Tag Limited

As I Was Going To St Ives …

Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

We’ve gone to St Ives in my weekly oil painting class, more specifically looking at the work of Ben Nicholson.

I’ve only recently looked at the work of the St Ives artists; aside from Barbara Hepworth, it didn’t really interest me before. I often go to the Pallant House Gallery and they have a few as a part of their permanent collection.

The brief was to make a drawing of the still life and then make two pieces, one with a slightly Cubist slant (using a tracing of the drawing to recreate shapes) and the other with a landscape in the background, both in the style of or influenced by, Nicholson. We used a limited palette of burnt umber, ultramarine blue, cadmium red light, lemon yellow and white.

I think that I would say that the finished pieces were more influenced by, than in the style of Nicholson! I’m not sure what I think about them. I swing from loathing them to actually quite liking them. I prefer the more abstract of the two.

What I have taken away from this exercise:

  • Lemon yellow takes an age to dry.
  • I really like the contrast between areas of pure ground and areas of opaque colour – I’ve often thought that some of Nicholson’s work has a ‘collage’ effect to it, which I like.
  • I like the interplay between the visible graphite lines and the oil paint.
  • The combination of the different genres of still life and landscape is really interesting.
  • I feel that I’m veering away from the figurative.
  • I wish that I had been less literal – I should have been more adventurous in my composition of the still life, mixed it up a bit more and not included figurative renditions of the individual elements, especially in the one with the landscape.

Next, is one of Nicholson’s inspirations, Alfred Wallis, known for his naïve art-making.

On Your Marks…

Kate McCalmont-Woods 1 Comment

Well, the starting pistol has gone off, and I’m still sat here, procrastinating, allowing myself to be distracted, doing anything other than what I should be concentrating on: producing something for the pop-up show. My problem with deadlines is that I tend to ignore them until the very last minute – goal driven, that’s me.

What, with thinking about the pop-up and trying to come up with an inspirational text for Tuesday’s session, I’m feeling just the tiniest bit sick. I would say that I have stuck my head in the sand but apparently that’s a popular misconception: when they sense danger and cannot run away, ostriches will flop to the ground and remain still, attempting to blend in with the terrain – that sounds just about right!

Anyway, following on from my ‘Less’ post, I’ve been thinking about working with a limited palette and how it narrows choice. Using a pen narrows choice even further – just black and white and nothing much else in between. Using a pen forces you to think about mark-making in order to create tonal values and areas of interest. So, I’ve been using my time constructively by doodling with a pen in my sketchbook whilst listening to an audio book – who says I can’t multi-task!

I found the process of mark-making to be meditative and grounding, totally different from the anticipation of putting ink onto wet paper and waiting to see what happens. Strangely, I like it. I think I am a person of extremes: I’m either fastidiously tidy or chaotically messy; organised or haphazard; focused in on the minutiae or just wanting to see the bigger picture. Somehow I have to find a path along which both sides of me are satisfied.

I will definitely use pen again, if only as a way to order my thoughts. Going forward I think I should try to build up a bank of possible marks, almost like a painter might have a bank of colour swatches. Having said that, I’m mindful that I’ve still got to do a few things to which I’ve committed in earlier posts, so I think I need to embark on some self-accountability first.

Less

Kate McCalmont-Woods 2 Comments

I haven’t posted for a while – I’ve been busy sorting things out before going off to Marrakech for a four day trip with my book club.

Marrakech was amazing. Colour. Noise. Smells. People. Heat. Contrast that with this morning when I had to defrost the car before heading off to my weekly art class. I love this drive, along an old Roman road – straight and undulating through the Hampshire countryside to Stockbridge, a small town in the Test Valley. The sun came out and the trees came to life – burning oranges, golds and yellows. It was beautiful, and by the time I arrived at my class, late because I couldn’t find anywhere to park, I was still feeling its effects.

I can’t deal with too much choice – it paralyses me and then I can’t make a choice. Needless to say, I didn’t buy anything in the souks in Marrakech – the choice was overwhelming, so I resolved not to buy anything at all, and was then able just to wander and enjoy the atmosphere and culture.

So today’s task was perfect for how I was feeling. A landscape using a limited palette of burnt sienna, burnt umber, ultramarine, pale cadmium yellow, white and cadmium red. We took a board, roughly primed – in my case it was an old piece of MDF which I had previously coated with professional Dulux oil-based primer, which can make it a bit like an ice rink – and put down a loose ground of burnt sienna with a bit of sansador which ended up not drying for some reason. Then we put in some outlines using burnt umber following with thick patches of colour keeping it very general, but the wet burnt sienna contaminated some areas and lifted off the board in others. We experimented with dragging a dry brush across the paint and I also did a bit of sgraffito which I can’t help doing when using thicker paint.

This is the result:

I haven’t painted for ages – not since beginning this course – I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and experimenting with other media. At first, it felt a bit strange coming back to it, almost awkward, like I’d been unfaithful in some way.

It’s not my best by far, but it’s ok for an hour and a half. I am leaving it. The ‘me’ I’m trying to change would say that it is not finished by a long way. There’s lots I don’t like and would love to change – I’m itching to tinker – but I’m exercising some will power and calling it a day. Just like I’ve been trying to change my mindset about having an expectation as to how a piece will turn out, I am also trying to train myself to walk away.

Jonathan told me that the job of mark-making is to tell us what to do next. These marks are telling me to leave it alone and to be happy with what bits of it appeal to me – I like the lack of clarity and blurriness caused by the dry brush; the light coming through the burnt sienna ground in the foreground; the energy in the marks, which I would absolutely kill if I allowed myself to do more; the lack of definition which gives a sense of a fleeting moment; and the recreation of the feeling I had whilst driving to class.

Will I do this again? Yes, I always like going back to basics and using a limited palette – I’ll use a different image and next time I will definitely make sure that the ground is dry before carrying on so that the colours aren’t so muddy in places.