Probably the most timely of projects and exercises, given the current situation! The exercise is about choosing a view from a window and, after making a number of sketches, painting a final composition that reflects a mood. At the moment … Continue reading Part 4, project 1, exercise 1 – from the inside looking out
Apart from the challenge of finding someone other than yourself to draw and a landscape that isn’t the parked car outside your front window, lock down works quite well for a distance student used to the vacuum of no physical … Continue reading Busy, busy, lock down busy
For my final assignment I found I really wanted to execute this in acrylics; but was this drawing, and if it wasn’t, what made it different? Intuitively, I could see no real difference, especially as somewhere in Drawing1 I was being asked to ‘paint with pastels’, while in Practice of Painting at least one exercise is about ‘drawing with paint’. If I draw in the traditional sense, it is with an implement that on the whole is short and resilient, while if I paint I am using a tool that is often longer and has a flexible component at the … Continue reading Drawing or painting; painting or drawing?
This is a detail from my sketchbook; drawings of metallic birds in biro, and watercolour finger-painted into place. The support is pink sugar paper pasted into the book. It was probably the first time I had made loose drawings of this kind and it came after buying a copy of Henry Moore’s book full of ‘wire frame’ drawings of sheep. I think this series of drawings represents something of an early milestone in exploration of different media and supports as I had never used either before. My approach to drawing had also changed in this work, looser and less ‘perfect’. … Continue reading Formal Assessment – images
After reviewing my limited options, which are much the same as everyone else’s limited options at the moment, I decided on a self portrait. I had taken some photos the same day wearing a carnival mask and posted it to … Continue reading Part 3, assignment 3 – portrait or self portrait
I am a sucker for idiot’s guides to areas I have little or no grasp on, and while I’d read somewhere about cubism being derived from an attempt to represent many rather than just one perspective, having that idea visualised for me makes a big difference. Don’t make the mistake though of thinking this is a demonstration of how to copy one of Picasso’s pieces of work, it isn’t, it’s the equivalent of a singer/songwriter using Bob Marley’s riffs and rhythms in a new song, rather than someone you never heard of covering ‘No Woman, No Cry’. The art work … Continue reading How to paint like Picasso – video
Not for the first time, I find I’ve pre-empted an exercise with pieces of work that would qualify but were located elsewhere! I have a very hostile-looking self portrait in blue that would have served me well in the ‘character’ … Continue reading Part 3, project 3, exercise 2 – telling a story
Fitting the brief of paintings that appeal to me, I went first for Degas and his dancers in studio contexts. That led inevitably to his antithesis, Paula Rego and her dancing ostriches which are altogether less delicate. Stuck a little in ‘dancer’ mode, I spotted a painting by someone called Colin whose figures are very nearly symbolic (and which may or may not be in an interior setting), then I pursued the brief in more modern terms with a piece by Grayson Perry which is a crowded and cluttered interior which is recognisably a ‘today’ scene , and finally a … Continue reading Part 3, research point 3 – figures in interiors
This task points up some of the artists who have illustrated mood above likeness. Picasso’s blue paintings for instance; van Gogh’s early paintings of peasants, and the way Rembrandt used tonal contrast in a restricted palette to pull out a person’s mood and personality. After looking at these, the task then asks us to compare them with Fauvist painters and with German Expressionism. This requires some serious internet searching, but the artist who comes immediately to mind is Bisa Butler who, arguably, is as much about mood – in this case pride and the assertion of the right to be … Continue reading Part 3, research point 2 – portraits conveying mood or atmosphere + Fauvism & German Expressionism
There were several options for this exercise, from a self portrait in a known context, to a celebrity in one’s own home, through to a known person in a fictional background. My first step was to look through various photographs … Continue reading Part 3, project 3, exercise 1 – figure in an interior
Strayfish Arts 