The Dog and the Tinderbox

I've been thinking a lot about the practice of drawing lately... realising how narrow my own concept of drawing is, and questioning it roundly.
As part of that I've been reading heaps and absorbing images and information,like the fish that I am.

I draw for several reasons,(probably more, but two main reasons spring to mind) the first is to map out an idea (so this is one of the definitions of drawing for me) - loosely, quickly and with an immediacy that hopes to trap the idea and fix it to the paper before it's lost. I seldom complete these drawings and often their value to me is fleeting. (Why does this drive mothers mad? Mine used to retrieve all my scraps and press them smooth!)
I also draw to render an image as finished art and my practice as an illustrator has defined my understanding of 'finished' as being ready for publication or release, amongst other things. (This is a fish hook for me - and I guess I'm trying to get to the bottom of it, to toss out some old precepts and develop a new broader understanding). This is the area of drawing that interests me at the moment, though not in reference to illustration. I'm focussing on both the artwork itsself and the process by which it's made; which I'm exploring with eyes the size of dinner plates, like the biggest dog on the treasure chest.

What do I mean by that odd word finished? (And for that matter, by what set of definitions do other artists define their drawing practice?) For example 'erasers are verboten' is one that belongs to my studio mate Steve.
Why do I constrain what I do this way?
What constitutes a drawing and how can marks on a jotter pad in an art shop be a collaborative drawing (of course they are but ...?)

Browsing around some artists blog sites tonight I came across this link to an exhibition of 'trees drawing' (yes that's right - trees).

As part of exploring drawing I've been reading about the figurative drawing of Ralph Hotere (an emminent and prolific New Zealand artist) and poring over the beauty of his expressive irregular line, the simplicity and the elloquence of it. I found this lovely description in the chapter titled 'Woman (1962 -1964) The early works', which I shared today with a friend, so I'll add it here as part of my thinking around this.

" ... Since he has lived in Carey's Bay, Dunedin Hotere has had a favourite tree at the end of his garden. He will often take a small section of shed twigs, in lengths of approximately 300 -400 millimeters, carefully testing each one for it's flexibility and rejecting those that do not quite suit his purpose. He will then cut the tip and break the wood up by mashing it so that the end becomes fibrous, working it until it's exactly as he wants. His method of applying the paint from this point, for both the figurative images and the abstract works is quite meditative. With the figure drawings he will start with a blank piece of paper laid flat on a table, pick up the drawing instrument and after some minutes of looking at the model, draw in the air above the surface of the paper and then, returning to look at the model, trace her outline in the air. He will repeat this process at least twice before committing a mark to the paper. The pauses and periods of time spent carefully assessing the figure can take anywhere from five to ten minutes. He will then finally look down at the paper, draw in the air above it one last time and very rapidly and intuitively draw the figure in the space of a few breaths. It is a process almost like a dance, with the image pouring onto the paper.
This is the same method he uses for the abstract works. Before applying paint, ink, or graphite to a surface there are always these long meditative pauses followed by a series of rapid movements. Each long drip of white paint, every skeinlike fleck and every contour of the figure is carefully balanced in his mind before it is resolved on the ground of the image."

From 'The Desire of the Line' Ralph Hotere Figurative Works by Kriselle Baker published by Auckland University Press

And the amazing thing to me is the freshess and sensuality that he captures in his drawings - they fairly drip with it !

Through Space

One day in another life I'll take up photography - not. You can tell I've had a couple of wines by now when you look at this.
This is a picture of our sculpture as it is today. I've been adding layers to it all week - first gesso and then acrylic paint. It's going to be gooood !

All of a sudden our rendering of the concept of figures moving through space, and of spacial planes moving through figures - is working well.
Once I add the receding diamond pattern to the base, the sense of space will be amplified too. To come still is the height element - a wire frame of the view our figure group is passing (the sea). I'm thinking this should be patinaed copper and also the series of spheres bisected by another plane (these represent the sculptural light balls on the wharf area).

I was worried I'd not do the sculpture justice with my paint application - but it's looking fine.

A stack of books and inspiration

Curled up by the fire with a stack of art books from the library and Little Feat on the stereo - bliss.
I found these quotes from a book called "Drawing from the Modern" (Maurice Merleau Ponty) which I think are cool for their eloquence and their fluency - the post renaissance view still rings true in many ways.

On the subject of line :
'Akin to handwriting, line is a graphic declaration of the presence of a particular persona," (it is) "...the residue of the activities of a particular hand"
- which I think is a nice way of expressing the personal quality that we each bring to our drawing, the past experience and the hand-memory.
Another phrase, even more poetic, describes line as 'a seismograph of the soul' (yeah ?)- lovely but uncredited I'm afraid so I can't assign the quote here.

And this from a woman artist called May Stephens from the book called "Lines of Vision" whose author I omitted to note,I'm sorry.
She says ..."Between a line and a smudge lies a bridgeable gap, a shift of the eye. A line is a trajectory; too close or too far, too slow or too fast, it's a smudge and a blur. A smudge is a trace of what was or is to come. But a line is here."
- I like that - a line is here.

And now it's my turn

Ricky has cast our sculpture and it's looking great (see Catsup and you'll know what I mean). It's sitting in the studio now and between coats of paint I've been staring at it and getting to know it from all angles. Last time I saw it, it was a photo and before that, just a sketch. It's so much better in 3D and with the refinements Ricky's made to the figures.
It's my turn to build the next part of it (with a little help) and to add the painted surface that will bring it to life and complete it. It's so cool to see the product of our joint imaginings and the day we spent conceptualising the piece. Over the next month I'm going to work on it between painting. I haven't worked in 3D since 5th form so this is going to be fun !

Traveling through space

Here's my completed painting of the 'ripples' concept (well, after I took this picture I signed the painting so technically...)
It's nice to be happy with a piece that's for sure !
This version has mystery and still retains the surreal quality of it's predecessor, but the figures have momentum and I like their loose description. It was worth the wait and the angst to get this out.

The painting's about social space - and again I'm thinking more of transitonal spaces. The way we create ripples as we move through - and the groupings we fall into natually as we pass through or stop to connect with others in a space.
Why the backpack ? Well that's the baggage we all carry on any journey.
OK, so why the nakedness and lack of hair on the figures? I'm interested in stripping away the things that identify us and I wanted this to be about us as humans, our sameness and our essence as vulnerable people (some of us hide behind hair don't we ?). Right now describing fabric and clothing doesn't interest me, but rawness, texture, line and emptiness does.

Life's just a big pool isn't it ?

...Hey that might be a nice title for this piece!

Now I feel like dancing. I've gessoed another canvas for next time. I want to make another expression of this idea - it's a goodie and I'm not finished with it, but for now I'm content. (Yes i know, it's a contradiction in terms!)

Begining and Beginning and Beginning

Making art and for that matter any creative endevour is a series of beginnings again and again. Empowering yourself to do just that is the interesting (and sometimes hard) bit. It's also the joy and the rush and the compelling part of it.

I sorted all the issues with my Ripples image the weekend before last - but it's not there yet. It needs the mystery added back into the image, so it's a work in progress at the moment and I'm waiting for the time to begin to work on it again. I'm thinking I need to hide bits of it - to reveal and conceal and to add more surface texture. At the moment the focus is the line (no bad thing) but by itself the line is obscuring the message to the viewer because it's all there is, and it's strong. In short - the painting's not finished !

I heard an incredible sound performance by Jeff Henderson at the Govett Brewster Gallery (Sound/Bodies winter lecture series) in New Plymouth last weekend.
To me it was an aural version of the concept of stripping out the interstitial spaces and collapsing what's left into a whole new image/pattern. It was as if the audience experienced the artist as he was calling to someone from two hills away and bits of his sentences were lost in the atmosphere across the distance. Vocally the sounds we heard were no longer whole pieces of language - just the upper and lower registers of vocal expression rendering partial words from afar (but without the dopler effect).
It was so exciting to HEAR a rendering of the sound concept of the idea I've been playing around with. Made me realise I could have done it so much better with the pleated canvas ... and that I need to revisit the idea and add back the sense of space I've lost through so much use of colour. I was so inspired I wan tto begin again!!

And Bruce Mau says...

3. Process is more important than outcome.

"When outcome drives the process we will only ever go where we have already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we're going, but we'll know we want to be there."

More words of wisdom from the Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. (Which I see Eric Holowacz included in his No.8 wire Ezine a couple of weeks ago - good on him)

The wading painting I posted last week is no more. I spent a couple of sessions in the studio on the weekend looking at all the things that needed work and making changes to the painting. I reworked the motionless bespectacled figure so he moved purposefully and with lovely forward flow towards the group of three - changed their focus so they looked in his direction - the rigid horizon looked great as a loose line 'corner'.... all good. I even reduced the black line weightiness that everything had... and the ripples around the main figure became a lovely wake. I stood back feeling pleased that I'd solved a lot of problems that had bugged me - and realised that the composition was screwed completely now !
My figure was falling off the canvas to the right and the small group was the wrong scale all of a sudden in relation to him.

So it all had to go - I'm back to a thin layer of gesso and I'll rework the painting with the knowledge I've gained about the things it needs to keep the dynamism and spaciousness I'm after. A good many realisations were made yesterday.

• everything is fixable somehow and it's always worth a try (really it is)
• nothing fixes a bad composition (or there's a point where it's inevitable. When you get there you absolutely know you've hit the end of the tar seal)
• a great idea is worth all the labour pains
• painting when you can't feel your feet is not fun
• paint won't dry if the studio's like the inside of a freezer
• ask people to text before they come up to the studio - otherwise they cop it if the paintings at a critical point
• don't even try to come in to the studio for less than 2 hours - just don't

So... it's still the process I love, and this is part of it (she says philosophically and with chagrin). I know I definately want to 'be there' with this idea so I'm beginning again.

¡pintar es vivir! (to paint is to live!)

Wading

My weekends work is a version of the sketches from last week. As a piece it's kind of surreal, and Steve my studio mate points out that the static pose of the central figure means the painting hasn't got the sense of movement that the sketches capture, and so some of the mystery is lost. He's right, and maybe that's adding to the sense of disquiet that the painting causes me.

Hah ! I see a pattern here - I'm beginnning to wonder if this is how I react to my work on completion - the joy's in the doing for me, and once done I want to improve on the result straight away. Interesting, though this time I really do think I could improve on it ( It's not necessarily finished). The figures aren't particularly modeled - I wanted to reveal the base texture and keep the composition incredibly simple... does it work or does it just look unfinished I wonder?

At the same time as working on this painting I was working on a commission for a book cover - all loose hot magenta and oranges - it was bizarre to switch back and forth - but a great contrast. I'd forgotten how much fun it is multi tasking on paintiings simultaneously.

Paper as space

Back in March I said this on my blog "...Trying to capture the spaciousness and air in my images ... this morning I asked myself 'what if the paper was the space?' I've been treating the paper as a canvas to describe a space and occupants. If I let that go, can the paper act as the space and allow me to describe the ripples we make better ? What can I do to the paper to allow the viewer to experience what I want them to ?"

I'm looking at these sketches and I think that I've managed to allow the paper to be the space. It's nice to see that progression in the work. March huh - it's taken a while !!

Up to the armpits in ripples

I spent the day in the studio, so the sketches are the fruits of my joy (no labour). I wish the parchment paint would photograph better - it's really a cool greeny cream in reality. In these sketches it looks muddy and brown - ah well, if I'd wanted to be a photographer...
I'm playing with the idea of the ripples we make as we pass through a space and interact with others. I love the idea of these people up to their armpits and wading through fields of energy like so much viscous water. I think some of them are working well (1 and 2 are my favourites, they were the first ones I made) the other one tries a little hard I think. (And the fourth one I haven't posted because the composition is flawed) Fresh and simple is challenging to repeat.

I'm planning to paint the first one, so I've gessoed a large canvas with ripples. What a cool days work.

Catsup

After I posted Parchment and Tar (which are actually a little warmer and greener than this photo shows), I realised the big hole that doesn't say anything AT ALL about what we've been doing on our collaboration lately. It's not a secret ...so this is a catch up. I'll add a sketch to it so our ideas are easier to follow (It's Ricky's, he's better at describing 3D forms as concepts - turns out I'm not so good at that!).

Basically, we spent a day working together (so much fun) and came up with the cool idea that we're currently working on.
What does a collaboration between a sculptor and a painter actually look like? It looks like a sculpture, with painted bits - conceived by us both and developed singly and together.

We're telling the story of what happens when a group of objects (in this case people) moves through a spacial environment. The important bit is the 'through' bit. If we move through a space, we don't just dance on the surface touching nothing with our presence - we interact with the environment, and it also interacts with and affects us. Everything exists on and of planes - and so the planes interact with all the other objects in that space. This is our idea - they bisect the figures and become part of them.

At the moment Ricky is making the sculptural forms from clay, he'll cast them in plaster and add the material for the planes later which I'll paint. We're talking together about the piece as it develops, suggesting refinements and colours and visualising it as a whole - my part will come later when the finishing happens. It's going to be interesting!

Parchment and Tar

These paintings are my entry into the Affordable Art Show this year. I applied ages ago and then got swamped by life the universe and everything. Like hundreds of others I left it to the last minute. These pieces are really just paint sketches that capture fast moments. I went down to the new Waitangi Park and sat on a rock, to watch and sketch the moves of a large group of skaters. I love their casual balance and the curvature of their bodies in motion - their brief flights and the long contrasting shadows they cast.

The paintings are only small, each one is no more than 200 x 400 - no time for grandiose ideas here!
I feel a little odd about them, (do they lack depth, are they just 'decorative' ?) and I'm strangely unattached. Is this what it feels like to sell out?

Hah !
In saying that, I want the 3 to remain together (even though they work well compositionally as individual pieces) and I did take them home to play with, so perhaps I'm not as impartial as I thought.
I like the monochromatic feel, and the textural effect of the dark underpainting very much.

I'm going to gesso up a large canvas this week to paint on the weekend. I want to play with texture as a means of indicating the ripples idea that's still persisting (though still in the thought stage - what does a space filled with people look like if the view point isn't from the edge looking in ?) and continue with making the work towards our show.

Decorative or not - painting is a fix - and I can't do without it. It feels so good to be back into it.

Sometimes a cigar...

New paper is bliss.
Here's one of the sketches from Wednesdays scribble session, I'm looking forward to capturing some more on the weekend.

En plein air

I know this is a log of my work, and it's looking suspiciously like I haven't done much for a while.
I have been incredibly busy,(I know, poor excuse) but I've also taken the space I needed to think evaluate and to plan.
Ricky and I have also begun to work together on ideas for the next phase of our collaboration which will be a series of feature pieces for the exhibition we're working towards.

Our vision is for the viewer to wonder where the two dimensional paintings begin and the sculptures end, as they experience our work. To look into and through the work, stand amongst it, walk around it or to kneel beside it. We want the viewer to understand that we're playing with a range of concepts like scale and perspective - like foreground and background (where do they begin and end?), or with the qualities of space and with the marrying of two and three dimensional forms of expression.
Sounds exciting eh ? It is.

To that end we've been sketching outdoors to build a common vocabulary and a collective understanding of the figure in space. It's slightly mad (and strangely addictive), rather cold but fun catching the gestures of people as they walk purposefully into the wind, going about their business.

I'll post some of my scribbles this week - for that's what they are... and I hope to work some of them up as working drawings (in paint and pastel) towards our joint work, this weekend.

Sometimes it's going to seem a bit quiet in here over the next couple of months, we're taking the time we need to over this, and given that the work we make will be ours - not mine... it may not appear here. Or perhaps my working paintings and explorations will feature instead as well as these musings. I still want to follow up on that interstitial space idea and I'm looking forward to that.

Invisible Birds

I've had a few more thoughts about this collaboration I'm a part of, and I think as well as going deeper we need to look at the commonalities between our ideas, our two mediums (sculpture and painting) - to identify what it is that we're saying is one thing, to share a vision is another...to converge on these so that what we make is unified has surely got to be magic. I think there's a bit of talking and working together on ideas that we need to do for this next phase. I'm looking forward to mappng a few of them and to encouraging the invisible birds (lovely metaphor)to rest a while.

Breathing in and out

No images to post this weekend. I needed to take some time to just be with my thoughts about this project. I'm hoping writing this might help to clarify some of them.

The work I've done so far has been varied and broad. I've played with different applications and styles, and I chose to experiment with many of the concepts around this project. I think it's time to focus on just one aspect and look at it in more depth. I'm thinking I need to be disciplined and go deeper into an idea, to explore and work with it a while before committing it to canvas or paint. Nut out how best to express the ideas I have rather than settle on the first because I'm spontaneous. I find that quite hard because part of that exploration for me involves paint and immediate ideas.

I'm frustrated that the pleated work, although innovative, has lost a great deal of spontenaety in the application of the ideas... and though I love this three dimensional canvas thing, if I can't regain that gestural mark and lightness of touch, I'm going to be dissatisfied with the results. I also think some pieces don't necessarily scale up - and these ideas are more suited to a smaller scale. If I continue down that track I'm going to keep them small.

There are things I love about the angry painting I did last week, some parts I want to change that may (or not) improve it, and some things that disappoint me. Although it says what I was wanting to say, it feels heavy and solid in the expression - like a Nigel Brown work... and so I probably won't paint a second one in this style or chose to revisit it.
I don't think I want to be so descriptive about the figures in these pieces.

I'm drawn towards the idea of interstitial spaces - that's the spaces between spaces, the moments between moments. The breathing space. I'm not sure yet what this looks like or how to describe it, but I want to return to a feeling of light and lightness. This might be a good place to start.

Fish bones

In at the studio today and working on the composition about negatively charged space. It's coming along well - loose and fairly expressive. I need to give the painting time to rest before I do anything more to it, though it's working well. I might add some draw threads to the sides to secure the folds in place around the figures. Stylistically it's an interesting one - I'm not sure if it relates particularly well to the others, I'm going to work back into the piece (with care) to encourage that relationship.
When I look at all the work I've done so far, I worry a bit about the style discrepancies. I'm not sure if I should get hung up on this or not... they come out how they do, and I don't want to staunch the flow of ideas by imposing limits on the experimentation or how the images 'should' look.
I wish Bruce Mau had written a piece about 'should'. Sometimes I think I'm ruled by that concept far too much !

There and back

Today's post is a drawing of the small dancing sculpture that Ricky made.
It began as a figure in one of my paintings (This Dance) - the yellow one I posted earlier, a month or so ago. Now there's a small plaster sculpture on my desk, soft bronze and blue coloured. This is a series of sketches in graphite pencil (coloured graphite too, that makes a wash with water - delicious!) of that piece. I guess this idea has gone back and forth 4 times now since initially it relates to the ripples we make in space and how we dance around each other.

Negatively charged space

This sketch originates from the idea of negatively and positively charged spaces, how we affect a space by our presence our moods and words (that spillover thing).
I want to make two images - and this is the first one. Sometimes I find it easier to access the negative images first (like writing sad songs I guess). The pleats will run horizontally on this piece - and it's going to be important to plan them so that they fall at mouth, eye and forehead level so that the idea of miscommunication is really evident. I've bought a 700 mm length of canvas because I want this piece to be quite big. Yippee, looking forward to painting this soooo much! ( I missed my studio time this weekend).

The next piece is bubbling up too - there's a Denis Glover poem (NZ poet) that I'm thinking of, that captures the bright way that some people affect the space they inhabit. I'll post it later.

Oh, It just occurred to me to mention to new visitors who might be cruising around my blog, that if you click on an image, a larger view comes up so you can read any small notes (like this image contains). You'll need to use the 'back' button on your browser to get back to the main blog window OK?

Persistence of presence perhaps?

Here's the painting of the interior space rendered on the last piece of my prepared pleated canvas.
It's not quiet, (nice aim, but a while off yet - or maybe a whole separate project!) but it IS evocative of the persistence of presence.
This is an idea I've been trying to nail for a while now and is about the intangibles we leave behind us as we pass through a space, whether that's an essence of ourselves, a change in the electron charge within the room, or a memory of our presence held by those who remain.
I've worked back into the piece with oil pastels and graphite pencil ...I wanted to rough it up a bit and the italian canvas was somehow a little too polite (but smoooth as!).
I've attached a thin piece of balsa to the back top edge to constrain the folds. Logistically, it all holds together a lot better now.
I'm going to continue to explore this idea a bit more as well as paint the sketch of this last piece as a 2D work - on paper, for the pleasure of it.