For the last couple of weeks we’ve been continuing to explore Turner in my painting class. The subject is water and stormy weather. As before, we’ve been applying thin layers of paint and sansador with a rag, and then applying several layers of glazing.
We started with a couple of small studies.
I used a limited palette of mineral colours – ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow light, burnt umber, alizarin crimson and titanium white. I’m not keen on it, it jars with me, in fact, I really don’t like it, but it meets the brief.
I much prefer this one – to me, it’s less figurative, although as soon as you put in a horizontal it automatically reads as a seascape. A post-Turner palette of cerulean blue, Prussian blue, phthalocyanine turquoise, cadmium free yellow, winsor violet and titanium white.
Then starting with an acrylic ground of a yellow grey, applied thickly and roughly so that definite brushstrokes are visible, I used the same limited palette of mineral pigments as in the first study.
It all started to become a bit twee, for want of a better word, so I blurred the horizon, and tried to break it all up, knocked it back and accentuated the sweeping brushstrokes in the ground using an ultramarine glaze. I feel better about it, but in retrospect maybe I should have done away with the horizon completely, as Turner tended to do, or maybe the horizon allows it some space? I think I need to put it away and reflect on it at a later date.
I’m conflicted; over the last year, I have found that I have been moving away from figurative work, particularly in terms of art that I like to look at, perhaps in an attempt to free myself. I’ve always taken the view that I attend these weekly classes because I like to explore different directions, and that there is no point just turning up and making what I want to make each week regardless. I try my best to complete the task, but I’m finding it increasingly difficult. Maybe this is a lesson for the future – of not always being able to make the work which I want to make.
We’re looking at Turner in my weekly art class, in the context of climate catastrophe; forest fires, flooding. He didn’t follow the rules and did whatever took his fancy. Layer upon layer, ignoring fat over lean, whiting out. A conservator’s nightmare.
We started off by looking at some imagery and then, without any further reference to it, got to work. We put down a ground with acrylic paint and then applied layers of thin oil paint and solvent with a rag.
It wasn’t a conscious decision, but I ended up using a very limited palette of cadmium red light, cadmium yellow, ultramarine blue, burnt umber and some white. Once the thin paint was dry we applied glazes on top. I did a lot of wiping on and wiping off – it seems to be my modus operandi, as well as doing a lot of scratching – not particularly Turneresque, but never mind.
What do I think of it? As a study of an imaginary forest fire à la Turner, well, I think I’ve done ok. I’ve managed to create lots of layers and there is definitely some optical mixing going on. I think that I’ve managed to keep it quite loose (for me, anyway). I enjoyed putting the glazes on, colour was caught in the marks and grooves in lower layers which had been made when I had loosely put down the ground. I like that it was out of my control to a certain extent.
At the end of the day, I don’t like it. It was an exercise which I completed, I haven’t invested any of me into it, and it doesn’t do anything for me. But that doesn’t really matter because it is about trying different things, being open to new approaches and trying them out with an enquiring mind.
Putting paint on and wiping or scratching it off is something I instinctively do – it’s a very tactile way of working, and I’ve realised that it’s all about the materiality and the dialogue, which seems to be a bit of a tussle at times.
I love this time of year. The hedgerows are full of hawthorn blossom and clouds of cow parsley, there are blue carpets of bluebells in the woods, if a little threadbare by now, swathes of flowering wild garlic, crops growing in the fields and trees in full leaf.
I took my daughter back to uni in Exeter a week or so ago: a lovely drive down the A303 past Stonehenge, under the mystical big skies of Wiltshire and the rambling green fields of Somerset and Devon. On the way back I took the alternate route through Dorset along the Jurassic Coast and stopped off at Athelhampton House, a Tudor manor house I haven’t visited for a number of years with a very strong connection to Thomas Hardy. I didn’t know that Hardy was an architect before he became a writer and that he had worked on the house with his father, or even that he had lived into the early part of the 20th century. He seems to belong to a different time.
The gardens are wonderful – a house with many rooms (this seems to be a recurring theme recently).
Inside, apart from some wonderfully old glass windows which distorted the view outside,
was an exhibition of work by Arthur Neal, a painter and printmaker practising since the 1970s. He appears to vacillate between the figurative and the abstract. It would have been difficult to guess that all of the works on display were made by the same artist. I was particularly drawn to his small abstract oil paintings, his work in charcoal and his more recent prints.
The exhibition made me think. I would still like to explore charcoal and drypoint, and after that I think I’ll be done. It will be time to reflect.
The small oil paintings reminded me of a stack of small canvas boards we’ve had for ages, as yet unused. I can’t recall why we got them – I don’t generally do small. I think my husband bought them because they fit in a small pochard box he is going to use for all those landscapes sketches he’s going to paint, once he has wiped off all the dust. It wouldn’t take more than a few brush strokes to cover them. No excuse really, not to do something every day.
I have a fascination with Jackson’s Inside the sketchbook series – of looking at the sketchbooks of artists, to see how they work and think. Sketchbooks are personal spaces and it’s exciting to get to look inside, although I’m in no doubt that they choose to talk about their best ones. A recent one which springs to mind is Unga from Broken Fingaz. He talks about how working small means that you have to let go of detail. I think I’ll give it a go.
I decided to try out the ‘map’ drawing using oil paints. I liked the combination of pencil and oil paint in As I Was Going To St Ives and so I drew the grid lines on some oil paper – I was limited to A3. I put the paper on the floor and lightly rubbed over the tiles which created an interesting texture. Then I did the figures and the automatic drawing, just as before.
I’ve decided that I really enjoy making the lines and marking the intersections. My brain must truly have become disconnected from the process because, for some inexplicable reason, I thought that a quick spray of fixative would be sufficient before I applied the oil paints. Oh, how wrong I was. The solvent and graphite mixed really well – that’s the positive I’m taking from this! It needs to be the other way round, possibly, maybe, or maybe not. But time to stop and give up for the day, but not before I salvage something from the process. I’ve been thinking as I’ve been experimenting that the cutouts look really interesting in themselves, so I cut out the figures from the latest effort and did a bit of arranging on a spare sheet of paper. Interesting, particularly the figures in transparent film…
It’s been difficult, but I’ve been managing to stop myself from altering things after the event. To leave things undone with elements which really jar with me, which are clearly wrong and which look awful, and to post them anyway. I think that it’s starting to make a difference as to how I work – if I can get into the habit of showing the worst of it, the imperfect, work which I’d much rather never see the light of day, and preferably end up in the bin, I hope that I will be able to engage fully with the process, and not worry about the result.
The mantras I’ve adopted so far:
I will choose the mark-making processes which I enjoy, and not worry about the result
I choose the process, not the result
I don’t have to like what I make, and I don’t have to make what I like
So, we’ve been continuing with the subject of figures in my weekly oil painting class. We had a model today. I certainly haven’t done her justice, and just don’t get me onto the subject of faces. We had to do a few warm up drawings, starting with continuous line – always difficult to get things in the right place – and then just normal sketching, a couple of minutes each. I used an oil pastel – I like that it’s a commitment, and can’t be rubbed out. There’s nowhere to hide, mistakes remain visible – the new me. Then an hour painting.
What to say? I’ve realised that since I’ve been posting my ‘Undones’ (seems a more positive word than failures), no matter how unhappy I am with the result, I can always find something that I like, if I look hard enough. It has just dawned on me, that I probably wouldn’t notice these elements if I was happy with the end result if, indeed, they managed to survive the perfecting process. There’s always some beauty, no matter the ugliness.
I think that I’ve unintentionally transferred my feelings of being weighed down onto the model. The dress looks so heavy; although it was velvet. I think I’ve managed to capture the sense of velvet. I’m trying to avoid using any blending in my paintings at the moment – I’m working on keeping my brushstrokes defined and with a sense of movement – I think I’ve achieved this. The figure is generally good and I particularly like the neck.
I’ve just been watching Sky Arts LAOTY, and now Gareth Reid is now giving a masterclass on drawing faces – I could definitely do with watching this.
I’ve started back at my weekly art class after the Christmas break, and over the last two sessions we have been looking at figures, in particular, figures in an environment. I’m not very good at depicting humans (or any animate subject for that matter), so this was a bit of a challenge.
We had to work from images which we had sourced: I took my nieces ice-skating at Christmas, which was really entertaining to watch. There were the confident, well-practised skaters who came equipped with their own boots; the ‘I’m-competent-but every-now-and-then-lose-my-balance-and-windmill-my-arms-brigade; and then the rest – hopelessly clutching the side, or each other, for dear life, inching their way round. There was a whole range of shapes, gestures and weights, in the sense of where in the body the weight is being distributed, and there was a lot of tension.
We started by sketching out the composition.
I used a combination of photos and video stills from my phone – I could have been more organised because I lost track of which figure was on which photo, which wasted quite a bit of time. Next time I work from numerous image sources I will organise them so that they are more accessible and easier to switch between.
I then applied a ground to the support (I used oil paper as opposed to a canvas, as I wasn’t sure how it was going to go). As it was a painting of ice-skaters, I chose burnt umber thinned down with Sansador as my ground, as it’s the blue equivalent of the earth colours. I then drew in the figures using a rigger brush and thinned paint – I found the techniques covered by Chris Koning’s workshop of gestural drawing (‘Perception of the Whole’) to be really helpful in trying to get some dynamism in the portrayal of the figures. I also changed the composition from the pencil sketch to bring forward the pair of skaters on the left and to give the skater next to the pair some extra space into which he could move. I also packed some more figures in, including my favourites, the couple in the centre – the man skating alongside and watching his partner who is leaning forward – and the girl behind them.
The next step was to block in the background. I decided that I didn’t want to put the figures in the specific setting of an ice rink, so I left out the details of the roof and sides which were included in the original sketch. This gives a feeling of more space.
I used a thinned down mixture of titanium white, ultramarine blue and burnt umber to create a grey/blue and then scratched into it with the end of the paintbrush to create skate marks.
I then started blocking in some colour using thinned paint. I liked the fact that the burnt umber drawing was still visible and decided to try and retain as much of it as possible. This meant that I would not be able to use much thick paint in subsequent layers, and so the painting will retain a sketch-like quality. The purpose of the exercise was to capture the essence of the figures, so there will be very little detail in the figures and their faces, other than those in the foreground, and even then I will keep these limited.
I regretted having the large figure in the foreground, but he felt necessary to add variation to the height of the figures, and his static quality should hopefully contrast with the sense of movement in some of the other figures.
I carried on adding some more colour and changed the colour of the skater’s hoodie to differentiate him from the figure in the foreground.
I really enjoyed the process of being looser: the multiple visible alterations and the pared back application of paint. I’m not sure that I like the finished piece, probably because of its subject matter – it’s all a bit twee. But that’s my own fault – I hadn’t adequately prepared for the class and so made a rushed decision. Next time we have to work from a preselected source, I will make sure that I prepare properly, so that the subject matter appeals to me as much as possible.
There are areas which really appeal to me; I like the way I have treated the ice and I think that I have managed to capture the sense of movement, the hesitancy and tension in the figures, and the atmosphere. I don’t like the way I’ve painted the faces in the foreground. Whilst the exercise was all about the figures, I don’t think I’ve managed to find a method to render faces in a non-detailed way which does not look childish. I need to work on this.
I was thinking about this painting whilst I was out on a dog walk yesterday. I enjoyed making it, but I’m not that enamoured with the overall result, which made me ask myself whether I need to like the work I make or whether enjoying the process is enough. Also, I like and am attracted to a wide variety of artists working in very different ways. I suspect that I have previously thought that I need to make myself like them and make the sort of work they make because it is something that I like and am drawn to. I’m starting to realise that this isn’t necessarily the case – I just need to be ‘me’.
Generally, the work which I produce at my art class is not something that I would ordinarily choose to do, (which is a good thing) and won’t necessarily be relevant to my field of study in terms of subject matter, but it will provide a useful source of exploration in terms of technique and approach in my art practice. As such it is a valuable resource and a good use of time as well as a commitment which ensures that I create work on a regular basis.
Gompertz reflects on the ability of creatives to think about both the big picture, and the fine detail.
”It requires your mind to constantly go back and forth, one moment concerned with the minutiae, the next stepping away and seeing the broader context… One tiny dab of colour can radically change the appearance of the largest of paintings. Each stroke of the brush is a note struck in a visual concerto; any mistake is as obvious to the viewer as hearing an orchestra member hit a wrong note.”
It’s true that the tiniest detail can make a painting: the small detail of the red sun makes this work by Monet.
Sunrise, 1872, Monet (Wikipedia 7 Jan 2025)
Gompertz describes a visit he made to the studio of Belgian artist, Luc Tuymans.
He is intrigued by Tuymans’ work and its ability to make him want to look closer. Tuymans explains that every painting has a point of entry: a small detail that catches your eye and draws you in. He is influenced by other artists who use this trick: Hopper, Van Eyck and Vermeer. In the case of the latter, Gompertz explains that the point of entry for ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ might be assumed to be the highlight on the earring but, in fact, conservators uncovered an alternative point of entry: a small dot of pale pink paint in the corner of her mouth, which serves to change the overall reading of the painting.
Detail ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring, 1665, Vermeer
As an aside, to my mind, the point of entry in Monet’s ‘Sunrise’ above is the red sun, going down through the buildings on the right, the reflection on the water, back up to the boat in the foreground, to the boats behind, up to the buildings in the distance, into the sky and following the directional brushstrokes up to the top righthand corner.
Tuymans completes his paintings within the course of a day; he uses the edge of the canvas as his palette which allows him to work quickly, as does his preconceived detailed plan, which can sometimes have begun many months, if not years, before. In fact, Tuymans goes so far as to plan an entire exhibition upfront before he has even started work, from the relationship between each painting, its size, location, the colour of the wall on which it will hang, and so on. His rationale for treating his work as a unit in this way is that to make sense of it, all of the paintings will need to be seen together, and so he increases the chances of there being a major retrospective of his work once he is dead. Now, that’s seeing the bigger picture!
I’m not really sure what I think about this. Planning work in such an extensive and detailed way seems very restrictive to me. Having said that, I would assume that his planning process includes a prolonged period of experimentation before committing to the final piece, which is why he can complete it in a day. He also uses existing images as a basis for his work, which is likely to reduce the number of questions he has to ask himself.
As for the focus on his legacy, I really can’t make up my mind. I suppose it depends on why artists, and in particular, Tuymans, make art. Is it to make the world a better place? Is it to fulfil the need to express themselves? Is it to leave a lasting mark on the world? Is it to make money? Is it because they simply have to? It’s probably a combination of all of these things, with some being of greater significance than others. I just get the feeling in Tuymans’ case that it’s rather contrived, and predominantly about his legacy. I actually wish that I hadn’t read this about him: for me it is a distraction from his work, which is primarily concerned with people, and their relationships with the past.
John Playfair, 2014, Luc Tuymans & John Playfair, 1824, Henry Raeburn (momus.ca 7/1/25)
I’m reminded of Sean Scully. My mother couldn’t stand Sean Scully. In fact, she didn’t rate Picasso either. I remember a conversation I had with her when she phoned me up one morning: she hadn’t been able to get to sleep the night before, so she had got up, made herself a cup of tea and put the TV on. She ended up watching a documentary on Sean Scully. She hadn’t been able to get to sleep after it either, as she had been so incensed by it. Did I know that his paintings, basically just coloured stripes, sold for millions of pounds? I suspect the problem had arisen because the programme makers had juxtaposed some footage of Scully applying some paint to a canvas in a rather sloppy slapdash fashion with footage of one of his paintings being sold at auction. I think it was one of those ‘I could have done that’ moments, but I resisted the urge to give the obvious answer ‘But you haven’t, have you?’, and instead commented that it’s because he is actually a very astute businessman. From what I understand, Scully controls the supply of his art into the art market, retaining a significant number of works himself, thus reducing supply, increasing demand and driving up prices, whilst at the same time ensuring that there is plenty of his work readily available for retrospectives. Basic economics, really.
Song (1985), Sean Scully approx value 2022 £1.6M (sothebys.com 7/1/25)
It all comes down to the uncomfortable relationship between the creation of art and profit, which Gompertz deals with early on in his book, and which I wasn’t planning on covering, but as I seem to have found myself here anyway…
On money:
At it’s very simplest, if you are a professional artist then you need to earn an income from your work to survive. But the relationship between art and money raises so many questions. Is the problem the amount you earn and what you do with it? Which is more worthwhile – the work of a penniless artist slaving away in a garret, or an artist who plays the game and exploits the brand conscious wealthy consumers? Does the need to earn an income compromise or limit an artist’s ability to express themselves authentically? Sophie, in her post reflecting on the first term, refers to the new sense of creative freedom she has experienced, away from the conveyor belt of producing work which would appeal to past and future buyers of her paintings. It is a subject we’ve touched on briefly in our weekly sessions, and it seems a very delicate balance to get right. I think Gompertz probably sums it up best:
“The intellectual and emotional motivation isn’t profit, but it is an essential component. Profit buys freedom. Freedom provides time. And time, for an artist, is the most valuable of commodities.”
In his book, Gompertz explores the issue of artistic entrepreneurism by starting with the artist who didn’t shy away from the subject of money and materialism by making his art all about them: Andy Warhol.
“Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” Andy Warhol
He then covers the likes of Reubens, an expert salesman, who went off ringing the doorbells of the aristocracy and royalty of Europe whilst his minions worked endlessly in his workshops; Van Gogh and his money man, Theo; and American artist, Theaster Gates, who uses the proceeds of his art to buy and refurbish buildings for use by the community in the South Side of Chicago, where he grew up, thereby regenerating the area and effecting positive social change.
‘Chorus’, 2016, Theaster Gates
I had hoped to have covered much more of the book in this post – it may end up having as many parts as The Godfather! The fact that I have had so much to take note of and comment on, is proof that I am finding it incredibly insightful. I am aware that, at the moment, I’m using this blog for note-making. I have to, otherwise I’ll forget it all. I have lost count of the number of times I’ve read a fact and thought, oh that’s interesting, I must remember that, only for it to disappear again. It infuriates me that I can’t recall facts and statistics at the drop of a hat when having a discussion about something, whilst the other person seems to be able to pluck them out of thin air in support of what they are saying. Or maybe that’s exactly what they are doing – they do say that if you say something with enough confidence people will believe you…
Well, I made it through without a tear. It might have been the sheer number of people which meant that it was impossible to stand and contemplate too deeply, or the audio commentary going on in my ear which distracted me. The ‘Poets and Lovers’ exhibition at the National Gallery was a cornucopia of Van Gogh brilliance, although I was left wondering why it didn’t include some of the Van Goghs I had seen in other galleries, such as the self-portrait with bandaged ear at the Courtauld, but then I don’t have the faintest idea about curation. That said, it didn’t detract from the luscious visual delights on offer, many of which I hadn’t come across before.
What struck me more than anything was the direct correlation between how he drew and how he painted. The range and quality of mark-making was phenomenal. Whilst up close, the brushstrokes and colour palette made me virtually tachycardial, it was standing in the centre of each of the rooms which gave the most rewarding experience.
The only moment when I almost cracked, was when I found myself in front of the Sunflowers from the National Gallery and the Philadelphia Museum of Art: he painted his Sunflower series to decorate his guest room in anticipation of Gaugin’s visit to Arles, in an effort to impress Gaugin, who he greatly admired, almost to the point of obsession. Van Gogh’s sensitivity and vulnerability weren’t a good match for Gaugin who, by some accounts, was aggressive and egocentric, which served only to reinforce Van Gogh’s insecurities. It all made me blink a bit quicker. I have to declare my bias – I’m not a fan of Gaugin for various reasons, not least because he abandoned his wife and five children to go off and indulge his predilection for young girls.
The day was rounded off by a trip to the Colony Room Green, a replica, as near as dammit, of the bohemian Soho legend that was the Colony Room Club which closed down in 2008 after 60 years, and which was the creation of the queen of Soho, Muriel Belcher – apparently, you knew you were in if she called you the ‘C’ word. It was the favourite haunt of creatives such as Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, John Craxton, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Dylan Thomas, John Deakin, Frank Auerbach, Michael Andrews, Giacometti, and the list goes on. My husband was particularly keen to visit as he’s reading Darren Coffield’s ‘Tales from the Colony Room’.
‘ Francis Bacon was very fashion-conscious and always immaculately dressed. One afternoon Francis walked in, annoyed and pulling his collar. – “What’s wrong, Francis?” – “Harrods, I’m never going back there again.” He’d attended a special night for select clients and bought lots of clothes, but when he’d got back home he’d decided he didn’t like any of them. “I bought so many suits and shirts and threw the lot in the dustbin.” You’d never seen the club empty so quickly. The next day everyone was up the club parading around in their new suits and shirts from Francis’ dustbin.’
Colony Room I, Michael Andrews, 1962
It’s very small and down some stairs underneath Ziggy Green, 4 Heddon Street, a side street off Regent Street. It’s reminiscent of a dive bar/ speakeasy.
It was great meeting Liam, the house jazz pianist and chatting to Tim, the barman who explained that it’s not trying to be a re-creation of the original, but somewhere to come and meet an eclectic mix of people. Despite what he said, I couldn’t help but feel that I had stepped back in time, waiting for the door to open and for one of my artistic heroes or heroines to walk through it. They often have events which are free to attend, such as talks and book launches. Unfortunately, we couldn’t hang around for the Portrait of Muriel Belcher evening.
There’s something very inspiring about the idea of a group of creative people coming together regularly to discuss work, ideas and concepts. I’ll definitely pop back in next time I’m in town, in the hope that something might rub off.
It started with a bracing dog walk, first thing. It was the best start to the day.
Then a train ride to London to visit the Michael Craig-Martin exhibition at the Royal Academy before it closes in a little over a week. I have to say that going into a gallery has the same effect on me as going into a church – a sense of wonderment and contemplation comes over me: people even speak in hushed tones.
It was joyously colourful, but for me, that was just about it. I was left wondering to myself, if it wasn’t for the painted walls and the sheer scale of some of the works, would they still have been so impactful? If they had been A3 in size and hanging on a bare white wall, would I still have experienced chromatic overload? I used to be attracted to the graphic simplicity of his work, elevating everyday objects to something out of the ordinary, but I’m sad to say that I don’t think it does it for me anymore. I’ve changed. If anything, I was more intrigued by his earlier conceptual work.
The Oak Tree (1974) is a small glass filled with water to a specific level and mounted on a wall at a specific height of 253cm. It is accompanied by the text of a conversation in which Craig-Martin explains how he has changed the glass of water into an oak tree without changing the physical form of the glass – I don’t know whether it was meant to be amusing, but I certainly had a titter. In a short film for the RA, which I watched when I got back home, he explains that he was trying to find something that constituted the essence of art, in that art is based on the notion of transformation, and the most extreme proposition for transformation would be to have no transformation at all. Others have alluded to his Catholic upbringing and have suggested that it is to do with transubstantiation. I also read that it was seized by Australian customs officials on its way to an exhibition in the 1970s on the basis that it was illegal to import plants into Australia!
I was particularly drawn to ‘Conviction’, a series of mirrors on paper, as it directly relates to what I’m planning to explore.
’On The Shelf’ comprises 15 milk bottles positioned at a precarious angle on a shelf, but the varying levels of water create a level horizon. The four buckets on the table are actually supporting the table, rather than the other way round. Finally, ‘Box that never closes’ questions what makes a work of art: the box has lost all functionality, and does not even form something that is aesthetically pleasing.
I went into the shop but didn’t buy anything: instead I had a look at the wall which supports teaching art in schools. I put a post-it note up following on from our session a couple of weeks ago: ‘creativity will save the planet’, but I forgot to take a photo.
I was then going to nip into the National Gallery but the queue was half way down the street – probably caused by the extra security and bag searches. So I went round the corner to the National Portrait Gallery which I haven’t been in since its refurb.
I was pleased to see the portrait of zoologist and conservationist, Dame Jane Goodall, by Wendy Barrett, the winner of Sky’s PAOTY 2023. Compared to the photograph taken by Ken Regan, it gives the viewer so much more. I thought it was tremendous, and full of intelligence, sensitivity and humanity.
Lucian Freud’s letter to his grandparents, thanking them for the money they gave him, which he was going to use to buy a book of fairytales, reminded me of Miró with its coloured shapes and black lines. It took me back to a hot day in Sóller over the summer when we found relief from the sun in the train station, which happened to be exhibiting various ceramics by Picasso and works by Miró – can’t see that happening at Waterloo Station anytime soon. Freud’s self-portrait is a favourite: the way he applies paint and his minimal brushstrokes are lush.
Bearing in mind my latest experiments using a pen, I was fascinated by the mark-making in Eileen Agar’s drawing of the modernist architect, Ernö Goldfinger. Hockney’s portrait of Sir David Webster with Tulips is stunning: I was a bit perturbed by the size of his head at first, and the fact that the sole of his left shoe seems to be coming away, but I think I’m ok with it now. In any event, it’s all eclipsed by the beautiful rendering of the table and tulips, and the fact that the jacket hanging over the arm of the chair makes him look like he’s levitating.
Colin Davidson’s Silent Testimony was moving: a collection of 18 large scale portraits of individuals who have all experienced loss in the Troubles in Northern Ireland, although it is also more generally about everyone who is left behind after conflict. They are impartial: there is no reference to the sitters’ religion or politics. What is striking is that none of the sitters are looking directly out of the canvas; they look off to the side as though deep in thought, as if they are remembering. There is a real sense of loss and pain, and contemplation – it is etched onto their faces, quite literally in some areas. They are painted in thick paint which seems to be weighing them down. But it’s all about the eyes. They are painted with a much more careful and detailed application of thinner paint. They almost look haunted.
And then I walked back to Waterloo Station, over the bridge, with Ray Davies crooning in my ear, although, let’s face it, his voice isn’t what it is used to be. All in all, apart from my break-up with Michael, a good day.
During the last session we considered the premise that resentment blocks creativity.
Resentment is a feeling of anger or unhappiness about something that you have been forced to accept and you don’t like, or think is unfair. It comes from the Latin verb sentire, and so it is an emotion which is ‘re-sensed’ time after time, perhaps even increasing in intensity. Perhaps we feel resentment that other artists are better than us, or that they have works accepted in exhibitions and we don’t.
As I get older, I try as best I can to keep as much negativity out of my life as possible. I may initially feel it, but then I try to process it by turning it on its head, or actively dealing with it. I can’t feel resentment (in the sense of it being a recurring emotion) that other artists are better than me or are more successful – instead I use the initial negative feeling (which is probably more envy than anything else) to spur me on to try again, to fail again and to fail better, because inherent in that form of resentment is the feeling of failure.
For the last few years I have submitted work to the RA Summer Exhibition but I have never made it to the next round of judging. Each year I experience a moment of crushing disappointment and vow never to do it again, but then January comes around and off I go again. I’m clearly looking for validation, but I often think to myself that if ever I do get in I’ll probably never submit again, and maybe it won’t even make me happy.
My husband confessed to me that he had always wanted to paint. Why don’t you just do it, I asked him. He started with watercolours and over time became good at it. I suggested that he try oils as they are far more forgiving and I thought he might enjoy the freedom of using them. I bought him some as a gift along with some boards and brushes. He signed up to an oil painting class and shortly afterwards submitted one of his oil paintings to the Summer Exhibition. He made it through to the last 4,000 out of 16,000 entries on his first attempt. Did I feel resentment? No – I felt proud, with a strong sense of irony. He felt ecstatic with a strong sense of embarrassment.
If someone treats me badly I tend to think that it is more about them rather than me, but if it is something that I know will eat away at me and become a resentment I try to deal with it head on, unless doing so will cause irreparable harm. But, there is one particular instance of resentment which I haven’t been able to let go of no matter what I do, and I feel it as strongly today as the day I first felt it.
Kate McCalmont-Woods 