I chose Elizabeth Peyton out of the other “messy” artists I had researched because of her use of colour and the apparent looseness of her brushstrokes.

IMAGE 1

WHAT?

“Georgia O’Keefe (after Stieglitz 1917)”

2006

Watercolour on paper

14.25 x 10.25 in

Collection of JK Brown and Eric G. Diefenbach, New York

This painting makes me feel that I want to know the person who is the subject and want her to know me; she looks out at you demurely, politely but slightly disinterestedly, and you feel I suppose slightly defensive that this should be so. It reminds me of Alli Sharma’s work in style. The composition is cropped – she could have been “moved down” the page so that her whole head fitted in, but then you wouldn’t have got the nice prim blouse collar. The background has a circular shape which is left to the viewer to interpret but this keeps the eye moving around within the picture rather than wandering out. The brush strokes are large and directional, and the original looks like a sepia or raw umber. E.P. was painting at a time when figurative art was just coming back into fashion, and must have helped with her apparently simple yet evocative pictures of famous figures, whether of pop culture or historical, making them look like “ordinary”, real people.

SO WHAT?

I decided to work in monochrome watercolour too, and at roughly the same size. I chose perylene maroon, a colour which I like and is a bit warmer that the original, and a size 8 sable. I wanted to copy the general image, without worrying about achieving an exact likeness – I felt I wanted to do this quickly, be in the moment, and see what happened. I feel I have achieved something of the looseness of her style, but without her precision – actually quite a tricky combination.

NOW WHAT?

I have learned:

• I enjoy working quickly and loosely like this, although the outcome does not always have the accuracy I might wish – but it would good for preliminary sketches of an image which eventually might need to be more exact and carefully constructed
• I never usually try monochrome (except black and white) but it does make for a very striking, eye-catching image
• I need to give thought to backgrounds as a way to keep the viewer looking

IMAGE 2

WHAT?

“David Hockney, Powis Terrace Bedroom”

1998

Oil on board

9.75 x 7 in

Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg

I chose this image unashamedly because of its bright colours; lots of complementary contrasts between purple/yellow and blue/orange, with some zinging reds for good measure. Even though the subject figure looks quite serious, it feels like a happy painting. The figure more or less fills the page, but is offset from centre enough to see the things stuck on the wall behind, which continue that diagonal of his shoulders. It’s quite a small painting – you imagine the artist producing the board from her bag and saying to the sitter “Don’t move – that’s exactly the pose I want to capture!”

SO WHAT?

Again, I decided to work the same size as E.P., so I ruled that out in my multimedia sketchbook. I wanted to work quickly again to produce a rough copy, not concerning myself with likeness, but focusing more on exploring those colour combinations. I decided to work with gouache, a recent discovery for me – I like the slight chalkiness it has and the fact that you can overlay colours. I used a soft half-inch flat brush.

It was great fun to do, and I got some rough colour matches, although I think another layer of the background orange and yellow would have brought those out even more.

NOW WHAT?

I have learned:

• Bright colours really can be fun!
• As I have been experimenting with unfamiliar types of paint, I have enjoyed their differing textures. I now need to also consider their finish – the gouache is chalky, which “felt” good to me, but it gives a flat finish in comparison to E.P’s oil, which seems to retain and show the brush strokes in more detail.
• If I want a really strong depth of colour, I might need to try building up layers rather than relying on the first applied fairly thickly.

Denis Castellas

Example:

“Untitled (Mozart)”

2005

Oil on canvas

74 x 78 in

Seen on www.mutualart.com

• In several of his pieces, the character is complete in parts and only indicated for the rest – this one is more traditionally filling the canvas (many others leave a substantial part of the canvas unoccupied), but the right side of the face is more developed than the left
• Large crossing brushstrokes in the undefined background
• Interesting to choose to work so large for a head-and-shoulders portrait

Cecily Brown

Example:

“Figure in a Landscape”

2002

Oil on linen

80 x 80 in

Seen on http://www.gagosian.com

• Quote from Cecily on the above website: “The place I’m interested in is where the mind goes when it’s trying to make up for what isn’t there.” Seems to sum up her images well.
• Many paintings brightly coloured – this is a sedate example – she’s very good at flesh tones
• Style seems chaotic but this is what pulls you in, because you can see there are bits of things which your brain can identify

Carole Benzaken

Example

“Magnolias 25 (Diptych)”

2016

Indian ink and pencils, laminated on glass

120 x 160 cm

Carole Benzaken & Galerie Nathalie Obadia,

Paris, Brussels

• Just loved the combination of colours in this; also the technique reminded me a bit of my outcome for Drawing 1 Assignment 5
• Some of her images are deliberately “fuzzy”, like a blurred camera shot
• She experiments with a wide range of materials and techniques

Elizabeth Peyton

Example:

“David Hockney, Powis Terrace Bedroom”

1998

Oil on board

9.75 x 7 in

Kuntsmuseum Wolfsburg

• Blue, orange, yellow, red – this image fairly jumps out at you
• Her work seems to jump between near-monotones and then these brightly coloured pieces; also between pop-culture subjects and historic characters – but always portraits
• Her brushstrokes are loose, often wide, and directional

Chantalle Joffe

Example:

“Walking Woman”

2004

Oil on board

305 x 124 cm

Seen on www.saatchigallery.com

• She paints people, generally female, sometimes children, often on large, over-life-size supports
• Dramatic angles in this composition with the vertical figure cutting through 
• Her figures look out of the picture, almost at you but more as if they’re looking at someone standing just behind you; somehow this makes them engaging and slightly mysterious
• Her painting style “embraces” a lot of drips and runs

Jasper Joffe

Example:

“Heart”

2004

Oil on canvas

230 x 190 cm

Seen on www.saatchigallery.com

(He also has many works on his website,

http://www.joffeart.com)

• Some of his work is brightly coloured; others, as here, almost a monotone
• Figures are often contorted (of which this is an extreme example) or drawn over
• Many of his works are very large, allowing for big, loose strokes
• Apart from the subject matter, the gradual darkening of tone as you move towards the top/back is unsettling, threatening

Harry Pye

Example:

“You Just Don’t Understand)”

2007

Can’t find details of painting – seen on 

www.harrypye.com

• Quite a pop art style, brightly coloured
• Despite the jolly, almost cartoon-like style, many of the characters in his pictures look sad – as here – I think sad faces pull the viewer in, make you wonder what’s wrong
• The direction of brush strokes, so far as I can see, is not important to the picture

IMAGE 1

WHAT?

“Grasshopper”

1990

Oil on canvas

200 x 250 cm

Seen on www.saatchigallery.com

This painting takes me off somewhere warm and sparsely populated; the Catalogue Notes on www.sothebys.com suggest it is showing the wide open spaces of Canada, although apparently Doig himself said that the places he painted were dreamlike and imaginary. At first I was more interested in it than liking it but, the more I have worked with it, I have come to appreciate it. The composition is very striking, horizontal thirds, the top and bottom being quite textural, the middle section, where the eye settles first, much smoother. The things that grab your attention, house and large dark tree, are absolutely central.The palette is interesting – predominantly the complementary pairings of blue/orange and red/green, with a streak of yellow (quite a muted yellow) through the middle. The title seems to bear little relation to the image; the website above suggests that this is a grasshopper’s-eye view.

SO WHAT?

I did a quick pencil sketch of the central section with a water-soluble pencil, just so that I felt I understood its structure. What really interested me was the patterning of the top and bottom sections and how that was achieved, so I decided to focus on that to investigate further.

I decided to work in gouache, because I hadn’t used that to paint with before except as small highlights for watercolour paintings. I worked on multi-media paper in my sketchpad, using roughly the same proportions as the original, and laid down basic bands of colour and let them dry completely before working over them.

I was then able to experiment on the top and bottom sections to try and get that dotted, almost woven effect Peter Doig gets. I tried various marks with a fan brush; dabbing end-on with a flick seemed to produce something similar to his, so I played around with this in the sky with black and white, and in the water section with viridian and crimson. It was similar, but not right. Finally I tried making dashes with the corner of a soft flat brush in yellow ochre right at the bottom, and think this was possibly one of the techniques he might have used. 

• 

• 

• 

• 

This is my final version.

NOW WHAT?

•  I realised that the scale at which we were working was vastly different; hence the exact mark making possibilities were not the same
• What seems like a deceptively simple composition is actually a huge number of brushstrokes!
• Interesting to think of patterns being made by varying brushstrokes

IMAGE 2

WHAT?

“The Architect’s Home in the Ravine”

1991

Oil on canvas

220 x 275 cm

Seen on www.saatchigallery.com

This picture is a bit spooky – makes you feel that you really should be running away, but you have to look. Reminds me of those James Bond films where the hero creeps over the ridge and finds the enemy den just as someone creeps up behind him and slugs him over the head.

The composition is really clever – lots of diagonals in the mid ground buildings, that light-coloured curve to the left (a pool?) just making the whole thing not too unremittingly spiky, then the viewer effectively “cut off” from the mid ground by the foreground of vertical trees and a huge mesh of branches – almost as if it’s fence posts and wire net fencing. It’s quite a compulsive experience for the viewer as he tries to peer through the obstacles to make out what’s going on behind. Peter Doig has gone for a palette of complementary blue/orangey-brown (cool/warm). The use of so much white is interesting – why are the branches white? Is it meant to be snowy (more comfortable scene) or reflecting light, maybe from the curved structure which is actually a giant spotlight (less comfortable scene). The title again is ambivalent – “The Architect’s Home…” (cosy)…”in the Ravine” (not cosy). It was painted a year after “Grasshopper”.

SO WHAT?

This must have been constructed in so many layers (if it were me I would have gone from the back to the front) that I decided to look at just the foreground and see if I could replicate how Doig did it. This is another large painting, so I decided to just work a small section onto A3 stretched paper. I laid on a rapid wash of blue gouache using vertical brush strokes with a huge round, let that dry, then focused on just two trees (part), and built them up with layers of raw umber, burnt sienna, flame orange and yellow ochre. 

Once that had dried, I used a rigger and white gouache to draw in the branches. Think it might have ended up looking a bit like one of David Hockney’s swimming pool paintings!

NOW WHAT?

I have learned:

• The use of pattern can significantly enhance, indeed “make” a painting
• Paintings like this, which involve one thing in front of another in front of another…need a lot of careful planning before you start
• I rather like the effect of the image I’ve produced with its complementary colours and clean simple line pattern – so not everything needs to be complicated!

Peter Doig

Example:

“The Architect’s Home in the Ravine”

1991

Oil on canvas

200 x 275cm

Seen on http://www.saatchigallery.com

• Uses pairs of complementary colours a lot (as here, blue and orange)
• Interesting composition with the vertical foreground trees, and then the buildings at angles behind pulling you through into the dark woods in the background
• The lattice of little branches might at first appear a barrier to a viewer, but actually it pulls you in to try and work out what’s behind – very clever

Edouard Vuillard

Example:

“Sunlit Interior”

1921

Distemper on paper mounted on canvas

32.75 x 25 in

Tate, London; Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

• Pastel, sunny colours – either because of the medium used – or more likely the medium was deliberately selected to create this effect
• Also uses juxtaposition of complementary colours; red/green, orange/blue – these add a bit of “zing” to what might otherwise be too sugary a scene
• He really loved his pattern details – we went to an exhibition of paintings relating to his mother a couple of years ago at the Barber Institute, where his depiction of interiors with all their patterned wallpaper, carpet, china etc was striking

Tal R

Example:

“New Quarter”

2003

Mixed media on canvas

250 x 250 cm

Seen on www.saatchigallery.com

• Blocks of strong colours, lot of primary and secondary colours, black and white
• Strong directional composition: horizontals and verticals top and bottom with diagonal element centrally
• Lots of patterned sections in the clothes and the buildings – stripes, grids, blobs – even in the grass!

Daniel Richter

Example:

“Trevelfast”

2004

Oil on canvas

283 x 232 cm

Seen on www.saatchigallery.com

• Strong contrasts between black elements and the fiery reds, oranges and yellows, which also then contrast with the icy whites and blues at the bottom
• Unusual cross-shaped composition, with the vertical central tree and the horizontal central galloping figure – my eye is constantly drawn to the point where they meet
• Really big painting!

Of all the “black and white” artists I looked at, I chose to study Alli Sharma in more detail because of her subject matter and her expressive gestural brushstrokes.

IMAGE 1

WHAT?

“Billie Whitelaw, Charlie Bubbles (1967)”

2012

Oil on canvas

50 x 50 cm

This image is a detail on the front page of Alli’s website, www.allisharma.com. I felt drawn to it because of the pensive expression of the subject – neither happy nor sad, you wonder what she’s thinking about. It’s interesting that she has originally painted it in square format, but has chosen this section to front her website – this cropping is effective as you feel it cuts to the chase. Your eyes are drawn straight to hers, depicted dramatically with heavy dark strokes. I wasn’t sure whether she had left the white of the face as white canvas or had painted them in over a background thin wash – I suspect the former. I read in her Artist Statement on www.axisweb.org that one of the themes on which she chose to paint was”…the women of 1950s social realist cinema…” – I feel she has succeeded here in her mission to “…transform the overlooked into substantial painterly icons.”

SO WHAT?

Painting in oil in black and white is new to me, so I tried to copy this image onto oil paper in the same proportions as the original. I had found some water-mixable linseed oil so tried using this to thin the paint for light washes, rather than water; the feel was better as the paint mixed with the oil more readily, and I found then that if I had made marks in the wrong place I could lift them using a brush slightly damped with water. I tried painting with my non-dominant hand, standing well back from the easel, to improve the steadiness of my mark-marking – just needed to switch to the right hand for the details under the eyes; I used a large hog filbert to encourage me not to fiddle, but did cheat with a soft size 4 flat for the under-eye bit and the light in the eyes. I most enjoyed the big sweeps of undiluted black to create the hair. 

NOW WHAT?

• I prefer using the linseed oil to water as a thinner, although it does seem to increase the drying time.
• I made the lights of the face by my “damp brush lifting” technique, which was messy – I should have left these areas white when putting down my initial wash.
• My uneven eyebrows have given her a calculating rather than thoughtful expression…..even though it’s loose and gestural, details matter….but…
• Big black swirls of paint are huge fun!

IMAGE 2

WHAT?

“Ingrid 3 (A Kind of Loving)”

2014

Oil on canvas

50 x 40 cm

Seen on http://www.allisharma.com

Not sure how this makes me feel – knowing that it’s taken from an old film again, I suppose it makes me feel interested to know what the subject is doing – she seems to be looking down at some task. The head and shoulders pretty well fill the space, with the same gestural marks and suggested loose background. The dabs depicting the hair and the pattern on the blouse are directional; the controlled detail is again in the eyes, nose, mouth and the edges of the collar.

SO WHAT?

I was quite taken with the hair and the patterned blouse so wanted to have a go – decided this time to try a self-portrait using a round shaving mirror balanced on the top of my easel. I used oils on oil paper, diluting again with linseed oil and just occasionally water, and relied mainly again on my hog filbert to try to stop me fiddling. I chose to truncate the composition to focus on the head and shoulders, as in the painting by Alli above.This time, instead of putting a light background over the whole thing, I put a very light outline on the page to indicate the figure, and put the background around that, varying the tone to indicate shadowy areas. I also decided to experiment at the end with a tiny bit of added white on my lit wrinkles (laughter lines!), eye highlights, grey hairs and checked apron.

NOW WHAT?

• The composition is very central but I think it works, as does the loose background with directional strokes differentiating the image from the edge of the mirror.
• Much better leaving the light areas unpainted rather than trying to lift paint out
• The directional dabs to make the checked pattern worked well to convey a hanging and therefore twisted fabric
• I tried to be bold and directional with the facial features, but it looks clunky and overworked – perhaps I should have changed to a smaller brush. I think rather that my issue is that Alli has been much more sparing with the details she includes on the face – an absolute bare minimum. I need to remember I don’t need to include everything – the viewer knows what a face looks like and will fill in the gaps.

Raymond Pettibon

Example: 

“No Title (Do you have…)”

2000 

Ink and felt tip pen on paper

22 x 32 in

Patricia & Morris Orden

(can be seen on www.moma.org)

• This artist’s earlier subject matter did not appeal to me, so I chose this later work as an unusual subject where the steam train seems to be ploughing it’s way through a muddy field – an interesting subject which makes you look
• Great variation of mark thickness and direction, building up tone through cross-hatching
• Incorporates text, as do many of his works – this is all about poetry, which seems to bear no relation to the subject image – again, makes you look and try to puzzle it out

Jose Toirac

Example:

“Sin Titulo No 15”

2000

Oil on canvas

39 x 39 in

(can be seen on www.mutualart.com)

• Portrait which completely fills the canvas vertically – his hat touches the top edge and his feet go off the bottom slightly – makes you wonder why in that case he chose a square canvas – but maybe that’s exactly why –  it gives the image an “edginess”
• The horizontal dragging of the paint surface is interesting to the viewer because it makes you analyse the artist’s process – did he paint the portrait “normally” and then just drag a brush over it?
• Painting is predominantly mid tone – makes the light of the hands and face, and the dark of the hat and hair, stand out

Alli Sharma

Example:

“Billie Whitelaw, Charlie Bubbles (1967)” – detail

2012

Oil on canvas

50 x 50 cm

Seen on www.allisharma.com

• Big broad brushstrokes clearly visible; direction of strokes important in creating the image
• Strong light/dark contrasts
• Not huge detail
• Feels dynamic, as if painted all in one go

Gia Edzgveradze

Example:

“Derby”

1983

Oil on canvas

70.9 x 66.9in

Seen on www.artnet.com

• Looks like an automatic drawing that you do whilst thinking about something else
• Inclusion of numbers makes you think it’s some sort of map or route diagram or puzzle
• Title is rather mysterious – maybe the painting is a route map of the horse race the Derby? – this is suggested but not confirmed in the New York Times article by Vivien Raynor on Feb 2nd, 1992 entitled “Art; Russian Works Come to the Forefront”.

I chose to look at two watercolour paintings by Tim Gardner because this medium seems less commonly used for photorealistic images.

WHAT?

The first example of his work I chose was “Sailboat in Moonlight with Mt.Baker and Cassiopeia”, 2015, watercolour on paper, 14 x 18 in, seen on website of 303 Gallery, New York.

This really caught my attention because of its mood of serenity; I do like a snowy mountain picture (am currently reading about Scott’s travels in the Antarctic), and he has created it virtually in monochrome, apart from a small dash of brown on the boat. The title exactly lists what you see, foreground to background, and the composition is unusual as he has arranged the three titular elements centrally, one under the other. Watercolour is less commonly used for such dark and dramatic blocks of colour.

The second work I chose was another snowy mountainous scene, this time with lots of light:“Silver Ledge”, 2009, watercolour on paper, 24 x 33 in; also seen on the website of 303 Gallery, New York.

I thought this was slightly less photorealistic,  and more of a likely scene to tackle with  watercolour. This image has an equally “wide open spaces” feeling, and the emotions it depicts to me are wonder and exhilaration. The composition is more classically in thirds, the two features to which my eye goes first, the sun and the figure, being diagonally offset from centre. The palette is again predominantly blue, with dashes of yellow (lemon on the figure, a touch of Naples maybe around the sun) and brushstrokes of green and brown for the main trees. The title presumably refers to the flat area on which the figure stands? – although that is wider than a ledge to my mind.

SO WHAT?

I decided to work on my responses to these pictures simultaneously. I worked in watercolour at A3 size: the ”sea” picture on hot pressed watercolour paper pre-soaked and stretched; the “mountain” picture in my multi-media sketchbook. This way I could keep putting down washes and leave one to dry whilst working on the other. 

BIG issue: I drew over the white patches I wanted to preserve on both pictures first with masking fluid and left that to dry. Something made me check that the fluid was going to come off after applying about three washes – and was dismayed to find it wouldn’t come off cleanly, was quite sticky, rather like the stickiness left when you try to peel off an old label. I can only assume that, since I haven’t used my masking fluid for over a year since I’ve been doing Drawing 1, it has become degraded.

I used Prussian Blue throughout, starting putting the washes on with a round size 8 sable but soon moving to a 1 in flat. Once I found the masking fluid wasn’t coming off cleanly, I decided to adapt and leave it there as my light blues (it has a blue tint). I changed to a half-inch flat for the details of the mountains, boat and water. 

My painting does not have such a dark sky and water as Tim’s; the effect is very different – I wonder if he used some black? I hope mine is still a serene image, although it is not as immediately dramatic.

Here in the mountain picture I seem to have gone the other way and made my background too dark and dominant. I used the 8in round for the background. I tried creating those “cauliflower” runs to indicate the midground trees – worth a try, might have been better with deciduous trees….then I swapped to the half-inch flat for the figure, near trees and shadows. I worked in ultramarine for the majority of the picture, just adding bits of gold, green-gold and burnt umber for the figure and near trees and the sun. Again, I left the non-functioning masking fluid reworked slightly to incorporate it as light blue. I have made the figure just slightly too large – that and the over-dark far mountains throw the scale out.

NOW WHAT?

I learned:

• It’s vital to check that older masking fluid still works before it ruins your painting!!!
• I’m not sure I am temperamentally suited to creating highly photorealistic paintings – I don’t have the patience; also I have worked quite hard to learn to work expressively, which I feel is constrained by exact photorealism 
• Working on more than one painting at a time saves a lot of waiting around for things to dry
• Small errors in the size of a feature or the tone of a wash can have a big effect on perceived scale
• Having your main features right in the middle of a painting can still work as a composition

Chuck Close

Example: 

“Frank”, 1969

Acrylic on canvas

42.75 x 30.25 in

PaceWildenstein, New York

• Gridded up from an 8 x 10 in photo
• Made eye catching by being painted in black, white and grey
• Does look exactly like a blown-up photo!
• Does it “catch” the character? I’m not sure…

Mark Fairnington

Example: 

“Specimen (1)”, 1999

Oil on canvas

202 x 66 cm

Can be seen on www.markfairnington.com

• He did many of his paintings from taxidermy specimens in museums
• Dramatic because much larger than life (it’s an insect)
• Hugely closely observed – very clear detailed layered mark making and use of shadow to create the feeling you could literally just pick it up

Robert Priseman

Example:

“Study for Corridor”, 2006

Oil on linen

30.5 x 30.5

Found on www.goldmarkart.com

• Was not generally drawn to the choice of subject matter in the examples of his work which I could find online – a personal thing
• Quite a limited and muted palette
• Strong perspective pulls you into the painting

Tim Gardner

Example:

“Sailboat in Moonlight with Mt. Baker and Cassiopeia” , 2015

Watercolour on paper

14 x 18 in

Found on website of 303 Gallery, New York

• I was more drawn to his landscapes than his paintings of people – mainly younger people in groups or urban areas
• He also uses oils, but his watercolours struck me by being very “definite”. i.e. not wishy-washy – almost more like gouache or acrylic
• Striking and bold use of monochrome here

WHAT?

I chose to look into the art of Mimei Thompson from the group of artists working with loose thin paint layers because I was drawn by her choice of colours and unusual formations.

Image 1

Heliconium

2019, oil on canvas, 60x70cm

From http://www.mimeithompson.com

This is such a feel-good painting; the adjacent complementary colours zing, and after all – flowers and butterflies – what’s not to like? Yet the image, like all Mimei’s images, have to me a sense of the “other”, a dreamlike world – possibly because of her technique of swirling motifs making up structures; there is just a hint of strangeness in there which gives it an edge. It is that swirl within the leaf that my eyes go to straight away – I have begun to look for it, and it is placed on the third from the bottom and the left. The composition is circular – you either follow it up the leaf and down the flower stem back into the leaf or vice versa, only drifting aside to take in a butterfly after a couple of circuits. It looks like a realistic plant, but given a fantasy bent. Many of her recent paintings feature plants, either individually or grouped, and insects (sometimes dead) – she seems to treat them in a detached way so that one can look at them with interest rather than distaste, being drawn instead to analysing brushstrokes.

SO WHAT?

I wanted to try working in oils as I had no real experience of this – I have chosen water-mixable oils as I have a small studio, asthma and a tendency to migraines. I worked on oil-prepared paper on a block. I decided to loosely copy but simplify the image in order to try new skills. I painted in three stages:

• Thin layers of lemon yellow, then cadmium yellow, then cadmium red, applied one on top of the other with horizontal strokes and a wide flat hog bristle brush – the whole then left to dry
• The green leaf structure: background of burnt umber, then thin layer of green mixed from ultramarine and cadmium yellow, followed by green mixed from ultramarine, lemon yellow and white, all applied with a hog bristle filbert, and left to dry
• The flowers and butterfly: cadmium red/burnt umber mix, followed by cad red and white mix, gradually turning whiter with a little lemon yellow, all applied with a soft-haired size 4 flat – I also experimented at the end with adding darker streaks by using a palette knife to cut through the top lighter layers.

NOW WHAT?

I learned:

• How different a painting experience is using oils – it has an addictive gliding “feel” to each stroke, but not letting it dry at least a bit in between layers can lead to muddying of colours
• To use a mahl stick – first try anyway – I was painting with a long brush, trying to hold it in the middle and using arm movements rather than fingers and wrist – but accuracy is difficult
• I need to investigate more what different brushes will do for me when using oils
• Photography! – this photo was taken right where I painted it, which is under a Velux window on a bright day, yet the colours look flat and boring here, whereas in my original the lemon yellow underpainting zings through much more and the greens are much more yellowy and bright – here they look almost blue (and I did try it a few times). It’s the first time that I’ve taken a photo of my work and thought that it doesn’t reflect my work well.

IMAGE 2

Untitled Cave Painting (1)

2011

oil on canvas, 76x61cm

From www.mimeithompson.com (also shown in OCA materials)

When I first saw this image in the OCA materials I didn’t like it – that oozy, drippy quality she achieves with her shapes didn’t feel comfortable, combined with the fact that it looks like you are entering the cave and being drawn by the diagonal path into its dark and less-defined (and therefore scarier) interior. This is one of a number of “cave” paintings which she did in 2011 and which are on her website together. The effect on the viewer is different depending on the viewpoint – those starting outside looking into the dark background are unsettling, whilst those looking from the inside out to the bright exterior are much more hopeful. The palette of colours is similar throughout the series, some tending more to shades of one colour than a mixture; this painting combines most of the colours she chooses.

SO WHAT?

The effect of the coiled, swirling, almost melting structures needed investigating to see how she was achieving that in paint layers. In between waiting for oil layers to dry (Image 1), I experimented with pencil and watercolours, first on replicating a small section of her rock structure in the front right of the painting.

The more I tried to copy her image, the more it seemed to me like one of those automatic drawings which you do when you are on the phone, but then developed and controlled – so I tried making one up using paint layers (top left).

Then, because my own automatic drawing style tends towards the angular, I created my own “Cityscape”. I worked for all of these on hot-pressed watercolour paper as recommended in the course materials; I have hitherto only used NOT or rough watercolour paper, so this was another small first.

NOW WHAT?

I learned that:

• Working in another artists’ style and trying to copy sections of their work makes you see it differently from just looking
• I really like hot-pressed paper for drawing on – your mistakes become entirely your own!
• Having a recognisable style can make a viewer give your work more attention as they seek out your “trademark” elements