Part 5 Project: Adding other materials, Exercise 4: Mixing materials into paint

I mixed rice, sand, eggshells, rice and gravel individually into a number of mid toned paint colours.

To test them out further I decided to find out how they would translate a painting.
A3 sized gessoed mountboard. Rice was the only material I didn't use. As with the previous exercise this one is imaginary.
Before beginning I contemplated Anselm Kiefer's landscapes of high relief textures.
http://seaofgray.com/2011/10/13/the-commonalities-of-salt-flats-and-anselm-kiefer/

I was attracted to the muted palettes and decided I wanted to use a similar palette to that of Kiefer's. By some coincidence the colours were similar in the materials I had already pre-mixed with paint used for the inital test pieces. The mix of black and burnt sienna acrylic around the perimeter came about as I was thinking of a frame of some kind, reminiscent of so many Howard Hodgkin paintings, some impression of looking out or into something. This combined with other elements seems to set up a kind of ambiguity, which is one aspect I find interesting.  I had secured the materials before applying the dark paint around the edges and the remainder. The sand/rusty orange mix, I spread on with a painting knife/plastic card and scratched through much of it with a blunt knife blade. I extended colours of the high relief mixes into other areas, leaving scattered white patches from the base layer. To this I added watery pale blue dripped from a brush and allowed it to run down the board.
As  I approached completion reminded me of a volcanic landscape. An application of pva in selected areas brought out a little more interest.

Research Point 2: Abstract Expressionism - Tachisme and 'Action Painting'

Famous for his technique of 'all over painting' , Jackson Pollock employed exciting gestural marks - emitting a feeling of almost being able to step into them; they seem both calm and energetic at the same time. These paintings were done on a huge scale, painted on the floor, usually on massive canvases. Greatly inspired by the energy of ethnic art and later, Mexican muralists, European artists like Cezanne and Picasso also had an effect on him. His motivation came from within his head rather than from the real world. He is identified with pioneering the drip technique, very radical at the time and attracting a lot of attention, often criticism. Even so, some work is quite figurative; often I find it possible to discern figures,sometimes faces, in amongst the tangled mass of lines, as in the painting below:

Jackson Pollock, Black and White Number 5, 1952, 142.87x80.645cm, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
http://themodern.org/sites/default/files/pollock4a.jpg
His work was generally defined  by liquid paint flicked, dripped and poured onto the huge horizontal unstretched canvases. He would work on all sides, sometimes walking through it. At first glance it was seemingly uncontrolled but looks are sometimes  deceptive, and infact culminated in a complex interrelationship. As he became more experienced with the techniques he was able to precisely control the nature of the lines. Swirling lines appear to go on into infinity. Yet he didn't do preparatory drawing or studies.
Anything to produce the intended effect was used, including tools such as syringes, brushes and sticks in addition to his well known paint pouring from a container, which he sometimes had a hole cut in and swung from the end of a rope suspended from above.
Later on the paintings included a lot of black and white and had echoes of earlier works. Following this period he returned to colour.
Behind the scenes his life followed a destructive pattern which ended prematurely in a violent death.

Tachisme is translated from the French for spot or blob. It was a term first coined around 1951 and has many affinities with Art Informel, often the umbrella heading of Abstract Expressionism - intuitive and spontaneous, though it developed independently.
Paris based artists of note included: Georges Mathieu, Jean Fabrier and Wols. The general difference was their more carefully handled, subtle style than the raw energy of Abstract Expressionism. Franz Kline and Hans Hartung are also closely associated with Tachisme.  I find there are such a vast amount of fascinating artists whose work falls under this category, I can only scratch the surface here. I find them well worthy of further research and that is my intention.
Franz Klines's style was vigorous with large sweeping gestures on a large scale. It was energetic and crisp, even brusque - quite the opposite of subtle. He typically used calligraphic yet bold thick black lines crossing over one another, on a white background, and made many small preliminary brush drawings. These are often referred to as his 'signpost' technique. Tools used were: large decorator's brushes and commercial house paint. He included colour later in life. This one is a good example of his typical style - described as collage but I can't detect any signs. The name is New York 1953:
http://www.wikiart.org/en/franz-kline/black-and-white-png#supersized-artistPaintings-277514
This one is not described as a collage but yet it appears to have been used. Perhaps it was created using an old painting/s. It is simply named Black & White:
http://www.wikiart.org/en/franz-kline/black-and-white-png#supersized-artistPaintings-277497

Hans Hartung had a strong belief that his work should be a reflection on his innermost self, usually extreme emotion. The paintings were often on a large scale and with a plain calm background.
T 1956-9, 1956 180x157cm is painted in an energetic and dramatic manner, setting up a visible tension. Mid toned browns are  trapped between heavily applied dense blacks. It is made up of a web of roughly parallel agitated strokes crossing over one another in slight diagonals from one end of the canvas to the other. They reach out toward the edges, sometimes going off the edges.
http://arttattler.com/Images/Europe/Spain/Barcelona/Museu%20dArt%20Contemporani/B-Bomb/hartung.jpg

http://images.tate.org.uk/sites/default/files/styles/grid-normal-8-cols/public/images/fig-14_0.jpg?itok=PSxCGgA-
Following a stroke in 1986 he became wheelchair bound yet his output was absolutely prolific, producing 360 paintings in his final year (1989)! This is a very interesting article about the experience:
http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/very-late-style-hans-hartung

Pierre Soulages   

 Illustrating some of the hallmarks of the artist's style in the early 1950s are:
 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/art/10024/art-sales-eyes-of-the-world-turn-to-londons-art-fairs.html
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/soulages-painting-23-may-1953-n06199

  These paintings are dominated by black, interspersed with glimmers of white, pale yellow and bronzes, setting up dramatic contrasts. The backgrounds are calmer which appear to be scumbled on a dark ground.  As with Hartung, bands begin and end within the confines of the picture plane, occasionally crossing over the the edges, resulting in a strong impact. At the height of Abstract Expressionism during the 1950s and 60s he was regarded as a kind of French equivalent to the New York School. To apply  his broad straight swathes of heavily applied paint he uses special rubber spatulas, house painting brushes and rollers.

Soulages still uses a limited colour palette and is often referred to as the Master of Black, quoted as saying:

“Black is the color of the origin of painting — and our own origin. In French, we say the baby ‘sees the day,’ to mean he was born. Before that, of course, we were in the dark.”

Other artists of interest connected with this style of painting:
Gerard Schneider
http://www.wikiart.org/en/gerard-schneider/82c-1958#supersized-artistPaintings-313501
Jean-Paul Riopelle
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/riopelle-perspectives-t00123
Lee Krasner
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1995.595
John Hoyland
http://www.johnhoyland.com/











Hartung - sensuous free-flowing lines
vibrant - thick black

3 Exercise 3, Part 5, Preparing a Textured Ground

1.  A4 size gessoed mountboard. Spread heavy gel medium with card to make raised surface with ridges and rough circular shapes. A little course sand sprinkled on sparingly in isolated areas. Flexible Pollyfilla used to make raised broken circle. The theme that appeared in my mind was 'Broken Time'.
Sprinkled on fine salt when semi-dry. Thin paint brushed on with wide brush, manipulated with finger, paint pushers and spoon handle to scrpe off some paint. At this stage it waas too busy. Built up depth with layer of thin paint. Removed some paint by sanding. The 'flexible' pollyfilla I had used to make the broken circle like shap was not amenable to this treatment. I should have used a general purpose version instead. The painting became very dark, so once it was dry I sanded some more . This seemed to work well, bringing out the brightness of the white gesso here and there underneath.



2. On the second painting (on 37x34cm cardboard) I dribbled pva from a container and let it run down the board in thick and thin wavy lines and glued on brown paper wrinkled up, in rough pointed almond shapes. I added a piece of magazine page in a very pale blue, two small blue diamong shaped paper, two pointed elliptical shaped leaves and  a couple of leaf shaped pieces of wallpaper. The pva looked much flatter once it dried, just as acrylic paint would.
Once it was all dry I dipped the board int orunny paint on flexible palettes. This didn't work as well as it had done in previous experiments on watercolour paper. Instead I  picked up the paint on large brushes and allwed it to drip down with the board tilted. During this process it started to remind me of some images of textiles I had been viewing on line, must have had an unconscious influence on me.
I wanted the almond shaped magazine paper as the focal point but it didn't as things elsewhere were far too busy, so calmed it down through a process of adding, removing opaque paint.
I also added a little stamping with thin strips of corrugated card. The leaves were very effective in adding interesting texture. I reinforced the lines shapes made by the pva with further dark paint.
Looking at it afterwards, I find a certain reminiscence with the luxuriant growth in the field hedge not far from my kitchen window.

2 Exercise 2 Dripping, dribbling and spattering

Jackson Pollock, as far as I can ascertain, used enamel gloss paints. These were synthetic resin based paints and new in the U.S. at the time and I think were a factor in why his methods developed as they did. He experimented with the viscosity of the paint and diluted it to differant viscosities to suit the result he wanted. Mostly he diluted them to low viscosity (quite runny) to achieve his signature 'drip' effects.
He applied his 'drip' methods famously using a can or cans of paint with a hole in the bottom attached to a piece of string.

Initially I played around with watery paint on a sketchbook page A4 (above). Paint - watery blue-green on decorator's brush applied loosely, virtually dripped on. Purple-red in spaces in between applied same way and allowed to overlap  blue-green in places - dark margin appeared -  I like the contrast set up by the darker red values and the splattered dark red on same brush against the mid tone blues . It reminds me of woodland or abstracted figures but wasn't conscious of producing anything recognisable. The colours contrast, while not to extremes as are mostly of the same value   - (not quite opposite one another on the colour wheel), they are subdued and I think they work well together.

1. A2 white cartridge paper.
Red and yellow were splattered from large brushes - had to water down the paint sufficiently to get this to work - thick blobs with long streaks emanated. Blue was flicked through fingers - result large and small spots, without streaks. Yellow then poured on from a jar. It mixed appealingly with the paint under, which was wet. Would have been a better idea to have first let it dry.
Some colours intermingle when applied wet on wet. This happened with a watery blue splattered onto yellow and red, resulting in a dull murky brown green. However, being a transparent colour aswell (ultramarine) didn't help. It was also partly to do with the consistency of the paint. At this point I was in two minds about whether to abandon this painting, but I carried on just to see what would happen and was glad I did.  I used another more viscous and opaque blue mixed with acrylic matte medium mixture not containing ultramarine. Although quite runny it held together much better.As I added further layers of colour, some on wet paint, others on dry paint it began to take on a pleasing richness and depth that I hadn't expected. Eventually, after I had added white poured through a 5cm hole in the corner of a freezer bag, the white blobs over the thinner paints below completed the picture nicely, as it were, and I reckoned  it was time to stop. I'm just sorry I didn't use better quality paper.

No. 1

2. A1 black gessoed thick cartridge paper.
Splattered from large brushes and dribbled from containers various reds and blues wet on wet.
It was fascinating to see the way the  blue paint, of different viscosities, intermingled with the  red paint below.
Further mixes of magenta and ultramarine and white  flicked on with side of 5cm brush created lines of spots, flicked from close quarters also developed long thin streaks.
White dripped and flicked a little,  from end of brush mingled interestingly with the more transparent wet purple mix below. The purple crept into some edges developing fascinating delicate veins.

No. 2 with avocado showing scale 

detail on No. 2

3. Surface: dull pink (red/black mix acrylic) painted background of A1 thick cartridge paper.
U'mne/cad yell (green) dripped, spattered. Tried to suggest vague figure of eight - as Pollock sometimes did. After a few minutes some of the yellow part of the mix separated resulting in interesting combination of green and yellow. Attempting a semi-control by placing brush into container while pouring white - became blobs which splattered when touched the paper, merging with previously yellow/blue mix. Two consistencies of white paint were used. Added several more colours - blue, red, yellow. Syringe used to dribble paint, attempting to create continuous thin lines similar to Pollock, but the syringe was too small to cover an A1 sized surface, so I had to work quickly, causing a broken line  of dark red. Tried same process with a green and took out the syringe plunger too early causing large blob, so did the same thing elsewhere so as to balance it out. The more layers and depth that I built up the more their appearance improved. The green didn't look too appealing lying around in large watery puddles, mixing with some of the red, so I dabbed it a little with a rag and voila! it was a success. I couldn't resist adding further white flicked on at close range with fingers. In general I was slightly disappointed at not getting a few longer thin streaks or lines in amongst the marks made.

No. 3 with avocado showing scale

On all three paintings: flicking paint energetically at very close range seemed to work well. I found the immediacy and freedom of this way of painting very liberating and enjoyable and I was very pleased and surprised with the results obtained.



A novel way to use action painting:
Lee Krasner abstract florals:
http://www.patternpeople.com/pattern-pairs-erdem-x-lee-krasner/

This kind of technique could be used to build up interesting surface textures for backgrounds inside or around objects, even over objects. It may need to be masked off if only required in certain areas of a painting.
For making collage papers.
Henri Lamy is a French who artist drops liquid acrylic paint onto the canvas from a knife or throws paint directly at it, combining with his figurative portraits. The facial features appear to be built up with unblended impasto beforehand.
http://figurativeartists.blogspot.ie/2012/11/henri-lamy-figurative-drip-paintings.html
Dave White uses watercolour in a similar way for his animal paintings, culminating in paintings full of vitality, developed out of a most fascinating range of mark making.
http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/dripping-and-splattering-watercolor-paintings
John Worthington drips, sometimes pours and splatters liquid paint over an underlying  framework of shapes forming a realistic landscape.  This process has the effect of  transforming them into something quite poetic, evoking the natural elements. His series 'Low Tide', he says, is layer upon layer poured, wiped away and abraded paint. The pools of liquid paint are often left to dry overnight on the floor. Depending on how they look once dry he decides if they have been successful or not. At least, with practice the happy accidents become more frequent.
 A strong sense of energy and movement is emitted in the series 'Low Tide', by his use of paint pours, drips and splatters over the often strong underlying colours. A great variety of  textures are created by both opaque and watery transparencies. These combine well with calmer flatter areas. I think the stronger base colours and occasional pours in the top layers, help to give a great sense of depth and contrast.
http://johnworthingtonstudio.com/

No. 3 detail

William Baziotes, Gerome Kamrowski and Jackson Pollock did a collaborative painting, 1940-41,  which appears to demonstrate great control over the process of 'action' painting. The calm areas could have been masked off to isolate them from the 'action' painting or painted around afterwards to make defined borders. My guess is it was produced from a combination of these methods and more.
http://www.weinstein.com/artists/gerome-kamrowski/

Advantages (and disadvantages) over more conventional methods of painting:
Could have several paintings on the go at any one time, space permitting - limited by the amount of floor space and protective covering available.
The pre-mixed colours in containers are easy to isolate from one another. Mixing of tonal variations not as important.
If things didn't seem to be working out I found that adding further layersgenerally resolved the situation.
Disadvantage - hard to control the results, I found I just had to go with the flow. However, with plenty further experience I'm sure more control would come about.
Messy process, but this to me is part of the fun - until it's time to clean up that is!