Saturday, December 6, 2014

How Maurice Utrillo pushed me into a modern painting

VART2026  In the Footsteps of the Impressionists


"I got it into my head that only plaster – real plaster – would give
 marvellous results.  But it cracked, cracked too quickly.
  I had such a search for truth that I wanted to stick real things
 to my picture, like the leaves of a tree.”
Maurice Utrillo, 1914
 
 I started 2014 with a standard and acceptable History of Art course and followed that up with a unit called In the Footsteps of the Impressionists.  This was a two-week study tour actually in Paris.  I spent hours in the Louvre as well as chasing after Impressionist painters. I spent some time experimenting with pen and wash.

Le Dome Café
Pont Neuf


 pl Charles Dullin
Monet's Waterlillies
Montmartre Cemetery

 
I actually did the first pen and wash on an  afternoon in Montmartre when, exhausted, I sank onto a café chair and did my first pen and wash, just  the scene in front of me:
The next day in the Musée de l’Orangerie I discovered a painting of the exact same scene.  It was made by Maurice Utrillo one hundred years before:

Utrillo said of his work,  “I got it into my head that only plaster – real plaster – would give marvellous results.  But it cracked, cracked too quickly.  I had such a search for truth that I wanted to stick real things to my picture, like the leaves of a tree.”  In 1914 that wouldn’t have been considered extremely avant garde, but in 2014 it's quite old hat.   So, for the tour exhibition, I produced another interpretation of Saint Pierre de Montmartre and the Sacred Heart. I tested plaster-of-Paris, sand, leaves, shells, sticks and natural pigments: with PVA glue to stop it all cracking:

 I decided to simplify my composition and started with lots of small thumbnail drawings:
 I tried a larger version of the coloured one with oil pastels:
 Then I took to acrylics I and changed it a bit a bit; the three green circles on the left were cut-outs I used to experiment wit bushes:
I asked friends for feedback and one supplied me with a simplification, which I liked.  I cropped it down to a small area in the centre:
 I did another acrylic study, which I rather wish I'd kept:
I finally picked up my "real" materials  and produced a textured version with plaster and dried leaves as Utrillo wanted.  I used sand, shells and coffee grounds to vary the textures when I found I couldn't move the plaster into the brush rhythms of the acrylic version:

Going through this process taught me a lot about developing an artwork rather than just jumping in.  I wonder what Utrillo would have thought of my version.  I'm sure he would have been happy about the plaster-of-Paris and real leaves.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Printmaking Without a Press, a Book without Covers

VSW11 Printmaking: Materials and Methods

I chose to study printmaking only to avoid doing sculpture.  What a rollercoaster!  Equipped with a Study Guide that said there were some very good videos on YouTube, I found myself googling how to make a linocut and new things like monotype and collograph.  This was definitely new territory.

My Homemade Foot Press
We had to choose a single theme and stick with it for twelve weeks.  I decided to respond to the decay process of a mallard duck that had the misfortune to die in my garden.  

Monoprint: Live Duck

Monoprint: Dead Duck
Linocut: Duck
 By the end of the unit the concept had to be presented in the form of a non-conventional artist book.  I pushed my response to the decaying duck to reflect on the inevitability of death.

Collograph
Collograph




















Finally I printed the motifs I'd been working with onto strings of prayer flags and installed them in a star formation over the duck's resting place.

Prayer Flags

Prayer Flags
I began documenting the decay of the flags, which echoed that of the duck as vegetation grew over them all.

Prayer Flag Remains
It was an unconventional introduction to printing perhaps, but it enthused me to the extent that I have replaced my original foot press with a real one.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

An Impact on my Environment

VSW14 Painting: Materials and Methods (3)

Plein Air painting?  Not exactly.  But this project was so much fun!  We were told: "work within your own environment to create a new tension or dynamic using colour". There was an area outside my studio where nothing would grow and edged by a horrible fence:

I decided to do something quite bold with the fence:


I was charmed when my granddaughter contributed some extra stones to complement my Zen effect:


The light plays on our new space in quite different ways depending on the time of day and the weather:




 This was the "Before" condition:



 

 


Lighting it up in Colour

VSW14 Painting: Materials and Methods (2)

Finally we were allowed to play with colour ... as long as we followed the instructions carefully.

Colour Cube - primary colours, 12 x 12 x 12 cm

Colour Cube - secondary colours, 12 x 12 x 12 cm
In this cube we started from each of the primary and secondary colours and then vary saturation, tone and hue. We moved on to a still life, which we used to investigate complementary colour, tint and pointillism. 

Apples, oil on canvas paper, A4

Apples, oil on canvas paper, A4

Pointillist Apples, oil on canvas paper, A4
The final studio task was to transform a familiar space.  I chose my garden and my kitchen.


Garden Transformed, Oil on canvas, 92 x 62 cm

Cook Under Pressure, Acrylic on canvas board, 92 x 62 cm



Doing it in Black and White

VSW14: Painting, Materials and Methods (1). 

The first half of the course was completely black and white.  That was a requirement.  The giraffe, on the other hand, was optional.  Somehow I couldn't get away from him; I hadn't realised that one exercise would lead to another.  Suffice it to say that he isn't in two of the following eight pictures.


Acrylic on primed paper, A1

Acrylic on canvas paper, A4

Acrylic on canvas paper, A4

Acrylic on canvas paper, A4

Encaustic over plaster of Paris on board, A4

Acrylic on canvas paper, A4

Acrylic on canvas paper, A4

Oil on canvas paper, A4

Drawing on the Other Side of the Brain

VAR11 Visual Arts Research: Introduction to Drawing.  

So, an introduction: we covered line, tone and perspective.  We drew in black and colour and we also made collages in white.  We investigated the use of text in drawing.  We collaged some more.  Above all we learned that the modern drawing is not just putting line or shading on paper. Drawing extends beyond mark making into conceptual areas such as the drawing together of ideas and the possibility of using a variety of media to create three-dimensional works that can be considered drawings. ... Mmmm! I had some difficulty with this as a definition and created a test question about a 'drawing' from an exhibition that the New York Times reviewed on April 7th, 2013.


Image: Judith Scott, Untitled, 2002. Found textiles, dimensions unknown. (Reproduced from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/nyregion/a-review-of-extreme-drawing-at-the-aldrich-contemporary-art-museum.html?_r=2&)

Here are some more traditional drawings that I made during the unit.

Three Boxes. On A4 paper.

Black Still Life. On A1 paper.

My Dresser.  Drawn with a cockatoo quill on A3 paper.

'Have you got a light?' On A1 paper.