1.1.3 Painting with pastels

Painting 1 The Practice of painting

PART 1 What paint can do

Project 1 Basic paint application

Exercise 3 Painting with pastels

Well I got out the soft pastels and just played but the problem I have with this type of exercises is that my playing gets figurative too quick. I thought about it a bit and maybe it is that there is too much going on in my head. Perhaps I should have a separate sketchbook that I draw these head drawings in and maybe they will get better as time progresses just as my drawings in my realist sketchbook have.

Figure 1 (1.1.3.1) pastel on A3 Canson paper

When I had finished doing that I did this still life, no endless messing about with object and lights I just drew what was on the coffee table, the perspective is low because I was sitting on the floor and the story behind that is too long and difficult to go into here.

Figure 2 (1.1.3.2) soft pastel on A3 Canson paper

1.3.1 Tonal study on a white ground

Painting 1 The Practice of painting

PART 1 What paint can do

Project 3 Working on different coloured grounds

Exercise 1 Tonal study on a white ground

I spent more than a little while arranging the objects and the light so that when I started drawing I didn’t need to change things around and was able to concentrate more on what I was doing.

My two chosen colours were burnt sienna and phalo blue (green shade) I made this choice because I needed a green and I thought that I should be able to mix a reasonable shade of green with these colours. I would firstly like to say that phalo blue is a horrible colour; it is cold and icy and is easily dominant in the mixes I made.

It was my intention to paint an acrylic under painting and then glaze over it with some oil paint this marvellous idea was scuppered by the lack of phalo blue (green shade) pigment in any of the major manufacturers’ oil paint ranges. In a way this is a good thing and testament to the good taste of the paint manufacturers’ but in this instance a disaster. The only solution was to dose up the acrylic paint with slow drying medium, I put quite a lot in, equal amounts of medium to paint, the paint stayed workable all the time I was painting and stayed wet on the canvas paper long enough to blend the colours quite successfully. There must be some sort of archival problem with this or else all acrylic paint would come in this consistency from the tube, we shall see, the research will be tedious though because you would have to read all the little writing on the sides of the tubes and then be googling it all trying to understand what it all meant see how boring it all sound all ready we will leave the problem to the conservators if the painting lasts that long, armed with the knowledge imparted in this paragraph they will know what to do in a jiffy.

The other big problem I had was that I really really needed a yellow to achieve what I considered to be proper colour mixes I looked at the work of Van Gogh, remembering the absence of yellow in his early work and decided that once I have a yellow I will use it bigtime.

 

Figure 1 (1.3.1) Tonal study acrylic on A3 paper

1.3.3 Tonal study on a dark ground

Painting 1 The Practice of painting

PART 1 What paint can do

Project 3 Working on different coloured grounds

Exercise 3 Tonal study on a dark ground

I used the same motif I used in exercise 1.3.1 so that I could make a proper comparison between the two processes. I traced the motif and used white tracedown paper to transfer the image to the dark ground, being careful to only trace the lines that coincided with the light areas of the image.

This was much more enjoyable than painting on a white ground, and I got a much wider range of tones probably because I had the darkest dart in the picture first and wasn’t so afraid to go  with very light lights.

I am still using my own brand of slow drying acrylics which seem to be performing well apart from the fact it takes 4 or 5 hours for them to dry and they dry a bit glossier than conventional acrylics

I am pleased that I have finished this exercise and can now introduce yellow into my palette and for my assignment piece I will be using water mixable oils for archive reasons peace of mind really.

 

Figure 1 (1.3.3.1) Tonal study acrylic on A3 paper

 

1.2.4 Monochrome studies

Painting 1 The Practice of painting

PART 1 What paint can do

Project 2 Transparent and opaque

Exercise 4 Monochrome studies

It is the wrong time of year for a winter tree so I chose as my reference a photograph that I took during the winter.

Figure 1 (1.2.4.1) Photograph of winter tree

I prepared the grounds, one dark and one light as set out in the workbook, and started with the light ground. The whole tree would have taken ages to do so I just chose a bit of the tree that said winter tree to me and painted away in acrylics to get the tree on the sheet. I didn’t pre-draw the tree but just let it grow up from the bottom with the dark paint using a 12mm brush. My chromatic dark wavered a bit between blue and brown but on the whole held itself together, I went back in with a second coat that accentuated the blue brownish effect and gave the tree a bit more depth.

The dark ground could not be marked with charcoal so again it was straight in with the brush using the painting I had just made as a guide. The negative painting turned out a much more expressive tree than my first attempt that really seems to say winter tree.  Again I went back in to the tree to add some tone to give the tree more form to be less of a silhouette.

Figure 2 (1.2.4.2) Winter tree 1 Acrylic on paper 480 x 360

Figure 3 (1.2.4.3) Winter tree 2 Acrylic on paper 480 x 360

1.2.2 Overlaying washes

Painting 1 The Practice of painting

PART 1 What paint can do

Project 2 Transparent and opaque

Exercise 2 Overlaying washes

I chose the best of the cadmium red graded washes I did for the previous exercises and laid another graded wash of cadmium red over the top. This was much easier to do and because the sheet was already painted, it was easier to know where I was going to get to the end result. It made the cadmium red appear deeper but duller even though the colours merged in the same way.

Figure 1 (1.2.2.1) Acrylic on 350 x 250 paper

I looked up the Rothko’s on the Tate website and decided to go down town on the tube to have a look at them in real life they don’t have as many on display as are on the website just nine. I watched two documentaries on you tube one about the making of the pictures called the “Power of Art Mark Rothko” and one about how they ended up in the Tate gallery.

In the Tate gallery they are displayed in a darkened room, with spotlights concealed in the walls the room is far too dark to be a restaurant of any description except one with an awful lot of candles so the space glorifies the actual paintings and they are a bit overpowering. Perhaps it is intended as an intensification of the feeling one gets in the Staircase of the Medici Library in Florence, there must be a lot of Italians falling down the dimly lit stairs there.

I actually felt a bit overwhelmed by them in that room whereas if they had been in a restaurant at the Tate without candles I feel I would have been much more at home with the Rothko’s over lunch as Rothko originally intended. Rothko committed suicide the day his paintings were being unpacked from their delivery crates at the Tate so he never got to see the way they would be displayed or redisplayed at the Tate modern but when he was painting them it was in a light airy warehouse in New York in the documentary. Rothko must be spinning in his grave, powered by all the electricity the Tate Modern is saving.

1.2.1 Transparent and opaque

Painting 1 The Practice of painting

PART 1 What paint can do

Project 2 Transparent and opaque

Exercise 1 Tonally graded wash

I started with a tube of cadmium red acrylic paint some water and a large soft 25mm artist’s acrylic brush. I used sheets of acrylic paper 350 x 250. Halfway through the first sheet I changed to a 50mm household brush which seemed to improve things no end. I did 3 sheets, one of which I used for the second coat exercise later on, before the pad ended up all stuck together from the paint dripping all over the edges. That’s a bit of a result I get to go to the art shop for free, does anybody ever get to go to the art shop for free. They only had an A4 acrylic pad which I bought of course but while I was there they had a whole rack of acrylic additives, I bought a tube of slow drying medium, a jar of flow improver and a tube of glazing medium matt all of which claimed to be of assistance with the task in hand.

Figure 1 (1.2.1.1) Acrylic on paper 350 x 250

Figure 2 (1.2.1.2) Acrylic on paper 350 x 250

First up was the flow improver, still using the 50mm household brush. What it did was to take the redness out of the cadmium red but it did make it easier to grade the wash down the page. Then I tried the glazing medium, again the redness went out of the wash and so did the graduation, the more water I added, the more it stayed the same. I finished this part of the exercise with a graduated wash at A4 using just acrylic paint and water which didn’t look too shabby.

Figure 3 (1.2.1.3) Acrylic with flow improver on A4 paper

Figure 4 (1.2.1.4) Acrylic with flow improver on A4 paper

Figure 5 (1.2.1.5) Acrylic with glazing medium on A4 paper

Figure 6 (1.2.1.6) Acrylic on A4 paper

The next bit was about using wet into wet. I didn’t think this would work too well with acrylics because they dry so fast so I changed to water mixable oils and ultramarine blue. I had a couple of goes using just the ultramarine blue and then did a wet in wet version using ultramarine and viridian.

Figure 7 (1.2.1.7) Water mixable oil on A4 paper

Figure 8 (1.2.1.8) Water mixable oil on A4 paper

Figure 9 (1.2.1.9) Water mixable oil on A4 paper

 

 

3.2.5 Exploring greens outside

Watercolour Practice

PART 3 Painting Outside

Project 2 Preparation and Practice

Exercise 5 Exploring greens outside

I’ve decided that I’m not too good at painting A3 watercolours outside but I can make a much better job of an A5 watercolour outside so that is exactly what I did. The A5 watercolour was painted in the garden of West Ham Hall in Wanstead, I then brought it home, did a few thumbnails to make it sit, as I thought, a bit better on the page and then painted it on a sheet of 388 x 240 watercolour paper.

Figure 1 (3.2.5.1)Initial sketch watercolour on A5 watercolour not

I think maybe A3 needs an easel to work outside because you seem to need more hands than you have got when painting watercolours outside, and what with chairs and equipment possibly you need a small donkey. I am the sort of person who likes to travel light I don’t have a problem with painting 250 x 200 boards in oils with my pochade because everything fits into the one small box. Perhaps I need to see if I can get a watercolour pochade, but even at that I’d be loath to go above A4.

Figure 2 (3.2.5.2) Thumb nail graphite on 250 x 250 paper

Figure 3 (3.2.5.3) Thumb nail graphite and pen on 250 x 250 paper

Figure 4 (3.2.5.4) Thumb nail graphite on 250 x 250 paper

Figure 5 (3.2.5.5) Cartoon for transfer pen on A3 tracing paper

I have reversed both my last two paintings at the transfer stage, I know Degas used to do this quite a bit, and as it has happened to me almost by accident, I think that maybe the reason is that after having several attempts at the same design the reversal seems fresh and new.

I painted the final picture with a number 12 brush, I think this helps maintain a bit of freshness and stops you getting sucked into the detail, I think my brushwork is becoming more fluid as almost unconsciously I am using the belly of the brush as well as the tip and used the brush against the grain (that feels like the right term) to push the watercolour into the paper.

I think the strongest aspect is that the final painting has retained much more transparency than the original sketch; I would guess no more than 3 layers including the shadow coat. Many areas have a single coat, and I think with the greens I have achieve a cool springish air of what used to be called ”variety with unity of effect” I wonder what one would call it now?

I would have liked to have got a bit more volume in the foreground foliage. The sketch does this but suffers from over working and heaviness as a direct result. I could have perhaps chased the volume and form a bit more without losing the transparency but maybe the sketch was too fresh in my mind. I also think that when working on a large scale I need to widen the tonal range of my washes to give an appearance more like my initial sketch.

The practice in making the green grids was extremely helpful but I didn’t take them with me when I was doing the sketch as I had far too much to carry already.

I think I have spent a long time trying to master the techniques of painting in watercolours and now at last I can feel a bit of creativity kicking in.

Figure 6 (3.2.5.6) Sunlit garden West Ham Hall Wanstead watercolour on 388 x 240 300lb Not

 

3.3.2 Painting on the spot

Watercolour Practice

PART 3 Painting Outside

Project 3 Using photographs

Exercise 2 Painting on the spot

Because I have adopted the method of painting outside in an A3 sketchbook to level things up a bit I painted a larger version of my watercolour sketch when I returned to the studio.

While I was outside painting it was a bright early spring day and it felt good to be outdoors and I enjoyed the experience. I like painting trees but I don’t know enough about trees, the different types and things so I will buy a tree book to solve that but as well I am finding it difficult to model the trees without losing the freshness of the watercolour, I suppose that will come the more I practice.

I feel I am learning to focus and select more and I suppose the evidence of this is to compare my paintings with the photograph. With this painting it as necessary to include some foreground to show the recession of the road but I am beginning to realise that by having space in the front of the picture you can avoid all the close up detail and give the painting a bit of breathing space, a bit like still life painting really.

The only change that took place was an hour’s movement of the sun and as I had already decided where the light would be coming from so the shadows would make the picture work this didn’t affect me at all. I have now looked again at the picture I took and although it is a place I know I am a bit shocked by the difference.

Figure 1(3.3.2.1) Sketch on location watercolour on A5 140 lb not

Figure 2(3.3.2.2) Pickets Lock Lane II the return, watercolour on quarter double post 300 lb not

3.3.1 Painting from a photograph

Watercolour Practice

PART 3 Painting Outside

Project 3 Using photographs

Exercise 1 Painting from a photograph

I took my photograph at the quiet entrance to Lee Valley Park the road is little used and leads I think to a power station and the barriers across the road mean that there is no danger from the traffic as I knew I would have to return and sit in this place and do a painting.

Figure 1(3.3.1.1) Photograph of Chosen Location

I’ve been thinking about photographs quite a bit since I painted my back yard and the first thing I noticed about this photograph was that the perspective lines in the photograph reached the horizon level or eye line about 3 or 4 meters up in the air. I’m tall, but I am not that tall, my eye level is around 1.71 meters yet curiously, you can’t see much of the top of the cars.

I only know a bit about how perspective works and even less about lenses but I just did an hour on the Google searching “pin holes in Vermeer’s canvases” without coming to any kind of conclusion. I decided that if I adjusted the perspective for a 1.71 eye line the image would look more painterly.

I chose a crop of the photograph that was basically a reversed “L” shape. I deliberately decided to leave out the clunky gate assembly as it only served to provide a barrier for the eye to travel into the picture.  After three or four thumbnails I produced a working sketch and afterwards worked exclusively from this to produce the final painting.

The success of the painting lies in the transparency of the result I am trying to introduce more luminosity into my paintings and I think this painting is going in the right direction. The dark foliage on the right helps to keep the eye in the picture and forms the reverse L composition with the shadow shapes. I introduced the side lighting to tie the two sides of the road together. At last I have begun to vary the mark making in my paintings. The darks on the left of the painting, seem to me, to balance the darks on the right

As a check on the tonal relationships, I put the photograph of the painting into Photoshop, and changed it first into black and white and then reduced it to a nine tone image there is a good range of tones across the painting, although prior to carrying out this check I anticipated the road shadows to be darker in tone.

The colours in the painting are not like the colours in the photograph because of the lack of shadows in the photograph and because I think that the camera treats colour in the same way as perspective and struggles to establish recession, at least in the hands of an inexperienced photographer such as myself.

The painting does not look like it was done outside but curiously it seems to fit with my other paintings that were also done in the studio from small watercolour sketches I had done outside. The final painting does not resemble the photograph rather it is inspired by the photograph and resemblance is in itself a very relative term. I discussed this in Project 1 of this assignment with the painting of the back yard. My friends all accepted that the painting was of my back yard even though the painting was a construct that resembled neither the real view out of the back door nor the photograph of the back yard, equally they would accept a photograph of my back yard as a “reality”. My friends would not accept the paintings of Lascaux as reality but probably thousands of years ago the members of the tribe were afraid of the fierce beasts depicted on the walls of their cave, indeed across art history artists have bent reality some obviously such as Picasso and others less obviously such as Vermeer and Raphael For now I think you should never let reality get in the way of a good picture and anyway isn’t all painting an illusion in the first place.

It’s the day for difficult questions isn’t it, how do I know when the painting was finished? I just know. The painting is my creation, before I start I have a vision of what I would like to create and once I have a rough approximation of the initial vision or even a different conclusion, I have created, it’s over, finished.

Figure 2 (3.3.1.2) Compositional sketch pen on tracing paper

Figure 3 (3.3.1.3) Pickets Lock Lane watercolour on quarter double post 300 lb not

Figure 4(3.3.1.4) Photoshop of painting changed to black and white

Figure 5(3.3.1.1) Photoshop of painting posterised to nine tones