Pushing an Elephant up the Stairs

A Grand Name for a Street ii

mixed media mono print on water colour paper 16x9

A Grand Name for a Street

Sitting in a bar one night in Kos, a slightly inebriated young man asked me what street he was in.  'Bar Street' I said.

'Sure, thats a grand name for a street!' he replied.

This is the first of what I hope will be a series of monoprints based on photographs and sketches I collected over the summer.

Mixed Media - mono print and water colour  on water colour paper - 16x9

Money in the Bank

Mixed Media (20"x16")

Its supposed to help you get to know people...

It feels a little odd to be back at university.  Familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.  Several of my friends from year 0 have gone on, like me, to do Fine Art, so not every one is a stranger.

During the summer the powers that be decided to remove and replace the roof  on the studios. Of course the project has taken longer than it was supposed to and so we are currently working in long thin 'studio' belonging to a local company. One more week and hopefully we will be back where we belong and I can settle into a space that will be mine for the next year.

I dislike the uncertainty of this time of year.  The not knowing quite what one is supposed to be doing. The projects that are not really projects but time fillers.  Or 'ice breakers'.  With the idea that it would help us all to get to know each other, we have each been given a part of a painting to copy/interprut.  The idea is that we then have to talk to each other in order to make the pieces fit together. Below is my effort.  The small image, top right, is my little bit to copy.

(Mixed media, acrylic paint and soft pastels on  board)

So far the project has not worked out for me the way my tutor expected it to.  Far from helping me to make friends, it became one element amongst others that triggered a panic attack.  I sat, staring at the 'puzzle piece' I had been given and at the blank board in front of me, paralysed, heart racing, hands sweating and close to tears. I could neither talk to other students nor begin work.  Suddenly, the room seemed to be filled with strangers.  Talented strangers who were producing the most amazing work before my eyes.  How could I, with my poor drawing skills and clumsy painting technique even pick up a pencil? I felt sure that finally, I would be exposed as a fraud who had some how managed to get into university by accident.

Foolish thoughts, I know. But sometimes knowing does not help.  I spoke to the tutor, packed up my things and left. I have not been back since except for the trip to Liverpool.

I had deceided that today I would pull myself together and go in.  Unfortunately the gall stone problem has raised its unpleasant, nausiating head again and instead I am off to see the doctor this afternoon.

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Another water colour from my Kos sketchbook.

Dabbing it here, dabbing it there...

I am a messy painter.  Actually I am messy full stop. I can't even use charcoal without getting it all over my face and in my hair.  Some times I plan to be careful - put newspaper down to protect the carpet and furniture, wear my oldest clothes - too frequently I simply forget.  The urge to paint or draw is a single minded impulse.  There are few things capable of distracting me once it strikes. Which explains why most of my clothes have acquired extra design elements, otherwise known as paint splatters.  Perhaps the non-existence of a social life is a lucky thing. What would I wear if I did go out?

Speaking of which, I received a text from a friend yesterday asking me if I would like to be involved with an art group that she and a few other students from university are starting up.  My first instinct was to say no.  The habit of hibernation runs deep.  However the lure of other artists to talk to and maybe a little fun, as well as the fact that L had thought to include me, is temptation enough to give it a go. 

I won't be able to go to the first meeting, which is today.  My financial situation is still too precarious to stray from my budget.  Even for bus fare. At the moment the only income I have is Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit, although hopefully, my Disability Living Allowance will be paid into the bank today.  The way the system works I was unable to claim benefit until the 3rd of July, which left two or three weeks with nothing at all.  I had planned for this, but unfortunately the money claimed back by the Student Loan Company wiped out what I had managed to save.  Fingers crossed that the powers that be do not take too long to process my claim.

I have been busy over the last few days working on a painting.  'Not every thing works' has been my mantra.  My experiments this summer are about learning to handle paint and about practising my drawing skills.  As you might guess from those statements, frustration levels have been running high.

I began with a charcoal sketch.  Not great, but the composition interested me.

Nervous about using oils, I decided to underpaint with acrylics.

By the time I had finished the first couple of layers with oils I was aching to take a pair of scissors to the painting.  At this stage, I felt that I had ruined a reasonable sketch beyond redemption.

Oddly enough, looking at the photograph of this stage, I feel less negatively about it.  The high contrast is interesting and I think I could possibly of pursued this.

I worked on the painting until the early hours of this morning and was up again, paint brush in hand by 5.30 am. It looks very different from the previous image and better in a larger size (click on it). I quite like some of the transitions, but it is still far from the image i wanted to make.

Oil paints frustrate me.  I find them so difficult to handle effectively. Yet I love them.  The smell, the texture, the colours. Their versatility in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing.

I think that today I will put away my sketch book, my paints and do something else.  Leave the painting to dry, avoid it for a few days. I doubt that it will improve with keeping, but perhaps I can learn some lessons when I am able to look at it with a more objective eye.

Rainy Day in Town

Oils Approx 12" x 10"

As you can see, I am still obsessed with working with a limited palette and with developing a language of familiar marks. Although I have several ideas for subject matter buzzing around in my head, I have decided that my self given summer project is going to be do with exploration of media, particularly paint.

I am still so new to painting, I have a lot to learn, particularly about oil paints.  There is not really much emphasis on the practicalities of painting at university, so this is a good opportunity to learn as much as I can by myself. 

My competence and confidence with beads come from much practice and long familiarity.  I would like to gain something of that in my paintings.

Tags: painting, oils, oil painting, art, learning

Whats not on the syllabus

To set one's self high standards is a good thing. An artist of any kind,  needs to develop a critical eye for their own work.  To be able to appraise, judge and select the successful from the less so. Not an easy task, when criticism of your work, by others or by yourself can so easily be felt personally.  It is essential to develop a degree of objectivity. The work and the artist are not the same creature, even though it may feel as though they were.

I try not to allow anyone to see my work when it is newly completed.  I need at least a day or two to get through the 'honeymoon' period.  The time when I am enchanted, delighted and involved. I keep my new baby close and observe it  from every angle.  Slowly, I begin to notice its faults. I may attempt to correct them or brood over  how fundamental and intractable they are.  Within hours the love affair is over and the art work I was so proud of becomes something so dreadful I cannot bear to look at it.

This is the point at which much of my work has come to grief. Paintings cut into pieces with shiny, sharp scissors, beadwork dismantled and scattered.  Drawings, torn and shredded.  One of the most difficult lessons I have had to learn during my two years at college and university is to resist the temptation to destroy. Tutors insist on seeing all your work, the good and the bad.  Judging a project as a whole, from beginning to end, not just the final destination. 

So I began to hide my work from myself. To put it out of sight and easy reach once the voice of my inner critic began to make itself heard.  The result was detachment.  An ability to see things in a more objective way.  Suddenly I could say 'that works' or 'that doesn't' in a way far less clouded by emotion than previously.  Strangely, some of what I consider my more successful pieces seemed no longer to have anything to do with me.  It is difficult to imagine that I  made or painted them. They have become something separate, self-contained.

During the last semester I made my most important discovery so far. Not everything has to work. Just because 4, 8, or even 9 out of 10 pieces are failures does not mean that I am not an artist, or that I never can be.  It is the one successful work that matters, even if it is only one in a hundred. There is no success without failure. 

The painting pictured above is one that once would have met its fate at the hands of a pair of scissors, and deservedly so as it is not very good!  However, instead of being destroyed it will be filed with my notebooks and sketches. Looked at for what it can teach me about what doesn't work. Enjoyed for the beauty of that deep, dark red and perhaps one day become a step along the way to something that will work.

Still.Life

Oils on canvas. Approx 14" x 10"

Looking through old sketch books I came across a series of drawings done while I was at college.  They were  tentative thoughts about potential subject matter for a project entitled 'Black and White'. In the end, I went off in a different direction and produced something completely different for my final piece.

Seeing the initial sketches again after more than a year, I realised that 'old sketches never die' and are capable of stimulating new ideas.  My thoughts are still focused on my most recent project, It seems that I am not yet done with  'Metamorphosis'.

This piece is an exploration into the use of a restricted palette and of shape.  The two vases used as a starting point are essentially black and white.  One has a wonderfully smooth, shiny surface that flows into sleek, full curves.  The other is rougher in texture with sharp angles as well as curves.  Put together they contrast and compliment each other and suggest something else. Something organic and living like a pregnant woman.

Final Project - again!

Sorry to return to the subject of my year end project yet again,but I had an email asking for some information.  The following piece developed out of an original piece of prose that I wrote some years ago.  Unfortunately the words are illegible in the photograph. 

For the person who expressed an interest, here is a translation:

Download paintednails.doc

The piece measures approx 35.5cm x 25cm.

Attempting to interput prose visually, was an intriguing experiment.  The written word has always been important to me and so it seemed natural to try to incoporate it into my art.  I wanted it to be both pleasing to the eye and more open ended, more available to individual interprutation, than the original. I'm happy with the result and feel that it fits very well into my project theme, 'Metamorphosis'.  The written and the visual slide into each other, the personal and the general look for a meeting place. From symbol to written word and back again, one thing becomes another...perhaps.

Work in progress (I think)

Like an addict reaching for their drug of choice, I reached for my paint brush.  I have begun to work on a idea that I hope will keep me occupied through out the summer and I also intend to experiment a little more with media.  This piece sort of fits in to the second of those categories as it began with collage using newspapers and coloured tissue.  The result is a mixed media painting that I am tempted to keep working on. Maybe its time to get my oils out again...

The Game

(A larger version can be seen by clicking on the thumbnail)