Large Scale Sketchbook: week 1

Yesterday was the first session of ' Large Scale Sketchbook'  with Tony Hull  at City Lit . I got a lot out of ' Reading the Paint Surface' I did with him a couple of years ago and the Contemporary Drawing Sketchbook course  with Amanda Knight  so it seemed the logical next step particularly as 'scaling up' is something I want to tackle. 

From experiences of others who'd done the course before I was expecting an A3 softback sketchbook  but the course should really be called  Very Large Scale Sketchbook  as we were given a  Seawhite A2 wire-o hardback! 

 We were all seated around a big table ( with extra tables added to extend it when we opened our sketchbooks)  which was a lovely way of starting. After  introductions , a still life was set up  in the centre of the table of some of the usual random selection of objects: bottles, tools, a teapot, a  large metal 'P' (above); a creepy looking doll.  Starting several pages into our sketchbooks we then  drew with charcoal  over a double page  A1 spread ( bit tricky with the wire in the middle). Lots of rubbings out which  gives a lot of lovely ghostly marks then  measuring, trying to make it a more accurate drawing.   

We then made up a very light ink wash and painted all the darkest areas with it, letting it dry during a teabreak  while we filled in the  admin forms. 

On our return we turned our sketchbooks upside down so more aware of shapes rather than objects  and started  cutting into the pages with a  Stanley knife

Initially the shapes cut out were glued  to the page beneath so that superficially the upper page still looked the same but then we became braver and stuck pieces on different places/pages. 

Every so often we  walked round the table to see what other people were doing - considering it was the same materials and objects being drawn , the approaches used were very different and  inspired by others  we started  cutting right through the pages, creating flaps  and holes. 

Finally we did a tour around the table again , opening and closing folds , revealing different combinations , before putting them away in a drawer until next week ( they're definately not very portable...)

So many possibilities  and ways of looking in just 3 hours! We have another session of exploration  next week  before the site visit to V&A Cast Courts in week 3. Unfortunately I'll be away for that  so will have to make a visit  under my own steam. My current sketchbooks ( A5 and A4) suddenly seem very small.

Book: Painting the Novel with Ashley Hanson

It's   6 weeks  since the excellent  course at Creek Creative  'Painting the Novel'  with  Ashley Hanson  but with  the upheaval involved with  preparing for decoration and refurbishment of our bedroom , I haven't had the  energy to give  the attention to  writing it deserves. Sleeping on a mattress on the floor for the last 3 weeks hasn't helped  but  nearly there, the bed arrives later today! 

The novel I  chose to work from was 'Remarkable Creatures'  by Tracy Chevalier, based on the discovery of fossils by Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpott in the cliffs of Lyme Regis. The title describes not only the fossilised animals they found but the women themselves, scientists way ahead of their time.   While rooted in fact , what made it special was it  was written in the first person  and described how Mary in particular felt about what she found  and her ways of looking.

' Pattern stands out when everything else is a jumble' I recognise from my botanical survey days, when you notice something is different.  

There are several quotes about lightning (  Mary was struck by lightning as a child)  and about eyes and teeth - those embedded in the rocks and 'having the eye' , finding differences and pattern.
"It was so obvious in the cliff with its forest of teeth and saucer eye"

"I opened my eyes and it feels like they haven't been shut since'"
'"That is why I am a hunter; to feel that bolt of lightning and that difference, every day"
"You can't be inside their eye, you have to look your own way. Two people can look over the same rocks and see different things" 

For my research, besides the drawings I did at the Natural History Museum of the actual specimens that Mary Anning collected, I found photos online  of the  cliffs  at Lyme Regis  and combined  images of the creatures and the rocks in Photoshop  changing the opacity of the layers  so that the fossils  were' hidden' in the cliff surfaces and used tracing paper overlays.

Thinking about how I might interpret the rocks in a painting I did a few collages as I had found this. such a useful process for simplification/ abstraction in ' Contemporary Painting Studio' 

We were asked to bring two same-size canvases to work on ( this giving the option to secure two canvases together in a book-format) . I prepared 2 pairs  (  canvas  sizes  60 x 45  and 40 x 30)  with newspaper  collage on one of each pair , painted with a neutral grey.  

On the morning of the first day Ashley gave a long but interesting introduction to the portrayal of the 'novel' in painting  starting with interpretations  of  the bible, Shakespeare (Chagall) ,  Don Quixote ( Daumier ) , fairy tales ( Paula Rego) and particularly Anselm Kiefer's work exploring German mythology and the holocaust  in the poems of Paul Celan . 

Ashley then showed us in some detail his  own series of works based on The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster. .His blogposts  showing photos of work as it evolves are fascinating (many of  these are based on grids and maps of Manhattan)and it was great to see the final pieces in the flesh and appreciate the textures and layers 

There were 12 of us in the class, some local, some had travelled some distance  and we were based in the 'Performance Space' at Creek Creative -  well lit but cold despite heaters being full on, I dashed home at lunchtime to  put on some thermals!  Suitably warmed up I was ready to make a start! 

Using a palette knife and acrylic paint mixed with gloss gel for transparency I enjoyed painting the 'teeth' and used  a credit card for the rock structures. I obliterated the 'saucer eye' early on as it was in the wrong place

I then turned to the second canvas to work with another idea from my research - a plesiosaur paddle combined with the colours of a geological map of Lyme Regis. 

I'd got this far when it was my turn to have Ashley look at my work. He was very insightful, picking up on the ideas I wanted to represent and the quality  and variety of my mark making. Having 2 canvases  gives options for a variety of combinations  - we tried them all and the one below  was the  one with  most potential but after much discussion we both agreed that the 'plesiosaur' canvas wasn't working. 

There was just time to start obliterating !  This was the  state of progress at the end of day 1 . Working on 2 canvases at once reminded me of ' Reading a Paint surface' class  where you start responding to the paintings themselves. 

Day 2 :  I spent most of the morning working on the 'teeth' canvas, turning it  round and looking at it from different angles, painting slowly  to add the textures and layer of rock but leaving my initial marks intact. 

The second canvas  still wasn't working  and discussions  with Ashley focused on some examples from his introduction based on calligraphic paintings from China and Japan : sections from poems that were related but  carried out in a different style /scale   and the work of Liu Dan focusing on the details in rocks.  He suggested I work using a different style of brush marks as a contrast to the use of palette knife/ credit card 

 Returning to my drawings  and photos from the NHM  and thinking about the section of the book where Mary is buried in  a landslip ,  I painted over the canvas with a dark blue grey ( representing the blue lias rocks)  and  painted the 'croc' in white and yellow ochre glazes.

"The landslip had caused a churning up of rocks caught in an ooze of blue-grey clay. My eyes flicked over the stones and came to rest on a familiar shape ; a ring of overlapping bony scales the size of my fist. A croc's eye , it was like it was staring straight at me" 

The finished  pair of paintings 

While my larger paintings were drying or I was deciding  what to  do next, I worked on the smaller pair of canvases. I'd  sketched out  some ideas based on a   photo of Lyme Regis which combined close up of rocks with a more distant  view, offering the opportunity to work on each canvas in a different way : palette knife on RH, looser brushmarks on LH . I carried over some of the marks from one  canvas to the other so that they worked together and physically joined the 2 canvases together with metal plates. It creates a different feel to just working on one canvas. 

We finished clearing up mid afternoon on the second day to  have an extended  critique session. Each painting was placed on a white wall in turn  for review and comment  , the artist explaining briefly the book they'd chosen and  what themes they'd explored. During the 2 days it was fascinating to see how radically some paintings had changed (particularly 'Riddle of the Sands ' by Penny Watts which was huge , every time I looked it was different). Hazel's book was Moby Dick  and  we'd met up a few  weeks before to discuss our ideas. It was interesting to see how her work developed ( and how she used the side of the canvas as well as the surface) .  

While I'm still not sure whether either set of canvases  work as finished paintings, I enjoyed using a restrictive palette and exploring different strategies and mark-making with constructive guidance from Ashley.  My favourite sections  were  those painted first and last over the 2 days , I like the immediacy and distinctive marks of the brush ( above) and palette knife ( below). 'Freedom in Painting' indeed!  I've already booked for 'Black and White' in September. 

Contemporary Painting Studio weeks 1 & 2

I'm getting back into my stride now on the second week of 'Contemporary Painting Studio' at City Lit with Lucinda Oestreicher, picking up where I left off on 'Ways into Abstract Painting' .  

The piece above  used one of the newspaper collaged backgrounds I'd prepared,  with brushstrokes  inspired by Pierre Soulages. Still a bit heavy handed  but I've some further backgrounds to play with  

The first week  was a bit difficult -  being the 'new girl' in an established group; new equipment (option of   a large screen  in addition to an easel); the ' where do I start' dilemma after a gap of several months. My main problem ( as usual!) was having too many ideas  and trying to do everything at once .

I'd initially decided when booking the class all those months ago ( it fills up very quickly) that I would use the opportunity to leave work there to develop my oil painting techniques   and that my subject matter would be boats, continuing  from 'Reading a Paint Surface' . 

So I started off with  developing compositions   based on  sketches and photos from Iron Wharf  ( we had another walk around there a couple of Sunday's ago , I must post some more photos, there's a new old boat!) 

But of course I'd also taken some of  my artwork based on breakwaters and  did some colour sketches of those too.  While I was waiting  my turn for some advice from Lucinda, I prepared some more scumbled backgrounds ( one of the many useful techniques from Advanced Painting course).

The  suggestions from Lucinda were to try out   many compositions in black and white only, working tonally initially and to take just one subject at a  time and explore it thoroughly.   Of course I knew that  but in my haste to get into colour  I'd forgotten the basics! There wasn't time to do many in the class but I bore it in mind for the next session  and was much better prepared. 

 Week 2 started with a look at everyone's work so far, to see different peoples  approaches to using reference materials , testing out ideas, getting started.  Some were using  collage , others painting on photocopies or cropping images , there was working directly from sketchbooks, blowing up images on the OHP projector, layering images and a couple starting painting directly and responding to what was happening on the surface, doing one piece and then working from that in a series of samples  not referring to the original source. Most were working from photos or sketches but a few were working  with more abstract concepts including family memories  and recent events in the news. 

I'd brought in  a  folder with the work I'd done in Photoshop  for ' Birchington Breakwaters' ( which I suppose was tonal being red and white rather than black and white)  along with  sketches  and photos of  my journal quilts and previous paintings. Lucinda referred to it as the 'archive' approach. In a later discussion  she said she could see how both my scientific  and textile backgrounds  came into play with my methodical  sampling of techniques.  

There were demonstrations of image transfer  using acrylic gloss gel  ( which I realised afterwards was the basis of paper lamination )  and of using the OHP to play with scale and orientation of images. I used this to combine  photos and drawings on acetate  projected onto a larger piece of paper.  Interesting use of obsolete equipment, years ago I used my slide projector  to project a slide of Moroccan sand dunes onto  my quilt top for ' Erg Chebbi',  I'm just as happy using tracing paper as it simplifies the image. 

With my reference material taped to my  wheeled screen I worked on  a scumbled background with  just black and white acrylic paint

At the end of the session, rather than throw the paint away, I used it up scraping  it on my paper 'dropsheet' with a credit card. Love the marks which suggest rocks and sea foam

I'm feeling more settled now  in continuing to explore the theme of breakwaters and the interaction between my painting and textile practice. On Friday  I'm heading  off  again to Studio 11 in Eastbourne for a mentoring session with Christine Chester.(I'm planning to do some monoprinting with my bench time )  Filling in the questionnaire   has already helped a lot in making decisions about what to concentrate on , in this case breakwaters and acrylics rather than boats and oil paints as is feeds in more directly into my textile work .