Maureen Walker's blog: An Artist's Journey

Quick sketch

It’s odd. I had what ended up being a bit of a crap day. I narrowly missed out on a new job which I’d interviewed for via Skype towards the end of last week. Yet I still managed to draw the following:

However, yesterday I was feeling pretty damned good and managed only this meagre effort:

I need to remind myself of these things. Good moods do not necessarily produce the best creative flow. Today might have had its challenges, but doing something distracting like playing the fiddle for a few minutes before listening to your lover read, can be all it takes to brave the blank sheet of paper.

If given more time, I would have added a spot of white pencil highlight on the side of the head as well as on the shirt which was also white. The fingers on the hands would have been interesting too from that angle. I’m pleased with the overall sketch. It looks as though the sitter is really concentrating. His eyes, though not clear from that angle still appear to focus on a single point rather than gazing aimlessly. The book seems to rest in his hands convincingly – the weight of the shoulders leaning into the elbows and in turn into the legs. Yes, it hangs together rather nicely. One of my better sketches. That’s four days straight where I’ve drawn at least one thing. On Saturday I finished another birthday gift:

New acquisition

Finally picked up a steel plan chest on eBay. We went for an A2 sized one in the end rather than A1. The footprint of the larger size would have been too much for my overcrowded studio space. But now I can store all those drawings in the smaller rack that are risking exposure to dog-earedness and paint spatter.

Part 4: Project 1:Exercise 1: Drawing fabric using line and tone

This was trickier than I thought it would be, consequently I spent quite a bit of time on this exercise. The 5 min sketches were the most challenging as I found myself drawing contours where the fabric folded underneath itself and was therefore unseen. I ended up with lots of calligraphy-practice-type loops. I stuck with pencil on A3 paper. I think I shall return to this tomorrow using different media as I enjoyed the challenge as well as feel I could learn more about how fabric ‘behaves’ when left to fall naturally.

Part 4: Project 1: Exercise 1. Pencil on A3 paper

Assignment 3: Tutor Feedback

Build texture by reworking lines in chalk on black paper. Use an eraser to define smudged lines of chalk. Build up layers of colour.

Finish pieces by adding detail. For example the 360° exercise. The West and South views could use colour/texture on the sky and on parked cars.

I find I have a fear of completion. Or at least a reluctance to overwork a piece therefore I end up under working it instead. Neither results in a satisfactory outcome, but at least with some encouragement I can more easily rework something that is underdeveloped rather than one that is overworked.

Repeat parallel perspective Exercise. (See relevant blog post dated 4/4/20)

In future state dimensions and media used.

Select only that work which is complete and which I am content to submit.

Rework Waterloo Sunset. Add colour and definition. (Perhaps turquoise light between the trees and lamp posts to contrast with russet and pink coloured trees. Please see relevant post dated 4/4/20)

Start a more structured sketchbook practice. Record dates and Exercise numbers in sketchbook with related blog post url. Submit sketchbook (Please see my confession on blog post entitled Sketchbook dated 4/4/20)

Unpack (spell it out) critical thinking and analysis – evidence learning in more detail.

Make use of OCA UCA library

Personal notes:

Plan next 7 weeks study on unit 4

My tutor requested I write a brief report/reflection/analysis on one artist from a given list. I chose one of the Fauves.

Fauvism:

The use of bold brushstrokes using complementary colours (often straight from the tube) to form paintings with little in the way of 3D form. These flattened images their definition through unusual colour juxtapositions which had the effect of enhancing colours and making them more vibrant.

The Fauves, or Wild Beasts, were active 1900-05 after which their use of colour developed into other areas including abstraction.

Whilst Fauves moved away from the emotional ism of fauvism, one artist – Henri Matisse, kept true to the use of bold colour combinations throughout his career. This culminated in the use of paper cutting techniques in later life when his health would not allow reliable use of a paintbrush.

I relate to this use of colour and enjoy experimenting with different colour combinations. The emotional element is never too far from my mind as I used to have issues surrounding colour use as my emotions had been stilted in early life. I believe these two things are far from being mutually exclusive.

Standing before an image which uses similar bold colour palette does not fail to have an emotional impact on me. Although I am likely to use these influences in my own experimental work, these emotions are not always readily expressible in words alone. As a technique, I used the advice from previous unit to take a few colours and use each one as a substitute for certain tonal value in a piece. This has been the key piece of information I have been missing as it had not occurred to me to try this before embarking on this course. I have used it in a still life, a portrait of a friend and for the statue image that I submitted for assignment 3. I shall explore this technique further in the following unit.

References:

https://www.tate.org.uk/search?q=Fauvism

Sketchbook

OK, confession time. I find it incredibly challenging to maintain a sketching habit – in fact any habit that is generally good for me. I do realise that, in order to consider myself to be an effective artist, I need to change that fact, and pretty damn quickly. The following are pages from my sketchbook such as it is. I shall draw more frequently from now on. Not only because it will improve my overall mark at assessment, but because my drawing technique will be greatly improved over time. It is also true and worth remembering that it is actually fun to draw.

I am aware that the most optimal use of a sketchbook as a learning tool, is to use it in conjunction with this blog and to annotate accordingly, with reference to the unit number, exercise number etc. along with my own immediate thoughts and responses. In addition to this I must also unpack my critical thinking more deeply.

As my weakest point has been sketchbook keeping, I’m thinking that, as part of the Part 5 project, I will keep a sketching habit for the 30 days of June. This is with the intention of establishing it as a daily practice as well as producing a sketchbook for submission with Assignment 5 – alongside a finished piece of work. This item is intended to be an A1 collagraph print made up of 8xA4 incised boards to form a self portrait. It will likely be a one-off reductive print. I intend to add to it in the form of mixed media – charcoal, pastels and coloured pencils, as well as some collage perhaps; hopefully with an interesting outcome. This, together with the approx. 500 word written piece, I will submit in mid-July. I should hopefully have plenty of time to apply for the autumn assessment. (This note was added on 05/06/20)

Assignment 3: Waterloo Sunset: Amendment

Waterloo Sunset (A1 size slate blue mountboard) with added coloured chalk

Hopefully the added colour has improved this landscape I submitted for assignment 3. I feel I have bitten off a bit more than I can chew on this scene. Trying such a complex view in a two hour stint was I mistake, I realise now. Earlier pieces in the unit have been more successful due to their simplicity. It is true that I get a little anxious when dealing with an assignment piece and tend (so far) to overreach myself so that I risk not coming up to scratch. I’ll try to learn from this on the next assignment.

I chose to amend this picture using chalk. I find that further attempts to add colour to a surface already covered with coloured pencil are thwarted by the waxy surface to which many mediums do not readily adhere. As advised, I smudged the chalk into the surface and tried to give texture to the surface as well by leaving the chalk unsmudged in places. Using an eraser I tried giving a finer edge to the lines in the winter trees with mixed results. I used colours that were complimentary (opposites on the colour wheel) such as turquoise and russet/pink. I went round some edges with a black sharpie just to give emphasis to the woman’s profile and the jetty bridge.

I originally had an idea to add exaggerated characterful faces in the crowd on the bankside. I didn’t do this as I was concerned the composition may feel a little lopsided. Also, due to the fact that it’s meant to be representing atmospheric perspective and the middle ground should really be less detailed than the foreground.

I’m leaving it as it is now as I feel there is little more I can do to improve this piece.

Part 3: Project 4: Exercise 1: Parallel Perspective: Amendment

I originally felt I did okay at this exercise. It’s a very good gauge of how I need to adjust my hand/eye coordination. But I thought the results were not too bad. I didn’t overwork the line drawing as I was aware I’d be drawing bold lines over it to indicate perspective. I seem to do better with lines that come up to the horizon rather than those coming down. I was aware whilst drawing that the most difficult angles to draw were the tops of the door frames. Clearly mine weren’t quite steep enough.

Anyway, another challenging exercise from which I learned much of good use.

However, if you look closely there is a not-so-deliberate mistake! I just noticed that the corners of the hallway ceiling do not line up with the corners of the floor. They do not meet at all! What a rookie error!!

There is no vertical connection between these two points!

Hopefully this second attempt is an improvement. Certainly the error has been corrected in that the corners line up. I have shaded areas in blue pencil in order to clarify this further.

Research Point: LS Lowry, David Hockney

I love LS Lowry’s work. I like any artist’s work that seeks to strip a subject down to its essence. Another artist who achieves this is Alfred Wallis. I first came upon him in Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge (well worth a visit) There are some of his paintings in The Tate, St Ives.

In his excellent book, The Drawings of LS Lowry, Public and Private, Mervyn Levy begins his introduction with a quote from the artist: “Can you tell me sir, why does a painting cost more than a drawing..? For one thing (with a drawing) you haven’t got colour to get you out of a mess.” (Levy. 1976.Pg 13)

Mervyn Levy goes on to say that, “Drawing is the most perilous and the most rewarding of the visual techniques.”

“Drawing was an art which Lowry never trivialised. He drew constantly on scraps of paper, on envelopes, on bits of card, but even his slightest notations are perfectly precise.” (Levy. 1976. Pg 13.)

Lowry invites us to see the beauty within a supposedly ugly industrial environment. Learning from this, I have tried to see the beauty in my own environment, living as I do within spitting distance of Hatfield Business Park – formerly the British Aerospace site. I have tried to capture the essence of the area in which I live. But I have been stymied at each turn by the very “newness” of it. The following picture is the closest I have come to recording how I feel about the estate.

This is an image of some flats. The roof design is in keeping with the nearby hangar – converted into a David Lloyd gym- but once housed historic aeronautics designs such as the Dehavilland Comet.

Even this image would have appeared somewhat antiseptic without the addition of a ubiquitous discarded Asda trolley.

Perhaps I’m being too hard on myself and my skewed view of an all too familiar new-build estate.

Another artist in whom I have faith to provide necessary inspiration is David Hockney. Purple tarmac? Pink or royal blue tree bark? I love it!

Seeing the essence of what is in front of you rather than a conventional view. Perhaps a little exaggeration of the natural presence of these colours but my! Does it warm ip a scene?!

In his Royal Academy Exhibition “David Hockney: A Bigger Picture” (21 Jan-9th April 2012) David Hockney’ s landscapes inspired a resurgence in my own meagre practice at that time. I felt that I could have painted these works myself. It was so accessible, the work, for me. Some of the works exhibited had been produced on an iPad which at that time was still quite innovative.

I loved the colour juxtapositions as well as the homage to Van Gogh’s starry sky. Not everyone was similarly impressed, of course. A friend who saw the same exhibition found the colour choices “overwhelming”.

I felt that I’d been invited to see an alternative view of my natural environment in a similar way to Lowry’s view of beauty in an otherwise unprepossessing scene. Hockney reveals the quality within living things rather than simply green or brown inanimate objects. We are very lucky here in the UK to have outstanding countryside, flora and fauna. To have it pointed out to us in such a way brings a fresh view to otherwise jaded eyes.

References:

Hockney. D. (2012) ‘The Bigger Picture’. Exhibition. Royal Academy of Arts. (21st Jan – 9April 2012)

Levy. M. (1976) The Drawings of LS Lowry. London: Jupiter Books

By the way, Ted talk worth seeing

Play Time

Does this count as a landscape? I suspect it falls more into the category of illustrative art rather than fine art. I had fun creating this. The colours and composition used are from a long lost picture I did for my niece on her 7th birthday. Now my niece is in her 30s and has reached the age where nostalgia creeps in. Hence I spent today recreating that long lost gift as near as I could remember.

I was having a conversation recently about my general attitude to coursework and realised that there is a gulf between my approach to personal projects , such as the above, and that towards coursework. I would very much like to bridge that gap.

In order that I can achieve this, a new attitude needs to come into play. “Play” being the operative word. My tutor keeps reminding me of this. Hopefully I’m not so rusted into my current approach that I cannot loosen up a little.

Tomorrow I shall pick one of the coursework exercises and see if I can “make it my own” somehow. I need to ask myself relevant questions, such as:

What is there in this exercise that I can turn on its head?

Can I use interesting colour/media combinations to achieve a fun process as well as a satisfying outcome?

Am I able to adapt the exercise in some way to use a method I have used successfully in the past?

What limitations are there in the Exercise that may spark off interesting effects through compromise?

Research Point: Landscape Artists

A while ago, I discovered a thin but nevertheless criminally expensive volume on Lina Bo Bardi in the Serpentine Gallery in London. Despite its price tag I had to have it, because I loved her drawings. They were not all necessarily the most technically adept but had a naivety that appealed to me. It put me in mind of an exhibition of amateur art in the basement of Selfridges (which had, at the time I saw it, made me nostalgic for my ‘o’ level art days when experimental play was so much easier to do than as a fully grown adult).

The illustration that caught my eye in relation to this research is (pg 12) No 8, Lina Bo, Roman Urban Scene, no date. (Lina Bo Bardi, Drawings, Zeuler R.M. de A. Lima.) The reason it caught my eye was due to the colour choices the artist has made. Orange, yellow, blue, green and purple. These are the colours I chose for my drawing for Project 3: Exercise 1: Composition: West View.

The way the light is depicted also puts me in mind of more of my own work using a similar palette.

Another artist whose work gives me a taste of inspiration is Sandro Botticelli. In Primavera, he arranges the figures as though actors on a stage. There appears to be scant regard for realism in the setting. It is a sensual and decorative illustration of a scene, or even a series of scenes cleverly arranged onto one support- in this case tempera on wood. I like the effect of the figures’ godlike luminosity. It is perhaps not a true landscape as the figures take up most of our attention. They seem not to be so much al fresco as chez nous, as though born from a page of ”Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak. The sharp contrast between the three fates’ pale beauty and the depth of darkness of the background is especially appealing. It lends them greater significance in the scene and sends the hairs up on the back of my neck in awestruck wonder.

Talking of contrasts, let’s now go look at JMW Turner’s “Rain, Steam and Speed“. Encouraged by Camille Groult to go see his paintings, the novelist, Edmond de Goncourt described one work as though having been done by “a Rembrandt born in India.” (“A Wonderful Range of Mind” Gage. J. 1987. Pg15)

This painting, though revolutionary in its depiction of the up-to-the-minute technology of the time, nevertheless conforms to the conventions of landscape art in that it submits to the “rule of thirds” that we take for granted today in cinematic art.
Here, the engine flies like a bullet from a gun straight towards the viewer (or like a protagonist who’s come a little late to the story) two thirds of the way across the landscape from the midst of a steam cloud, as well as one third up from the base of the canvas. Like any graphic novel as well as most western art, it reads naturally from left to right. In spite of, or should I say, due in part to having followed these conventions, Turner’s painting conveys the contemporary feel of a moment of excitement captured like a snapshot in time.

References:

Gage. John. (1987) ‘JMW Turner. A Wonderful Range of Mind’. Yale University Press.

Lemaitre. Alain J. Lessing. Reich. (1993) ‘Florence and the Renaissance. The Quattrocento’. Paris. Editions Pierre Terrail.

Zeuler R.M. de A. Lima.(2019) Lina Bo Bardi Drawings. Princeton and Oxford. University Press.