Close up.

Liked where some areas of paint showed through the canvas because they gave a feeling of light without using white paint. Some areas are quite thick with paint which i am not as happy with because they look a bit like plastic.(Dark blue)

Close up.

Liked areas where the colours mixed over each other.

Close up of painting

Like this effect!

Finished Painting

The overall feeling i get from the painting is playfulness which is how i felt when i was experimenting with the colours,brushwork and textures. It looks child like probably because of the bright colours and simple shapes.

Howard Hodgkins Prints at Abbot Hall Kendal.

Went to see this exhibition over the weekend. His work is very colourful and i found myself wanting to look at certain areas of his work but was a bit frustrated with the reflection off the glass that was covering the prints. I suppose it is to stop the public from touching but it did spoil the viewing of the prints if you were stood in the wrong place. I was intrigued to work out the layers of the prints and found myself counting the colours and tones. The textures and effects he had produced were amazing and looked very close to his paintings. He has hand coloured some of the prints so they seem to have the vividness of his paintings. I could have stayed longer looking at them but i went over the road to the Brewery Arts to see what was on there. What a load of rubbish! I cant remember the name of the artist but the paintings were on bits of card pinned to the wall. That might not have been too bad if the painting was good but they were all very similar about the heart and the painting technique was poor. I stayed 5mins, wish i had stayed at Abbot Hall!

Kandinsky

Not sure i like much of his work which has lots of detail and geometric shapes flying all over. I like the circles and squares probably because it forms a pattern and it looks free without sharp edges.

Richard Diebenkorn

Really like the colours and the loose brushwork that create a textural effect.

David Hockney

I haven't really looked at Hockneys paintings apart from the swimming pool one but after painting with colour in mind i like this one.

Artists that deal with colour.

Patrick Heron.
I liked this painting because the colours are restful and there is a little bit of detail in the dripped paint area. I also like the idea that this is painting, just for the colour and shape which is what we have been doing.

PAINTING IS FUN!

Had a good day yesterday. I made sure i had a full day set aside for just painting and it worked for a change. I started by building up brighter colours on top of the shapes because the the colours had started to look dirty mixed in with the umber background. As i was doing this i was not happy with the flatness that was happening.So i experimented with thicker paint and different brushstrokes. This was it! I loved it! This build up of layers gave each shape more depth which is something that must appeal to me. I came away from the painting feeling excited that it was looking much better than i ever imagined it was going to be. I have not looked at the painting this morning so i hope i still feel the same when i do.

Close up of the painting so far.

Starting the painting.

I decided to start the painting in a similar way to how i painted the Soutine painting by building up the layers but this time i am using oils. I started with a burnt umber and yellow wash. Then i painted the shapes with a paler under colour for each shape. I needed to let the oils dry for a day before continuing. This is the painting up to this point. Lisa thought the shapes looked like sweets which i like the idea of since the shapes are from a childs game.

Painting with colour. My collage of coloured shapes

This is the third painting in the project. Laura gave us some coloured shapes that we could either, create a collage or a sculpture with wire. With oils or acrylics paint the shapes without using black or white and fill the whole canvas.

Mother and Child by Mary Cassatt. Pastel on paper.

A Short Course in forgetting Chemistry.
James Elkin talks about painting as a form of alchemy. Alchemy means,any magical power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value. So i would have to agree with Elkins thoughts because that is what great painters have done with paint! He tried to recreate Monet's technique but what he couldn't know is Monets thoughts and feelings and i think they are the key to what makes a great painting after mastering what you want the paint to do. I have discovered Mary Cassatt's work, she manages to combine what is painted with how it is painted. Her paintings and pastels of mothers and children are very delicate and gentle which portray the relationship between mother and child.

Howard Hodgkin

'Venice Sunset' and 'In Bed In Venice'

I love these paintings because of the way the paint blends in and over itself. The effect is mesmerising. I discovered Howard Hodgkin towards the end of my Foundation course last year. I instantly liked his work probably because of the colours and his use of paint.

Sun Flowers by Van Gogh

Oil on canvas
92x73cm

Does painting relate to life?

Life is continually evolving but a painting stays the same. It is the person viewing the painting that changes. Years ago i saw Van Goghs Sunflowers in Paris. I liked looking at art at that time but had no real knowledge about it. When looking at the painting i was surprised how small it was and found the colours drab and the sunflowers ugly. My friends who were not particularly interested in art were saying similar things. I do remember thinking that i liked the texture of the paint. Now i wonder if i would think the same if i were to see it now with a little more knowledge. The painting will not have changed but i have.

I have noticed that i am recognising versions of paintings on adverts and credits on TV programmes.I think Monet has inspired the new M&S advert with his red poppy fields. The beginning of Desperate Housewives has used The Wedding Portrait by Jan van Eyck and a Lichtenstein style picture to portray the changing role of women in society.
My job as a designer was something i did even when i wasn't at work i would be continually thinking up new ideas. So it was more than just a job it was an obsession.I would get annoyed with myself and deliberately try to think of something else. Now i am learning more about painting i feel i am continually thinking about it and i know it will be my new obsession. This is what attracts me to painting the fact that i have always used a paintbrush to work with and i feel it is a natural progression to want to carry on but learn to paint for my own satisfaction.

Julie Ann Scott

This was the painting i saw which was advertising Julie Ann Scotts exhibition at Kendal Brewery Centre 2006. I was not disappointed i really liked most of the work in that exhibition. I would put more of her work on my blog but i can not get it off her web site. I liked the creased texture she had applied on to the canvas before the paint and her colours were not too bright but not dull either. The compositions were mainly abstract landscape with a modern feel. The canvass were about 2" thick which made them into objects as well as paintings. This is a style of painting i would like to try, maybe not landscapes but more a response to the style.

Paintings by Paul Cezanne

While researching these were some paintings that caught my interest because of the colour and brush work.

Flowers by Edouard Manet

This maybe an old fashioned type of painting that maybe your grandma would have in her front room but i like the way the paint has been used to achieve light and dark. It looks so easy. Manet painted flowers in his final months before his death they are all beautiful. I am researching artists to find one that says it all for me.So far i have been attracted to the Impressionists for their use of brush work.

Qualities within my own work.

After getting over the fact i felt i was just trying to make a copy and not worry about my brushstrokes looking like Soutines' i enjoyed painting the close up of the cows head. During in the painting there is a time when it looks nothing like what i was trying to achieve but as the layers went on i found the last part most enjoyable.Especially if the brush had picked up more than one colour and it added another unexpected dimension. I liked the pale colours going on last because it suddenly livened up and made the build up of the darker tones worth while. I have liked this way of working and will try to use it in future work.

Paintings

These two paintings are of areas within the Soutine painting. I found an area that looked like a cows head and have responded to this by making it even more evident that it is a shape of a head. I like the brush movement and build up of layers on these two paintings better than the first two.I think i prefer working with oils although working with acylics made this project quicker.

First paintings.

These are the first paintings. One is a bad copy and the other is the area i keep looking at beacause of the eye!

Responding to Soutines' painting.

Drawing and first layer of paint to map out the compostion of the painting. This is where i am not sure what the difference between copying and responding to a painting is. I felt that because we were trying to copy the composition and the colours and the postion of the brush marks this would end up a bad copy.Is a response, copying the style of painting on to a subject of my own?

Side of Beef and Calf's Head by Chaim Soutine. Oil on canvas 92x73cm 1923

When i first saw this painting i was attracted to the colours and the movement and texture of the brushstrokes. As an animal lover i hated the subject and i kept looking at what was the head, ears and eye. After the drawing exercise i could see that the carcase had shapes in it that resembled bones and flesh. I found it frustrating drawing it with a pencil because i wanted to draw the movement and tone of the brushstrokes and i found i was drawing line and shape instead of tone and texture which is what i found interesting. I felt that the painting was much bigger than it is because of the freedom of the brushstrokes and when it was projected large on the wall it looked imposing which is what i would've thought was part of the artists intention with a controversial subject as dead meat. Or may be it was just something interesting for him to paint at the time to just enjoy the action of painting.