“Drawings have a featherlike quality. Sometimes you think of something and it is so light, so slight, that you don’t have time to make a note in your diary. Everything is fleeting, but your drawing will serve as a reminder; otherwise it is forgotten.”

Louise Bourgeois, Drawings & Observations

Assignment 1: Still Life

The options available here were to choose one from a range of areas such as landscape, interiors, still life etc. and to paint it in a representational rather than abstract way. A still life painting was to me the most attractive choice because at least I would be able to control the lighting, background and subject matter without too much risk of it changing or of items being moved around by accident. I was eager to try and incorporate at least two of the techniques I tried out during Part 1, such as chiaroscuro, graded washes and to include both transparent and opaque finishes in one painting.  

Starting with a few line sketches, I later progressed to tonal sketches and colour studies. 

Some people might view this choice as rather conventional and boring, but I think it is a very absorbing genre and style and as well worthy of some exploration as any other area.

Charcoal line sketch 1

Line sketch 3?

charcoal tonal sketch 1

1. Pumpkin and candlestick - charcoal. Pumpkin looks too dominant and overbearing. Tried a few more arrangements with it but none seemed to look balanced. I added part of a circle going off the paper to the upper right. I think this helped to balance the arrangement a little, but not quite enough. 2. Removed pumpkin and replaced it with glass jug, two apples and half  a lemon, removing and reintroducing things in varied combinations. Up to this point the background was light in tone. NB not all the sketches are shown just yet, as I sent them off to my tutor without photographing them first.  3. etc. and Charcoal tonal sketch 1:
 a dark background was introduced at this point and with  it, making a comeback was the pumpkin. With an increasing sense of my lack of real progress decided to try again using the dark background. Don't know why I didn't think of this in the first place - I could now obtain the chiaroscuro effect I was toying with beforehand, much more easily. It instantly added drama, along with the artificial strong light from a spotlight at the right side. It was angled to the lower half of the set up and slightly downwards, intensifying the contrast of tones. The pumpkin  materialised on the off chance, but this time it didn't appear so dominant because there were three objects to the side and infront as well as a glass jug. To vary the texture and break up the loosely rounded forms I placed the tall narrow curved clear glass jug slightly behind to the right side. The pumpkin being only partly visible also seems to help prevent it from being over dominant.

Following this I did two colour studies in chalk pastel, then acrylic. Chalk pastel: the range of some hues was limited - couldn't get the acid greens of the apples with what I had. Used yellow and blues mixed with some greens - just couldn't get close to the actual green, similarly with the pear and pumpkin. They are actually much more luminous and bright than in the colour study. The trouble was, that all the greens and yellows I had were cold. Late discovery of an old greyhound warm green pastel helped but not enough - should have used it earlier. The real reason is most likely my lack of accurate colour judgement with pastels. Had a feeling when I used paint, things would work out differently, which fortunately they did...

part finished acrylic
colour study

finished 

For the painted colour study and the final painting I painted the dark background with phtallo blue and burnt umber using an old kitchen sponge. I now realize that this is an excellent way of covering the area quickly and relatively smoothly, naturally two coats were necessary. I scumbled over the background colour (phtallo blue, burnt umber and white)  for the lighter areas of the background. In the foreground area added a little ultramarine to warm up the blue and bring the surface forward. Then added more white to the mix for lighter areas. On the lightest parts of the objects - applied a thick white underpainting. Midtone greens on the apples from two old green mixes stored in jars, one of which was quite a very yellowy green. Added a little more blue and yellow occasionally to vary the colours. Orangey reflected shadows - raw sienna/raw umber. 

Part completed final
panting

Initially I thought this was the completely wrong hue but decided to leave it on the apples to pick up reflections from the pumpkin and pear. On the smaller colour study I tried some lighter versions of background colour in the shadows and less yellowy green on apple at back so the front one stands out in comparison. The rear apple looked artificial though. I think the mix was lacking variety in application. Pumpkin - main colour: alizarin crimson/lemon yellow used as produces more muted perhaps colder orange than from a mix of cadmium red/cadmium yellow. Cadmium yellow/pthallo blue/raw umber/cadmium for shadows on apples. Colours used on pear: raw sienna/cadmium yellow/touch of white, shadows as other fruit. Some obvious colour mistakes, in moments of madness, were made along the way, especially in shadows, which were not too difficult to cover up, thanks to acrylics being what they are. Generally throughout the painting, with the exception of the pear. the lightest areas were done with opaque underpainting of white and the overlying colours were either transparent or scumbled with both thin and opaque paint. I added touches of neighbouring colours in each piece of fruit and in the bottle.

Final painting - finished
will take another photo of this as
the reflection in the upper portion
is irritating..

Looking again at the charcoal sketch, I think it may have been a better idea to leave the bottle overlapping the back of the pumpkin because the ellipse on the bottom links the continuity of  the round shapes across to the apple on the right. I was overly concerned with using transparent glazes so as not to obliterate what little there was of the areas of white ground at the cost of some spontaneouty. I spent too much time fiddling around trying to balance lights and darks - as on the pear where I used glazes to play down the shadows then had to darken the darkest shadows again and brighten up some of the lightest areas with opaque paint. Part of the difficulty may have been much to do with using titanium white in certain glazes. I have now acquired some mixing white, which is more transparent, and hopefully will help to cure this problem in future. 

On reflection, my painting for Assignment 1 has a few features that I would like to change or do differently if attempting it again:
For reflected shadows  I would add subtle touches of colours from adjacent objects, for instance a hint of green from the apples on the facing surface of the pumpkin.
In the pear I would build up the highlighted areas with white, then cover it with a thin glaze of raw sienna and lemon yellow. I think this would give it much more luminosity. I discovered this was a trick that many of the old masters used.
The shadow behind the pear, on the apple doesn't have much depth as it is too opaque.

I can see what my tutor meant about the ellipse on the glass vessel and the top left of the pumpkin potentially benefiting from being eased back into the shadows more.
Later on I did alter the glass jug and a few other elements. On the glass jug, deciding its spout looked a bit vague, I defined it further. Then on the ellipse at the base I painted over the original with dark blue in as near as I could get to the existing hues to its surroundings - it took a few layers of paint to cover the previous one. For the revised ellipse I used a fairly dry brush paint consistency. I applied small amounts of thin glazes  in slightly varied tones to some of the dark blue background and surface tones, partly to blend in with the new mix I had applied around the base of the glass jug and to enhance some areas of light reflection, while keeping to cooler blues, blending them more than in the foreground, and to help enhance the look of depth and atmospheric perspective. This mixture/s for the glazes was added to shadowed areas of the apples and pear to suggest reflections from the dark blue cloth and on the shadow at the base of the pumpkin. I managed to push the top left of the pumpkin further into the shadows using a combination of the thin and slightly thicker glazes. Looking at it again later I think the effect would have been increased if had also darkened its left side, still it is a definite improvement on the earlier version.

Final painting post alterations NB There is 
more glare on this image than on the image above, causing it to
appear lighter  - which is not the case, I will have to try some other way ...

Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro is a technique for producing bold contrasts of light and shade in pictorial representation to create depth and form. It means Chiaro (light) and scuro (dark) in Italian. From  its origins during the Renaissance many very well known artists over the centuries have used this technique to their advantage. Indeed for some it has become almost a trademark.
Leonardo Da Vinci pioneered chiaroscuro by establishing a monochrome underpainting using contrasting lights and darks. Then build up the painting with various coloured glazes. This can be seen clearly in Madonna (or Virgin) of the Rocks (1506) :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_of_the_Rocks#mediaviewer/File:Leonardo_da_Vinci_-_Virgin_of_the_Rocks_(Louvre).jpg
 Leonardo's style is often regarded as sfumato as opposed to typical chiaroscuro of later years, because the tonal transitions are more subtle.


Later artists used chiaroscuro  to more dramatic effect such as Caravaggio, Tintoretto, Rubens, Rembrandt and Joseph Wright of Derby. They  were some of its greatest proponents and all used it to dramatic effect. The main characteristics of their paintings are the iilusion of a spotlight illuminating the main focal areas, surrounded by often expansive heavy dark areas giving the impression of nightime. These scenes would in fact usually be lit by candlelight, fire or moonlight.

Carravagio's highly dramatic style became instrumental in developing tenebrism where extreme chiaroscuro dominates.

There is a sensation of a strong pull towards the face of Christ in this painting. Brightly illuminated faces, hands and the armour covering arm of a soldier are all turned in the direction of one person - Jesus, with the exception of the person on the far left who appears to be in a panic trying to get away. Especially noticeable though is the light edge of the armour.
The main source of light seems to be from the left although there's a lantern held by a man on the right. Heightening the sense of drama, as with so many of Carravagio's works, is the violent theme of the painting and the harsh contrasts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Taking_of_Christ_(Caravaggio)#mediaviewer/File:Caravaggio_-_Taking_of_Christ_-_Dublin.jpg


Strongly influenced by Carravagio, Rubens also exploited extreme effects of light and shade, as can be seen in The Massacre of the Innocents:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Innocents_(Rubens)#mediaviewer/File:Peter_Paul_Rubens_Massacre_of_the_Innocents.jpg      though the background is

less of a mystery.

In the second painting - Night Scene,:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Peter_Paul_Rubens_-_Night_Scene_-_WGA20423.jpg
 although the strong contrasts are very evident the two faces and the hands again are the focus, they are more subtle than in Rubens first painting shown here and Carravaggio's - above. This of course is in keeping with  the gentle happy theme of an old woman with a young boy at her side who appears to be lighting a candle off hers. The right eye of each of them has a noticeable sparkle.

Rembrandt - being another great exponent of dramatic contrasts was fond of portraits placing brightly illuminated faces against dark sombre backgrounds. However, as in these two self portraits, the tonal transitions are more blurred along the edges than on Carravagio's paintings and the light is quite soft on the second portrait, echoing the gentle looking nature of the subject. His early works used a single light source so this self portrait as a young man is probably one of them, hence the reason for the blurred edges:

http://www.humanitiesweb.org/spa/gcp/ID/5218/c/538

I would guess that the second one is lit the same way:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-portrait_as_Zeuxis_Laughing


Joseph Wright of Derby was a painter of many subjects with a scientific theme,  containing large groups of people closely observing an experiment or studying a statue, all with strong chiaroscuro.

The two studies below show people viewing statues by candlelight. At the time candlelight used to illuminate statues in this way was commonly regarded as a good way of throwing on them a strange life.

In Academy by Lamplight the statue and the observer in bright focus appear to be transfixed by one another and. Between them are the small boy whose face looks up in wonderment and the man standing nearby with his head turned away to the left is looking rather nonchalant.

The centre of attention in the next painting is the small statue under intense observation by the three surrounding people. 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Wright_of_Derby_-_Academy_by_Lamplight_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

http://www.topofart.com/artists/Wright-of-Derby/art-reproduction/4281/Three-Persons-Viewing-the-Gladiator-by-Candle-Light.php

The next image is a prison scene, giving a real sense of bleakness owing to the expanses of extreme darkness around the outer perimeter, framing a corridor like structure leading to a small glowing window suggesting 'light at the end of the tunnel' - hopefully.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Wright_of_Derby._Small_Prison_Scene._c.1787-90..jpg

I noticed when searching online through some of his other paintings, that he was also a prolific painter of volcanic eruptions, which of course would have been in keeping with his dramatic use of tonal contrasts.

What is common to many of the paintings above are  the mysterious dark backgrounds and the strong tonal contrasts bringing the brightly lit figures into dramatically strong focus.

Project 2, Exercise 8 & 9, Tonal Study on a White Ground and on a Dark Ground

Exercise 8: Tonal Study on a White Ground


Following the brief, I made several studies of a selection of simple objects from various angles and from various side lit positions. These were to form the foundation of two paintings - No. 1 on a white ground using two quite low-key colours (one that has a dark tone) and white and No. 2 on a dark ground with the same or similar low key colours.

sketch 1

The first sketch was naturally lit and all others artificially lit. The latter won out as usual, saving me any worries about changing light - as it inevitably would, being a south facing room that I use.  I began by doing a series of  four sketches. The first sketch (left) was natural light and I used quite a rough scribble technique. As I progressed through the sketches I tried to block in the tones a little more smoothly, as with the charcoal version ( no.3) which I couldn't easily prevent because of the medium. There will be delay in posting this one as I sent it to my tutor without taking a snap of it first... I was also very aware of the negative spaces and how the objects and cast shadows affected them.

sketch 2 - lit from above left. The glass
jug seemed to have a very complex
value arrangement.

On reading through the instructions for the painted studies  I was left feeling uncertain as to whether the idea was to use a second independent low key mid tone colour or to mix the mid tone from the dark colour and white. So, after first introducing ultramarine  as a second low key colour to mix with the paynes grey, I decided against thinking it would be difficult to maintain accurate paint proportions during the process with three colours rather than two. I simplified it to paynes gray and white, mixing the range of tones from the above. Not wanting to be too ambitious with the range at this stage, I limited it to just five variations initially, but added an extra very light tone later (see below). I would like to try the same thing again with a warm low key mid tone colour such as yellow ochre or sap green to introduce a warm range perhaps.

sketch 4

                                                     For the first painting on the white ground the intention was to allow the white ground to show through in places. In the end there wasn't much pure ground left unpainted,  but what there is looks subtle yet quite noticeable. There appears to be a lot of very light tone near to the white - this now matches with my sketch. I found the five tones weren't really adequate, there was too much of a jump between my lightest mix and the white ground. This was why I ended up with the very light (sixth) tone as an added extra. For some reason the jar has changed dimensions since sketch 4 - left.

Tonal study on white ground - acrylics
on acrylic paper

I think a great example of an expressive tonal painting is Matisse's - a woman in a hat where  the tones are blended into one another along the edges. I tried to achieve this but my still life doesn't look blended at all compared with Matisse's. I tried to soften the many edges and used both fluid opaque paint and dry brushwork scumbled to blend some of the contours and contours. Also more fluid opaque paint and in the latter stage more drybrush. With my slightly perfectionist tendencies I was tempted to fiddle around with areas which (to my eyes) needed attention. I managed to resist some. Ellipses - I usually find challenging so of course the top of the jug and the jar got more attention than I wanted to give them.


Exercise 9: Tonal Study on a Dark Ground 

Using a surface of canvas paper I covered the ground in 2 coats of dark wash - paynes grey and a touch of pthallo blue. When this was dry I began with a fairly liquid semi-transparent pale tones on the background and objects, unlike the painting on the white ground. The mid-tone was slightly less so. As a result I like the effect of the dark ground showing through the lighter paint over the top. Overall I used a dryer brush this time, blending the tones more than the previous painting. It seemed to take forever tidying up the little bits and pieces like the top of the earthenware jug and the top of the handle and the rim of the large jug. Also (being acrylics) the tones darkened when dry and I overestimated the lightest tones. If I used too fluid a consistency it didn't look right so I waited until the paint was tacky when it blended with much more control. I applied several layers like this to build up depth. The odd flash of pure white here and there was fine as I could put this on opaquely, but if I wanted anything darker (apart from the areas where the dark ground is visible) to appear smudgy, I had to be careful not apply paint too thickly.
Overall I prefer the second study (on the dark ground) of the two for the reasons mentioned above and the  though the white/light  paint is opaque, if applied thinly the underlying dark finish lends and atmospheric quality. I thought about painting one object in a more opaque thicker paint consistency but I think it would have spoiled the effect as a whole, being too much of a contrast with elsewhere. I left lost and found edges on each one and blended them into the background in some places. It has the affect of looking more subtle and understated leaving a little to the imagination.
However, there things about the first painting that I do quite like: where I left some solid edges to the opaquely painted areas, as in the apple. I also blended certain areas - the paint dried faster than when using watery paint but I quickly scumbled it before drying. Once again the jug and jar have changed dimensions - the jug is shorter and the neck on the jar is longer than previously.

Tonal study on a dark ground

This is what the composition looks like in reality....erm, think I must have moved around quite a bit.

Project 2, Exercise 7: Monochrome Studies

A detail of a tree was the subject of choice.
This exercise is about exploring transparent and opaque.  I'm not sure if this was meant to be the case but as it turned out, I ended up using both effects on each painting.

After a doing preliminary sketch in charcoal of a dead tree (above) I completed two paintings - both on different grounds and using differing techniques:
1. Light grey ground - I painted this in semi-opaquely, but afterwards I thought there may have been more contrasting and interesting effect if it was applied transparently, as the tree was painted in as a dense dark positive shape on the grey ground. The paint was faded out towards the outer branches and more so for the finer twigs. I noticed after, ridges of thicker dark paint in parts of the tree. If I had increased this it would have given it a more tactile quality that I think I would find interesting.  I can see where opaque and transparent combine on areas of the branches looking much more three dimensional than the flat areas of solid paint. For instance, a few gnarled branches and twigs on the right where the paint was fairly liquid with some dry thick  paint.

On a light ground

With this method where a background is painted first the edges of the object are uniformly crisper as far as the outer branches where the mix becomes lighter. I think it's relatively easy to control the shape of the positive shapes. The branches and twigs look quite natural as some of the edges/outlines can easily be blended into the background if thinned out adequately.


2. Dark ground - mix of ultramarine, raw and burnt umber. I outlined the shape of the tree with grey chalk so that it would be visible. Then I filled in the negative spaces between the branches in a solid light grey (ultramarine, raw umber and white) thinned out around the outer areas. It is a combination of various paint consistencies - gradually more transparent quite watery mix and dry brush applied with a scrubbing motion. I discovered that adjacent areas would blend more smoothly if I thinned out the edges of opaque areas before they dried. This process may have been easier using oils because of the much longer drying time. The acrylics weren't as easy to blend smoothly on this occasion as they had been in the opaque colour mixing exercise because it was also necessary to be more careful here to avoid contaminating parts of the tree with paint from the background. I did thin out the background tones towards the outer branches though. At first I was afraid of accidentally contaminating them with the lighter paint but as I progressed I became less concerned about this and found I actually quite liked the effect. The outer branches are given a misty appearance as though fading into the background. Even though the paint was opaque is was more like semi-opaque and the dark background is easily visible even in the more thickly painted areas. Because it is light over dark the background looks less flat and more interesting than the light grey paint on the white surface as in No.1, particularly the outer areas where the paint is thinner. Filling in the negative shapes this way could be tedious if the tree was more detailed. I would add some of the most delicate areas after the ground then adjust the tone of the twigs accordingly.

On a dark ground

The painting in the course manual by Charlotte Verity shows how smoothly the oil paint has blended together. Perhaps when using acrylics a similar effect could be achieved using an acrylic medium in some more transparent areas or a retarding medium.

Transparent and Opaque, Colour Field Painting and Mark Rothko

On checking out the effects of opaque and transparent paints it is fascinating to see the  range of effects possible and how they can be used to advantage in painting. For transparent surfaces much depends on the underlying colour.  For example, if layers of thin transparent paint are painted over white the finish has great depth and  the colours appear very vibrant. Transparent paint on a dark surface is dull and indistinct. Mixing white with a colour makes that colour not just lighter but more opaque.  The surface appears dull, flat and advancing.
Here is a link to what I found to be a very helpful video about how the principle works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCiMwwxSMZg


Optical mixing - on reading through this illuminating article I can get a real idea of some of the techniques that Mark Rothko was most fond of employing :

https://www.currys.com/template.htm?PAGE=ARTISTCOMMLIB&ECINFO=TT-OPTICALMIX

In 1958 Mark Rothko accepted a commission to paint a series of murals for the new restaurant in Manhattan's Seagram Building.  By this time colour field painting was an important part of his work. His motif changed to rectangular forms on large colour field within a frame or 2 columns. He would apply numerous thin layers of colour  allowing parts of them to show through the top coat, hence the appearance of light emanating from the surface. Studying the series online,  I get a strong sense of being pulled in and pushed out within the frame or the columns. They seem to be almost pulsating or breathing. He was obviously very interested in optical mixes. The effect must be very powerful and almost overwhelming for many  when viewing such huge canvases at close range.  According to experts Rothko said that he would prefer viewers to be positioned directly infront, about 18 inches away so the viewer could experience an intimacy with the painting. For this reason he also wanted the paintings to be hung in a room with subdued lighting to help the viewer to feel 'enveloped' within the painting. A similar feeling is what he must have got from the vestibule of Michelangelo's library on a trip to Florence where he was further inspired by the feeling he got of  being in a room with the doors and  windows  walled-in shut. Eventually he refused to allow them to be displayed there.
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/rothko-red-on-maroon-t01165

The Seagram Murals  give some sense of their scale and intensity in spite of the mostly sombre colours:
Black on Maroon
Black and Maroon 1959 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/rothko-black-on-maroon-t01163

This is a definition of of optical mixtures from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/sep/20/guide-to-painting-optical-colour-mixing - When two hues are placed side by side or on top of each other, your vision produces the illusion of a third colour - this is called optical mixing.Optical mixtures emit an inner glow that you cannot get with physical mixtures - the colours retain their intensity and brightness.


Helen Frankenthaler, amongst others, was strongly influenced by Rothko's techniques and developed her own style of colour field painting called the 'soak stain' technique, where she would pour washes diluted with turpentine onto the canvas. A flat yet luminous effect would result from the layers of merged paint and turps soaking into the surface. There is a detailed description of the inspiration behind her landmark work 'mountains and sea', together with a couple of wonderful images, also how colour field painting later developed is contained in her obituary:  
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/dec/28/helen-frankenthaler

Here is a link to seagram murals  - revealing an individual's interpretation of them on a tour through the murals, displayed in sequence.

Exhibition: Still Lifes? Catherine Hammond Gallery, Glengarriff, Co. Cork

 - August 2012. Upon arrival at the gallery, straightaway I honed in on several mixed media works by Regine Bartsch. It did help that one or two were displayed along a wall facing out to the street through a large plate glass window, about 15 feet inside. It was of particular interest to me at the time because shortly before that I’d been experimenting with paint and pastels in combination during the first project of part 1.
What's also pretty evident are the striking colours used. Apart from their immediate attraction at a distance, viewing them close up was also fascinating because of the variation in texture resulting from the range of finishes from the smooth paint to the grainy matt finish of the pastel. I could also detect traces of graphite pencil. There are passages of both transparent and opaque paint here and taking a guess at the possible media used, I would say watercolour or ink, acrylic in an opaque and possibly transparent way, which I think was applied under the dry media: possibly chalk, oil pastel or similar.  These paintings combine both organic and geometric forms and there is a lot of foreshortening caused by the high viewpoint, giving them an added dimension, along with the intentional distortions and exaggerations of forms.

Click on this link to view more images in the exhibition:

http://hammondgallery.com/wordpress/still-lifes
On researching the artist a little more I found a couple of paintings of interiors in acrylic. These weren't in this exhibition but I decided to give them a mention here as they are quite unlike the still life paintings in that the colours used are mostly muted and the whole composition appears smooth and flowing with an underlying mistiness which gives a look of depth, as well as the use of linear perspective and ,as far as I can tell, an absence of atmospheric perspective.

They’re mostly devoid of organic forms, rather geometric forms seem to dominate – as would usually be the case in the interior of a building. They have a semi-abstract, even abstract appearance.

For a bigger selection of the artist's work visit:
http://bartsch.ie/regine/artist.php

Suzy O’Mullane’s oil paintings appear simplified and even childlike. The way that the perspective is distorted seems to give the compositions a flat appearance but I do like the bold use of paint and colour.

Just as this exhibition contains mixed media, I also have mixed feelings about some of the artwork on display. There was a time when my view of this kind of style  would have been to dismiss it as having little merit, but now I realize just how elusive a skill it is, as an adult to be able to approach a subject almost from  a child’s point of view  to depict something in this way successfully. To have the confidence and conviction to push ahead with it is a real accomplishment. At the same time I think it is probably the case that an artist needs to already be established in order to pull it off…that might sound like I’m contradicting what I've just written - enough said for now.

http://www.katherineboucherbeug.com/biog.html

http://www.hamiltongallery.ie/artist/Jane+O'Malley