Drew this for an hour. Then the light faded. I shall return to it on another day. I particularly like the highlight effect I managed with the white oil pastel on the left half. I’m not sure whether this constitutes a detailed study, but I like the use of red and blue together to form what was a burgundy red of the flesh of the fruit. The pomegranate was sitting on a piece of kitchen towel. The juice ran into the towel causing it to pink up rather nicely. I don’t actually like pomegranate much. I find it a bit fussy to eat. But it makes for a great still life subject.
2) lemon etc
Looking again at the pomegranate drawing, I realised that it was far too symmetrical to be a successful drawing. Hopefully, with the above use of coloured pencils on cartridge paper, my next attempt is more agreeable. The result is more delicate than the one of the pomegranate on its own using oil pastels. But then I suppose it would be – coloured pencils remain sharp for longer so that they produce a more precise result. Also, I tried to make the composition and arrangement less symmetrical and therefore more aesthetically pleasing. Again, this drawing took an hour. It’s a very wet dull day today. The light is precious but dim. I think I’ll do some reading.
In order to avoid a muddy mess I am going to leave this as it is now. I’m happy with the light effect. I did consider going into detail on the tablecloth but thought it may detract from the items being supported. I like drawing on craft paper as it provides a medium tone from which you can highlight or lowlight. Here I used chalk and graphite with interesting effect. It is also a lot less scary than white cartridge paper. It represents a good starting point as this surface cries out to be messed up with lights and darks and all tones in between.
My starting point was the rim of the glass on the left. I had folded the paper over the top of the board as it was too large. When I drew the flower stems they were too long for the paper so I merely unfolded it and used the excess. I’ll try to remember this for future exercises as it was quite handy to be able to extend the paper without actually having to tape bits together in a haphazard manner.
I find it easier to suggest 3D images with man made rather than natural objects as with man made objects, edges and corners are usually sharper and therefore more easily defined. The contrast is that much more subtle on the surface of a leaf or coconut, for example.
With the use of shading I attempted to suggest the objects had weight and density. With the glass, the highlights on the rim go towards suggesting a 3 dimensional quality. The leftmost flower is old and dying – bending under its own weight, which adds to a sense of mortality, lending the image added gravitas. I think adding the coconut to the composition last gave it a different texture contrasting with the light frailty of the flowers.
Incidentally, my partner asked me “What’s that coconutty thing?” after seeing the image half way done. I was flattered.
I initially found this exercise mind-numbingly dull, that is until I adjusted my thinking. Instead of merely copying what was in front of me I tried using the objects as a prompt to create something interesting. The first picture is the point at which I left it for the day. It’s not finished. The other two are stages along the way. I took regular photos as I was concerned that I may overwork this particular project and wanted to show how I got to the final completed image.
Doing this exercise taught me that it is well worth persevering in some circumstances. Merely being bored with your subject is not necessarily a good reason to quit and do something else. I played around with the negative space. I am intending to continue the gradient of dark to light in the background from the left hand side to the right. I find that a lot of contrast in tone makes for interesting imagery whether it is colour or monochrome.
In the end I learned a lot from this exercise. I feel certain I would not have come up with so interesting a image without having first considered the negative as well as the positive space. Also, looking at Gary Hume’s work reminded me about the importance of contrast.
I shall continue with this tomorrow, bearing in mind that I do not wish to overdo it and muddy up what is a moody and atmospheric image as it stands – in my humble opinion!
Incidentally, here’s what it looks like flipped. I feel it somehow has more optimistic feel as the bright background (rather than the darkness of the original) is the first thing you see “reading” from left to right. Also, the brightness of the flower is now what you notice last on the far right.
I had a frustrating time with these images. The first one was an interesting challenge. It was supposed to be a thumbnail sketch but ended up a bit detailed. I forgot about highlighting negative space and just enjoyed drawing for its own sake. The second attempt was in keeping with the law of diminishing returns as my concentration and enthusiasm ebbed for the subject. The third, chalk on black paper, was an attempt at a fresh approach. But I was a little jaded.
This week I saw holes punched right in the middle of my study afternoons. Monday I drew the first “thumbnail” sketch okay. Tuesday I had a violin lesson. Wednesday I had an appointment I couldn’t refuse at the jobcentre. On Thursday I had an ultrasound appointment for my foot. And today? Today is Friday. After yesterday evening spent consoling a friend on the loss of yet another friend he’d known since his childhood, I was simply tired.
But I tried.
The third image leaves something to be desired. That “something” will have to wait for tomorrow morning after a refreshing swim at the local pool. But I should just add that I had similar issues with repeat attempts at the same subject when doing A level Art all those years ago at school. To me, a thumbnail feels like a half-assed stab at a subject. I tend to go all-in on each and every study. I feel reluctant to change my approach for fear of conformity. But at the same time I’m aware that “old dogs CAN learn new tricks”. The whole point of study for me is to generate a creative habit. Part of that habit involves trying out new things and absorbing fresh aproaches.
I can give the credit to Sandi Toksvig for finding myself at Dulwich Picture Gallery at 11:25am today. Well, perhaps not for the specific time, but for the fact that I knew which bus to take to get there. Myself and my partner are reading her excellent memoir, Between the Stops Toksvig (2019). She boards the No 12 bus at Dulwich Library and uses the route as an aide memoire for recounting interesting titbits of history as well as of her life experience. It’s an entertaining read, at least we think so. In fact we think so to the point of being geeky enough to retrace her steps on the No 12 to the Dulwich Picture Gallery. It just so happened to coincide with a cool Rembrandt exhibition. Actually, we’d heard about it in advance following a high profile crime having taken place there involving the theft of several Rembrandt paintings from the exhibition (later recovered in the grounds). Anyway, it was well worth seeing. It made up for the disappointment of missing out on booking tickets for the Hogarth exhibition at the John Soane’s Museum. We have some for the 15th December instead, so not all bad.
Rembrandt, The Denial of St Peter (1660)
The Rembrandt exhibition was a timely viewing as his depiction of light and mood is particularly apt at this point in the course. The Denial of St Peter, Rembrandt (1660), is the painting that first caught my eye as we entered the exhibition space. It was a space effectively and sympathetically lit for the occasion. The lowlight was conducive to viewing as though by candle light, but the paintings as well as the information plaques were still legible. My attention was held by this particular image for several minutes. It put me in mind of The New Born by Georges de la Tour (1645), due to the candle light being depicted without its source being in view. The light from the candle highlights the important parts of the image and leaves others in shadow. In the Rembrandt, the hand of the candle bearer obscures the light source, so that her hand, particularly her index finger, glows red as though ignited. In the Georges de la Tour painting the head of the baby is highlighted in a similar way to that of Rembrandt’s St Peter. Georges de la Tour also used this to great effect in Adoration of the Shepherds (1644).
References:
Rembrandt (2019) The Denial of St Peter, 1660. [oil painting] ‘Rembrandt’s Light’. Dulwich Picture Gallery. 4th October 2019 – 2nd February 2020.
Tokvsvig, Sandi (2019) Between the Stops. 1st ed. London: Virago Press
Okay, so not only was yesterday’s experiment ‘unsuccessful’, but I kinda regret putting it on my blog. However, it does show that I’m willing to make mistakes. So I hear, this is the way we learn and grow as artists and as people. I expect to learn and grow a lot during this course! But I know when not to waste any more time or effort on something that I know is not working or that is just plain ‘bad art’. This shows me how tricky it is to do “cubist style” work and “why your five year old could not have done that” (Susie Hodge, 2012).
I shall have another stab at it on a fresh sheet of paper, then move on
I thought I’d have a stab at something challenging but fun, but a learning experience nonetheless. The above is my attempt at a Cubist-inspired still life. Having visited the University of Hertfordshire Learning Resource Centre and looked at books on the Fauves, I then turned my attention to Picasso and Georges Braque. Their Cubist masterpieces caught my eye. I find them attractively menacing, as I cannot work out how they began such complex images. Sure, they started by drawing the image from life. But then what?
I learned a lot from this, as yet unfinished, exercise. Bearing in mind the importance of light and shade, and therefore contrast. I tried to produce an interesting composition. I think what I came up with, based on an earlier conventional still life, (see below) could have benefitted from a more careful approach to initial line work. I must confess that I had very low self-belief in this particular project. Perhaps it would have been a more satisfactory outcome had I been more confident in approach and applied myself more to the basic draughtmanship. But, having said that, I’ve been having a lot of fun this afternoon!
For Dutch masters such as Jan Vermeer Van Delft (1632-75) the ‘still life’ could represent their “bread and butter” income. With Protestant ethics all the rage, the banishment of the Catholic Church from the north together with its lucrative patronage, saw artists search for alternative means for selling their work. Painting to order was exchanged for touting for trade with a fickle public. This buying public sought out more of the same kind of output from their artists. Therefore painters of seascapes, landscapes or, in the case of Vermeer, homely scenes of domesticity, were to became specialists in their chosen niche. But a niche market can easily fall from favour together with the artists themselves. Jan Vermeer Van Delft sought to express mood in his ‘still lives’. The way he depicted the light in his paintings was suggestive of how he felt about his subject. This was of overriding importance, the subject itself having been demoted to a mere vehicle for the method by which mood is communicated.
Much later, artists such as ”the Fauves”, a modern art movement, would abandon detail in favour of bold brushstrokes and hinted at outlines with their seemingly haphazard colour choices. In The Fauves: The Reign of Colour, Ferrier (1992:14) quotes The Figaro art critic Camille Mauclair’s comment in response to seeing such works by in turn quoting Ruskin: “… barbaric and naive games of children trying out a paintbox given to them for Christmas.”
Though not critically well received at the time, these artworks nevertheless had rocked the establishment and revolutionised what had gone before. The artists themselves, Henri Matisse among them, became as cream rising to the top. There is a recurring pattern here. Artistic movements follow on one reacting to another.
Art, like fashion appears to have less in the way of recognisable movements currently. Rock, punk, hippy, fauvist, cubist, impressionist. It seems to me that “isms” have run their course. Art has become a free for all. It is limited by our imagination alone. That, and the breadth of influence of modern Information Technology. Today we have had the attempted shock tactic of sharks in formaldehyde. But I like to think that we, the viewing public, are not fooled by these emperors in new clothes. We are jaded by an overwhelming array of imagery on a daily, moment to moment basis every time we switch on our phones. Art appears to be more about an exercise in self publicity than… and yet I have no clue what Art “should” be if it isn’t that. I tie myself up in knots at the question, what is Art? (And should the word be capitalised or not?!) It seemed so much more straightforward prior to Marcel Duchamp signing his name to a urinal. Since then the need to shock people to attention has reigned supreme. What’s wrong with the quiet and unassuming artist no one’s ever heard of? There are plenty of us around. But, due to our very meekness, the gravy train never passes our way. The poor but romantic artist is a populist myth. We all need to eat!
Or perhaps the opposite is true?
We suffer from a glut of categories and counter categories. We are saturated to the point of exhaustion with no clear runner to lead the herd. A jaded public looks on with exasperation as the Art world is a victim of its own success. Do people buy art without first thinking ”what will it be worth in 5 years time or when the artist is deceased? Isn’t it enough just to like it? I recall my last visit to the RA Summer exhibition. I looked on with sadness at the questionable scribble of one infamous artist. Not so much at the apparent lack of effort applied but at the rows of little orange ‘sold’ stickers that were beneath the print. People clearly believed they were onto a winner there.
When might the bubble burst? When capitalism runs its course a lot of things will also come to a close. I don’t know whether to be depressed or optimistic about the possibilities. But if the apocalypse does happen, if we’re not all too busy being dead, surely we might make a return to mark making for its own sake and breathe a collective sigh of relief.
Enough talk. I must do some actual drawing!
References
Ferrier, JL (1992) The Fauves: The Reign of Colour. Terrail.
Maureen Walker's blog: An Artist's Journey 