Part 5: Personal Development: Project: Different ways of applying paint

Response to my tutor report for assessment 4

http://community.how-to-draw-and-paint.com/profiles/blogs/pop-response-to-my-tuor-report-for-assessment-4-with-suggested

Here is the link to my Part 5:

Personal Development sketchbook pages:-

http://community.how-to-draw-and-paint.com/profiles/blogs/part-5-personal-development-sketchbook-pages

Research point Look at a range of Paintings with particular attention to the way the paint has been applied page 124

http://community.how-to-draw-and-paint.com/profiles/blogs/pop1-research-point-particular-attention-to-the-way-paint-has

Exercise: Impasto page 126

Still life with fruit impasto using a brush The artist’s brush marks are as distinct and personal as a signature. I learned this reading Robert Hughes’s book “The Shock of the New” chapter 3 discussing the landscape of pleasure. Smearing paint thickly amplifies the individuality even further as the thick paint is malleable and responsive to nuances such as hesitation, uncertainty, decisiveness and the like. I prepared a textured surface with jointing compound as this is an area of interest to me.

textured and cobalt primed surface

The paint was heaped in large globs and although the colour is uniform cobalt the paint was not rubbed smooth. The surface has personality now and textural interest enough to allow me to simplify the subject right down.

Impasto with a brush, some knife work and sgraffito

I confess it was fun pasting paint in thick globules and then mashing this into the textured substrate. There is a delicious sound made when a painting knife is scraped along the surface. This painting is screaming at me to tidy up the edges and smooth things. This would loose character. The heavily texture surface meant I had difficulty drawing clean lines- but should clarity always be the aim. I had been viewing Vuillard and Bonnard and noticed the rough and ready crude application with lines dissolving and merging into the background. This lack of definition works upon the imagination to fill in the gaps, according to Gombrich in “Art and Illusion”. The picture is expressive and the part of me that admires photo-realism, (although we must fight the myth that  artistic excellence equates to photographic realism) regards the work as unfinished. I am uneasy looking at it!

textured and purple primed surface

I prepared a purple surface in a rough way as I wanted to experiment further with impasto techniques. This would complement the yellows of a lemon.  I did not blend a uniform colour but rather preferred to mix my purple from cobalt and alizarin directly onto the substrate. I felt the lemon would permit stippling for the dimpled skin and  s’ graffito  drawing to explore the crinkle nature of the lemon segments skin.

impasto with a brush, knife work and sgraffito

 

an air brush through meccano

Meccano-saurus: Spraying with an airbrush through a meccano template

Using a painting knife

A4 sketchbook aboriginal and electrical symbols

Scratching

subverting aboriginal x ray picture with technology

Exercise: Dripping, dribbling and spattering I attempted this exercise after reading up on tachisme and abstract expressionism. Apart from freestyling with a brush, I decided to include a splatter device. I recorded my experiments in an online learning blog at :

http://community.how-to-draw-and-paint.com/profiles/blogs/tachisme-tripod-dripping-dribbling-and-spattering

Tachism tripod

I used the hook from my camera tripod to suspend a cup filled with acrylic paint mixed thinly with liquefying medium. The cup has been modified with a bamboo stick yolk and plug. The yolk is attached by a loose strap and the plug can be inserted to control flow. The arrangement is placed above a roll of heavy duty lining paper. Spinning and dribbling black

spinning and dribbling black

I filled the cup with system three carbon black with the tripod fully extended, pulled the plug and started to spin it by shaking the tripod. Burnt umber

Burnt umber spinning with decalcomania

Using the same procedure as before the patterning was made more complex. Additionally, however, I folded the page and made a rubbing Rorschach style. I noticed the liquefying medium was making the paint transparent and very runny. Yellow ochre

yellow ochre with walking/ hopping

The same procedure was followed but the mix was thickened somewhat by omitting the liquefying medium. I walked the tripod around hopping from one foot to another. Lastly some splattering was attempted by dropping the cup from varying heights. Again some decalcomania. Reds and yellows

Alizarin crimson and cad red

System three can be purchased in large flip cap bottles with nozzles. Red and yellow was squirted, thrown and flicked from varying heights and angles straight from the bottle. This creates differing splatter results. Blues

Spinning blues from low angle.

I returned to the original spinning and walking technique with thin dilutions of French ultramarine and cobalt blue. Because of the lower angle the spinning was more vigorous. Phthalo turquoise, magenta, purple and white

Tachisme Tripod: action art 1 metre square

This time I threw the paint, flicking and tapping using a two in flat brush. The piece is finished and yet I sense it would be possible to keep going with this building up endless layers. Jackson Pollock used to work on a massive scale and therefore fairly large spatter marks appear smaller and more detailed when viewed at a distance. I could scale down further using smaller brushes like toothbrushes to make more intricate designs; but, I am satisfied with the result as a demonstration of the techniques. Finished piece

Tachisme Tripod: action art 1 metre square

Research Point:: Abstract Expressionism and Tachism page 128 :-

http://community.how-to-draw-and-paint.com/profiles/blogs/researcg-point-tachism-action-painting-and-abstract-expressionism