one hundred paintings on paper - here are four of them box-framed. the limed white wood frames accentuate the deckled edges, surface textures and tertiary colours. they can be hung in small groups or displayed upright on a shelf (no need for picture hooks or nails). as square compositions they work in any modular orientation...my plan was to frame all one hundred of these and exhibit them as one wall-based work, about 2 metres square, an exhibition all about colour.. but i have sold a few of the paintings and there are no longer one hundred paintings.
[small works on paper in the studio]a reminder of where the obsession with stripes began; from these..
life class
a short while back i heard on radio 4's front row a review of life class, a short series of lunchtime life drawing sessions on channel 4, with artists maggi hambling, gary hume, humphrey ocean, john berger and judy purbeck... i didn't watch the original broadcasts but the subject came up again today and i found that the programmes (made by artangel) were still on channel 4's 'watch again' 4OD... so i watched, i listened, and i drew for about two and a half hours... and this is what resulted (all done in a small sketchbook with fineliner pen)..i chose to watch maggi hambling's drawing class first, as she's a voracious drawer...
first up was a few warm-up exercises of 2-3 minutes each; the model had a very chunky physique...
these two life sketches are about 2 minutes each... i couldn't get into the sitting pose, but the model had an intriguing s-shaped standing posture... maggi hambling made a good point about the correct easel position, to have it positioned slightly to the right if you are right-handed (and vice-versa), so that you don't draw awkwardly across your body... i have always told students students this in life classes, as it minimises distortion, your field of vision and arm movements are unrestricted, but do they always listen..?
then, for the long pose, although at about 15 minutes it was short...i smudged the pen marks with a damp finger, ink pen is perhaps not so good as charcoal for conveying muscle tones... next up, a 25 minute class with the artist gary hume..
i was looking forward to gary hume's life class, as it seemed refreshing to have a contemporary artist take a class, rather than some dusty old school type... i was disappointed, and so was he... the life model struggled to maintain a clearly difficult pose and gary started off by saying let's use any old paper as it's the first drawing (there were no warm-up exercises this time)... strangely, in these programmes, although you hear the tutor talking as they are drawing (half the time i wasn't listening, i was concentrating), you don't actually see them draw or see the work as it develops... gary hume made all the right noises with the charocoal, looked for the pattern, the negative spaces, but in the end he actually said 'there is so much wrong with this that i might as well start another one...' clearly, channel 4 didn't do a second take.. i think that he was attempting a very minimalist clean line in his work (as in his paintings), but a stylistic approach ended in disaster (you really do have to draw what you see)....
sorry gary, your drawing really was a bit rubbish...next up, a half-hour masterclass with john berger...
the first pose was for about 12 minutes, and although i found the dark background helpful, the shadows merged so much that some edges were indistinct...... the model was a dancer and had a very androgynous physique, with curious stomach creases... john said let yourself go into the confusion, explore the bodyscape, by making analogies with the landscape, trees, branches...
i really enjoyed the drawing the second pose, again about 12 minutes, although i think the right thigh is a little too long... he said to think in terms of bridges, hinges of the body (it all about forgetting it's a person, it's volume, contours.. analogies really do help)... john berger finished by saying next time go out and draw, clearly, he's a nature lover...next up, a life class with humphrey ocean... one long pose of about 20 minutes...
i always find these sorts of poses uninspiring, the body is slumped, it sinks into the mattress... i found her feet difficult as they were in shadow, and the picture quality on the playback was quite fuzzy (you have to remember that you are not looking at a life-size figure in these classes, it's just a small picture on a screen)... i really liked humphey's relaxed style of teaching and what he said all made perfect sense.. such as really look and take your time (but humphrey, i only have twenty minutes!!), look as if seeing for the first time, it is better to pretend that you have not seen it before, and if it goes wrong don't be afraid to change it, don't stick with the first version.. drawing in ink pen makes it more difficult to change things but thats why i quite like it, you take risks, you trust your judgement, there is no turning back, every mark is deliberated...and lastly, a short class with judy purbeck, an artist with nine years experience of teaching life classes in london...
i really wasn't that happy with this drawing (about six minutes) as i felt i couldn't work it properly out on a small scale (i was using an eight inch square sketchbook)... and i didnt feel the languid style of pose worked with a male body...
this was a better pose, again about five minutes.. i found the left hand difficult to change as i had gone in too early with the dark shadows, any new lines i added just made it even more clunky...
judy purbeck gave us a tough pose to finish, a twist in the hips and lots of foreshortening in the left leg...and only about fifteen minutes to work it all out..! again, i felt that drawing in a small sketchbook didn't give me enough space to define the subtle contours and tones... i noticed that our shot (the camera's view) had much more foreshortening than from judy's drawing position... her drawing was like a rolling landscape...in fact, she talked about looking for landmarks, key points on the body to help with seeing and mapping out proportion, such as the line from an elbow, the knee, a toe..would i recommend this programme if you were learning to draw the human figure? probably not, as all sense of volume and space is lost on a monitor... it's good in that it provides a preview of what life drawing classes and life drawing are like as an activity... sure, there are those who snigger, it's a nude, but if you can suspend your belief, relax and just see the body as an interesting form like any other object, it becomes quite easy over time... yes, it's a challenge, every viewpoint and posture makes for a brand new image, lots of intensive lookingat creases, shadows, undulations, spaces, sketching out and then re-working (even in michelangelo's drawings you can see corrections), looking for errors and changing (but not totally erasing) them, all those wayward fine lines and minor adjustments add life and spirit to the drawing... as maggi hambling said in the first programme, photography is inevitably a dead thing...
taking the scenic route
[bird on a rooftop]i know quite a few artists that make a humble living by making and selling their work through galleries and online; their work is very appealing, uplifting, well crafted, they have numerous private collectors, a loyal and appreciative audience for their work... i know other artists whosell little if any personal work to the general buying public; rather, they work within the public realm, seeking and securing funding to engage in collaborative or public artworks, residencies, installations and performances... such work demands a lot of research and development (supported in the main by grants or public commissions), not just of the making or marketing of events, products or ideas, but reading philosophical texts, classical literature, social history documents, as each project has a specific means to an end... both types of art are necessarily self-indulgent (even if collaborative), as an artist cannot make unique works without some form of ego present, a sense of personal identity is embedded in the creation of the work, this is what i need to do, to work out, to find, to understand, to resolve, to share with others...working in public art or collaborative installation art doesn't appeal... i need to work on nurturing ideas quietly, an environment in which to think and create alone, and not feel that i have to work from research to concept to outcome in a step-by-step plan of intended artwork to gain the interest of the funders... having a part-time job has allowed me some freedom to pursue my own ideas at times without the pressure of selling each month just to get by; selling is always good but it is not what initially drives the need to create... making art just to sell seems shallow somehow, is it really art or just another commodity? i could make jam or knit dolls instead (except that i can't knit)...however, i know that the art industry is kept most buoyant by ordinary people loving and buying art that enriches their lives, and when you get that sense of connection, of communication with others through your work it beats any publicly funded art activity, where the ones to congratulate the artist will most likely be the critics and curators... so, i often wonder whose opinion is more valid to the artist, the buyer or the critic, and where do i fit in this?...i have particular ideas and concepts that seem to continually evolve around my perception of landscape, from the transient and the ephemeral, the signs of casual neglect or decay that not only remind me that we are mortal beings, but that what we build is destroyed over time, that the environment is forever evolving according to environmental circumstance, and the resilience of nature confirms a deeper state of renewal, a sense of the ancestral or secret history in both the largest and smallest signs of nature amid the bustle of the manmade... but then this leads on to how to translate it, beyond a mere depiction or recording of it, it is not static... how to convey visual experiences when relying on the cloudy senses of memory and recall, conjuring up an abstract of a location, the socio-historical associations or physical juxtapositions, selecting the most important elements... the landscape cannot be made more real or understood in a straight 3:4 format, it is multi-layered, it resonates at many levels, the sharp contrasts with the soft, the ancient with the new, the brazen with the gentle, the lofty with the minutiae, movement and stillness, a slow intertwining of the metaphysical with the physical... these edges, boundaries and layers of perception always fascinate and inspire me... as simon schama said in his book landscape and memory:Before it can ever be a repose for the senses, landscape is the work of the mind. Its scenery is built up as much from strata of memory, as from layers or rock...science makes good use of the abstract to convey concrete actions, from the molecular to the macro, from cellular activity to the origin of species; we are used to maps, diagrams or charts to help make sense of complex events... but, within the realm of art there are still many who desire the clearest representation or most faithful reproduction in order to trust it; the artist who distorts or omits the facts of things is cheating us, it doesn't make sense as we know or think it to be... critics and curators exert considerable influence on those who engage in contemporary art, their word in respected, it raises profiles, adds authenticity, offers explanations, a seal of approval...but, in art there can be no absolute truth, as once made it is untethered from its source, and gathered up in the momentum of new interpretations... all associated stories or sensations will therefore be unique, understood differently, even if the moment is visibly shared... to quote the infamous william blake, 'If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite...'