Helen Tennant – 484022
Practice of Painting –
Assignment 5
A series of paintings
on a theme
Series Title: Only Still Life
My painting series for this assignment is based on a theme
of still life, as this is the area in which I have most interest.
I began considering the genre of still life and how artists past and present have approached the subject.
Traditional still life, especially the Dutch masters of the genre (such as Willem Kalf) have shown us luxury goods (sumptuous displays of exotic fruits, flowers, glassware and precious metals) – displays of unattainable perfection that were beyond the reach of most.
This approach to still life is still very much used by modern proponents of this genre, showing the artist’s skill of depicting perfect objects arranged to their best advantage.
I was thinking about this subject when doing my weekly shop
and looking at the fresh produce on offer made me consider the differences
between what I was seeing in front of me and the perfection we see in still
life paintings, and even more so now, the “food porn” of magazines, advertising
and blogs.
The food most people buy is generally over-packaged; wrapped in layers of plastic and so you get a feeling of “look but don’t touch” which is as far removed from nature as the images created by the Dutch still life painters was all those years ago.
The other thing the packaging reminded me of was glass – the very delicate, see through composition of the material and how it was used in the past. Glass was a traditional component in still life because of its properties of reflection and transparency, and the difficulty in catching the fleeting moments when light hits the glass.
I completed a number of drawings and studies of objects in packaging, making notes on the studies as I completed them, especially noting the difficulties in gauging from the objects what is the tonal variation in the object itself and the effect of reflected highlights from the plastic.
I also completed a study on tracing paper to try to separate
the layers of plastic from the object itself – although painting (with
watercolour) on tracing paper wrinkles the paper too much, I did find the
layered, slightly obscured image, interesting and so may explore this further.
I researched contemporary artists who are inspired by food
and packaging. The first artist is Janet
Fish, an American artist whose early work included detailed paintings and
pastels of fruit wrapped in clingfilm (annotated below).
Fish’s later work is very colourful and effusive, described
by herself as “a dance involving her, the objects, the painting and the
sensations of the painting”.
Somewhat surprisingly, when I researched Fish further, she
cites her main influences as the Abstract Expressionists (she studied art in
the 1960s), stating “it really came out of all the abstract expressionist
training, those paintings are about colour and paint and movement, and the idea
that you can organise a painting through movement. I went along with that and then saw other
ways of organising the painting through repetition and change, more like
music”.
The second (also American) artist I discovered was Pamela Michelle Johnson who has created a series of paintings entitled “American Still Life” based around food and the cultural references around typically American junk food.
Johnson’s earlier Series 1 paintings are on a very large
scale (up to 6’) and are quite disconcerting; first impressions are of
delicious foods, such as waffles with syrup (Waffles 2007) but when you see the
scale of them on her website, the size of the images transforms them into
something completely different, as if the viewer is being subsumed by the food.
Her Series II paintings explore further the use of packaging “empty wrappers forgotten and abandoned in a world of nothingness … (hence the blackness surrounding the images) …question the sustainability of our excess”.
Reviewing the work of both these artists, the influences I learnt from them are:
· The ‘whole’ composition – both artists utilised
the whole of the canvas, cropping the image so it filled the picture plane.
·
Size matters! – most still life paintings are
normally fairly small in size, these are either large or very large.
·
Concentrate on light – the reflections
(waffles/Eggo) rely on reflective surfaces (whether syrup or plastic) to bring
the paintings to life.
·
Pamela Michelle Johnson – seemingly innocuous
images can hold a darker meaning – both in using scale and close-up cropped
imagery, and in using a traditional style for junk food/packing.
·
Janet Fish – treating each object on its own
visual merits rather than applying cultural values to an inanimate object.
·
Janet Fish – organising a painting through
movements around the canvas rather than traditional layouts (particularly
light, pattern and colour).
·
Janet Fish – using as many objects in a painting
as you wish and using a high viewpoint to see objects in a different way.
My starting point for sketches was to organise my weekly
shop of vegetables, still in their packaging, onto the table and create
“traditional” still life groups from the objects (charcoal pencil and marker
pen)
The last one of these I thought had potential, but then I also decided to try the “Janet Fish”, "more-is-more" approach, and so put all the shopping onto the window sill so it was grouped more closely together and then completed two further sketches.
As this was quite a sunny day, the objects created a wide tonal variety from the white highlights to the deep colours and shadows.
I preferred the second sketch (notes on each drawing) as it was stronger compositionally (felt the eggs dominated the first drawing).
Due to the variety of colour in this arrangement, I experimented with colour mixes, aiming to use the minimum number of paints to achieve a colour balance without colours clashing or becoming muddy.
Colours used in painting 1 “Shopping”:
- French Ultramarine
- Cobalt Violet
- Alizarin Crimson
- Paynes Grey
- Cadmium Yellow
- Yellow Ochre
- Titanium White
After creating the purple for the figs, I felt the colour
was too dull against a white background and so created a patch over red
acrylic, which glowed through to create a much more vibrant colour.
After applying a thin layer of texture medium with a rough brush (previously used on a self-portrait and landscape painting to slightly “scuff-up” the canvas, I gridded the canvas and created an underpainting with dilute umber acrylic. To this I firstly applied an umber acrylic underpainting plus lemon yellow for the lemons, red on the figs and a very dilute red on the eggs.
I then
painted in oils, more or less in one layer with a hog-hair brush, beginning with
the figs, followed by the eggs, lemons and then working out to complete the less
saturated areas of colour and shadow.
The lemons were the most complicated area to work – I
decided before painting that I would create the flesh of the lemons negatively
to leave the net packaging as the paler, lemon acrylic.
Completed Painting: Just Shopping
After completing this painting, I decided that I would like explore the painting of lemons further – they have such an interesting colour
and surface texture, while still being everyday objects.
The second painting was done after I had visited the Still Alive exhibition at the Mall Galleries (previously reviewed) which had me considering the question of the size of a painting, and the relationship between the objects and size of the canvas. I therefore decided to try a more unusual shaped, elongated rectangle for this painting and so completed a number of sketches on that theme.
I choose the view of the lemons (some cut) in a row which I
felt described the lemons the best; different angles, sizes, cut in half and
sliced through. I also looked at the
rough surface texture on the lemons and then reviewed the previous experiments
completed with texture.
One texture I particularly felt suitable was pressing foil into wet texture paste to create a very rough surface texture.
In terms of paint application, I recalled my experiments
with using sheer, transparent paint on the elephant against the very rough
background texture.
The transparent
paint runs and settles into the texture to add sometimes unexpected but
interesting results. I experimented with
this surface on a large sheet of canvas, applying loose washes of colour onto
the textured canvas, using mixes of the colours previously used in the first
painting. I felt the most successful of
these experiments was where I had used transparent washes, allowing the colours
to mix on the canvas and then applying thicker paint in loose brushstrokes over
the top.
After completing this painting I wasn’t sure about the layout – I felt the whole lemon on the extreme right didn’t sit well with the rest of the painting; the shape and colour jarred somewhat.
I therefore photographed and experimented with cropping the
painting (before actually cutting!), deciding to remove this area completely after the painting was dry.
Simply Lemons
Simply Lemons
For the third painting, I again decided to look at the scale of the support, this time referencing the smaller, more intimate paintings seen at the Mall Galleries (Barbara Richardson, Lilias August). I had two small pieces of hardboard (actually protective covering for a print I bought) which were a good size to be intimate but large enough to be able to paint detail. Again I decided to use the lemons and figs set against an art deco sugar bowl and plate for detail.
In order to get the right scale, I used the exact size on
paper and completed two sketches.
For the second sketch I completed a more detailed, tonal drawing at a slightly higher viewpoint and moved slightly off-centre to create a stronger diagonal and therefore more dynamic composition. I wasn’t sure at this stage whether to create a detailed, traditional painting using glazing and natural colours, or a looser technique, so created two contrasting acrylic sketches.
While I felt the more traditional approach would work well
here, I felt the more textured (and loosely painted) acrylic sketch had much
more interest with the broken colour and paint texture.
I applied a thick layer of gesso to the paper, and then brushed over it while still wet in the opposite direction which gave more of a texture key for the paint to skip over, leaving under layers showing through. I applied dry brushed layers of beige, dark brown and blue for the background, then more realistic colours for the objects. While I did not think the colour combination was ideal (the pale blue too chalky), I felt this sketch could be developed into an interesting painting in oils.
Transferring this to the hardboard, I added a number of layers of acrylic gesso to create a slight texture, followed by a base layer of cream and a dark neutral dry brushed to add a darker tone. As in the acrylic experiment above, I added a blue layer for contrast, but carefully mixing (ultramarine, lemon yellow & titanium white) to achieve a stronger, less chalky blue. Even though the bowl and saucer are white, I wanted to add a contrasting tone to avoid the whole painting being "too blue" and so mixed a neutral brown (violet & lemon yellow and a little ultramarine) for the shading. A much darker tone was created for the darkest shadow area behind the bowl and saucer.
Painting halfway through below. Happy with the bowl (except the left-hand edge curves slightly at the top and needs correcting), just need to add some white highlights here. The lemons are almost done - just need to add more detail to the left hand lemon. For the figs, I added layers of alizarin crimson, violet and ultramarine - I need to add the detail here and play with colours to achieve the dusty finish you see on figs. The saucer needs more work - I had to stop at this point as the paint was still very wet.
Completed Painting: Still Life with Lemons and Figs
Paintings in order:
Assignment 5 – review
Series Title: Only
Still Life
The starting point for this series was still life; a genre
which has ebbed and flowed in popularity over the years but one which artists
come back to time and time again to explore concepts in composition, colour and
paint handling.
Beginning with everyday objects, fruit and vegetables in
their packaging, allowed me to explore the forms, tonal variations and the
effect a transparent covering has on an object.
The pencil drawings of tomatoes and lettuce in cellophane bags were time-consuming
and very complex to draw, especially without the aid of colour to show
variations between the object itself and the effect of light on the
plastic. However, completing these
drawings was very helpful in terms of focussing on and investigating these
variations.
The artists researched (especially Janet Fish, both her
close-up studies of fruit in cling film and later still lifes) influenced my
first painting “Just Shopping” both in terms of the compositional concept
(cropping the image to fill the entire canvas) and to treat each object on its
own visual merits.
I think the first painting, “Just Shopping”, is actually my
favourite painting of the series – once I had created the tonal drawing, I knew
it would work as a painting before I had planned the colours. Although a complex composition, it was
relatively straightforward to paint; beginning centrally with the more
saturated colours and working around the canvas. Although a representational image, I was
careful not to be too fussy with edges and so used a rough hog-hair brush for
most of the painting, only using a small, detail brush for small areas (such as
the area of netting to the left of the figs) where detail really was
necessary. I also had to think carefully
about the strength of colour in some areas, such as the red of the peppers and
tomatoes; being such a dominant colour, I needed to ensure it did not detract from
the lemons and figs in the foreground to show the recession in the painting.
The area I was most concerned about (and left until last to
paint!) was the plastic coverings on the peppers and tomatoes but using grey
and white tones, and a very loose brush stroke, does give the impression of
plastic and reflected light without being too fussy.
The second painting completed “Simply Lemons”, I have placed
as the third painting in the series. I
felt I wanted to explore the form and colour of the fruit further but without
being fussy or concentrating too much on precise detail. To this end, once I had decided upon the
basic composition, I created a textured canvas using acrylic texture medium and
crumpled tin foil (a surface I had experimented with earlier in the course)
which I knew would allow for a freer, more transparent application of paint, contrasted
with impasto for the lemons themselves. Experiments
with colour and paint application onto the textured canvas allowed me to consider
which areas to layer with transparent paint and where to add thicker, impasto
strokes. For consistency, all the
colours in this painting were created using the same six colours as in Just
Shopping.
As in the notes above, originally this painting had a
further whole lemon to the right which I cropped after it was dry. I feel the simplicity of this painting worked
in its own merits as well as contrasting with the “Just Shopping” painting in
terms of the compositional complexity and exploration of surface texture. The one thing I am still undecided upon in
this painting is its scale – I may complete a larger-scale painting before
assessment and compare the two; both individually and as part of the series.
Painting two (the third painting completed) entitled “Still
Life with Lemons and Figs”, I originally envisaged as a more traditional
painting – possibly using a grisaille and glazing for depth of colour. However, after completing the acrylic colour
study, I decided this would be too dark and would probably jar with the brightness
of the other two paintings so created a much looser sketch with broken, dry brushstrokes. My impatience was a bonus here; while
applying the gesso, I brushed over while it was still wet which left an
interested dragged, slightly raised texture which I felt would assist with the
dry-brushing I planned to use.
As this texture had been created on the flat surface of
paper, I decided against using canvas and instead chose a piece of hardboard
coated with three layers of gesso, the last layer being slightly textured as
described above. This painting took the
longest time to paint because of the thickness of the paint used (from the tube
as I didn’t want to dilute at all) and the fact that I wanted clear layers of
paint to show through the additional layers in the background. I also wanted to diffuse the margin between
the background and the table the objects were sitting on as I felt in my
original drawing this was too harsh a boundary.
The objects in the painting were completed in two sittings;
I wanted to use an alla prima technique as much as possible, again to stop
being too fussy and keep the brushwork loose, although I did have to add further
detail in a second sitting. As in the
other paintings, the same colour palette was used, this time in a split
complementary scheme using a pale blue to contrast the yellow of the lemon
(although I added an additional layer of cream over the blue background as I
felt it was too blue overall).
I feel the area around the bowl and lemons works the best
here. I am still not sure the saucer is
quite right and I think I should have added more of the dark tone to the
background (the area immediately behind the saucer/figs on the right). Although I added a layer after the cream base
layer, the overlayers are slightly heavier than originally envisaged.
One of the hardest things I found was how to title the
series! Didn’t really think about this
too much until I had finished the paintings but probably should have thought
about it earlier. May give this some
more thought before actually having the series assessed.
