Exhibition - Place Space

Saturday 26 November, PLACE SPACE, Wandesford Quay Gallery
Group exhibition of the Backwater Artists Group - professional artists based in studios situated in the Wandesford Quay complex. It is a large old stone building and was formerly a warehouse operating in the Port of Cork.
The gallery is a long room with low ceilings. Lots of natural light floods in from several long windows, plus artificial lighting from directional ceiling mounted spotlights. There are also a couple of small enclosed cell like side galleries with no natural light. Two large paintings (by Angie Shanahan) situated in this area were the docklands paintings (below) displayed as a diptych, amid very few other much smaller paintings. These large paintings made a significant impact on the enclosed; cave like space.

The medium was oils, from what I can recall. The brushstrokes were almost invisible - the smooth finish again adding to their impact.

I noticed a real sense of intense directional pull within these paintings. This in part being due to the angular perspective lines receding into the distance. One of very few exceptions, but a very dominant, yet only slightly curving line is the lower edge of the overhang on the building on the right of the central building, which has a strong angle towards the corner. There are many strong contrasts of light and shade in this composition, particularly around this location, the ground directly below and around the broken part of the roof in the left hand painting.

All these factors seem to do much to enhance the appearance of solid mass in the buildings.  A dominant angularity alleviates the very presence of only a few curving lines. The few large light and dark plain areas appear to be balanced nicely by textured areas.  Although the palette used is minimal (only four colours that I can detect) the inclusion of red as reflected light  appears to add a glow and lift, giving an intriguingly mysterious air.

According to the artist’s statement, buildings, often derelict such as these, have been a focus of her curiosity for a number of years.  To me these otherwise forgotten buildings certainly resonate with a sense of isolation, combined with subtle hints of human company or influence.

Docklands

Docklands 2

Using colour 2

2. Standing pose.

Another version of
a sketch for the
standing pose

I wanted to change the orientation this time for the second drawing of Using Colour.
Again I used the same model as previously. It was taken from a previous 10 minute sketch of a standing pose at my life drawing group. Surely, when I compare with my other figure sketches, this must  be one of the better 10 minute sketches.  I did find however, that copying this sketch for the drawing, a little more challenging than the initial sketch for some reason. 





The surface is cream Ingres paper and the background was covered with leftover acrylic and gesso, applied quite dry. For the outlines of the figure I used dark red marker pen. Immediately afterwards I regretted using this method as it seemed to look too hard and uniform against the background,  I think because of the background's haziness which seems to move in and out from the surface. 

Sketch for
standing pose

At this point I thought about a drawing I had been impressed by in a book of mine called Drawing Projects. It hasn’t been in my possession long and so far I’ve only tried a couple of exercises. The projects are intriguingly experimental and  unconventional. I thought I would take a risk and try out a technique which was totally new to me, but looked quite fun to do.  So I had a go with it, over the top of my existing drawing - after all this part of the course is called Draw and Experiment. I was very hesitant about using this technique at first – afraid to completely ruin it, but what the heck, it’s important to take a risk now and again... otherwise I'm not going to learn much at all.

RB Kitaj Ashmolean drawing - pencil

As with Louis Freund's drawing 'La Pieta', (Research Point, Part 5) the process entailed building up a mass of lines in a multitude of directions. In the drawing by RB Kitaj (right) the lines aren't so densely compacted as to completely obscure the light  or white surface beneath, leaving I think, the right balance between heavy and light.  It seemed to take ages to build up what I considered to be a sufficient density of lines, using the pencil and slashing marks of the eraser. At one point I must have become carried away - applying too much pressure on the surface  with the side of the pencil point (6B pure graphite pencil), as the density of shading in most areas around the figure was such that it obscured much of the light painted surface underneath. The figure's contours on the right were also more obvious looking. These were not effects I wanted. To remedy this I applied further firm rapid long  slashing marks with the corner of the eraser over the background area, frequently continuing over the edges of the figure's contours, until eventually the density appeared adequately broken up. At least I didn't need to fear damaging the paper, as the surface was very tough, having previously been coated with acrylic paint and gesso. The sheen on the paper's surface caused by repeated application of  graphite however,looks at odds with the areas without graphite. Proportion is another area I'm not completely happy about: the model's right arm looks a bit too short. I wonder though if this is partly due to the end of the hand being barely visible. The buttock, although in actuality was rather flat looking, exaggerating its shape would have perhaps helped , as it looks shapeless. 

finished version

This  figure's pose is quite static - various energetic marks applied over and around the subject, have the effect of promoting a feeling of turbulence and energy, in a similar way I think to many of Giacometti's paintings and drawings, whose subjects often also appear haunted or disturbed . Unlike Giacometti though, the surroundings here appear to conflict with  the subject who, rather than appearing haunted or disturbed, looks quite  unperturbed, calm and confident amid the turmoil, in spite of the energy flowing through and around her body. I think there is more similarity in this respect with RB Kitaj's drawing, yet my model  looks less troubled even than the figure there. This is a technique I think  would complement well a figure in a more active pose, if I was to try it out again as I intend. 

Using colour 1

Collage early stages

1. Collage – reclining pose

This figure was taken from a drawing I did at life drawing group. It appeals to me, as the particular reclining pose and the model’s figure seemingly combine to form a wide range of interesting curves and shapes. Further interesting aspects of this pose are the effect of gravity pulling the soft tissues downwards and because she is lying on a hard surface this forces the right hip higher than if the model was on a soft surface. I like the slight diagonal formed from this viewpoint, from the lower right to  the upper left. The hair spreads around in a spiral from the top of the head.

 I wanted to play around with background effects as well as the media for the subject (the figure). I used up some left over acrylic paint from a previous painting and some Quink ink applied as a wash, allowing it to run in places. Before I applied the final coat I stuck on a few torn magazine papers, painted over them, pulling most of them off again before they were dry, inducing a masking or relief effect. I added some white paint splattered on with a toothbrush and dabbed on with fingertips, plus some linear marks of teal blue conte crayon.

 

Collage final stage

Next I sketched in the figure’s outline from the previous sketch (above).  With a few more papers – tissue and newspaper stuck down on the surface, I covered the figure’s outline in places. Then I painted the figure with some very watery white acrylic to maintain some transparency on the newspaper print. Over the top I applied tonal areas with coloured pencil and white conte crayon – this being very useful for increasing the effect of the highlighted areas, while simultaneously softening the transition from mid toned areas.

The effect of gravity and the dark shading seem to have the effect of pulling the figure deep into the fabric of what she is reclining on. While the fabric and the figure combined, appear to be floating around in the dreamlike space of a dark transparent background - the directional brush strokes contribute to the effect. The angular shapes of the slightly paler relief areas act as arrows pointing inwards to focus on the subject in the centre.  
As I so often do, I think I may have overdone things. It probably would have been better to leave it as it was in the early stages. Having an unfinished look may have helped it's appeal, lending more variety. I've virtually hidden the paper and newspaper collage under all the paint and crayon, which seems to defeat the object of using it. 

Line Drawing

sketch for line drawing

This was a line drawing of a figure positioned somewhere between an angle of 45 degrees and side on to the viewer. It would be devoid of tone, so I decided to exaggerate the foreshortening to help give an illusion of depth and take the upper part of the model back into the picture plane.

line drawing

I didn’t expect this drawing to take me a great deal of time to complete, having no need to add tone but how wrong I was! Although I carefully measured almost everything by constantly making comparisons with other areas I’m not convinced that some areas are accurate. If my measurements are correct, I found that I didn’t need to intentionally exaggerate the legs, feet and arms, yet they look very large in relation to the upper torso, head and upper arms. To me the foreshortening looks more exaggerated than in any other seemingly correctly proportioned figure drawing I’ve done. I suppose at least he doesn’t look like a cardboard cut out!

Added to this, after a break, the model moved his arms and feet slightly, despite marking their location beforehand. I really got caught up around the feet on this occasion and had trouble trying to get them to look believable, especially the inside of the left ankle, which I think looks too pronounced and the right foot looks too shallow to me, giving both feet a distorted appearance. I can’t help thinking the head is slightly too small. The model’s feet look excessively long when in reality they are not. On the plus side - he does have a fine bouffant.