Kurt Jackson at Messums

On the day I  went to London for the Peter Sacks exhibition, I also popped into Messum's ( where I saw the David Tress) for the current Kurt Jackson exhibition: Olive and Fig:Provence.  We had a fig tree in our previous garden  but it only ever produced a few underwhelming fruits, nothing like the luscious qualities  of these. 

 I preferred the depictions of the fruit to that of the trees themselves as they had a more abstract quality  and were so well observed. Of the  tree paintings I like the mystery of the one below ( and how he uses text to  describe what he sees and hears ) , it reminded me a bit of Samuel Palmer. 

The studies  of many figs  carried out in different media , reminded me of the '100 Mussels' exercise,  the pleasure in the combination  of observation, how to portray the subtle differences , the enjoyment of  using the paint, the repetition. 

I loved the monoprints of the fig leaves and how they'd been incorporated along with  drawings, paintings and various objects in a number of collages 

My favourite was the painting of figs and snail shells on a sheet of newspaper, the contrast between the black and white, the hard and soft surfaces. 

Painting Studio Time 1

I was unable to get a place on this terms 'Contemporary Painting Studio'  class  at City Lit and in any case I'm  already doing a collage class starting 22nd.  However Lucinda put together a 2 week class in a free room to fill in the time before CPS started  and I was very happy to have the bonus of an additional couple of painting days.  There's 10 of us plus Lucinda who is  working on her own paintings rather than teaching  but as ever,  seeing what other people are doing and asking/receiving advice is invaluable.

I thought about bringing in the large painting I was working on before Xmas but without the big screens to pin it  on  I decided to return to the  preliminary sketches I'd made of  Iron Wharf  in

Week 1. I also brought in  a couple of the prepared newspaper collage backgrounds  to work on 

Focusing in on a detail of the awning I  used transparent glazes to build up colour so the textures were still  visible . It's not finished yet , I need to make further changes to the composition and to details such as the ropes . 

Lucinda had brought in some cardboard so I put together a quick newspaper collage background, painted it with gesso and carried out a quick painting sketch. Not sure about the 'frottage' of paint over the corrugations   but  it's given me ideas about how I might use that effect to best advantage.  

As I've now used most of my newspaper collaged  backgrounds , with access to large quantities of PVA , I used up 2 copies of the days Metro in preparing some more. 

 On our walk on Boxing Day along Faversham Creek at low tide , I took some photos of the sun on the mud(! ) and the boats  and will make a start  in tomorrow's class about developing these into paintings. 

Contemporary Painting Studio week 10: making changes and review

I spent most of the final session of Contemporary Painting Studio making corrections and changes to the largest newspaper collage painting in light of analysing the 'Catenary'  paintings of Jasper John .

Remembering the lessons from 'Reading the Paint Surface' of turning source material photos  and painting upside down or on their side ,  I  worked initially on a smaller scale copy of the painting from last week

 Working on the painting itself , I used white acrylic to block out the curves that weren't working and  added more definition to the 2 dark outer curves

 I then re-instated the inner curve  and  attempted to capture the finer patterns and details from the collage using more glazes and controlled brush-marks. As with most paintings, as you develop 1 area, you have to  change and balance another  . The 2 outer curves are too solid now and  I still need to introduce a larger scale of mark ( a very large brush is required!) But I needed to stop work at lunchtime to let it dry as I had to take it home being the final session.

After lunch, I  worked into the painting I started in Week 5 , extending the shapes  and patterns from out of the collage into the areas around. 

 Lucinda  usually  highlights a few  contemporary artists each week, this time it was Diana Taylor ( who she'd  already mentioned to me in Week 8) and Karl Bielik ( examples below from his website)  

I thought the name and paintings looked familiar  and so using the search function on  my blog, I found his had been one of my favourite paintings at the RA summer exhibition last year. 

 We  stopped work about 3pm and cleared  up then set up a mini exhibition of our  best work  and then had a 'private view ' and review accompanied by  Prosecco and nibbles ( my little cheese scones were popular). It was really  interesting to   discuss what worked , what didn't and see the range and variety of styles, I've learnt so much from members of the group and their approaches to painting.

I'd included the initial collages , photos and painted sketches  so I could see how my work has developed. In essence what I've done is to take  1 initial collage and using copies of copies have gradually  simplified  and  enlarged it into something quite different yet the original source is still recognisable. 

I've come  a long way since my initial panic and indecision with having too many ideas  in weeks 1 and 2 . 

The breakthroughs came with the move to monochrome ( which I've stuck with but am starting to add a restricted palette of colours ) and in collage .

Then the introduction to using glazes of  transparent colour ( and the decision to stick with acrylics rather than move into oil painting as I'd intended)  

With my collages and sketches on display in the corridor and not immediately accessible, I worked with printed copies of the collages applied to canvases   and then made  copies of those paintings which I also worked into !

In week 6 , reunited with my collages , I painted them with glazes and started to prepare a very large newspaper collage to work with . 

This was the focus of the last few weeks, the challenge of scaling up marks and how the composition and relationship  of shapes changes. After a certain point you have to react to the painting itself although I found it useful to go back to earlier incarnations  to work out where I was going wrong.

 So what next?  I've booked a 10 week class on collage at City Lit starting in January having just scratched the surface on its potential, I want to know  more. I had too much going on to commit to a another term of Contemporary Painting Studio ( and it was filled very quickly by those who missed out ) but I've the bonus of a 2 week course 'Painting Studio Time'  set up before it starts. I think the time has come for a large painted quilt taking on board the lessons learnt from  scaling  up. 

Contemporary Painting Studio Week 7 - Scaling up continued

Using my time on the train journey to 'Contemporary Painting Studio' at City Lit  to prepare my ' to-do' list  is proving to be  productive ( although my stitching project is feeling neglected) . It's a bit challenging to cut out and glue pictures in an airline style seat although I do find that the seat next to me is left vacant as long as possible...  

My lists are always over ambitious but I achieved quite a lot of it in this session:  painting over large scale newspaper collage,  reviewing potential compositions  and exploring large scale marks on pre-painted surfaces 

The first job  was hanging the newspaper collage from last week back up on the screen easel - much better behaved now it has some substance to it than the initial roll of paper . Then it was a case of  loading my palette with a large amount of white acrylic paint and climbing up the step ladder  and painting with a large brush -  very satisfying.  I did one coat before coffee and another afterwards  so that after lunch it was dry enough to take off the screen  and I could concentrate on my other tasks! 

After morning coffee we had a quick  review ( 2 mins each) of everyone's work - we did  this in the second session  and it was really interesting to see how peoples ideas have developed  or changed in the intervening weeks.  We were asked to think about approaches used   by  other people  that  we found  interesting and we might use   in our own work.

As I hadn't started on  collage at  the previous review, I picked up on different ways this technique was used: working into photocopies  with paint to simplify shapes  and restrict colour palette;  combining photocopies in collages  with layers of tissue paper, working into them with paint and drawing (then enlarging and repeating the process).

I also was aware of the importance of format - in a couple of cases  we discussed how changing the shape and proportions  could alter the impact  and focal point of the painting  and the difficulties of scaling up from a sketch - do you keep the same format or change it?

Although I'd made the decision not to work in oil paint (  thanks to Amanda's session on glazing I  could achieve a lot of the same effects with acrylics) , there was much to learn from the many accomplished artists there who do use oils , in some cases what wasn't working and why. There were some very interesting layered backgrounds being  painted over and scratched into to reveal the underlying paint  and a discussion  on how to lighten  areas  with glazes without using white ( can lose translucency ). I remember that lesson from 'starting oil painting' class.     

After lunch I  looked again at my collages and sketches to review the compositions, to select what might prove interesting developed  into a larger piece of work. In week 5, I'd  started to paint into a photo of a collage applied to a painted canvas( above). It was over done   and I  wasn't happy with how some of it was working so had printed off a black and white and a colour copy to play with.

On the black and white copy  I started off by cropping to create a square format then using white  thinned acrylic  blocked out the areas I didn't like  and reinstated the inner dark curve, extended the outer one  with dark greys and introduced some breakwaters!

On the colour copy I made similar changes but instead of cropping , I first  extended the top part of the image with greyish blue paint to create the square format. 

Having rolled up my  large newspaper collage for next week, I then used the screen as in previous weeks for taping up sketches/ collages , including mark-making trials  and set up  an A1 sized newspaper  painted collage ( masked off for square format ) on an easel.  

My order of large brushes from Jackson's hadn't yet arrived ( it has now!)  but I made do with what was available and had an interesting time  applying an initial colour wash and then experimenting with different colour mixes and marks.

I found some of the underlying colour lifted off (note to self: less water more medium need )  and the textured surface provided by the underlying newspaper collage  reacted very differently to  primed paper( brushmarks were not retained in the same way and the paint was more opaque)

 I used up my paint applying  drippy colour washes to yet another newspaper collage( where I'd simply pasted a whole sheet down ) from 'Ways into abstract painting'. I'm seeing ghostly hilltop villages and am looking forward to working into it exploring the found shapes. 

But I shouldn't get too distracted from my principal task  for this weeks class which is getting started on my large scale painting!