Window with Ashley Hanson at Creek Creative

 In September  I took part  in my 3rd ' freedom in painting "workshop with  artist Ashley  Hanson at Creek Creative  ( previous ones were on Painting the novel  and black  and white )  this time  on the theme  of the window in painting.  Looking in, looking out,  frame within a frame :  we were asked to respond to the idea of a window, from  framing of views  to the abstraction of the painted frame

 He started out with an overview of how different artists  had tackled this theme, from Giotto to Howard Hodgkin. Of particular interest were pairings from the  Matisse/Diebenkorn exhibition ( how I wish I'd seen that ! )

 We were asked to bring drawing/photos  of our favourite  window(s)  and the view beyond as a spring board  for our paintings  and ( as in previous workshops) 2 identical canvases.  I  brought views from train windows which I'd been developing as apart of my EDAM ' Meanwhile ' project   (   not a new obsession, it dates back at least  15 years ) .  Also for inspiration I bought copies of works by Paul Feiler - I like what happens at the edges  of his paintings

 The first exercise  was to draw a fame on the canvas , make further frames within it to the same  scale/format and then to draw over  with our  chosen subject matter 

 This went though various transformations  following discussions  with Ashley to  finish ( ( for now)  at the stage below. I've learnt  now through his classes not to panic when things look awful at the end of the first day,  that things often get resolved  with last few brush strokes and  that all the mistakes add to texture and variety of marks beneath the surface.

 The second exercise was to  paint  a ' window'  offset   rather than the central position of the first. 

  I mainly worked on this on the second day, not fully resolved yet , I like the curves and the 'South Eastern  Violet'  but the views  from the window need further work ( it was was getting  very thick with paint and was still wet at the end of the day ) 

 Having brought 4 A3 canvases  with me , I decided I'd like to try the same exercises but in landscape rather then portrait orientation ( with the hindsight of knowing what we should be doing ! ) based on  a photo of the reflection inside the railway carriage . 

 This was my off-centre window,  it needed very few  gestural  marks  to give the impression I wanted

 While  the more centrally place window  with frames  required a  lot of obliteration  and changes to  recover from it's awfulness

In the  end though, this was my favourite of the  paintings produced and  it's Ian's favourite too.   The part of the journey  in 'tunnel land' is  one familiar to us both,  suddenly aware of people around  you in the reflections in the window.   

BM Drawing from the Collections: Volume and Mass

 

3rd session 'Drawing from the Collections' at the  British Museum was focused on  volume and mass using the pots in the African Gallery ( and the addition of burnt sienna pastel to charcoal and white chalk of last week).  I just love these pots and have drawn them before 





 I remembered this time to take photos as I  went along both to record the process but also to spot where things start to go wrong .

  After practising mark-making and 'swooshes' with the side of the burnt sienna pastel and  a wrm up with a quick drawing in charcoal, we sketched the outline of the structure in charcoal

 Next step was filling in mass with the pastel   then adding  darkest areas in charcoal.

There was a lot of small adjustments between these 2 stages, gradually adding tone, marks and textures. I thought I was ready for the white chalk  but wasn't allowed it until I'd properly defined the dark areas. Good advice,  along with showing where I hadn't quite described the shape, how to hint at texture without putting every last mark in, areas where I needed to work into more to balance more finished areas  ( bottom right still need attention)  

 Overall, I was really pleased with what I achieved  - unfortunately I won't be going next weekend as  bus replacement  service for rail  would double the journey. But as I'm heading up to Rydal tomorrow, I won't be short  of inspiration ( my packing mainly consists of art materials and thermals!)

 

On the way home, the reflected evening light over the marshes between Stratford and Ebbsfleet  was  lovely despite  being a bit out of practice taking photos at speed from the train.