original painting space into all directions, thus creating a three-dimensional work. His suggestion was to take shapes from our painting and repeat these as simplified forms, cut them out, mount them on cardboard and then compose a layered, three-dimensional image.

The next several sessions were devoted to working this out. Initially, it was all very vague to make sense of this abstract instruction, but then the idea took off in participants’ minds and we mutually inspired us to interesting creations.

I worked on shapes to complete the elements that had been cropped at the edges of the original painting: A large and a smaller tree, a fence, a bush, and three stone benches. The painting itself was mounted on a large black cardboard. Another cardboard was attached at the bottom in a 90° angl to provide support for a construction to attach the mounted shapes.

This was the arrangement I wanted to retain. The next step was to build the backside construction to keep the shapes at different distances from the background.

Judy Chicago – Early works

Towards the end of the workshop, we all went to the Judy Chicago exhibition, showing some of her early works. This was a very irritating experience for me, probably because I had never before studied an overtly “feminist” artist or works from the late sixties/early seventies feminist movement.

I had real difficulty relating to the works, finding them cold and polished. Somehow they were emotionally inaccessible to me. My attitude changed while I wandered through the second exhibition room and took a closer look at the “Female rejection drawing #3” (1974) with its handwritten notes below. The notes thematized Judy Chicago’s image of self and her experiences with others – her fears of rejection in close relationships and the difficulty of coming out as a lesbian woman in a feminist context. From then on her drawings and sculptures began to make sense to me as expressions of her personality. But a strange gut feeling remained and I was not able to like her works.

It is also difficutl to say in what ways might have an impact on subsequent work for the workshop or OCA courswork. I do remember that I was impressed by the psychological effect the exhibition visit had on me – it felt like stomach turned upside down and I needed some time to get back to normal.

Completing the installations

The remainder of the workshop sessions was devoted to finalizing our constructions. The shapes were attached using cardboard as distance holders and with several layers at different distances there was quite some fiddling with the cardboard and glue until the whole thing became sufficiently sturdy.

Zen Browne, our instructor, began attaching the finished works onto a wall for us to look at and the more that were added, the more we became impressed with what we as a group had accomplished. Starting out with a vague idea, the resulting installation was colourful and every work was different and particular.

In the final session, we could either make last touches on the work or make a painting inspired by it. I made a watercolour painting that took up the visual effect of the black cardboard background and the shapes that extended beyond it.

Overall, I think the workshop was an enormous enrichment. I loved how it was ‘un-academic’ in approach, just designed to have fun and enjoy ourselves while doing something creative. I felt that I loosened up in my application of watercolours and got more confident to try out new things and follow up ideas. It encouraged me to add real-life events and meeding people to my practice of art making. It is all a bit difficult when working full-time, but I think the benefits absolutely outweigh the additional investment in fees and time.

Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum

I was thrilled about the announcement that our works would be included in the museum’s Educational Department exhibition, starting in September 2014 and staying on display until around January 2015. I went to the exhibition opening and was approached by one of the staff members to explain the workshop’s idea to one of the visitors, a young girl. That was about the first time that I was questioned in person about some artwork I had done, an interesting experience!

Resources

Swoon exhibition pictures from http://www.clawclaw.com/2014/08/swooning-over-swoons-submerged-motherlands/ and http://www.life-creative-collective.co.uk/swoon/

Brooklyn museum, educational program: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/education/

Swoon Exhibition, Brooklyn Museum: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/swoon/

Judy Chicago exhibition: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/judy_chicago_los_angeles/

Tonal studies made on a coloured ground

Tonal sketches: Searching for a subject

In 23 x 30 cm mixed media sketchbook:
– my two work lamps (black fineliner)
– plants at the kitchen window (gray pastels)
– the blue shoes (coloured pastels)

The blue shoes on coloured grounds

I decided on the shoes because they seemed to work as a subject for this exercise.

23 x 30 mixed media sketchbook
– line drawing of the shoes (pencil)
– watercolour sketch on white ground to study tonal relationships

A4 watercolour sketchbook
– on purple ground, light source to the right
– on blue ground, light source to the left

Large study on A3 watercolour paper, on orange (burnt sienna) ground

Reflections on my learning

I had been quite skeptical about the idea of using watercolours on coloured grounds. I thought that watercolours need the white paper shining through which gives brightness to all colours. I thought that starting from a medium toned ground, paintings would become quite dark and dull.

But using opaque white paint helped to exploit the full tonal range. The coloured ground changes the colours quite unexpectedly and I found the overall effect quite dramatic. I got along well with the instructions of adding the very obvious dark areas before working on the in-between tones. Compared to the standard rule of working from light to dark, using dark tones early on was more intuitive for me.

The white was not opaque in the two sketchbook paintings, so their purple and blue backgrounds are quite visible. I applied the gouache more thickly in the larger painting, but still there’s an undertone which gives an interesting texture to the whitish background. The background tone holds the painting together, similar to the coloured washes we experimented with in earlier parts of the course.

I was a bit unsure how much to leave of the background colour as medium tone in the painting. I saw the options of adding only lighter and darker tones, versus locating it lighter or darker than the medium tone and adding other tones accordingly. The purple study appears almost monochrome, with the greens resulting in gray to black colours, and no other colour except white for lightening up some areas. The second study became more colourful overall, as I applied a warm brown tone over the blue ground. The blue still shines through in the wardrobe. The third study on burnt sienna ground is quite monochrome again, but in a much warmer tone overall. These effects are all quite unexpected and I guess it takes some practice to make the best use of them.

I’m still a bit skeptical about the technique of using opaque paint with watercolours, because painting like this feels closer to traditional painting with opaque media. It felt more natural, compared to the difficulties I have with using watercolours and working with transparency, but it also felt like avoiding the essence of watercolour painting.

So yes, it definitely expands my possible range of techniques, but I think I still need more skills in “traditional” application of watercolours. Strangely enough, I consider the shoes paintings among the best I’ve made for this course so far. Maybe that was because I was “allowed” to paint the dark elements relatively early, instead of having to work “from light to dark” which is very counter-intuitive for me. Maybe I should depart from that guideline for watercolours on white grounds as well.

As for the subject, yes I think the shoes were appropriate for the exercise, but I had some trouble keeping up interest. Finding a subject was hard. I would have preferred a still life arrangement with fruits or vegetables, but found that too difficult. I also considered an interior view but didn’t find one I liked for this exercise. The shoes worked well because I could arrange the light source in a consistent manner over several days where I worked on the exercise. The shapes were well defined and there were strong shadows. The problem was my feeling of “this is an irrelevant subject which I’m doing only to fulfil the task requirements”. It’s a recurring problem and I hope to gradually get better at finding more interesting subjects. So yes, it was technically appropriate, but personally not sufficiently engaging.

The onions

While working on the shoes, I considered these two red onions as an alternative subject for studies on coloured grounds. I made an initial watercolour sketch, then a drawing to study the details more closely, and another watercolour sketch.

Although there were interesting tonal fields in the arrangements, I found the onions too complicated for now. I liked the monochrome red-brown tones of the arrangement but thought something more colourful would work better.

On the one hand, I think the watercolour sketches are weak because they are not very accurate in the details, but on the other, I like how they are painted and there’s some charm in the looseness of application. The second one is slightly overworked in the shadows, but works better in the onions’ details.

I also like the pencil drawing and that I used smudging to create soft tones, which is a new technique for me.

It’s all very imperfect but I appreciate the tiny steps of progress I make in handling watercolours and also in drawing skills. Maybe I get back to the onions with a later exercise on coloured grounds.

Fallen tree and other sketches

I recently started a new sketchbook to take with me every day. It’s a small square format of 21 x 22 cm in brown rough paper. I chose this book because the brown paper helps me to tackle one of my weaknesses, which is making marks that are too faint, resulting in drawings that have only a very limited tonal range. The dark paper makes that problem even more visible and pushes me to make darker marks with more contrasts. I observed the effect in the sketchbook I use for printmaking, so I thought it would be a good idea to keep at it with the watercolour course as well.

Brown square 21 x 22 cm sketchbook
– At the bus stop (black biro): I started looking from the outside, with the bus front and the bus stop signpost, then continued inside the bus with the view out of the window and the man sitting opposite me. The contrasts are still too faint, but I like the combination of different views in a single drawing. I realised from the tonal grounds exercise that I can add lighter colours here as well to broaden the tonal range.
– Large tree, bushes and a rock in central park (black fineliner and coloured pencils): I used the opaque white pencil to lighten up the rock. The black fineliner did not work well for making larger areas of deep black tone. I still have difficulties drawing greenery.

Sketches made during an excursion to Crestwood, NY
– A4 watercolour sketchbook: A view on a water basin of the Bronx river, sitting on a fallen tree. The tree’s branches stretch out and divide the view.
– Square brown sketchbook: The fallen tree only, using Jet Black pencil. Some improvements in mark making, still needs more contrast.

I took several photos of the location and might get back to that subject later on.

A4 pencil sketch: View from the end of the Railroad Trail in Tarrytown, NY. I’m finding landscapes very difficult to draw. This is another subject I might take up again later and use the photos I made on location as additional sources.