Friday 17 November 2017

Contemporary Painting Studio Week 6

Rather than 'train stitching' , on the way  to class at City Lit I was updating my sketchbook/notebook and had prepared a 'to do' list  of what I wanted to achieve. This  meant I was already prepared for filling in the mid-course progress review form for the second half of the course. 

After putting a coat of white acrylic  over the newspaper collage I did last week. I put some  transparent colour glazes( with W&N paints and Golden soft gel)  over the collages I'd primed with PVA . I used raw sienna , burnt umber and a grey mixed with burnt umber and ultramarine. I could have done with using less of the gel, they're a bit shiny but then so are the bits of magazine and I'm loving the retention of brushmarks with this technique.  


Another task I'd listed  was to look at the marks and colours in the collages and see if I could replicate those effects in paint ( a lot harder than it looks!)
Over coffee there was discussions about  pro's /cons of doing a practice based MA .  During  my mentoring  session Christine had suggested I   would benefit from this in tackling larger projects , lateral thinking and networking but I wasn't sure I was ready  for  such a big commitment , particularly that would  I put myself under too much stress  with my tendency towards   unachievable high standards! 
Gave me food for thought though. 
After lunch we had a look at  a selection  of the artists that  we'd  each  identified  as being of interest/influence/ inspiration in our work ( some of whom were new to me) 
Henrietta Hoyer -Millar ( at Lang and Ryle) 
Basquiat ( Barbican ) for fluidity, composition , text as part of image
Erik Foss - brushstrokes 
Pierre Soulages  ( my choice) black , colour showing through brushmarks ( led onto comparison with Robert Motherwell
Kaye Donachie ( Maureen Paley Gallery) Led onto discussion about visiting galleries - search for what's on using 'Art Rabbit'
Jasper Johns ( Royal Academy) I  still haven't got to this  exhibition despite it being  one of the reasons I became a  member as I was so inspired by his work at the  BM print exhibition 


I'd  primed several section of old quilts with gesso during the week , and had bought a couple in  with me to  use as backgrounds in paintings. 
However reviewing progress with Lucinda and looking at results from the mornings work including the  now dry painted newspaper collage ( below) I was going to work on , once  composition format proportions were taken into account, I really wouldn't be working much bigger than  my original  paintings! 

So she  brought  me  a roll of 150cm width paper  and with some help ( it kept curling up) taped a large piece to the  screen easel .
A stepladder , a copy of the Metro and a lot of PVA   were required.
I was  last to pack up but thanks to a borrowed hairdryer , it was dry enough to roll up again ready for painting next week! 

Afterwards  I headed to Westminster Reference Library to pick up my copy of 'What is Art', catch up with some friends I hadn't seen for a long time  and hear a fascinating talk  from the book's author Robert Good on how it came into being.
I was chortling to myself  reading it on the train coming home but that might have been the wine at the reception not to mention the mulled wine at Cass Arts where I stocked up with  2 inch masking tape in their Xmas sale.... 





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