Drawing Tuesday: New River Walk, Islington

 Last Tuesday's drawing session was at Janet K's in Islington. While most sketched some of the wonderful objects she has in her house,  with  yet another new sketchbook to start ( my ' small square chunky book' of watercolours and small treasures is full), I headed off to the 'New River Walk' in search of inspiration armed with my 'bijou' paintbox and size 12 travel  paintbrush.

 Some interesting architecture  and seriously distracted  by the adorable moorhen chicks (  black balls of fluff with enormous feet) , with less than an hour I  found a bench and drew whatever was in front of me. 

I started off with the negative shapes of the tree then ' branched out'  into  a watercolour  sketch .   There were several people  that  stopped to look  and  some members of a walking group  huddled round blocking my view! I'd like to say that's why it isn't a brilliant painting  but I'm out of practice. 

What is it about painting in a public space that invites comments  from passers by ? 

I've got  used to it over time  and don't mind  too much  but  it  can be intimidating if you're new to working  'plein air'  .  On this occasion  it was the usual : ' you're so clever'  ' my aunt /brother paints' , 'I couldn't do that' etc. They're usually complimentary and admire the fact that you're doing it all rather than critiquing  the art you're producing ( I was once unnerved by someone silently watching for 10 minutes or so then saying ' That's a neat little paintbox' )

 On holidays abroad  eg Tunisia Ian has found me surrounded by silent locals  or in Greece, cats. 

My favourite quotes from walkers on the Pennine way  whilst  painting in Malham :' Why don't you take photos , it would be  easier' to 'I'd like to take up painting , it must be so relaxing' . I meanwhile was trying to brace myself on a slope with my easel threatening to take off at any moment! 

I'd picked up this large piece of bark but although tempted to bring it back, I'm not sure what the train commuters would make of it  so settled for a continuous line drawing in pen with 'frottage'  using brass rubbing crayons.

And whilst in 'frottage'  mode, I made rubbings from the litter bin  with crayons on colour catchers and handmade papers and graphite on tracing paper

Janet supplied a wonderful lunch and  it was great to catch up with most of  the Tuesday sketching group  with  interesting, wide-ranging conversations. ' Homework' was to draw from a painting/print. Alas I haven't done it yet  but I will, I know from the 2 courses I did at the National Gallery  that  you learn so much  about composition from  using drawing to really look and analyse, even if the subject matter is not to your taste.  One of my examples was  published in this book  but my more recent experiences have been looking at colour too. Definately a very useful exercise.

Advanced Painting: More Mussels and Transcription

 Before my Advanced Painting class on Friday  I prepared a couple of  quilted pieces  with photos of the outside and inside of a mussel shell  printed onto black t-shirt transfer paper applied to a  fabric background (monoprinted or  printed photos of shibori/sand ripples. My intent was to extend the patterns from within the shells to their surroundings, embedding them.  More work is required  but I'm excited by the possibilities. Next step scaling up! There was a lot of interest from the others in  my class on using  textiles  to paint on.

 I also did some more work on the  canvas  from a couple of weeks ago, building up more layers , again more work required.

 The focus of the lesson  itself  after a pep talk on strategies for working was on 'transcription ' copying artwork and making it your own  , looking at the techniques used but also as  a springborad for your own ideas

  We looked first at Kehinde Wiley's interpretation of David's Napoleon  then discussed how to 'steal like an artist'   like Picasso did!

  A bit of fun looking at the  pastiches of Edward Hopper's ' Nighthawks' ( original at the top) . It's actually quite difficult to find a picture of the original if you google it, there are so many parodies!  But  you could  use a detail, the colour scheme , the composition  and  produce  something completely different.

Eileen Cooper  spent some time as artist-in residence at Dulwich Picture Gallery  and   you can see some of the influences of looking at the paintings there in her  work but it is uniquely hers

  The  optional exercise was to  copy Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne  looking carefully at composition  and tone. I didn't do it myself as I was absorbed by the  mussels  but there were some very varied and interesting results from those that did  from random colour choices ( but observing tones) to broad expressive bush strokes.  It reminded me how much I  learnt drawing from the masters at the National Gallery, so much I did it twice!  And   just rediscovered from the books in storage is this book which features some of my drawings.

Maggi Hambling Walls of Water and Society of Designer Craftsmen.

After a  couple of weeks stuck in the house with bronchitis  it was with great excitement that I headed up to town last Friday with Sue. I had an invitation from Alice Fox to the preview of the Society of Designer Craftsmen at the Mall Galleries ( she had a piece in the 25 x 25 x 25 project as did fellow Rydal Hall  retreater Julie Bunter) ).

As it didn't start until 6,  we fitted in the 2 linked exhibitions by Maggi Hambling 'Walls of Water'.I'd already seen the paintings at the National Gallery and was a bit underwhelmed so I was interested to see the monotypes  at the Malborough Fine Arts Gallery . As I'd suspected, far more interesting! The range of marks was  amazing - very aware of the fingerprints etc.  (read the interview about the  processes here) Also the compositions, especially those with a diagonal ,  were far more satisfying.   





Malborough Fine Arts was also the venue for the John Virtue paintings I saw last year. These  black and white seascapes on very different scales , draw you i to the picture , you can  feel the splash of those waves 



Slightly less  interesting to me were the monotypes done with silver ink - partly I think due to the black  paper they were printed on but mainly because the range of tones wasn't so marked and that horizontal line more obvious.

 It was interesting to compare similar compositions in monotype ( above  with an accidental touch of blue)  and  paint (below).   Besides the difference in size and colour, I think the processes used  also contribute. The print making is one-off  and  deductive, taking ink off the printing plate ( hence those dense velvety blacks) . When I did a printing course a few years ago at City Lit that was a revelation

Whereas the painting is additive  and  I know how easy it is to go too far.

 More food for thought at the Society of Designer Craftsmen show. For all the colour and diversity   my favourite  was a large quiet  piece by Beverly Ayling-Smith composed of a multitude of tiny mended pieces of cloth ( she had a similar piece in the Prism exhibition which also caught my attention.) A lot of her work is  based on ideas around shrouds and burial traditions. Interestingly she also has a background in science, trained as a microbiologist:  

"   I feel that the scientific way of working (making small changes in experimental processes and the documentation of these experiments) has spilled over into my artistic life"

Artworks as triggers of memory

 

A day off work  to finally get to see the Anselm Kiefer exhibition at the Royal Academy ( fitting in a few more exhibitions at National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery for good measure). Amazing, monumental and thought provoking. After starting with a display of books, the 'Attic' paintings are powerful  and I love how the wood grain effects are continued throughout his work - the woodblock prints used in the  'forest' of the last room (below) were fantastic. 

The materials he uses are diverse : straw, mud, sunflowers and seeds   and they have meaning for him. The way he uses lead is fascinating - I particularly liked the books 'under the linden '  and large pieces studded with diamonds were just magical in how they caught the light.

The pieces that I spent most time with were in room 5: ' sands from the urns' (below) based on the clay brick ziggurats of Mesopotamia. Hand -pressed mud was used for  clay tablets and bricks and he is quoted as perceiving " a secret connection between writing and building"  wondering whether bricks , like tablet, could hold memories of people , of events, of time.

I was reminded of our visit to Syria  almost exactly ten years ago,   visiting Ugarit , Dura Europas and Mari , in awe of being somewhere where the ancient past is tangible  and hugely saddened by  what's happening there now .  

 

 Ugarit

 Euphrates

Mari

 

Ziggurats of Pastries in Hama

 

After  treating myself to a delicious lunch at Savoir Faire, I headed off to  the National Gallery  to see the 2  very different seascape inspired displays.   I've long admired the dramatic  paintings of  Maggi Hambling  but I was rather disappointed with these 'Walls of Water' .  Lots of lively marks and use of paint but   for me  all pattern and lacking in content and composition.  Her  monotypes on this theme  like they might be more interesting

 

 

 

Whereas the paintings by Peder Balke  were far more inspiring especially the smaller sketches. I liked how often the waves were suggested quite simply  - it looked like he might have used a painting knife in a similar way as  demonstrated by Susan Gray on my Slapton painting courses.  

On my way home I popped into the National Portrait Gallery  next door to see the Grayson Perry exhibit ' Who are you' .

You could hardly get near his  'self portrait'  City of Days  for people staring intently and giggling. Complex, funny and profound,  like the Reith lectures and  'Tomb of the The Unknown Artist'.

The 'comfort blanket' a tapestry  in the shape of a bank note   was witty but the most powerful pieces were the ceramics  displayed among the Gallery's collections

I spent a lot of time in front of the  beautiful  yet disturbing 'Memory jar', representing memories torn into shards through Alzheimers.

 

 

 

 

Mended Door- Change of Scale

Quilt number 3 for International Threads challenge is   finally completed after several months marinating on the design wall. The theme was change of scale or large/small scale.  I returned to ideas I worked on a while ago on incorporating a photo of door within a large scale detail  as in these JQ's

The smaller scale area  is a photo of part of a patched, mended door with newer wood inserts among the old on Queen Charlottes Cottage in the grounds of Kew Gardens. The larger scale  shapes and colours are based on some of the sections of the photo, a mixture of African batik, hand dyed fabric and monoprints with acrylic paint from Jae Maries course.  I  used different weight threads ( 40 and 12) in these areas to further emphasise the change of scale.

I took this  quilt along to the Thames Valley Contemporary Textiles group meeting yesterday in Bracknell - which apart from our AGM featured an interesting  talk   by Jane O'Brien  on the history of Damask ( co-incidentally I've reading through the silk route section of the 'History of the World in 100 objects). She highlighted the damask on various Renaissance paintings, many in the National Gallery which reminded me of my drawing courses there - remembering how I struggled with the patterns on cloth  in the  Bellini painting of the Doge!  
In the afternoon, it was good to be reminded of design principles, particularly the golden section  and I couldn't resist assembling a small flock from the delightful knitted sheep the Kate Crossley had brought for sale.

 

Ian meanwhile  had been picking the last of the figs from our tree  but even he admitted this time they were seriously underwhelming in taste - we need that Mediterranean sun!