Contemporary Painting Studio Week 4

Last week in Contemporary Painting Studio, Amanda Knight  was the tutor in the morning and gave us a fascinating and informative whistlestop tour through  acrylic and oil mediums , particularly for glazing.   Most of the group paint in oils  so that is what she concentrated on  but she gave an interesting  demonstration of the luminosity of using glazes of transparent colour in acrylics  rather than mixing colours ( a bit like watercolour but more so! ) . She  mentioned the work of Mali Morris ( examples above)  who currently has an exhibition at the Fold Gallery -  definately one I hope to see before it closes, her work looks so joyful.  

 There  wasn't much time  left to do much before lunch - I'd made some B&W copies of my collages  and stuck them on a piece of paper and started to work into them with white, already looking interesting  as they are more integrated with the background.  In the afternoon we were choosing preliminary work and sketches  to  go in the display cases on the 3rd floor   so this with some of the original collages  is what went in.

I've got into using up leftover paint on  a sheet of paper, working with a credit card, I've now got quite a stash of  painted papers for backgrounds or to tear up for collage. This time I did an monoprint as well ( above) . I'd  spent my benchtime while at Studio 11 in Eastbourne doing monoprints on fabric ( 65 of them!) so I was still in the ' what if' zone. 

These are a taster of what I produced there  using acrylics and an acetate sheet ( above) and a Gelli plate (below) . I spent my coffee break photocopying some of the  better ones for  use in collage and after talking to Michelle Dow yesterday am going to do some more , varying the scale. 

 In preparation for tomorrow's class  I've been playing with images of some of  the sketches, paintings and collages in Photoshop

This is the top of the painting I did in week 2 ( above)    and with 'invert' filter below. I like how the newspaper text beneath the paint shows through

 Last Friday I  did some printing on fabric  and t-shirt transfer   sheets and today I bondawebbed the fabric ones onto pieces of old linen tablecloth ( I'll stitch into these for Journal Quilts) and conscious that  I've yet to do much painting (!), ironed  photo transfers onto primed  and painted canvas
(I had good success with this technique on Advanced Painting course last year)

 While waiting for the BT telephone engineer ( we've had no incoming calls since Saturday although outgoing and broadband were fine ) , I started to look through some of my art books for examples of collaged work .
The acrylic collage pieces by Anthony Whishaw struck a chord  - his work has often been my favourites at the RA Summer Exhibition ( which is why I requested his monograph as a Xmas present )

And coming full circle in this post, his  painting ' Espot' of transparent acrylic glazes !

UPDATE on 'The Big Draw  Selfie' , the animation has now been posted on the City Lit Blog . My drawing is  the glasses towards the end !

Drawing Tuesday: Ancient Cyprus gallery at British Museum

Sketching Tuesday at the British Museum  was in Room 72 ( Ancient Cyprus) . I  started by drawing the curvy terracotta votive figures ( 'Goddesses or Mortals?')  but then was fascinated by the backs of the statues   seen through the cabinet. At the end of the session I went to have a closer look .  I loved the chisel marks of the rough backs contrasted with the smooth, more finely worked fronts and the negative space between.  You could also see the reflections of their faces in the glass, very eerie but I know my limitations!  I did try to put into practice  what I'd learnt about drawing sculptures from the excellent British museum drawing course I went on last year( examples conveniently  at the front of my sketchbook!)

The Sleep Quilt: Fine Cell Work and Tracy Chevalier

 The Sleep Quilt , published by Pallas Athene  books  on 31 October 2017  is a collaboration between author Tracy Chevalier and charity 'Fine Cell Work' .    All royalties from the book will go to Fine Cell Work.    Until 16 November 2017, it is being crowdfunded through Kickstarter,  with additional benefits available 

One of my favourite quilts at the Festival of Quilts this year was 'Two Man Cell'  by HMP Bullingdon Boys. An amazing structure, all hand stitched with attention to detail and interesting perspective, it was  incredibly moving being a collaboration between Fine Cell Work tutors  and prisoners,  making an accurate , life size depiction of a 2 man cell in a modern British prison.

Fine Cell Work enables prisoners to build fulfilling and crime-free lives by training them to do high quality , skilled , creative needlework  undertaken in the long hours spent in their cells to foster hope, discipline and self esteem. The aim is to allow them to finish their sentences with work skills, money earned and saved, and the self-belief to not re-offend.

Currently working in 32 British prisons, and engaging with over 500 prisoners each year, Fine Cell Work addresses key issues affecting prisoners’ offending behaviours: establishment and reinforcement of work skills, building relationships, and mental resilience.
Prisoners are taught by experienced volunteers and staff to work in their cells and in prison workshops. Having the opportunity to work independently helps them to regain control of their lives and allows them to maintain dignity. It also helps them establish a work ethic, and allows them to send money to their families or save for their release.


In 2010 inmates at HMP Wandsworth  made a  moving quilt about life inside for 'Quilts 1700- 2010 Hidden Histories, Untold Stories"  at the  V&A acquired for their collections with support  from Friends of V&A 

The  Sleep Quilt was commissioned by Tracy Chevalier  for exhibition 'Things we do in bed'   at Danson House  in 2014. 
It consists of 63 panels, each one designed and made by a prisoner and expressing feelings and emotions about sleep – a difficult issue in prison. The panels were then sewn together and hand quilted, also by prisoners. It was not only a rare chance for inmates to express something of their lives, but also a chance for them to work collectively.

In the book each panel is featured full-page, and there are also many close-ups of the wonderful stitching  and details. Some of the prisoners have added written explanations of their designs.
The introduction is by Tracy Chevalier  and explains how the quilt came about and the feelings it arouses. Katy Emck, the director of Fine Cell Work contributes an essay on the charity and what it does, and there are quotations from prisoners explaining what Fine Cell Work has meant to them and how their lives have been turned around by learning the skills of stitching and quilting.  

I've been carrying around  an advance copy for several weeks now  (it's a nice size  to fit in the sewing bag I take on the train)  and have found reading it a very moving experience. Sleep  is   a universal need  but it  was a real eye-opener realising   how difficult it was for  most of them, the contrast between those who could escape through dreams  and those  couldn't sleep and who succumbed to  despair, feelings of shame . Their interpretations in stitch  were varied but expressive. 

Tracy in her introduction talks  of the unseen layers of  a quilt : the physical and emotional layers of the quilt , the history of the maker absorbed in the making, particularly with hand-made quilts which may take a long time to complete. 
I do a lot of hand stitching myself  ,I find the process calming and therapeutic  as I'm sure many of the prisoners involved do too .  In repurposing old quilts,  I  respect and try to work with the marks of  the original  , unknown, sewer. In many of the squares beautifully illustrated in this book, I get  a strong sense of the  maker, not just   the subject  but the decisions about  colour choices, techniques, how it was stitched, the time involved. A collaborative  project but very much  about individual stories.

Fine Cell Work’s mission is to train prisoners in creative, commercial craftwork so they re-enter society with the self-belief and independence to lead fulfilling and crime-free lives. I encourage you to buy this book ( and for your friends)   to help support the running of the  Fine Cell Work Hub , the charity’s London-based crafts training studio for ex-offenders, to meet workers’ needs for post-prison support in order to translate their textile skills into real employment. 

Contemporary Painting Studio Week 3 and Big Draw Selfie

Week 3 of Contemporary Painting Studio  and I had a chance to talk to Lucinda first thing.  I converted several photographs into black and white with 'graphic pen ' filter in Photoshop and pinned them up on board along with the painted newspaper painting from the previous week. We discussed the benefits of collage  to quickly work out compositions   and she suggested doing 4 of the same subject on 1 sheet ( like for drawing development ) using different qualities of newspaper, magazines, continuing on from using random newspaper sections as background. Also not to necessarily cut out distinct shapes  such as breakwaters  but to build up layers where can paint over and suggest structures(letting the eye fill in.)

So I had a splendid time with a variety  of magazines ( interiors, furnishings and RA being particularly fruitful) tearing out black and white textures including curtains, furniture and Giacometti sculptures!

 Considering it's a painting class I spent more time glueing then anything else!

Very pleased with the results and thinking about it, a lot of my textile work involves collaging scraps of fabric . I'll definately be doing more and am considering a collage course next year. 

At lunchtime  I took part in the 'Big Draw Selfie' event in the foyer. They took a photo of your face on computer and projected it on  a piece of paper   and  you then drew round your features using charcoal. It was rubbed out between participants - I was number 59 so there were a lot of layers underneath. The final result was an animation of everybodies drawings 

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 . 

CQ Kent: Sketching in Deal

On Friday, our  Contemporary Quilt (CQ)  Kent meeting was hosted by Glenys in Deal .  We spent the morning discussing what we'd seen at Knit and Stitch , sharing what we were working on  and in some cases seeking advice  where we'd got stuck. After lunch , the blustery weather had improved, the sun was shining and we headed down to the  beach to take photographs and draw 

 Quite a few fishing boats and lobster pots ( although not as many as in the past)

Several rusty artefacts including this anchor 

Mostly we were mesmerised by the sea crashing onto the shore- I did a couple of very bad watercolours trying to capture the colours and of course added to my stone collection. 

The black tideline was burnt and charred wood and I collected some of the drier bits to draw with , I loved the lines of the improvised slipways made of timber 

'Charcoal' drawings of the tideline and slipway and some bladderwrack. 

The sea itself left the loveliest marks on the sand and stones.