Assignment 5, subject 3: Hans Christian Andersen “The Shadow”. An attempt at an illustration (including part 5 project exercises)

Updated on 25 March 2017 (Harvard referencing and some content).

21 January 2017. A few days ago I mentioned the subject I had chosen for my last assignment of this course to my parents and they remembered Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Shadow” (Andersen, 1847a). I had not read it before, but when I did, I found it to be an incredibly well-conceived insight into human nature. As was to be expected, it started following me around like a faithful shadow, so I had to make it the third and last subject in my series. My aim for the final painting in the series of experiments would be to devise a cover illustration for a book containing this tale. I found surprisingly few existing illustrations (Andersen, 1847b; Andersen, 1847c, Andersen, 1847d) and not many  blogs investigating shadows in their metaphorical sense. One of these, “Schattenflug” (Küster, 2014-16), I returned to several times, however. It contained, among others, a reference to one of the most famous stories about shadows willed to become separate from their owners, “Peter Schlemihl” (Küster, 2014). The following illustration shows the devil taking Schlemihl’s shadow as agreed (Fig. 1):

1_schlemihl
Figure 1. George Cruikshank: “Peter Schlemihl”, etching, 1827. Source: George Cruikshank (1792-1878) [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons
As my previous two subjects included some very spontaneous painting, I wanted to make the final result of this part deliberately detailed, while easy and transparent.
To give me an idea of what other painters do to interpret similar ideas, I went for a closer look at what the Tate gallery has on offer when searching for “shadow”. In its absolutely most reduced form I found a very clear line drawing by Andy Warhol (1928-1987, USA) “The Shadow” (Warhol, 1981). Linking in with Andersen’s tale, but on a considerably less complex level of storytelling: two reworked photographs by Keith Arnatt (1930-2008, UK) “Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self” (Arnatt, 1969-72) and “Invisible Hole Revealed by the Shadow of the Artist” (Arnatt, 1968). By Patrick Caulfield (1936-2005, UK) was one work, “Braque Curtain” (Caulfield, 2005), which helped me placing my idea in a first possible technical context. Vik Muniz was represented with a photograph “Pictures of Dust” (Muniz, 2000), which was one of the rare occasions, where a shadow broken from the horizontal to the vertical appeared as a search result at all. It appear to me that “broken shadows” do not seem to carry much aesthetic appeal to many artists. As, however, this is what I need to illustrate the story, I realised that I would have to be doing lots of own observation. In style Jeffery Edwards’s (*1945, USA) “Moonlight” (Edwards, 1974) connects with the above “Braque Curtain” and seems to indicate a way for me to approach my subject technically.

26 January 2017. In order to comply with course requirements I went through a series of experiments again relating to the application of paint and abstraction from previous direct observation. Since it has been quite extraordinarily cold for the last couple of weeks and there is no sign of any change, I used the opportunity to place paper with very dilute paint outside and see the effect of ice crystals forming. The result was not great. I used one very smooth and one linen structure paper. On both the formation of ice was hardly noticeable (even if helped by covering the paint with snow) and on bringing the paper back inside, the ice just melted, leaving stains I could have produced without freezing temperatures. My impression was that water and paint pigment did their separate things. I will not give up on the matter, however, but will not pursue it further for the purpose of this project (Fig. 1a-c):

Figure 1

28 January 2017. For the same temperature reasons ( minus 15°C during the day) it was practically impossible to stand or sit outside for any reasonable amount of time except for quick sketches.  Apart from one 5 minute attempt with ink pen and paintbrush I caught all the following impressions with my camera – which was not a bad idea, because I found that shadows from a low sun tend to change incredibly quickly and an interesting effect discovered would be gone the next second.
Here is sketch of the shadow of a roof and chimney falling on a wall from a neighbouring house near my son’s school. Despite the strong radiation coming from the midday sun the shadow’s outline was quite blurred, with a darker centre and “fluffy” border. What I am after, however, is the following effect: Where the shadow falls across the window, the stone frame seems to make the shadow “enter” the window opening, because physics requires its outline to follow structural elements (Fig. 2).

5_shadow_roof_chimney_ink_28012017
Figure 2. Sketchbook – Ink pen and water-soluble ink

With the above effect kept in mind I went to look for some images my older son and I had taken a few years ago from my workshop window with the main light on. They must have given the lady living in that house the fright of her life, but it was irresistible ;o) (Fig. 3):

Figure 3. Shadow experiments on a neighbour’s house

Again the edges of the shadows are blurred and, as is better visible on the lefthand photo, the outline appears to be drawn into the window openings. If my composition requires it I will try and emphasize that effect. It both connects with my first assignment subject (as the shadows of my bottles travelled both on the table and up the back wall) and with one of the crucial scenes described in the fairy tale: The chief character, a scientist, sits to make his shadow fall on a house opposite to the balcony he is on and wills it to enter the house.
In order to get an idea of the associated patterns I took a walk round the area near my son’s school to catch shadows falling on walls and into houses, some of persons, including myself near windows in particular. Please ignore the unavoidable “photographing position” (Fig. 4-12):

8_shadow_houses_1_28012017
Figure 4
9_shadow_houses_2_28012017
Figure 5
10_shadow_houses_3_28012017
Figure 6

The following effect I really liked, it appears as if the shadows of the trees were intentionally placed there to be part of the building (Fig. 7):

13_shadow_houses_6_28012017
Figure 7

Here follows a small series of photos taken near an old farmhouse. By coincidence the sun’s position allowed my shadow to “enter the house” by a window (Fig. 8-12):

15_shadow_rauchhof_1_28012017
Figure 8
16_shadow_rauchhof_2_28012017
Figure 9
18_shadow_rauchhof_4_28012017
Figure 10
19_shadow_rauchhof_5_28012017
Figure 11
20_shadow_rauchhof_6_28012017
Figure 12

Expedition resumé:
I found that with the sun so low the part of the shadow travelling on the ground is less dark than that on the wall. Also, I may need to take into account that the shadow’s colour will change with that of the background. If I paint it as a transparent wash, this will take care of itself, but not if I choose to use opaque mixes.

One idea was to have the full facade of the building available for the cast shadow, as e.g. in one of the famous scenes in “The Third Man” (Garrett, 2015).

Since Andersen’s tale is located in a southern country, I went to look for a corresponding photo of a street with balconies of the sort described by the author. There were some I had taken during holidays, but the problem with those was the inevitable position of looking up at the balconies from a low point. So I resorted to images available on the web to collect ideas for the composition of a suitable facade. Thus equipped I started my experiments.

In order to set the scene properly and to get a first rough idea of where light and shade will need to be for a working composition, I produced a preliminary watercolour sketch in my sketchbook (Fig. 13):

23_preliminary_sketch_scene_watercolour_28012017
Figure 13. Sketchbook – compositional watercolour sketch

I was quite happy with this attempt and could see how thorough preparation for a subject allows some mental tuning. Roughly, the composition is working including an interesting overall distribution of light and shade apart from using them to tell a story. It was a coincidence that I let the man rest his right arm on the railing, which made his shadow reach out beyond the visible part of the room in the house opposite. The latter opens up a side story, because it is impossible to tell whether the intentions of the shadow – if taken as an already detached entity – are necessarily innocent.
This first sketch has some major weak points regarding the physical properties of the shadow. It will have to be smaller in order to allow the room appear larger. Also the outline will need to be blurred. The room and light to the back of the real man also are not quite present yet.

29 January 2017. In preparation for the background of my A2 painting carton I tested the addition of sand and charcoal to acrylic binder as well as white paint and experimented with the effects created when adding water-soluble writing ink and water-proof antique ink. I have to apologize for the poor quality of the below images. The sketchbook is not spiral-bound, so near the end of the book scanning the pages becomes awkward (Figure 14-15):

24_test_sand_charcoal_ink_29012017
Figure 14. Sketchbook – experimenting with materials mixed into acrylic binder
25_test_charcoal_ink_29012017
Figure 15. Sketchbook – experimenting producing structural effects, mixed media

The effects produced with binder mixes were not good (top image), but the mix of white paint and crushed willow charcoal turned out to be very interesting. I used a painting knife to spread the mix, which caused some of the larger pieces of charcoal to disintegrate and follow the movement of the knife (bottom image, 2 images second row). Another very interesting result was white paint spread with a coarse paintbrush, covered in water-soluble ink when dry and added to by water-proof antique ink. The antique ink mixed with the already dry water-soluble black to then dry into a combined water-proof layer. On top of both tests I tried small areas of a transparent wash of white ink.
The use of inks on top of dried acrylic paint I had tried before in a wild experiment with partly crushed dry leaves dropped by my workshop plants covered in white acrylic. I had tried to see whether dripping ink on that mix would create “shadows” in front of the leaves. As the effect did not appear, I decided to paint over the structures with my mix of inks to see whether I would be able to enhance them. When placing the finished piece in direct sunlight to take the photo, I noticed the most beautiful metallic sheen. My black ink appears to “disintegrate” into its component colours every time the underground is water repellent, producing  this effect (Fig. 16-17):

26_leaves_paint_ink_mixed_media_1_29012017
Figure 16. 56 x 42 cm acrylic paper – experimenting with acrylic paint, crushed dry leaves and different makes of ink

The antique ink helps to highlight the structures, another beautiful effect:

27_leaves_paint_ink_mixed_media_2_29012017
Figure 17. Closeup of effect produced using antique ink

Both the above tests appeared appealing as well as suitable for my purpose, so that I decided to first of all prepare the background for the final painting with a paint-charcoal mix to serve as basic layer for the walls of the houses (Fig. 18-19):

28_finished_painting_background_1_29012017
Figure 18. Preparing the A1 background using white acrylic and crushed willow charcoal, working with palette knife
29_finished_painting_background_2_29012017
Figure 19. Detail

30 January 2017. Today I found a graphical interpretation of the situation in Andersen’s tale (Andersen, 1847e), which resembles mine to some extent, but leaves the shadow on the facade and seems far too distant (literally and metaphorically) and casual for the actual monstrosity of the scientist’s intention – the shadow is far too large for my imagination to allow it to enter the house at all. In addition, I cannot imagine that a single candle would be strong enough to light up the complete facade of the house opposite – of course this is always open to an artist’s interpretation, but seems inappropriate in this context – after all, it is a scientist carrying out this “experiment” (Fig. 20)

32_websters_ecyclopedia_andersen
Figure 20. “The Shadow”. Source: Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, C. & G. Merriam Co. 1913. Source: Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary [Public domain] via Encyclopedian Dictionary
31 January 2017.  I did some experiments in my sketchbook on combining my background with the above metallic effect, noticing instantly that they would not be combarable. The paper in the sketchbook allows a totally smooth distribution of paint, so the background layer was too slippery for my paint-charcoal mix to spread in a similar way to the painting carton (Fig. 21).

33_final_test_sketchbook_31012017
Figure 21. Sketchbook – experimenting with ink and acrylics on acrylic/crushed charcoal background

I did not rely on the results, but realised that I would not want to continue with acrylic paint at all here. The first layer of my background was delicate in a strange way, so I tried to respond to that by going over it with a roller using my black (diluted) and red (straight) inks. The result made me very happy (wonderful metallic lustre structured by the charcoal), but was extremely hard to take a meaningful photo of (Fig. 22):

34_finished_painting_background_4_31012017
Figure 22. Background on A1 canvas cardboard, inks on carylics/crushed charcoal

Taking the lighter and darker areas into account I first made a very rough drawing with white charcoal, then continued to apply black, red and white ink by intuition. Here are the steps (Fig. 23-27):

36_finished_painting_drawing_31012017
Figure 23. Compositional sketch
37_finished_painting_stage1_31012017
Figure 24. First layers using different types of ink

Here a detail of the above (Fig. 25):

38_finished_painting_stage1_detail_31012017
Figure 25. Detail

I was very happy at this point with having decided not to add any more acrylic paint. The semi-transparent layers of ink allowed me to produce a very beautiful indirect light, as e.g. in the man’s face and since they were part of the background, they are in complete harmony with it. The details of the painting will have to be approached with great care in order not to overload it, probably by leaving parts as drawing (Fig. 26).

39_finished_painting_stage3_31012017
Figure 26

2 February 2017. Here came the difficult part, not wanting to overdo it while knowing that the painting was not quite finished. I went through two more cycles, adding a few things in order to create some counterbalance to the main storyline while staying with the subject, then decided to leave it as it is to wait for tutor feedback. This is the finished painting:

41_finished_painting_02022017
Figure 27. Finished painting

And here my favourite details (Fig. 28-30):

42_finished_painting_detail1_02022017
Figure 28
43_finished_painting_detail2_02022017
Figure 29
44_finished_painting_detail3_02022017
Figure 30

Working on this painting has been one of the most interesting experiences gained throughout this course. The combination of materials is something I will be coming back to, because I think that it holds immense power for development.

This is the last post for my series of paintings for Assignment 5 of this course. Self-evaluation will follow in a separate post.

References:

Andersen, H.C. (1847a) The Shadow [online]. Classic Reader, Blackdog Media. Available at: http://www.classicreader.com/book/109/14/ [Accessed 21 January 2017]

Andersen, H.C. (1847b) Der Schatten [online]. Märchenatlas, Dr. Karen Lippert, Leipzig. Available at: http://www.maerchenatlas.de/kunstmarchen/der-schatten/ [Accessed 21 January 2017]

Andersen, H.C. (1847c) Der Schatten [online]. Lesekorb, Labbé Verlag, Bergheim. Available at: http://www.labbe.de/lesekorb/index.asp?themaid=107&titelid=987 [Accessed 21 January 2017]

Andersen, H.C. (1847d) Der Schatten. Hans Christian Andersens Märchen – gesehen von Günter Grass. Steidl Verlag, Göttingen.

Andersen, H.C. (1847e) The Shadow [online]. Encyclopedian Dictionary, [n.k.]. Available at: http://hans-christian-andersens.blogspot.co.at/2012/05/shadow.html [Accessed 30 January 2017]

Arnatt, K. (1969-72) Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of his Former Self [photograph, colour, Cibachrome print, on paper] [online]. Tate, London. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/arnatt-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-shadow-of-his-former-self-t07647 %5BAccessed 21 January 2017]

Arnatt, K. (1968) Invisible Hole Revealed by the Shadow of the Artist [Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper] [online]. Tate, London. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/arnatt-invisible-hole-revealed-by-the-shadow-of-the-artist-p13145 [Accessed 21 January 2017]

Caulfield, P. (2005) Braque Curtain [acrylic on canvas] [online]. Tate, London. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/caulfield-braque-curtain-t13038 [Accessed 21 January 2017]

Cruikshank, G. (1827) Peter Schlemihl [etching] [online]. [n.k.]. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schlemihl#/media/File:Peter_Schlemihl.jpg [Accessed 21 January 2017]

Edwards, J. (1974) Moonlight [screenprint on paper] [online]. Tate, London. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/edwards-moonlight-p03115 [Accessed 21 January 2017]

Garrett, A. (2015) Film Noir of the Week: The Third Man [blog] [online]. Old Hollywood Films, Amanda Garrett, 25 June. Available at: http://www.oldhollywoodfilms.com/2015/06/film-noir-of-week-third-man.html [Accessed 21 January 2017]

Küster, S. (2014) Vom Verkauf des Schattens an den Teufel I [blog] [online]. Sabine Küster, Berlin. Available at: https://schattenflug.wordpress.com/2014/11/01/vom-verkauf-des-schattens-an-den-teufel-i/ [Accessed 21 January 2017]

Küster, S. (2014-16) Schattenflug. Schatten in Kunst und Kultur [blog] [online]. Sabine Küster, Berlin. Available at: https://schattenflug.wordpress.com/ [Accessed 21 January 2017]

Muniz, V. (2000) After Richard Serra, Prop, 1968 [Photograph, colour, Cibachrome print, on paper mounted onto plastic] [online].Tate, London. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/muniz-pictures-of-dust-107865 [Accessed 21 January 2017]

Warhol, A. (1981) The Shadow [graphite on paper] [online]. Tate, London. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/warhol-the-shadow-ar00594 [Accessed 21 January 2017]

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) The Shadow [pencil drawing on paper?] [online]. C. & G. Merriam Co. 1913, Encyclopedian Dictionary. Available at: http://hans-christian-andersens.blogspot.co.at/2012/05/shadow.html [Accessed 30January 2017]

Advertisement

A diversion: Something Like Mona Lisa

Updated on 25 March 2017 (Harvard referencing).

9 January 2017. “Listen” I said to little son a few days ago, “Why don’t you draw something for Anni to say thank you for being the wonderful aunt she is?” “Help” he replied, “I cannot think of anything. Tell me.” I had lots of ideas, none of them good enough for him. So I stopped. A day later he said: “I want to paint Mona Lisa for her. How do we start?”
He wanted to use the UV glow paint he had been given for Christmas, so it was to be a special Mona Lisa. With both our hands on one pencil we made a drawing first and coloured it in later, with UV light switched on all the time to see whether the effect would be there. My scanner was unable to reproduce some of the colours we used and it occurs to me now that I should have photographed it with the UV light on, so it looks pale in reproduction, but it was great fun to do and the mystery is all there ;o), so here it is (Fig. 1):

mona_lisa_farbig_05012017
Figure 1. A Christoph and Andrea Joint Venture: UV glow Mona Lisa

Part 4, project 4, exercise 1: Painting outside – painting a landscape outside

Updated on 23 March 2017 (Harvard referencing).

16 November 2016. There is a warm front travelling to come into Austria on Friday, so I need to be quick in order to plan and carry out my plein air painting exercise before more winter weather. There is a special place in our vicinity, a bit of woodland growing in a sandy pit in a restructured river basin. This place I chose before once for one of my Drawing 1 projects (Lacher-Bryk, 2015). Since I did not follow study guide instructions in the previous exercise (use and rework an existing painting), I decided that I would carry over this instruction to this exercise and apply it to the following drawing I made last year (Fig. 1):

https://andreabrykoca.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/several_trees_colour_finished.jpg
Figure 1. Own drawing from OCA Drawing 1 course “Study of several trees”, ink pen, oil pastels and marker pens, 2015

I will make some preliminary sketches on site tomorrow (bad weather) and compare with what I have got, then quickly use the fair weather predicted for Friday to make a very rough painting with my largest brush to be completed outside. There is no plan to continue working on it in my workshop, so what I achieve outside will be what I get.

17 November 2016. Proceeding as planned, so setting off to the site just after lunchtime. The weather was very changeable, from overcast and some raindrops to sunshine and quite pleasantly warm and windy, so partly ideal for painting outside. I found the site mostly as it had been the year before, except that the sandy forest floor was covered in lots of brown autumn leaves and the incredible near-white sand and the contrast I had been looking for were invisible (I should have known better, being an ecologist and all that :o). I still took a set of photos of the spot, walking round to see whether other views might be attractive (Fig.2).

Figure 2

In the end I went for a beautiful view across the river with a small, eye-catching patch of white sand on the far bank and produced a landscape and a portrait format mini watercolour sketch (Fig. 3-5):

6_chosen_site_17112016
Figure 3
7_sketches_17112016
Figure 4
8_sketches_closeup_17112016
Figure 5. Sketchbook – watercolour sketches

Cycling back I went through the colour options and the research on Fauvism and Expressionism I had done earlier that day. At first I had wanted to use autumn colours as found on site, but then came up with another option including very light colours, basically warm and cool shades of grey on a darker background prepared with a mix of Paynes grey and small amounts of other colours I would like to use, so that in the end the objects of the painting would have clear dark outlines. We’ll see whether this is feasible.

18 November 2016. It is very warm today and windy – what is called a “Föhn” weather situation typical for the Alps. It gives lots of people headaches, but others like me get a wonderful break from the November drizzle. It also makes painting outside a bit more difficult, since we get quite strong gusts of wind. Before going out I did a greyscale test in my sketchbook in order to find the colours I would need to take with me (Fig. 6).

9_sketch_acrylics_18112016
Figure 6. Sketchbook – 50 shades of grey, more or less

Around lunchtime I left with my bike and 25 year old trailer full of painting materials and was extremely lucky to get to my site with the sun shining and the wind dropping (Fig. 7).

Figure 7

Here is my open air studio with prepared painting carton. I had a quantitiy of the mix used for the background with me and from this I mixed the rest of my colours. This system worked well, although I found that the conditions changing from bright sunshine to cloudy made my mixing results a bit arbitrary (Fig. 8).

12_equipment_leaves_18112016
Figure 8. Studio in the leaves

When I found that a hue would not fit the purpose I had intended it for, I used it intuitively in other parts of the composition.
Here is the first stage of the finished painting. Lying in the shade it looks rather blue, which it is not under proper lighting conditions (Fig. 9):

14_finished_painting_stage2_18112016
Figure 9. First stages of the finished painting

I had two full hours of painting, before it suddenly got very cold and I had to call it a day.
This is how far I got today. I quite like the “coarse” areas of colour in the centre (see detail of white tree across the river and tree stumps in the middle ground below) (Fig. 10-11).
Contrary to what I said earlier I think that I will do a little more work on the exercise in the workshop during the next few days (when there will be November weather and snow again) to try and carefully apply this technique to other parts of the composition.

15_finished_painting_stage3_18112016
Figure 10
16_finished_painting_stage3_detail_18112016
Figure 11. Detail

20 November 2016. Today I spent some time trying to extend the discovered technique to the whole painting. Some of it appears successful, some of it not so. While I was quite happy with the changes to the light, especially by achieving a weird glow in the willow tree hanging over the river and the trees to the left, I think that the trees in the foreground need some more change, although I cannot yet think of what would be required (Fig. 12).

17_finished_painting_20112016
Figure 12. Finished painting


Commentary: “The experience of painting outdoors”

The work required for painting outdoors was not unfamiliar to me. I have done so on many occasions in the past. Although this was mostly watercolours, I knew what to bring and was able to plan ahead taking into acount the weather forecast. The most important piece of equipment is my bicycle trailer. It allows me to take along all necessary equipment apart from an easel, but when working outside I usually prefer sitting on a stool with the support lying on the ground in front of me. Although I know that the faithful copying of the things seen is probably easier on an easel, I appreciate the slightly longer interval between taking in the visual information and putting it on canvas as a very valuable creative break. Also, for me working from above the support results in a much looser brushmark that when standing in front of the easel.
Making linear and coloured thumbnail sketches with ink pen and watercolour, as well as testing the range of colours I wanted to bring in a small sketch using acrylics in my sketchbook, was immensely helpful when approaching the final work. It allowed me to develop in my mind a working “reflection” of the painting-to-be. Working on the final piece consisted of modulating my gathered experience by what came up on site. It was very enjoyable to see and feel this work and I guess that slowly these techniques come more naturally to me.
With regard to formal compositional rules I tested on a printout that to a relatively large extent elements of both the Rule of Thirds and more so the Golden Mean are present, as well as a working foreground – middleground – background construction. There is a pathway into the painting provided by the sandy area leading to the river and on across the river via the conspicuous white fallen tree and the mirrored white in the path leading away from the far side of the river. I also tried to include mirror structures and areas of colour: the white in the fallen tree and far side path, the violet in the smaller tree on the right and in the tangle of very young trees to the left, the turquoise of the river and the hanging tree, and also the shape of the fallen tree mirrored in the branch arching over the hanging tree. Also, I tried to include considerations of aerial perspective by gradually reducing detail as well as colour contrast and intensity. I was happy with the idea of having a selection of shades of grey mixed from an initial mix of Paynes grey, natural burnt umber, raw umber and white at the basis of the composition, since it allowed me to adapt with ease to different requirements and also this slightly aubergine hue went extremely well with all the colours introduced at later points (oriental blue, cadmium red, cadmium yellow medium, cobalt turquoise and black).
Overall I think that the outcome is quite satisfactory, although I am increasingly able to see the weak points in composition and choice of colour.
(514 words)

References:

Lacher-Bryk, A. (2015) Part 3, project 1, exercise 3: Trees – study of several trees [blog] [online]. Andrea’s OCA study blog. Available at: https://andreabrykoca.wordpress.com/2015/07/11/part-3-project-1-exercise-3-trees-study-of-several-trees/ [Accessed 16 November 2016]

Sketchbook: People on the move

Updated on 12 March 2017 (Harvard referencing).

17 September 2016. Since my son is back at school now, the everyday waiting routine gives me a few spare minutes to observe and draw people doing the same – move around and wait for something else to happen.

Here are a few of the latest drawings (and one or two I forgot to post before the summer):

hospital_density_sketch_17092016
Figure 1. Sketchbook – ink pen density drawing

The above (Fig. 1) is another of my little density series, which I started in Innsbruck last year. I choose a setting (here people walking in the hospital grounds in Salzburg – yes, I do spend a horrible amount of time in hospitals) and try to document every movement occurring during a certain time, say 10 to 15 minutes. The result appears quite dynamic to me, it is a record of “mass movement”.

In the next sketch I tried to capture the absolute essence of the scene, girls standing at or sitting on a table tennis table in the playground (Fig. 2).

tabletennis_sitting_girls_17092016
Figure 2

Again the same playground, in the next two sketches obviously bored parents are waiting for their children to finish playing (Fig. 3-4):

playground_waiting_1_17092016
Figure 3
playground_waiting_2_17092016
Figure 4

Two more sketches I made while waiting at the train station. These were extremely difficult to draw, because waiting people have nothing else to do and immediately sense my presence. So what I do now is draw the very first impression I gain to check a few more times through half-closed eyes. Still I am happy with the result and I can see how my ability to observe and reproduce correctly has improved over the years (Fig. 5-6).

train_station_waiting_1_17092016
Figure 5
train_station_waiting_2_17092016
Figure 6

The last sketch is not about people on the move, but the gate to a garden and house long abandoned by their last inhabitants. I put it in this post, because to me the gate looks alive somehow, as if it were a store of memories of people walking in and out for a very long time (Fig. 7):

garden_gate_17092016
Figure 7

 

Part 3, project 1, exercise 1/2: Portrait and Figure – drawing the human figure, linear figure study

Updated on 4 March 2017 (Harvard referencing and changes to contents).

18 July 2016. Since there is very little time available at the moment and my tutor suggested that I paint my sketches for this exercise rather than draw them, I decided that I would combine exercises 1 and 2. My husband sat for me in my workshop and despite our everyday worries the sketches with watercolour on A2 sketch paper (Fig. 1-3) went somewhat better than expected. Since I want to paint my linear figure study with palette knives, I also tried my favourite flat watercolour brush in one sketch (Fig. 2 below). Here I found that it requires a lot of practice to switch from the flat side to the edge in rounded objects such as the muscles in my husband’s arm, so there is ample scope for improvement here, but I enjoyed the experience (despite both of us nearly falling asleep after a demanding day).

2_Franz_sketch2
Figure 1
1_Franz_sketch1
Figure 2
3_Franz_sketch3
Figure 3

I like the setup in the third sketch best, because there appears to be – at least to me – a pleasing combination of tension and relaxation. The chair my husband was sitting on is playschool size, so he had to find a position to give his legs the necessary room (tension), while the weight of his upper body was supported by the arm resting on the backrest (relaxation). We’ll see whether I will be able to include both in my painted study.

Before jumping right into the exercise I had a look round the internet to see some palette knife painting tutorials and find some artists, who use a technique I like. What I do not want is a very rough approach, which to me produces paintings looking like the tiles on a stove of the nightmare kind we sometimes used to get in our area (not surprisingly I cannot find any examples on the web, horrible stuff): Some painters seem to be making a habit of placing the same kind of knife mark at regular intervals, which have no connection with the actual subject and consequently appear to drain all tension from a painting. What I would like to try is to see, whether I am able to “draw” with the palette knife in a way that creates believable organic structures.

In order not to get overwhelmed by the new technique I decided to reduce my palette to the denim range of blue and the colour of skin (Fig. 4):

4_Sketchbox_tests
Figure 4. Testing the palette knife and colour range

The background I prepared with a mix of dark brown and titanium white, which dries close to skin colour. Since this was to be my first experiment using palette knives and I am not confident yet regarding my drawing abilities in that respect, I drew the outlines first with charcoal (Fig. 5).

5_Background_charcoal
Figure 5. Background and charcoal sketch

It took some time to get used to the properties of the palette knives, but I think that with some practice it shoould be possible to produce volume and tension with just a few marks. I was surprised to see how easy it was to mold the thigh and folds. But the way, my husband’s hair is not quite that flashy – it was the result of having put too much pressure on the palette knife, which went flying and left some interesting hairstyle in its wake ;o) … (Fig. 6):

6_First_colours
Figure 6. My first attempts at using a palette knife

It was relatively straightforward to outline the chair as well, and then things got difficult. I have no expertise yet in forming limbs and faces and I found the palette knife awkward to use in tight places. Also it was necessary to carefully think ahead. The paint had to be in just the right place on the knife in just the right amount and the mark-making does not yet come naturally. I also had to take into account whether a structure would have to be rounded and smooth, come with a darker and/or sharp edge or merge with another structure (Fig. 7).

7_More_colours
Figure 7

After a bit of a struggle I started seeing some progress. Human forms are still very awkward, and especially faces, where I have not found a solution yet to correct mistakes (sorry, Franz, I promise to be more experienced next time!). Still, when looking at the overall result, the composition, selection of colours and part of the outcome I am not unhappy. In particular I do think that my intention of showing tension and relaxation is visible in the finished piece (Fig. 8):

8_Franz_finished
Figure 8. Finished palette knife “drawing”

 

 

Part 2, project 4, exercise 1: Drawing and painting interiors – quick sketches around the house

Updated on 2 March 2017 (Harvard referencing).

9 June 2016. Now the dreaded time has come again when I am asked to walk round our house on the look for interesting views. Last year, during Drawing 1, I struggled immensely with the pleasing, but awkward to draw or paint, layout of our house. There are practically no views which are not obstructed by parts of the house in a more than inconvenient way. The layout is open, but there are stairs everywhere, which means that it is just these stairs, interesting as the idea might be in general, which render a view awkward. At the moment, for example, I am sitting at my desk in the open office. I am able to look down a flight of stairs into the living room, but can only see half the width of the staircase, the rest is blocked by a piece of wall in the office. At the same time I can see, from underneath, the stairs leading to my workshop. The edge of the ceiling in our living room is where the bottom of these stairs rests and this edge cuts off about one third of the view through the patio door. In a drawing or painting this looks extremely weird, as if I had got my proportions wrong. This is the case practically everywhere in the house, so I had no other choice than have a look in the garage …

Asked to make very quick sketches in my A4 sketchbook using a pencil (rather than my beloved ink pen) I produced 4 sketches each from a standing, then a seated position, turning 45° between sketches. Since there is not a lot of room in the garage, I had to go for a relatively elongated format in order to create a rudimentary illusion of space.

In the images (Fig. 1a-d) below there is first the set from the standing position, top left with lawnmower and cable, hose and some garden tools, top right with barbecue and wet vacuum cleaner behind it, bottom left a failed view on the garden hose, bottom right a likewise failed straight-on view of half of our ping pong table and a bag of hydrophobic cement :o):

Next the seated versions, trying to keep the viewing angles identical (Fig. 2a-d):


Two of the above views I guess might be more or less suitable to use in a painting. Shapes and negative spaces looked most interesting in the view containing the barbecue. In addition, there was a quite nice distorted reflection of the garage door into the garden on the barbecue’s lid. If combining the standing up and seated version to produce a deliberately elongated format, this might be an interesting project. But again, trying to learn from failures in the not too distant past, I must remind myself to keep things simple …

Part 2, project 2, exercise 4: Still life with man-made objects (step 1: preliminary thoughts, choice of objects and first sketches)

Updated on 26 February 2017 (Harvard referencing).

3 May 2016. Right. This time I am going to do this properly. Originally I had planned to use soft pastel crayons and sand paper for this exercise, but since there was so much to be explored regarding the behaviour of acrylics after the last two exercises that I could not just leave it as it is.

What I learned from the last exercise:

  • start with a uniform but coloured background, it can always be changed later
  • do not prepare a background with gloss medium, it is awful to paint on without the right type of practice
  • avoid mixing brand of gloss medium and brand of acrylics. They do not seem to like each other.
  • keep diluting with water, just keep spraying water on both support and tray
  • choose SIMPLE objects (I just realised that a reason for my wrong choices may be the fact that I keep returning to the great images in the study guide, but most of them are way beyond what I can achieve at my stage of development)

I had a look on the internet for artists who paint in a way I would like to explore in line with my list and found a number of paintings by Cathleen Rehfeld (Rehfeld, 2016-17), whose style I find appealing. She explains that she uses black gesso to prepare her support, then paints on that with bold strokes, leaving some of the black background to serve as outline of the painted objects. I was also impressed by her daily paintings (Daily Paintwork, n.d.), where the simplest everyday items appear to come to life. Since her style reminds me of that of some impressionists and my all-time favourite Expressionist, Egon Schiele (1890-1918, Austria) (Fig.1), and I think that during the last few exercises I seem to have worked towards, inconsistently and with the wrong colours, a style reminiscent of the above, I am going to do my best to stay with what seems to be developing anyway. So, another attempt at strong lines and “dirty” colours.

Egon_Schiele_004
Figure 1. Egon Schiele: “Old Mill”, oil on canvas, 1916. Source: Egon Schiele (1890-1918) [Public domain] via malerei-meisterwerke.de
When coming to the choice of items, I will try the “less is more” principle, but will be still be looking for unusual shapes and setups. For example, Picasso’s  “Still Life with Pitcher and Apples” (Picasso, 1919) could not be more straightforward in choice, but the shape of the pitcher and position of fruit attract the attention of a viewer because of the unexpected arrangement. The same applies, in my opinion, to his  “Still Life with Skull and Pot” (Picasso, 1943): It is deceptively simple, but catches the light in an admirable way, while knowing skull and cheeky pot appear to be engaged in some act of important communication. What I also found was a still life by N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945, USA), from a three generation dynasty of painters, called “Still Life with Bowl, Onions and Bottle” (Wyeth, 1922): again, simple objects, the most straightforward of arrangements, and all the beauty of it coming from the incredible background and use of light on the objects. It seems as if the shape of the bottle consisted of black background only, its outline defined by wall and table, and only a hint of light on its neck.
This is all well, but I think a big point where my planning goes wrong may be the ACTUAL choice of objects. We do not seem to be a household with stuff that lends itself easily to posing for a still life, so I will need to take my time.

8 May 2016. I took my time and finally came up with a driftwood salt and pepper holder made by my sister, a silver spoon and, as a contrast in material and colour my son’s plastic egg cup. I am not too pleased with my choice, because it will not tell a story beyond “waiting for my boiled egg to arrive”, but this is an exercise and I will concentrate on improving my technique to leave the message for Assignment 2.
Bearing in mind the beautiful choice of background by N.C. Wyeth, I used a dark grey wooden board to serve as wall and a piece of dark brown paper taken from a Nespresso bag to cover the table (Fig. 2):

Setup1_08052016
Figure 2. Objects chosen for this exercise (setup discarded later because of weak shadows und unfavourable distribution of darkest tones)

With this arrangement, my viewfinder and a desktop daylight lamp I experimented until negative spaces, distribution of colours, shadows and highlights looked satisfactory to me. In fact the latter did not come true, but after a day I made up my mind to go for the setup which in my opinion came closest to the requirements. For my sketches I used three different ink pens, a fineliner, a calligraphy pen for the darkest tones and a brush-tip one for the mid tones. The latter unfortunately started to run out of ink and so the last, and most interesting, of the following sketches is lighter in tone than I would have liked it to be (Fig. 3-5).

First_sketch_ink_pens_v1_08052016
Figure 3
First_sketch_ink_pens_v2_08052016
Figure 4
First_sketch_ink_pens_v3_08052016
Figure 5

The above sketch I recreated in my sketchbook at a slightly larger scale with a dark watercolour background and soft pastel crayons, a combination which produced some very beautiful effects (Fig. 6):

Sketch_watercolour_pastels_detail_08052016
Figure 6. Watercolour and pastel sketch emphasizing darest and lightest tonal values

With this sketch to work from I decided to choose an A2 painting carton, portrait format and a coloured background. Report to follow.

References:

Daily Paintworks (n.d.) Cathleen Rehfeld [online]. Daily Paintworks. Available at: http://www.dailypaintworks.com/Artists/cathleen-rehfeld-206 [Accessed 26 February 2017]

Picasso, P. (1919) Still Life with Pitcher and Apples [oil on canvas] [online]. Musée National Picasso, Paris. Available at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-14/picasso27s-still-life-with-pitcher-and-apples2c-1919/3664892 [Accessed 26 February 2017]

Picasso, P. (1943) Still Life with Skull and Pot [n.k.] [online]. [n.k.]. Available at: http://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/work-1594.php [Accessed 26 February 2017]

Rehfeld, C. (2016-17) Cathleen Rehfeld Oil Paintings [blog] [online]. Cathleen Rehfeld. Available at: http://crehfeld.blogspot.co.at/ [Accessed 3 May 2016]

Schiele, E. (1916) Old Mill [oil on canvas] [online]. Niederösterreichisches Landesmuseum, Wien. Available at: http://www.malerei-meisterwerke.de/bilder/egon-schiele-alte-muehle-08818.html [Accessed 26 February 2017]

Wyeth, N.C. (1922) Still Life with Bowl, Onions and Bottle [oil on canvas][online]. Brandywine River Museum of Art, Chadds Ford. Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eoskins/5598698301/ [Accessed 3 May 2016]

 

Part 2, project 2, exercise 3: Still life with natural objects (step 3: sketching of objects)

Updated on 26 February 2017 (Harvard referencing).

2 May 2016. With my newly discovered skill of keeping a sketchbook diary properly, I embarked on the next step of this exercise, making sketches of the objects to get acquainted with their properties and having a look at negative space created by placing them. This was most enjoyable and I think relatively successful (in contrast to the mini disaster to follow …).

My preliminary sketches I did in watercolour with ink pen, on the lookout for chance findings to make use of in my finished painting. I found the somewhat abstracted coloured shadows pleasing to look at, while also object likeness was not bad. The most difficult part was the shiny blackness of the pumice, which I was unable to copy, but since the overall structure of the rock was good and I wanted to keep this as a reference for later, I left the sketch as it was (Fig.1 ).

17_Sketching_objects
Figure 1. Watercolour and ink pen preliminary sketches of my objects

Next I experimented some more with placing the objects on my prepared background and already had a feeling that both ideas would probably not go together: I arranged the objects on the support where I thought they would both connect in their geological context and form an interesting pattern regarding the negative shapes between them. Doing this I could see that the shadows, if they were to be coloured, would clash with the negative space, making its properties less visible.
Since however this is supposed to be an experiment and my tutor advised me not to get distracted by seemingly finished paintings in the mind, I went ahead with my arrangement anyway. I made a rough charcoal sketch to identify the important negative spaces (Fig. 2).

18_Negative_spaces_charcoal
Figure 2. Placement of objects, shadows and negative spaces

Looking at the above sketch I thought the setup looked fidgety, since although everything pointed towards the centre, there was nothing to see there. In order to decrease this effect, I used a bit of beautiful white mesh normally used for decoration purposes and glued it into the sketchbook like an additional page.

19_Negative_spaces_charcoal_mesh
As above, with mesh added

Now the arrangement was more pleasing to look at and I still did not look forward to translating it to acrylics, it was full of foreboding of the weekend to come :o) …

Sketchbook: some 10-minute sketches

Updated on 22 February 2017 (Harvard referencing).

21 April 2016. I do not get many opportunities these days to sit down and spend time with my sketchbook. So I started a little project, which I call the “10 minutes I have before collecting my son” series. On some afternoons my son spends some hours after school at the centre for deaf children. Since there exists the absurd regulation that we must not pick up our children before a certain time, and not after either, I often have 10 minutes to wait until the doors are opened.

Here come some of the sketches I made over the last few months during my 10 minute waits (Fig. 1 – 10 below). I often have to stop early, so they remain rudimentary, but I am learning to concentrate on the most important aspects of a view and so I think the time limit is a very valuable aspect of the exercise.

Building_site_Lehen_21042016
Figure 1. Building site at a busy crossroads
Scribble_Flats_21042016
Figure 2a. Scribbles                                                                   Figure 2b. Flats near the school
Pear_preliminarysketch_21042016
Figure 3. Preliminary sketch for Painting 1 exercise of piece of fruit, made in car while waiting (Part 1)
Rear_mirror_view_21042016
Figure 4. Rear mirror view
Playground_visitors_21042016
Figure 5. Persons in playground, quick sketches
Bush_keys_21042016
Figure 6a. Bush near carpark                                          Figure 6b. Car keys
Girlonswing_wood_21042016
Figure 7a. Girl on swing                                                 Figure 7b. Wooden structure of picnic table
Andraekirche_Salzburg_21042016
Figure 8. Andräkirche in the city of Salzburg, view from Mirabellgarten
Redscooter_plant_21042016
Figure 9a. Red scooter parker on pavement                   Figure 9b. Plant in flowerbed at school
Park_trees_21042016
Figure 10. Trees in school park

I can see that I am starting to develop my very own style of drawing and I am happy how my mark-making develops. One or two of the sketches I might use later in the course. Hopefully I will be able to develop in a similar way the marks I use in painting.

Part 2, project 2, exercise 1: Still life – drawing in paint (step 1, choice of subject)

Updated on 20 February 2017 (Harvard referencing).

17 April 2016. Same as with Drawing 1. Since I am not the greatest of interior designers and we are not the owners of lots of things on shelves, I need to be very careful with what I select. Since now the things we do put on shelves usually indeed happen to be there, because there was room, with no design purpose whatsoever, they don’t mostly look great together, neither are the arrangements particularly interesting to look at. So, what I intend to do is to zoom into them and have a closer look at shapes and spaces without straining to attach them to a particular object, a bit like the Cubists approach. Since according to the study guide we are advised not to spend too much time looking, I will take my viewfinder and sketchbook to create some inkpen thumbnail sketches.

18 April 2016. After playing around with some Rubik’s cubes and an idea of trying to reproduce the colours on the squares as faithfully as possible I remembered another idea I have had for years and never had the time to try out. I have always been fascinated by the particular reflections produced by the taps in our shower and bath. Since the taps are metallic and the reflections consist mostly of shades of grey, this is, in my opinion, a great opportunity to use my new knowledge about mixing secondary colours. I took my viewfinder and sketchbook and tried several viewpoints. One of them was so awkward to get to that I had to take a photo and draw from that (Fig. 1).

Drawing_in_paint_first_sketches_18042016
Figure 1. Thumbnail sketches of bathroom fittings

Of the four viewpoints I think that I like the one best which includes the plughole (top right in Fig. 1 above), because it adds to a sense of space, making the shower hose appear quite alive. At the same time the position of the plughole in the bottom left corner of the frame serves to balance the rest of the fittings. In addition the viewpoint includes reflections from our coloured bathroom lamp. One of these also helps to draw the parts of the arrangement together. It is a wide band of soft colour starting at the plughole and travelling some way up the bath towards the tap. One spot of bright colour is also included, a small, pink and violet, plastic fish my son used to play with in the bath. Its colour communicates with the reflections from the lamp and its position inside the loop made by the hose provides a point of attraction in this otherwise empty area as well. Only the shadows are less prominent from this position, but the viewpoint looks so much more interesting than the rest that I will have a go at it.