Telling a Story Exercise 9

I decided to shuffle around various photos of figures in different poses - pics collected from magazines etc. Not having cut and pasted magazine images for any composition before, it was a bit of a challenge, but also an enjoyable novelty.

The number of figures kept on increasing. I eventually cut them down to a manageable number but still ended up with at least three different photos, and I invented some of  the background. The stance and expression of one particular large figure made me think of disagreement even confrontation, so I  used red as a ground colour. Something about it made me think of Egon Schiele's  colour choices - these of course are in keeping with turmoil and upset, which I get the impression was certainly running close to the surface in many of his paintings. The rest of the scheme included greens, dark umbers and blues (almost black) and red tinged flesh colours, again I thought, redolent of Schiele's colour choices.
I would say if the colours seem to jar with one another in places, it has had the desired effect.
After several sketches and colour studies (including and alternative much calmer looking scene) I made a start on the painting with the help of multiple references.

At first I had problems with the paint sinking into the canvas, even though I'd applied two coats of gesso and an undercoat of acrylic. But it was the reverse of the side I would normally use. After the first layer the paint was a little easier to apply. It was hours before I was reasonably happy that the the facial details of the two most prominent figures looked convincing enough. The number of figures increased from two to three to five during the preparatory stages. I was thinking about the possible dialogue taking place between them, the posturing and the facial expressions are what fascinated me most of all.

colour study

colour study

Again I was conscious of trying to obtain an effect similar to Diebenkorn's paint application on and around his figures, but yet again, I couldn't manage to pull it off.
The background didn't gel initially, despite my efforts to keep it simple so as not to distract from the interaction of the figures. The centre area looked too busy , I think as it wasn't adequately blended and the tones didn't balance. Hopefully now it has been softened and the floor darkened the balance is working. At least now it doesn't seem to be fighting for attention, while it has the ability of suggestion and to become part of the narrative, which when also taking into consideration the figures, could be interpreted in several ways. The green and blue tones complement the red ground where it shows through, so that is intended to enhance the tense confrontational mood.

finished painting

Now it's completed I see aspects of the colour study on the red ground which I prefer to the finished painting such as the immediacy of the brushwork and more ground colour showing through. Although some things are out of proportion ie. the head of the figure facing out in the right foreground is too small.

Exercise 8 Figure in an interior

I toyed around with various ideas on how to approach this exercise.
The composition I thought about using was the background used in a famous painting, in combination with  my own sitter. Looking at some of Richard Diebenkorn's figure painting influenced my decision about poses. The Woman in the chair  in particular. Again I like the fact that it was side on and she is looking away. This or a similar pose would fit in with an interior I found of Edward Hopper's - Rooms by the Sea as I thought I could place the sitter against this to appear as if relaxing while looking out to sea.
After trying out a few sketches I decided that the background in my lounge would probably tie better with the reclining pose I had chosen. The shapes and angles present seemed to have more potential interest and could be made to look ambiguous even, together with the sitter, in relation to the direction of light, which I changed from the left side to the right as though shining on the sitter's face. I had to manage this carefully to minimise dazzle. I included a suggestion of a television screen also on the same side - facing the sitter, so leaving me wondering about the contradicting set up of the two, an element I like.

Research Point 3 - Figures in interiors

19th Century

Berthe Morisot - In the Dining Room
Cultural restrictions of her gender at the time limited what subjects Morisot could paint, in the sense that it was regarded as taboo for a woman of her class to be seen alone in many public places.  So, the subjects she painted were mostly of domestic life, family and friends. This particular one is of her maid servant, neatly dressed, looking alert and ready to serve. However I think the artist had a way of bringing sparkle to an otherwise  mundane subject matter. And despite 'respectable' female artist's limitations, Morisot broke away from conventional realism with her lively painting style. As a member of the Impressionist movement she had her own distinctive style characterised by very loose brushwork
The shape of the picture frame echoes the vertical rectangles, which are the dominant shapes. The largest areas of darkest values are balanced between the upper and lower centre of the fugure's clothes. Dark horizontal lines on the window frames and the wall clock direct the viewer's attention to the central figure. Although there is a lot going on in the background, it looks well balanced. This busy scene has been successfully simplified, I think, because of using the same colours and sketchy brushwork as in the figure, so that it doesn't take over the figure as the focus of attention.. Only the areas of orange and flesh tones are picked out in the fruit and other isolated areas, dotted around randomly. In this way attention is drawn to the little dog at the heels of the figure (maid) by the flesh colour of its only visible ear.

The Dining Room, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 1875
No description available

"Berthe Morisot 003" by Berthe Morisot - The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH.. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Berthe_Morisot_003.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Berthe_Morisot_003.jpg

19th/20th Century

Walter Sickert

http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/edward-hopper/sunlights-in-cafeteria

20th Century

Richard Diebenkorn 
Diebenkorn alternated between figure and abstract painting. He didn't want to be associated with any particular art movement, though at different times was associated with Abstract expressionism (earlier work) and the Bay area figurative movement of 1950s and 60s. Heavily influenced by Matisse his depiction of figures in interiors contained plain areas of colour in geometric shapes,  roughly rectangular, quite vivid, one colour often painted over an underlayer of its complementary, parts of which are very often left visible.
 Woman in Mirror - the main spatial relationships in background are formed by rectangular shapes. The triangle occurs at least twice as a secondary shape, of which orange ones lead the eye to the sitter's head and its reflection in the mirror. No two shapes are exactly alike. Horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines combine to lead the eye to the focal point - the woman's reflection. Coffee is constructed in a similar way:
http://www.wikiart.org/en/richard-diebenkorn/coffee
On studying a number of Diebenkorn's figure paintings I was trying to work out how he applied the paint - they are all done in a similar fashion. I tried to emulate it myself in my own painting of a figure in an interior (practicing on some pieces of gessoed scrap paper) but without much success. Some of the surfaces in these paintings, while looking very textured, they don't look raised. I think the texture is created by the way the paint has been applied rather than the thickness of it. I think now, on looking again later on after a couple of weeks have gone by, that he quite possible used a scrubbing motion, scumbling the paint thinly to achieve the parts of the underlayers still visible. For instance the blue over the orange on the dress is greyed down a little as a result. The muted greys and browns at the top and bottom of the frame intensify the more saturated tones next to them. The intense violets, reds and oranges only fill small parts of the whole but have a big impact, especially the reds and oranges juxtaposed against their complementaries.  This also applies to the reds in the painting on the left. In total their is a good balance of shapes, intense and muted tones.
Link to Woman in Mirror - http://paperimages.tumblr.com/post/7810167224/fineartstef-richard-diebenkorn
This blogsite also contains a large selection of other, mostly large, images of the artist's work, showing the brushwork in great detail. Hopefully this will prove useful to me on future attempts.

21st   Century 

Bradley Wood uses thickly textured oil paint in painterly way. Looking closely at the buttery texture of his painted surfaces I get a sense of how much he must revel in the paint’s thick consistency and the process of  moving it around. His enjoyment of the process is almost tangible in the end result.

He paints scenes (either imagined or real?) inside the large houses situated in a neighbourhood of the ‘well to do’ on the  outskirts of New York city.

It is difficult to pick out any one scene which I like the most but these two are intriguing:
I can't find a title for this one or a link that works - frustrating not being able to locate it. I think it must have been removed from the site. That's a pity as I find this one particularly intriguing. Not to worry though, as there are plenty of other paintings equally deserving of close inspection. In this scene however, all I can offer is a description of my own impression of it:
I get an impression of large space from the sharply receding perspective of the borders between ceiling, wall and floor. It is a decadent looking room, in which a sparsely dressed man is standing at a window holding a pet dog or cat under one arm. The other arm is holding up a viewing instrument of some kind - I would guess he possibly spying on his neighbours. Though I can't see it in this painting, in others the artist occasionally uses distorted perspective and the paint is allowed to drip in places.
This more evident in Reclined 2007 -
http://bradleywoodnyc.com/75812/667080/gallery/unavailable-and-some-older-work
 in a darkened room a woman stands near the edge of the picture frame, with a cigarette in hand, looking out of what is suggested as a window, judging by the lace curtain next to her, flapping about in the breeze and the sunlight from the window illuminating her face. Her whole stance suggests someone deep in thought. behind her the room recedes to a wall with two more brightly lit windows. There are some flowers in a vase on the table in the middle of the room at the left of the painting, helping to break up the space and balance the figure on the other side. But I also see a large dark silhouetted shape on the left edge, quite sinister looking - a real air of mystery and suspense.  Throughout this collection of paintings, contours are wobbly giving them a look of fragility.To me, it all adds up to an impression of a surreal and unearthly world, about to melt like warm ice cream.
Detailed views of his many paintings are available on this link:
http://www.bradleywoodnyc.com/
More information also on these:
http://partsgallery.blogspot.ie/2011/10/bradley-wood-oct-12-nov-6.html
http://www.bradleywoodnyc.com/75812/667080/gallery/unavailable-and-some-older-work

Exercise 7 Conveying character

Patti Smith - American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist. Medium - acrylic.
A black and white photo - the front page of a magazine, was my only reference for this portrait, albeit a good quality one. After a tonal sketch, did a few colour studies with colour test pieces, to try out various combinations. The reference photo contained a lot of dramatic light and shadow, so I decided to try and convey this atmosphere with unrealistic, perhaps moody colours. A portrait by Oskar Kokoschka - of Adolf Loos was also instrumental in influencing my decisions, both colourwise and the nature of the paint application. http://uploads2.wikipaintings.org/images/oskar-kokoschka/adolf-loos-1909.jpg!Large.jpg
The hair was put in as a loose drippy wash in cyan and black on a cyan background - I wanted to capture the effect of wild unruly hair. It was later strengthened and deepened with darker thicker paint in various colours.

1

2

3 finished

Three stages of the painting.










Throughout the whole painting I used a combination of thick and thin paint, opaque and transparent. For instance I added glazes to soften some areas and opaque paint on mostly the light toned areas, particularly the nose tip, the cheeks, centre of lower lip and chin. Also to intensify the dark areas.
Technical problems: because of the hot dry weather at the time the paint was drying too fast, despite using a staywet palette. Adding  retarder was a huge help to both the paint on the palette  and on the canvas. Bristle brushes seemed to be relatively unresponsive on this occasion, in comparison to when I tried synthetic ones. Again it took ages, repeatedly adjusting and re-adjusting the tones before I was reasonable happy it was finished. Being able  to tell when it was finished was easy, unlike certain others.

The finished painting portrays an element of firm determination in the subject's character, reflected in the expression - the upturned mouth, the gaze and the dark piercing eyes  . I think it also conveys presence as the head is fairly close-up to the frame, maybe a rather ghostly presence. I think the colours and tones I used still retain much of the drama of the photograph. The above elements combine to make it the most successful portrait of the exercises so far - in my opinion. The previous portrait is a close second (see Mood and Atmosphere).