Getting rid of your own rubbish so something can take over...

'Its not difficult to make a work of art, the difficulty lies in the right state to do it.'
(Maggi Hambling quoting Brancusi)

Yearly Post

Well technically a little over a year...

Atelier - Copying The Masters

I have spent the last few months trying to copy some of my favourite painters. I have enjoyed trying to guess their paint techniques and have had my understanding reaffirmed that they are masters for a reason. I feel my confidence growing as I understand the behavior of paint and I am also reading Ralph Mayers  - The Artist Handbook of Materials and Techniques. This is a colossal book with loads of interesting information about the chemistry of painting and how mediums work. It has probably been the most influential thing I've read so far about painting. (I'm still reading it and will be for many years as its so thick!)

Below are MY copies of artwork from the work of Jenny Saville, Bacon, Monet etc . It has been a very worth while but very frustrating method of learning. I totally acknowledge that my colour's are very different from the original paintings. I'm not going to post the original next to my copy as my intention wasn't to try and reproduce it like for like, but to get a better understanding of how they painted. If you did compare them to the original artwork you would clearly see my inferiority as a painter.

Jenny Saville - Host

I gave myself a day to paint this, it was taken from a Jenny Saville Book I purchased. I enjoyed mixing the paint for this pallet. I did get a really sense of 'flesh' while I was working, which I think the point of her work.

Bacon's - Three Figures at the base of the Crucifixion

I tried painting on the back of the canvas, I had watched a documentary where Bacon said he prefers to paint on the back, so I tried it. The paint absorbed quickly which made the marks rough and textured. This is my favourite one from this triptych. I like the rawness of his work and I think his painting method supports it.

Monet - View of River Seine

This still isn't finished. It is actually very hard to paint like him. I don't think I chose the easiest of his paintings but I don't usually work in purple so I thought I would try it. The thick impasto layering of paint makes maintaining colour difficult. I have enjoyed the movement of this painting style.

Frank Auerbach - Nude lying on her back

I used a palette knife for this one. I struggled to control the paint but I did enjoy the randomness of the marks. It's as if you keep molding the paint until you get the mark you want. I would scrape if off and reapply and once I was happy I would leave it. 

Portrait in the style of Caravaggio

I painted this portrait in the style of Caravaggio - according the the old masters methods, but I realised much later on that he used a very different method. He painted the highlight's first on a dark ground. That's not how I did it. I totally understood why thin glazes have been used across history in portrait painting, they give a very beautiful effect of light. They also dry darker so you need to keep layering. Opaque paint blocks the light traveling through the paint whereas transparent glazes let light pass through each layer. It is a very delicate and natural effect.

Turner - Snow Storm

This has taken me too long and its not even half way done. I think I will actually do another post about this one as its was a good lesson in 'changing direction'. All I will say is that I still don't understand how this man paints.
 

Autodidact

noun 

a self-taught person

I’m six months into my self taught journey. I have no finished work to show for it, however I have learnt more in this last six months than I have ever done before in my life as an artist.

I have had however, some formal tuition through out my life. I studied A Level Art and I did a foundation diploma at Leeds College of art and design when I was eighteen. I have since completed various informal courses and a distance-learning course where I earned a certificate of Higher Education in Visual Communications. All of this has given me something and nothing at the same time. What I mean by this is I have gained a basic understanding of what is required of me to jump through academic hoops but I have no work I am proud of to call my own.

The lesson I learnt when I did my A Level was that I loved making images and I had a small growth of confidence in this area when my hard work brought me an A grade. I learnt at Art College was that art was not what I thought it was. I wasn’t very good at accepting critiques as I always challenged my tutors view. (On reflection I can clearly see I have a problem with authority – but I’m acknowledging this and I am able to admit that they were just doing their job and maybe my resistance did come over a little strong.)

I learnt a lot from doing a black and white photography evening course. I also did wood carving. These were good practical skills where I was allowed to do my own thing and I did really well to listen to the teachers considering my embarrassing inclination to challenge.

I completed a five-year stint at distance learning - I say stint because it felt like prison. It brought me as realization that I could produce work to meet someone else’s criterion and get a mark for it. I even got a shiny silver certificate to prove how good I’ve been at jumping through these hoops.

I have been keeping a journal of my learning, I have about five journals now and if I’m totally honest, they are the most negative things I have. All I have done in my journals is moan the hell out of everything I’ve been doing. I can do a lot naturally and that has brought me what I have now, that is, a wide general understanding of many genres of art and design. But why was I still starving?

I have never been taught how to draw or paint during all this time. I have learnt however, how to fulfill a brief. So I did a few weeks life drawing classes last year and one day I had an epiphany. I am proud to say that on Wednesday 18^th November 2015 I was painting this woman’s head and I just had the most exhilarating feeling rush over me. I felt excited and energized and confident and painting just spoke to me and said ‘Yes’. I came home and I said ‘I’m having wine’ and I celebrated. I finally know what language I can speak. Even though I acknowledge that I don’t know how to speak the language yet, I know it’s my language.

Six months on and I am growing in confidence, however I have a lot of ground to cover… I mean years of ground to cover… and I’m swearing a lot…but when I get it right I feel alive.

2 hour head study

Fight the Good Fight

I have been studying Visual Communications for five years through a distance learning college. I started studying photography in 2010 and I realized I wasn’t a photographer after a year of study. I realized very quickly there was this large demographic of technically minded males who dominated the industry. I was far more interested in Man Ray and dark room techniques. I also had the rumblings of some internal discomfort with photography and the digital age. Everyone has the ability to take a fairly rubbish photo and make it look better. For example; I could take a very dull picture of a fried egg and use the Photoshop to alter the exposure, contrast and highlights and then I add a filter, I suddenly turn my fried egg, into a misty hazy retro fried egg that every body loves and I get a million ‘likes’ and then I decide to call myself a professional photographer. Don’t get me wrong, I love photography but there was a part of me that didn’t want to follow the path so I stopped.

I moved onto illustration and I thought I’d found myself. I love narrative and I love drawing so Illustration was the one for me. I did enjoy the course but there was a fight going on inside myself, I could hear the distant shouts of me, myself and I having a good old scrap.  I did get a good mark in my assessment but it wasn’t enough. I then tried graphic design. I got a bit confused and focused more on illustration than layout and by the end of it I was tired. I handed my work in for assessment and while I was waiting I stated my own work.

I have a lovely friend who has been doing the same course as me and we meet up and talk about our work. We generally come away feeling motivated. One particular time we were looking through our private sketchbooks and we said ‘Why are we spending all our time crunching through this college stuff when what we love to do is our own stuff in our sketchbooks’.  We left each other with much to think about.

I now acknowledge that within myself, I have the need for validation. I’m not the only human to feel this way and a University degree would have indeed armed me with the tools to call myself an artist. I have been looking after my large family for years and I really had a deep urge to claim something for myself. The fruits of my education would have been mine and mine alone and I really wanted to prove myself. However, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it and it hurt.

Inside myself was the recognition that I had missed my boat and no matter how hard I tried I would never get it back. I would hate going back to University full time. I would hate being with hundreds of eighteen year old students experimenting with their creative freedom, while I would be sitting in the corner stressing about missing a call from school saying one of my kids was ill or how the dog was feeling or thinking about my enormous ironing pile. I would also really struggle with some student who thought they were the next ‘big thing’, as they displayed their diamanté-encrusted sausage on a white mdf plinth. I would also resist any form of tuition from someone whose work was unsubstantial. You see, if you tell me your name I will Google you and look at your work and if its shite I wont listen to you!

I couldn’t do distance learning and it took me five years of total slog to realize the format was just not right for my head. I have reading difficulties and the whole damn course is based around bloody reading. It was a total fight and I thought the fight was my artistic journey and that ‘every artist has this battle’. But it wasn’t that, it was that I wasn’t reading the coursework properly and I was basically doing what I wanted to do, but when it came down to it, I was missing the point of the assignments.

For six weeks I really pondered why I had the need to formalize my learning. I had to look long and hard at my life and see what was right for me instead of this formalized pathway to my education.

I just started making images of the things that interested me. I started to teach myself how to oil paint. I also started drawing again like I hadn’t done since my A levels. I am watching so many YouTube videos to help me understand and I am watching documentaries about art history and techniques. I am processing lots of information and it’s going into my head too. The more I do, the more confident I am that I don’t need a degree to learn, I don’t need letters after my name to be an artist.

It is still hard work, its still a struggle but the fight is a good fight. It’s one that I get joy from. Its one I don’t mind loosing every now and again because I know I’m learning and improving.

I was watching an interview with Grayson Perry and he was talking about how art schools are really important places because of all the support around you, to help you with your work and direct your learning. It’s a huge support network or specialists and fellow students that will help you improve. (Maybe that is a little bit idealized but I get his point.)

I realized when I watched this that I won’t have this support network on my self-taught journey. I do worry about my work not going in the right direction because of my isolation. I may spend years on one project only to discover that it made no sense to anyone but me. That’s not what I want. I realize I may have to create some kind of core system that will help me evaluate my direction objectively. I have also created a time sheet to document my hours spent working. Not to quantify my time in monetary terms, but to measure progress and learning and how many hours it takes me to nail painting in glacises or how long it takes me to complete a drawing. It helps me measure my progression. I am also doing short classes in life drawing; this is because not many people I know want to get their kit off for me to draw.

My friend and I were once pretending we went to a ‘Fantasy Art College’ (Like Fantasy football but with art) We were laughing about how she was a punk in her room bunking lessons and I was having relations with Picasso who was our teacher. It was funny as we sent emails to each other about what was happening to us in this Fantasy art college. To be honest… I’m kind of their now. I’m being taught by Picasso, Monet and Di Vinci and the mighty Caravaggio. I watch documentaries and learn about their work and history, I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. In closing I would like to share something Leonardo Di Vinci said: ‘I know I’m not a man of letters. Experience is my one-true mistress and I will sight her in all cases. Only through experimentation can we truly know anything’.

I notice that he doesn’t lay honor at the feet of those who taught him from being a small boy, he pays tribute to experience and say’s he will ‘site her in all cases’. He understood that our knowledge only really comes from doing the work.

Art and Fear

I have been listening to an audio book by David Bayles and Ted Orland called Art and Fear. I really enjoyed it and I found it very enlightening about my own work and how I should pursue it further. A couple of quotes that helped me are:

'Making the work you want to make means finding nourishment within the work itself'

'To require perfection is to invite paralysis'

Both these comments help me realise that my work should nourish me and I know I need to change my direction so I feel that nourishment. Also perfection... I think that requires a lot more thought on my part as I feel I have to decode myself regarding this matter.

My Empty Head

A few years ago I completed a black and white photography course learning how to use the dark room. Towards the end of that year I was experimenting with photograms (inspired by the Bauhaus as always) and I was using plasticine and card and other objects. Believe it or not some colours of plasticine are more translucent than others! I was feeling particularly frustrated by my role as a mother and my work was clearly showing this. I took a photo of my own head from above and I made a thick card silhouette of the outside of my head shape. I then left enough of my face to see some features. I made words out of plasticine and made a photogram with the words ‘My empty head’ inside my brain. This image has been kept in my box for years until now. 

I have been looking at Vintage feminist propaganda and I came across some really visually interesting but very sexist posters. Looking back at history really does show us how far we have come and how this would not be tolerated now, however, the feminist in me says we have further to go. I came across a poster of a woman’s head and inside it was all the things she thinks about like, babies and men and hats and busty dresses. Because that’s what we really think about…all the time. However I can’t see any chocolate in her head… a woman would have never left out chocolate - that’s all I have to say.

I could not believe the similarities of these two images. It seams a bit too unreal knowing that they are totally unrelated but very similar in design. The Vintage poster intends to make fun of the woman’s mind, whilst my image was produced out of my frustrations of being a mother. It has fascinated me more how our minds work when we produce similar design despite our differences in space and time.

Messing with Montage

Hannah Höch is a German born Dada artist whose photo montage is some of the best I’ve seen. I reflected on being a woman in the 1920’s and her amazing work. I found a quote from Hugo Ball saying ‘For us, art is not an end itself...but and opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in’. I liked that. However while reading about Hannah and the Dadaist I found it annoying that such free thinkers still expected Hannah to make the refreshments at their meetings. Hans Richter described Hoch’s contribution to the Dada movement as the “sandwiches, beer and coffee she managed somehow to conjure up despite the shortage of money.”

Hannah’s work commonly combine’s male and female traits into one unified being. During this era "mannish women were both celebrated and castigated for breaking down traditional gender roles." Her androgynous characters may also have been related to her bisexuality and attraction to women. Many of her pieces challenge mass culture within the beauty industry, at the time gaining significant momentum in mass media through the rise of fashion and advertising photography. Many of her political works from the Dada period supported women's liberation with social and political revolution. Her works from 1926 to 1935 often depicted same sex couples, and women were once again a central theme in her work from 1963 to 1973. Höch also made strong statements on racial discrimination and the war.

Below are some of my experiment’s inspired by Höch. I got a bit carried away playing with these paper German dolls! I had a go at my own bit of photo montage and I got a book called The Age of Collage: Contemporary Collage in Modern Age by Silke Krohn. I think Hannah would have loved this book!

 This is my first real attempt at a montage. I really found the process cathartic.

Worth it's weight...

I don't really have a favorite colour but I do find gold very eye catching. It works really well as an accent colour to draw the eye. It does work well in a printed form as a point of interest on book covers. Here are a couple of my gold experiments. I used gold leaf, plastacine and Gill sans letterpress characters.

What is Pylongraphy?

As human being’s, we are hard wired to see familiar objects and shapes quickly. Anyone who has looked at the clouds and spotted two eyes, a nose and a mouth have felt the influence of Pareidolia! Paredolia is “the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist”.

There are some interesting examples of this on the web, you can find photograph’s from people around the world who see faces in very unlikely places. There are images of Hilter’s face in a building, Mother Teresa as a Bagle and Mother Mary in a slice of cheesy toast. There are lots of funny digitally altered ones too.

Some scholars say its our evolutionary inclination for survival, to recognise familiar shapes quickly so we can respond to threatening situations more effectively and survive longer. Some say that our brains are constantly sifting through random lines, shapes, surfaces and colours. It makes sense of these images by assigning meaning to them - usually by matching them to something stored in long-term knowledge. Whatever the scientific reason may be - experiencing Pareidolia, is really quite cool.

Whilst researching this subject and seeing many examples of faces in the food stuffs and stains of the world, I began to wonder... If we can experience Pareidolia for faces or familiar shapes why can’t we experience the same thing for words? Could we not experience a typographic Pareidolia? So what is Pylongraphy? It’s nothing... I just made it up. However, I have been fascinated with Transmission Towers for a while. They are so very obvious and so invisible at the same time. I like to stand and look up and see what shapes I can see in their crisscross fret work. There are so many horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines that its impossible not to make geometric shapes whilst you stand under their tall outstretched wings. I photographed them and saw that I could make a whole nexus alphabet. The type has a very angular and irregular characteristic and the beauty is that there are many alternatives and options in what the letter’s can look like.

Pylongraphy may well be made up but so is the random cheese face that looks like Mother Mary. The reality is born when we give these things meaning. The lady who found cheesy Mother Mary now prints it on T-shirts. I look at Pylons and make typography. Our brains work in such an imaginary way and it would be interesting to see how many of our existing typographic beginnings have been born from “the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist”. In the same way that a religious person may see a heavenly sign in a random smear on the underside of a marmite lid, so we, as designers, receive inspiration from the world around us and make things real.

Let us not inhibit our brains natural pathways in seeing things that are not really there. Let reason and logic be still, as we allow our minds to wonder the horizons of nonexistence.

Transmission Tower
Giant angels of steel across my landscape
Reaching the upper bounds of my horizon
Thin metal structures of perfect lattice
Electrified ribbons extending for miles
A nexus plexus of transmission power

Observing the final stages...

I cannot help myself, I must collect moments of my life and the lives of those around me. I feel that if I don't, they will be lost forever. Moments, objects, light, sounds, interactions, all get recorded in books or on my phone. I feel a great personal responsibility as an observer to document the things around me. This in-turn helps me address my own existence and helps me answer some of life's difficult questions. Through my documentations, one day my life may be validated in some way when I'm gone. I did exist, I did live.

These are charcoal studies of the final stages of my father-in-laws life. He had dementia and his deterioration was quick. I found it important to address my grief for this complicated man through drawing. I feel ready to share them.

 

Recent Work

Stone Creature

Museum Birds

I'm obsessed with gold

Postcards

Here is a postcard I have designed. It was inspired by William Blake’s 'Ancient of Days' I wanted to show how my loss of faith brought me to logic and reason. I really enjoy William Blake's work and I feel a connection to his visual representation. He challenged organised religion and showed a deep understanding of biblical symbolism. 

I was concerned with copyright so I drew my own version. I used an oil wash and graphite, and then digitally added type.

The Beauty of Charcoal

I have recently had the opportunity to explore charcoal. All I can say is that it is one of the most beautiful mediums to work in. There are different types of charcoal and its important to understand which type to use to get the right effect you want. Vine charcoal is a very soft charcoal and it sits on the paper, you can move it about the paper with a blending tool like your finger or a brush or blending stick. It is easily removed too with an eraser. It’s a good base to start drawing with. Compressed charcoal is a very graphic strong tone. The charcoal sticks to the paper and it’s hard to move about but it demands you to be confident. Charcoal pencils are harder still and they are good for detailed drawing. They are what I use as a finishing touch.

 

What paper you use is important too. Paper with a slight texture holds the charcoal better, but I don’t love textured paper so I used smooth paper and I struggled to fix the charcoal when I had finished.

Having worked with charcoal, I totally understand why many artists use it in their work. It has the capacity to be bold and strong and extremely graphic or you can create the gentlest tonal range. I totally respect it and I’m very grateful for experiencing it.

Making Time to Stand and Stare

I have wondered over the marvels of nature all my life, but today, it finally rested upon me and I feel sure it’s the origins of my inspiration.

My parent’s garden was on a hill and I could see for miles from the top. I could see sunbeams through the clouds as the light traveled in straight lines through the large cumulus clouds. I spent a lot of time alone looking up, physically and metaphorically and I always found wonderment and fascination.

Life speeds up and gets more complicated, but today I pondered on the poem by William Henry Davis called Leisure. I really have the need now to surround myself with the things that influence my own creative inclinations. I need to stand and stare as I did as a child. I may not translate nature in my work in a literal way, but I will allow myself to be impressed by its form, colour and line.

The Push and The Pull

I have battled with myself and my work for a number of years. I experience a cycle of frustration and self doubt when I work. I struggle to validate my work.

I thought maybe I was on the wrong path. Sometimes when you meet resistance, its not always a good idea to say to yourself, 'If I keep pushing through this and I will get stronger'. I believe that pushing yourself can help you grow but not all rocks need moving and maybe the rock your pushing is not the right rock to push against. I have often wondered if my frustrations with my artistic endeavours are worth the effort and do I experience resistance because I need to try a different path.

I have sat many times at my desk pondering about how I feel about my work. One day I said to myself 'Why am I spending my time thinking like this? Why don't I just go get a regular job like everyone else?' I sometimes feel like a fraud. There are people out there who work so hard, they just get on and survive. If they do self reflect, its followed with a swift kick up the backside along with the words 'Get a grip of yourself'. I have to ask myself 'Am I selfish?' Is an artists life a selfish one?

I have sat with my friend so many times in so many coffee shops saying the same things over and over again, 'Im so frustrated, why am I struggling with this?' She must be so fed up with it now, but she is a wonderful friend so she just keeps reassuring me to keep going but I do struggle with myself.

I think maybe I will always feel uncertain about myself and I think I will always question my motives and over analyse the purposes of my work, I will always challenge myself... I always have. Maybe thats the point. Maybe the struggle I have with my ideas and my techniques is why I am an artist. Maybe its the way I work? Maybe my struggle is my growth? Maybe my ideas are born out of this process.

Even if I did go and work at Tesco and abandon my artistic endeavours, I would still have the internal struggle.  As I stacked the shelves I would say to myself 'What is the point? What difference does this make? And who designed this rubbish packaging?'

This is just the way I am. I am coming to accept this now, it is how I work and I think there is a lot of other artists who approach their work in a similar way. I'm still questioning, but now I accept that the challenge is not just myself, the challenge is my process.

Driven to Distraction

I don’t have much time to myself. I would like to spend more time on my work but my personal commitments will always take the biggest part of me. However, I found that when I do have time to work, I sit in my chair and fidget about with my pens, clear my desk, make a cup of coffee and flick through my music on my phone. Then I check my emails and check Facebook, make another cup of coffee, look through my sketchbooks, then fidget with my pens again. What is wrong with me? Time is ticking and I’m sat farting about doing everything and nothing all at the same time, I’m not focusing on the important stuff. If I’m honest, I must admit that I actually want to get distracted. I want to be driven to distraction.

It seems there is a restlessness inside myself that needs to be calmed. How can I do that when I have so little time and so much to do?

One day, after much fidgeting, I picked up my mark-making sketchbook and I just got some left over ink and made marks with it, I then used water to see what effects its caused. I then saw a shape so I drew a face on it. I then saw that the ink had saturated though the page so I turned the page and it looked like a little landscape, so I drew on that. It was totally free, without planning or preparation, I was satisfying a need and through play that need was fed.

I needed to see how masking fluid would work if I rubbed charcoal over it, I needed to see how oil paints would work with turps to make an oil wash. I then wanted to see how these experiments translated into a digital image. I would photocopy them and scan them in to see how it looks. After a while I feel ready to get on with my ‘real’ projects.

Reflecting on this I realize that I actually need to experiment before I can focus, the playing helps me work quicker and efficiently. I feel confident in my techniques, and I understand how they work, I can then spend time on my idea’s and making them a reality. In a sense, I feel like I am having a creative ‘work out’ and it make’s me feel better. I value my experimental experiences more and more and It’s now a necessary part of my creative process and working practice.

I don’t think I can put into words how much it means to me, except when I go through this process; I am totally absorbed and intrigued at the possibilities. I feel I am involved in something bigger than myself and loose my sense of self–importance but I get focused on discovering possibilities. I’m sure my views will evolve throughout my learning experience, but I am confident in this method of working.

This idea is nothing new, professional’s have been talking about the importance of play in the creative process for a long time. I just know what they are talking about now and they are right!