Colouring-In

Prompted  by an excellent post by Sheila on adult colouring books and a discovery among my books while unpacking , I'm sharing what you could say is my first attempt at an 'altered book'.

 The discovery  was this copy of  'Memoirs of a London Doll' still with my mum's notes attached from when she gave talks on toymaking ( she did City and Guilds in this as well as embroidery, I still have some of her innovative examples) . Although published in 1840, this was  an ex library copy published in 1926 and withdrawn from use at Darwen library in 1943 ( which is probably when my mum acquired it )

 As a child , besides playing at shops, I used to have a pretend library  of my own books where I'd write in the date at the front when it was due back just like the one which I was introduced to as soon as I could read ( so sad to see it's under threat of closure)

 But probably before I could write, I'd coloured in some of the plates with  wax crayons, and it's interesting to see the progression in skill. I'm guessing that I'd got bored  and finished the colouring books I'd been provided with and wanted something more challenging! The quality of the paper was much better too.  'Magic' colouring books that you wet to reveal the colours were always deeply disappointing.

This first one I was obviously trying out all the different colours in the crayon pack with mixed success - I've never been very good at( or motivated) to stay within the lines. Note the  early attempts at  colour mixing at the side!
The second plate  I attempted (at the top of this post ) is much neater with a more restricted palette ( and a squiggle of green felt tip - rejected for further use)
By the 3rd plate (below) I'd gone for a lighter touch with the crayons, 

 At that point I'd had enough of colouring in others works and did my own artwork at the back of the book - a patterned tent?  with a nice bit of frottage rubbing crayon over the tapes of the binding!

I don't remember being told off for colouring in this book  ( I probably thought it needed improving as my other books had colour pictures in !) but I remember  art materials and paper  always  being available.
The main reason I'm not interested in adult colouring books ( besides liking to draw my own designs) is that I don't like being constrained by the lines. At school in art classes I used to feel I wasn't painting 'properly' as my style even then was very scribbly and loose, enjoying colour mixing and making marks when everyone else was patiently and neatly going up to the lines with the colours provided.  Luckily good teachers encouraged me  and I didn't  succumb to peer pressure.

Starting Oil Painting - The Importance of 'Palette Control'

Earlier in the year when I was  'Reading a Paint Surface' at City Lit, apart from the challenging exercises of  making art in a variety of different and unusual ways, I  reported on the struggles of using oil paints for the first time since 'A' level art at school!  

So ahead of a 10 week advanced painting  course, I booked a 2 day course on Starting Oil Painting  and had the first session on Saturday.

We started out with preparing surfaces  by sanding and applying layers of primer to pieces of hardboard  and  doing sketches  in charcoal and then oil paint on paper of a simple still life of apples and kiwi fruit.

Pinned on the wall, the different viewpoints and approaches  by the group of the same subject was interesting. The main focus though was on the actual techniques , with emphasis on 'palette control'  

 I'm used to working with acrylics and  the difference between fast drying acrylics  and slow drying oils dictates a  completely new approach which took some getting used to. Only a small amount of paint was squeezed out on the palette at a time and using different palette knives for each colour, small amounts were transferred to other parts of the palette, the 'control' element keeping dedicated areas for red or blue. 
Rather than using water or mediums to thin  paints, only tiny amounts of the low odour thinner were used. Most importantly, this was not used to clean brushes etc , instead we  kept hold of the brushes and palette knives  used for different colours , only cleaning them at the end of the day.  While I managed to keep  my palette in reasonable order, the same could not be said for my brushes resulting in  some strange colour combinations! I will do better next week 

'Sketching' with oils on non-primed paper was surprisingly satisfying, almost like doing watercolours, with the advantage that you're using the identical  colours for the actual  painting. We started with just white, Indian Red and Ultramarine, using the red to sketch out the mains elements and then introducing darks with a grey mixed from the red and blue moderated with white , producing essentially a tonal study. Only then was yellow ochre added to the palette for highlights.  

After  repeating this study on the board itself (below) in preparation for next week , we then did another quick oil sketch on paper using complimentary colours ( above) of 'Red' ( Indian Red with a touch of yellow ochre) and 'green' ( ultramarine with lemon yellow)

I really like this use of a restricted range of colours, it means you concentrate on contrast in shape and tone and less likely to get 'mud'.

 The downside is that it takes quite a while to clean up ( not helped by  the small  studio not being one of the usual painting ones so higher standards required!)
I  could have done without Holborn station being closed : an  additional half hour walk to St Pancras  trying to control  a carrier bag containing a wet painting is  not what you want at the end of a tiring day. I revived later when Ian met me from the train and treated me to delicious Tapas at Jittermugs .

Next week we will be building on our underpaintings , I'm already regretting my initial painting being so strong as it limits the changes I can make. But that's all part of the learning process, knowing how you would do it differently next time!

Rusty Journal Quilts -real and faux

Rust Shoreline 

Rust Shoreline detail

Rust Ripples 

Rust Ripples detail 

Greenhouse Door Rust
 Rusted silk habotai  couched on digital print of peeling paint of Alston Hall greenhouse door


African Scrap Door 
( no rusted fabrics: Ndobe indigo, African Kola and Indigo, Potassium permanganate, commercial )


The question of what you do with the bits you produce on workshops: use them in Journal Quilts.
 I enjoyed  trying out   rusting on fabrics and papers  using teas with Alice Fox  and produced some lovely marks on  small pieces ( thanks Olga for  highlighting  my  efforts on the Ragged Cloth Café blog) . I made up a small book and  applied the stitched pieces  to pre-machine quilted backgrounds. I love the resulting textures of these  but I don't think I will be pursuing this technique further as  after the initial excitement , I'm struggling  to work out how I incorporate them in my main series.

It's partly a scale issue: I prefer   yardage  such as my indigo shibori to small  pieces, however exquisite, and I'm a quilter not an embroiderer. It's a process issue:Alice does not wash or iron the  the resulting fabrics liking the folds and creases and applies these to felt or other fabrics. That   fits her aims and ethos but not mine.  It's a fabric issue: the  nicest marks were on thin silk habotai  which I can't easily mix  with the cottons I usually use.  Mainly though it's a colour issue: as a painter the marks, colours and especially tones  achieved are just too subtle and unpredictable .

I overheard  several times people stating authoratively that my 'Fleet Mudflats' quilt contained rust marked fabrics. It doesn't - it's a mixture of commercial printed fabrics and African kola and indigo with some digital prints of sand ripples. My African Scrap Door JQ above also contains no rusted fabrics.  

Fleet Mudflats

 

When you learn a technique or process, however much you admire the work and ethos of the tutor, you have to decide whether it fits with your own work. On this occasion I have  no immediate use for it - I'm  happier with faux rust effects.  But having learnt it , it's in my arsenal  for  the future  if appropriate.  

Turner Contemporary at Margate

Wednesday 13th was our 9th wedding anniversary  and we took the day off to travel down to Margate by 'Javelin' train to visit Turner Contemporary for the Mondrian exhibition.  A picture of 'Dune Landscape' has been in my sea inspiration  folder  for many years so it was wonderful to see it  in the flesh, it's much larger than I imagined. Also to see  how the grid  paintings he's known for developed. The Spencer Finch exhibition was also interesting.

There was colour everywhere - I couldn't resist this fading, peeling, beach hut! I also took lots of photos of the art installation by Krijn de Koning  , with and without Ian and his pink shirt which looked different against different colour backgrounds

The building itself worked well with  colours of the sky and sea ( as did the site specific installation by Edmund de Waal)

Apart from viewing the exhibitions , we had a lovely lunch at the café  there  followed  by a walk along the harbour and a few sketches in watercolour ( the   clouds were spectacular but luckily the rain  held off ), returning to the café again for coffee and cake.

We returned to the  station at the same time as lots of families who'd spent the day on the beach ( lots of sandcastles and stripy windbreaks in evidence!) A lovely day with a space out of time quality, back to work on Thursday.

Masterclass in Composition and Thoughts on Colour

Among the preparations I made for Elizabeth Barton's Masterclass was ( as instructed) , files containing images that inspired me, copies of 'good' paintings by artists of the same subject. I had a folder of waves, another of vases, a portfolio of images at speed from a train. I settled for using the one on doors as being more graphic they seemed easier subjects for the exercises. Given the plethora of pictures I had, it was surprisingly easy to choose an image from the village at the top of the Anovreti Gorge in the Peloponnese. It hadn't changed much from when I did a watercolour of it 8 years previously apart from peeling a little more and that particular Greek blue has stuck in my mind for decades Laying tracing paper over the photos, drawing then photocopying and cropping resulted in this image which got the thumbs up during the critique process from my peers. The combination of diagonals and wonky lines is particularly appealing.

On day 2 we discussed the importance of tonal studies, not something I've done much of but potentially very useful. I only had time for one stab at it so not quite balanced but definately worth pursuing. It also came in handy for my painting course!

Interesting thoughts from Elizabeth on colour - on using ones that sum up the emotions associated with the subject rather than being representational. Something I definately need to work on in helping me move towards abstraction. Co-incidentally, a post on this topic today from Robert Genn in his Painters Keys. Also an apt quote from 'Bright Earth ' by Philip Ball which I'm currently rereading

"The seventeenth -century French writer Roger de Piles clearly felt that painters re-created the landscape to suit their own vision- to such an extent that this 'imagined reality' impinged upon the artists very perception of nature:'Their eyes see the objects of nature coloured as they are used to painting them.' "

That's me! Seeing purple in everything!

I digress - talking about colour always does that for me. I argued for using 'Greek Blue' for this piece because it is so much about the colour itself but it would be interesting to try a different palette of colours eg reds- that's where Photoshop comes in handy.

A useful part of Elizabeth's class was the the one-to -one attention and opportunity to get another opinion. As part of the selection of artists intepretation of doors I'd brought along this newspaper clipping about Prunella Clough. Following on from our'homework' looking at artists and quilters we admired, I was more able to articulate why I like this piece - the bright fine detail inserted on top of a looser , larger scale painting, the interest this generates.

This made me think of how I could combine texture of peeling doors with image of the whole area without having the same level of detail all over. With Elizabeth's input looking at my photos, we combined a photo of the door area with a photo of frayed sample done for QuiltWOW workshop on distressed doors. Definate possibilities!

Easter Sunday - The Pink Time

We visited Kew Gardens with Ians parents today. It was heaving with visitors, mainly with small fry following clues on the Easter Egg Trail (hope there's some eggs left over on Tuesday, I love Green and Blacks! ) The daffodils over, the new highlight was all the Magnolias, a range of pinks in different shapes and tones.




Rather liked the more intense colours in this bedding scheme - who said red and pink Don't Go? !

Another colour wheel

Another colour wheel, this time in Golden Fluid Acrylics. I haven't used them much but I can see why they're popular - they're so pigmented, a drop goes a long long way!

Having finished my 'breakthrough' piece at the beginning of Novemember , I signed up for 'Art Every Day Month'. I know from my Journal quilts that quantity can indeed lead to quality, even if some of the the efforts along the way are trivial or abysmal so I've been content to attempt something , even if its' just 20 minutes doing a colour wheel. It all adds up - at the weekend I'll post what I've done so far.

Colour Wheels and Paintboxes

Appropriately enough for bonfire night, this weeks drawing lesson was on colour theory. I've made my own colour wheels before but not for a long time and not with acrylics so it was a fruitful exercise and absorbing after the initial struggle with a recalcitrant school compass. I've never been good at filling in paint neatly between lines so it was good for me! It got me thinking about the various colours that would result from a range of media and combination of different primaries so today I've been experimenting with watercolours(below) I will have a go with my Golden fluid acrylics which I imagine might work out somewhere between these 2 examples.


It's a while since I've done much pure watercolour as opposed to mixed media so when I fished out my Holbein metal palette(used with tube water colour) , 2 of the blobs of paint had gone mouldy!! Time to scrape it out and replace with different colours! When I painted more seriously in this medium, I got fed up of plastic palettes and invested what seemed a huge amount in this Japanese enamel metal folding one but I've always gained great pleasure in using it - it's lovely to mix colours on and feels balanced in the hand
My main watercolour box used on my travels is this Winsor and Newton 'bijou' (it's only 8 x 6cm large!) It takes 1/2 pans and I tend to have 9 standards and then ring the changes with the others - my current new trials are with light red , oxide of chromium and cobalt green .
This folding'Rembrandt' metal box holds the rejects from the bijou- either colours that have almost run out or that have been ejected for various reasoms eg failed attempts to find a substitute for my beloved brown madder alizarin which is discontinued. This box lives on my studio table so ironically probably gets used more than the 'proper' ones more recently.
There might be some swapping of pans before I go to Tunisia. My main concern is trying to find the right format of watercolour sketchbook - the A5 bound ones I prefer are no longer made, might have to attempt making my own. Why is that despite the plethora of art supply companies (currently drooling over the recently arrived Jacksons catalogue), you can never find quite what you want?!