Caged

Super Saturday

I've just returned from the first Super Saturday event at college. I want to write about it but am too tired today, suffice to say, it was a success and I really enjoyed it and feel I learned a lot about research and about my own work. I made notes and will update shortly.

Joan Eardley

The Joan Eardley exhibition at the RSA was wonderful. I was surprised at the amount of work there was and also, because I have a very limited knowledge of her work, how many landscapes there were. I was quite excited by that because her use of texture and the leaning towards abstraction (although we are told she remained firmly a realist) did remind me of the sort of work I am trying to create at the moment. I was fascinated by her limited sphere of sources (i.e. Catterline and Inner Glasgow). Talking to another tutor today (Super Saturday) did make me think that perhaps in terms of her peers of the time, her work was very limited. But in saying that, it gave her unlimited time to focus on these two areas. I was overwhelmed when I was standing infront of the last piece she was working on - I had a very surprising and instant emotional response and have to confess it brought tears to my eyes. Whether it was because this was her final piece and it was unfinished and that made me think of the frailty of life or whether I could see that there was so much more development work she could have done, I'm not quite sure. It was a very emotive piece. I've bought the catalogue and will be pouring over it for a long time this term I think.

Upping the Scale

The idea of working larger is one which was suggested by one of my tutors. I'd been playing around with scale, mainly using small sizes for the images I worked on but some of these have been from zoomed in sections of a piece of work. I tried doing some very small pieces as well, and I like doing these. However, when the tutor suggested I work on the larger scale last week, it did feel like a reasonable response to the investigations I've been doing. The image below was done in class and I did have a great time on it. It forced me to work differently to make marks. I worked directly from the tube in some areas(which I loved) and in others, used a rag to move the paint around the surface.

The upshot of all this is that I have been struggling with the idea of working even bigger. So, on Friday I went into college to buy large pieces of card A0 and brought them home. The next issue was; what am I going to do with them? This was a trickier problem to solve because space is an issue. But, never phased by a challenge, I decided it was time to rearrange the house a little, so on Saturday, I changed the study around a little to give me a whole wall to play with. I then found some plastic sheeting and pinned that up and taped a piece of card to it.

The scariest thing was being faced with a totally blank piece of A0 card. I didn't have any white emulsion so I primed it with a pale blue. I should have thinned the paint because it was a little laborious putting it on, but it did cover the white well.

Because I liked the orange of one of the original pieces, I wanted to try to recreate that sort of effect. I am aware that if I try to replicate something smaller on a large scale it's going to be difficult to get the same sense of movement without the piece looking too contrived. I'm not sure it will work, but so far I now have the first orange base coat on. I may leave it as it is because it's thin in parts and a little of the pale blue shows through, but I like that.

The discussion I had with my tutor did touch on how I could recreate the different marks and I've switched to a large 3" household painbrush to try to see if I can get the same sense of spontenaity. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

Scale

Started working on a slightly larger scale last night - it was great fun. I was limited by my paper size but have more ideas and enthusiasm for developing this further.

Lack of focus

Another class tonight and I'm looking forward to it but not quite sure what I'm going to work on. I bought oil paints at the weekend and would love to try using them but don't have a locker at college so getting work home which is still wet might be a problem. Think I will try though.

Developing an idea

These images aren't in the right order. When I get a minute I'll try to sort them.

Exhibitions

I've been to two exhibitions recently which I really enjoyed. The first was at the Dean Gallery and celebrated the centenary of the birth of Sir Basil Spence.
I loved the images and the models. Ironically the exhibition itself was badly layed out in that the audio visuals were noisy and distracting - often three or more different screens in one room which made you feel like you were walking into a wall of noise. Whether this was intentional or not, it made me irritable, uncomfortable and distracted from the wonderful images I was looking at. I particularly loved his posters, especially the design for the Southern Motors Garage, which is garage close to where I live. The exhibition is part of a project to document Spence's life and his work can also be seen here. Until I do an official family tree investigation, I also like to think we are related!

The other exhibition was Victoria Crowe, "Plant Memory" at the RSA. I love her work and have for ages. I have a complete folder on my pc of any image which has appeared online and her work crops up in my researched images again and again. The exhibition was relatively small but the images were wonderful. I was particularly interested in the way she achieves blocks and layers of wash and textures as this is a direction I have been trying to get my work to go. Looking at her images face to face, gave me a much clearer idea of how this can be achieved.

I've been a little lazy in keeping this blog updated with regards to last week's classes. They were both good and I managed to resolve one of the things I was working on. The images here show a progression of experimenting with the things I was stuggling with last week. I am trying to both merge nature and man made structures but also reverse colour. So that nature is stripped of it's colour and becomes monochromatic and the man made structure has colour.

The final one I did was in some ways the most successful - it took the least time and perhaps that was a good thing because it meant I didn't "think", I just reacted to what I was doing and that made it a much more natural response. I think I have a lot more to do on this before I run out of steam on it but I am allowing the work to take me, rather than trying to push things too quickly. The next development is likely to explore the ideas of colour a little more and perhaps movement. I have some interesting images I took in the Lake District which combine landscape, structure and speed - they were taken from a moving car.

I'll try to work on this more next week.

Back to it

The holiday was great. A whole week of walking, eating, and generally enjoying being away from technology and the rat race. I took my guitar with me and strummed a bit each day (still not very good but I know a few chords now and can manage the odd tune. Currently enjoying playing/singing Drunken Angel by Lucinda Williams).

I did some sketching - nothing more than a couple of minutes for each one but having younger daugher there sketching too did make it more fun - and it meant she joined us on most of the walks.

Monday's class was a bit of an anti-climax after that. I just don't seem to be getting to grips with this class. It's three hours and you'd think I'd manage to get something done in that, which I liked. But no. I have an idea, i just can't seem to get to grips with and it's a bit irritating. I did start a painting which is the basis of the idea but I don't seem to be able to resolve much and what made me feel worse was that after I thought a good discussion with the tutor about what I was trying to convey, he didn't even pass comment at the end of the evening on what I'd done. I guess he didn't like it. He was pleased I have lots of things to think about but I could tell he didn't like the way I'd started. Still, I have a lot of work to do to resolve it.

In contrast to this the Tuesday class tutor was so encouraging and that does seem to help me work better. I'm not sure what the difference is. It's a shorter class but somehow the tutor seems more interested and comments on sections which work and helps me to resolve things that don't. He encourages me to try different techniques and it just seems to make me feel less pressure. I mentioned that I was having problems separating the two modules between the classes and he suggested that I don't try. Just concentrate on producing and working on my ideas and leave the division of work to when it is essential - which is another few months. His encouragement and attitude did make me feel I was doing fine and I ended up producing at least one piece I quite liked.

All good inspiration :-) .......

Deja Vue

This time last year (to the day) I left one job to start another. I had a weeks holiday first. Yesterday, I finished one job and this morning am getting ready to go on holiday to the Lake District (where I hope I'll get loads of sketching done). When I get back I start a new job. I have a very strange sense of deja vue. I hope that this time moving won't be as big a mistake as I made last year.

On the positive side, it was the catalyst which made me decide to resign and try to concentrate more on my art studies. I think I can honestly say this last year has been one of the most unsettled in my whole life, or unsettling.

Being back at college and into the routine of going to classes has definitely been a good thing these last two weeks. The summer was difficult because I really didn't have much motivation to do any art but now I feel a new sense of motivation and a determination that I really have to try hard to make this part of my life work.

So, in amongst the packing and sorting things before I go I'm frantically thinking about what materials to take with me - should I take lots of paints or stick with pencils, oilbars, charcoal and pastels? My materials rucksack is overflowing and I know I'm about to pack just about everything.

I'm excited already about the colours and scenery I hope to find and just pray that there will be a little sunshine along the way. It's been about four years since we were in the Lakes for a holiday and I really, really miss it. SYD (significant younger daughter) is studying art too so the car will be very full of all our things. Hopefully we'll get a bit of walking in too. I'm so excited.....

Anyway, less typing and more packing.............................later x

Flat

Sometimes I get flat moments. Tonight is one of them. I didn't do any sketching today. I will have to do better tomorrow and not let my demeanour get in the way of art.

Developing Drawing Class

Last night's class turned out fine eventually. I couldn't really get into it at the beginning. We have a temporary tutor for the next two weeks and perhaps this felt like an interruption to the flow of last week. I had a chat with him and although he thought I could be developing work from last week, there was a still life to work on - similar to last week and for me it was good because it was also structural - I was happy trying something different to make sure I have a larger body of research to work on.

The lighting was very different and there were more objects to concentrate on - if we wanted to. I started sketching in pastel, for no particular reason other than that I hadn't used pastels for a while. The result was ok but nothing special. I wanted to concentrate more on the scale and proportion but the tutor asked whether that was important to me. I suppose it isn't really.

We then went on to do some printing and I liked the effect I got. I used ink and oilbar on newsprint and the tutor liked the different textures I'd obtained. I then went on to do a very quick oilbar sketch on card. I liked it but he felt the background was too busy. I am quite happy with progress so far this term. I've done a bit more research on Frank Auerback and Mel Bochner (I wasn't keen on his work really but the other tutor suggested him to me). This tutor suggested Franz Klein, whom I quite like but perhaps feel some works are too primitive, and Giacommeti's sketches - I can see the link in this sketch.

Monday Class

Today I managed a bit of sketching before class and then worked on some structure paintings in class. The tutor thought they were all a bit "samey" and "blue" - which was right really. They were all similar and I was working on them all at the same time. He thought that they were losing the form I had in the sketches and that I should probably work on them a bit further apart - I had them all together on my board - and he suggested working with different grounds so they were different. I suppose I was just using the same colour and the overall effect was a bit too bright. I think I understood what he was saying - i.e don't lose the feel of the sketches and what they were of.

North Berwick

Started sketching my guitar this morning but wasn't very impressed with the result so went for a walk. It was another gloriously sunny day so I took loads of photographs to help with research. I have a flickr site which I post most of my images to but might transfer some of the art research ones to this site at some point.

Sunshine and procrastination

I only managed one quick sketch today - a building project near where I'm currently working. The weather was just too good - and hot. Hard to believe this is October. I think the sketch is probably more for my environment module. Unfortunately the ink ran out of the printer today so I have to buy some more before printing off some more images I want to use for development.

I'm also trying to teach myself how to play guitar, so sat in the sunshine and strummed "Drunken Angel" by Lucinda Williams - I'm not great, but it's coming on. I'd really like to do a good painting incorporating my guitar - it's such a beautiuful shape.

Working

Having now set up this blog, I'm happy that it should help me keep working on the research and inspire me to continue to think that I really could be an artist. The summer seems to have gone now and it's time to forge ahead with dreams. I haven't felt like an artist for months but starting new classes has given me that kick I needed. I've even tentatively signed up for another two theory modules. I'm hoping that this space will help me record what my tutors discuss with me and from there I should be able to devlop my interests and keep track of all those brillian ideas I have!

Inspired

After the two classes, and especially the Tuesday night one, I was inspired to work on the image I had been doing. I scanned it in and selected a few areas to zoom into. There were some areas which I don't like but a few tiny bits which I'd like to try to develop.

Also took sketch book to work and did one image and took some photos of the structure being built outside. While it's really annoying working next to a new build, it's very inspirational watching something new rise out of the ground - and so quickly!

Developing Drawing

Second night feels like deja vu - same talk. The class is in a studio I didn't even know existed but must have walked past several times over the years. There was a very disconcerting cloud of smoke and a smell of burning in the main sculpture court but after checking fire exit positions most people gave up worrying about it.

I haven't had this tutor before and he was really nice. He listened to what I was saying, gave me confidence to forget about assessments and conventions and just try to work out how I want to do things. He showed me how to get a great line in oilbar by masking off with a piece of card. It's an effect I liked and used a couple of times in the piece. (Still life with lots of upturned chairs). I really loved the lines and structure of the piece and enjoyed playing with the oilbar. He asked if I always drew "like this" - I'm not quite sure what that meant but he then recommended I should look at the work of Frank Auerbach. I will do that tomorrow online and see what I think. Great class and it's inspired me again to work more on my own.

Beginning of term

Characteristically of late, I was so disorganised I nearly missed my first class. A quick dash home to change and grab materials left me harrassed, hot and bothered. I barged in to a full meeting, inadvertantly knocking into people with my rucksack and eventually collapsed into a chair, trying to stifle my heavy breathing from rushing up the stairs. But all was well , it was a new speaker this year but a recycled script allowed me to realise, I hadn't missed anything important.

My first class of the year is called Aspects of Painting. Again, my organisation skills ensured that I only packed oilbar, charcoal and pastels !! I had a useful discussion with the tutor about how the class will fit into the module i'm doing. I'd brought old sketchbooks to show some of the work I might like to develop but was aware that I was so unsure about the subject matter that the tutor said I should start afresh. Ah well, so much for trying to prepare a little.

I worked on a still life in oilbar but felt distinctly like I was back in term 1, year 1. Still, it was good to get back and nice to meet new people.