Part 4: Looking out Project from the inside looking out Page 99

Response to my  assignment 3 tutor report. I researched my tutor’s recommendations and added them to my online

learning log:-

http://community.how-to-draw-and-paint.com/profiles/blogs/response-to-my-painting-1-assignment-3-tutor-report

Research Point page 97 Evolution of landscape painting from 18thC to present

http://community.how-to-draw-and-paint.com/profiles/blogs/evolution-of-landscape-painting-from-18th-century-to-present-day

Make some preliminary drawings in your sketchbook

A3 window view 1

A3 window view 2

A3 window view 3

A3 window view 4

Exercise: View from a window or doorway page 100

View from my livingroom window. System 3 acrylic on full imperial heavy duty lining paper (75 x 57 cm)

I understand that George Shaw felt the need to paint things the way they are. There was no self conscious shaping of a composition for balance, proportion etc. I just reacted to painting what I saw. I did  edit out the window sill clutter. My head did not return to the same viewing spot and so once I committed to the drawing; I tried to maintain the integrity of it. Similarly with the climatic changes. I had to try to remember what I was like when I first applied paint; but, if it changed to something I liked, I felt uninhibited about including it.

Same view looking to the right

Living room window looking to the right. System 3 acrylic on 75 x 57cm decorators’ lining paper

I really enjoy the feeling of painting without drawing first. I have invested in a two inch system 3 acrylic brush and this helps me map out proportions with scaffolding. I am wary of being bogged down with details, so my smallest brush is a half inch round. By purchasing these larger brushes, there has been a development towards making larger scale pictures. It makes sense. Big surface, big brush.

Developing a sense of light…

View from Udale Bay bird hide

75 x 57 cm System 3 acrylic on heavy duty decorator’s lining paper.

I painted this on site and the bird watcher’s were less than friendly!!!

Raoul Dufy   cool retreat from dazzling sun

viewed in http://www.1artclub.com/uploads/14-0025.jpg

Raoul Dufy: Cool retreat from dazzling sun

accessed 8/10/13

The cool palette of blues and blue bias lilac are reserved for the interior. The warm colours of lemon yellow, cad yellow and warm pinks a greens contrast and have a rise in colour temperature that support the feeling of heat beyond.

Gwen John gloomy claustrophobia

viewed in http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/N/N04/N04861_10.jpg

The Convalescent 1918-1919

accessed 8/10/13

By contrast, Gwen John’s palette is of sombre umbers, siennas and ochres. The tones are subdued but so is the attitude of the subject. Not only is the convalescent stuck in a room; but there seems little prospect of doing so until her health improves. Her head is bowed as in a church and the mood is one of solemn acceptance.

Edward Hopper exterior/interior worlds = stage sets

viewed in http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2/h2_53.183.jpg

Edward Hopper staged scene

accessed 8.10.13

Hopper’s world is very solitary. Or with limited people not interacting but living parallel lives. Usually they occupy a room, café with a large vista evident through a window. I like this piece very much. We are outside looking inside to a solitary figure gazing outward.The spaces all fit into each other quite neatly and everything seems calm and ordered. Eerily so.

Exercise: Hard or soft landscape page 102

I resolved that I would focus more on hard landscapes as most of my work has a soft feel about soft subjects. I felt I should explore my local industrial site. This would allow me to push towards abstraction and experimenting further. I felt also that this would free me up more to explore the brutality of blacks and greys as a foil for broken tertiary palette.

Spean Bridge Shinty Pavilion

This is typical of the soft realistic approach I normally employ when painting plein air.

A3 system 3 acrylic “en plein air” soft landscape

There is some aerial perspective in the background colours but I decided I should explore expressive mark making as a segue torwards abstraction. The palette was relatively limited cad and lemon yellow, cobalt and French ultra blue with black and white for toning and tinting. The light gave a lemon glow to the play pitch that I felt complemented the pink of the pavilion and the ash road. I explored broken and tertiary colours for the mountains and regret not making colour notes at the time.

Hard landscapes… Muir-of-ord Industrial site

Hard landscape: SLG carbon plant 1 at Muir-of-Ord industrial site

I found this surprisingly enjoyable. The industrial site is basically a study in controlling browns and greys. Here I have placed the industrial and natural side by side. Writing now in retrospect, I see the gantry of the view I hope to complete as an assignment piece bridging the gap between both worlds.

Hard landscape: SLG carbon plant 2 Muir-of-Ord industrial site

The features that make this a hard landscape is the rhythm of the landscape due to repeated use of line building up a monotonous and predictable regularity. Here, it is the man-made world that predominates. The rhythmic monotony of the corrugated prefabricated landscape. This piece was torn in transit but lead to other lines of thinking. Deliberate tearing or the spilling of paint to create organic forms to break up the monotony. The spilling of paint like the spilling of chemicals that was my original ecology agenda.