Caravaggio

Derek Jarmen portrayed Caravaggio as a rebel which was true to his life and his paintings. He painted real life as he saw it which in those days people didnt want to see. Some of his work for the church was often refused because of this.His paintings and life were passionate and rebeliouse which was reflected in the film. Some of the film was based on the story of his life and some was fantasy and it was hard to tell which was which so if you didint know anything about Caravagio (which i didnt)the film was confusing in parts. The film kept my interest because it felt like i was looking at a moving painting. Every shot was like a posed painting because of the lighting and positioning of the actors. This was delibratly done especially when it looked like one of his paintings and you only knew it wasnt when someone moved. There was a humourous side to the film when items like calculators,typwriters and moterbikes made an appereance this added a light hearted side to a mostly sombre film. I enjoyed the film even though i was not ready to do any painting after it.

Rothko Red on Cream

Rothko was very particular about how his paintings are shown.The lighting changes the mood of the painting and what is placed on the walls near the paintings has to be sympathetic. Most of his paintings have a painted edge which is important to the painting. Is this because he was aware of a painting being static and different lighting changes this.
I have not seen a Rothko in the flesh yet but i am visiting the London Tate in July where some of his paintings are on display. I hope i am not disappointed!

Films

The Peter Greenway film 'A Walk Through H' was interesting in that the close ups of the maps had lovely patterns and marks, but a little repetitive towards the end. His made up stories that went with the maps were comical to start with then just irritating especially with his voice and music. Somewhere in the film it was to do with flight patterns of birds but i missed this and i probably wondered why they kept showing birds. Birds don't need maps they instinctively know where to turn right.
The Jean-Luc Godard film was annoying with the sub titles because i lost the feel of the film with having to read everything. The only interesting part was when it showed how a painting was made with layering. This part interested me so if i was going to make a film about painting i would focus on this. At the moment i am interested in Mark Rothko and i would like to know how he started his paintings and what made him chose the colours and shapes. What were his thoughts and moods and did they affect what he was painting? What made him leave certain shades and marks and when were his paintings finished? Also it would be interesting to see if his technique could be replicated as in 'What Painting is' by James Elkins, trying to replicate a Monet painting.

Object painting

During the process of making this painting i learnt that it was very experimental because of the size,canvas surface,working on the floor,mixing oil paint and brush choice. Only after discovering what the surface would do to my choice of brush size and consistency of paint could i start to put down the marks i wanted and even then it was more of a compromise to work with the materials and mostly each stroke was not what i expected so it was a build up of marks rather than fluid ones which came later to sit on top. The size and working on the floor made the object change due to me moving around so i think i address this by perhaps painting areas that are there then make up areas to make the painting look right. I enjoyed doing the large size painting because it felt good to be free with the brush strokes. This is something i would like to work on so that my future paintings have more movement and freedom. I feel that working in the wallpaper industry where everything had to be precise has stayed with me in my style of painting and i would like to be more care free.This i think can be achieved by being relaxed with the materials and techniques being used and perhaps being past the experimental stage and finding a style that works for me.

Once in a Painting by John Berger

I have reread this article to see if it can help me decide if my painting is finished. He says 'The difference is in what the painting delivers:in how closely the moment of its being looked at, as foreseen by the painter, corresponds to the interests of the actual moments of its being looked at by other people, when the circumstances surrounding its production have changed.'
Does my painting deliver what i set out to do? When we were asked to paint the object i was not sure where to start but knew it needed to have light and dark and mid tones. Which i think i have achieved. The background bothered me a lot because i didn't want it to distract and now i think it works by being none discript. I wanted the brush strokes to be evident but blend with each tone which has also worked. I didn't want blue or brown to over take and have kept to tones of grey.
A viewer not knowing its production may wonder what the object is and it does appear to be a figure covered in a sheet but that would add to the mystery. So i still think it is finished because i feel it does deliver what i set out to do. Maybe a fresher eye after a period of time may change my opinion.

When is a painting finished?

This seems to be the burning question when Laura said that none of the paintings of the object, except a couple were not finished. I thought mine was finished as i have said in my blog. At this moment i have no idea what to do to make it finished so i have left it at college over the holidays so that when i return i might have a different view of it.
With Robert we did a marking exercise to see what to look for in a piece of work to determine what exam mark the paintings should get. Before we marked them we established the criteria we were set for the painting and were told to leave out whether we liked the finished painting. At the end only one mark corresponded with Roberts and when asked to explained his marks he referred to the fact he liked certain ones for different reasons. Ones i thought were not finished and did not fit the criteria he had marked high. This was very confusing and has not helped me to decide if my painting is finished.

Finished Painting

This is the finished painting. I have added more work to the background and more tone and highlights to the sculpture.

Life drawing

I really enjoyed this class with Andrea because we used lots of different media to produce the work. We used pencil,graphite,linseed oil (to blend the tone) ink and white pastel. We used two diffent coloured pastels and looked at light and dark only to create the brightly coloured drawing. I liked the effect of the two colours blending together.

Life drawing class 13th March 2007

More work on the painting

This is the painting at the moment. I worked on the background by making parts darker and less horizontal brush marks showing. On the sculpture i added more mid tone and defined the outer line. I stopped working on it because i felt i was making things worse not better. Having been back to look at it pinned up in college i feel that the back ground is still distracting maybe because it goes from dark to light to dark again this could be the problem.

Still Life Paintings looking at the treatment of background

Oil painting by Manet
I like the colours and tone work in the background. I would not have noticed them if I hadn't been looking at backgrounds. Is that the sign of a good background when it doesn't over take the image in the foreground.

Photo of painting so far.

This is the painting at the end of the first day. I felt the background needed firming up and i needed to add some mid tone to the shape.

Painting

Laura made a large sculpture from boxes,string and white sheets. We painted it with a limited palette of oil paints on to unprimed canvas. The sculpture was illuminated with spot lights to accentuate light and dark shades on the white sheets.We used burnt umber,cobalt blue hue and white to mix shades of grey.By mixing colours they are more translucent than just using black from the tube and it is more interesting having shades of blue and brown coming through the painting.The canvas is unprimed and the paint tended to sink in so there had to be a build up of paint mixed with white sprite to achieve the marks required.The canvas is rough and created a texture which wasn't always wanted,so the physical act of painting wasn't easy. We needed to get the whole sculpture on the canvas and address the background in some way.Also we worked on the floor which created problems.The canvas was large so it was hard to judge the scale and proportions with my body position changing. To paint the top half I walked or sat on the canvas which changed my veiw of the whole painting every time i stood up and moved around.

Sculpture for Painting and New Media Project