Come back… we’re making frottages that immortalise your portrait not wrapping you in newsprint and charcoal. There might even be a really big bucket of sheep cubes to help you stand still.
Yup, Art safari is heading out this way to take on one of Jeff’s crazy challenges…
Should be fun,
Amanda
Sunday last saw the usual bunch setting out on Art Safari to draw under the Narrows Bridge at the South Perth end. Yes, I did say under the bridge – it’s easy to get to, it’s shady and there’s even a carpark right next to it. I’m not in the photo because I’m behind the camera. To the right, however, there is evidence of my attendance in the form of coffee…
Why draw under a bridge? Lots of reasons: it’s different, it’s cool on a hot day, fresh air, the boats ranged from rowing tubs to fancy motor boats with many of their inhabitant taking the time wave but none able to gawk at our work, and very few walking gawkers who could. There’s also practice at handling perspective – I can hear you groaning from here – and maintain that’s exactly why you should have been with us. My own efforts (in spite of a distant history in drafting) were so cruddy I’m not showing you. My excuse was the stress of previous days meant all I could do was sit and stare, occasionally waving the charcoal at the paper. On which, the other reason to draw under a bridge – stress relief – thanks to both the peaceful surroundings and the congenial company.
And too looking right or left interesting compositions…
And the very, very best bit. Here we are, working well up the Swan River and just metres away the rise and fall of dolphins – mama and baby. What more can one ask for? Made my day and dropped my blood pressure to almost normal. Proof indeed that life can be good. Really good. Attempt at a photo by Jeff Bryant. In his words “Buggers kept ducking under the water – wouldn’t smile for the camera.”
Next week Art Safari are making the trip out here to attempt frottage of sheep. That is frottaged pictures of sheep – I really don’t think Hamish will stand still enough to be frottaged. Unless of course we provide a big bucket of pony cubes. Pony cubes are more expensive than sheep cubes – and Hamish reckons they taste better. Also there will be no tours of the studio or house because both are in a horrible state of decay (see comments on stress…) so everyone will have to make do with an overgrown garden, a rusty old bobcat abandoned in disgust in long grass, chooks, ducks, sheep, the neighbours’ cattle and maybe horses if the one’s that live on the property at the bottom of our hill are out grazing.
G’day Hamish… (bribed him with pony cubes to get him to stand still for the camera!)
Have fun.
Amanda
This week’s art safari is at a point on the Swan that has cliffs overlooking a bend in the river, the marina in North Fremantle and, hopefully,a boat or two. Jeff put the street view up on the Artist Safari website so I’ve pinched his effort (all in a good cause) to entice you to go take a look… come join us at 3.30pm Sunday 19th April in Rule St Nth Fremantle. Call 0410216074 if you’re lost.
Suggested to bring along: Drinking water, light easel and materials as well as some protection against the sun (or a brolly depending on the day).
Amanda
A quick note for the locals… There’s a brand new Monday afternoon life drawing session at the Opera Studio in Midland. The next session is on the 20th April and weekly thereafter. 2pm until 5pm, be there at 1.30pm to set up The cost is $12 for the three hour session.
You’ll need to bring all your own equipment but there are easels available should you want to save a bit of lugging. If you’re a messy drawer a drop sheet would be a good idea! Tea and coffee provided. As there’s some building activity in the vicinity, which may clog parking, it might be best to park over the road at the shopping centre until something is sorted out.
To get there: go through the Town Hall / Crossways lights heading east on Great Eastern Hwy. The Australian Opera Studio is on the left on the corner of Cale St. The entry is on Cale St. It’s the red building on the left..
Please come along and support us. We need numbers so that this can become a regular session and also kick off further drawing activities at the Opera Studio cultural centre. There’s the possibility of a second group on another day, portrait drawing sessions, workshops and a gallery space.
Tones, or values, are more important in representational painting than colour. A strong statement? Think about it – a black & white photo tells you everything you need to know to identify an object, colour just makes it prettier…
Estimating values is for many the tough part of learning to paint. Squinting helps but even then: what’s what? A value chart gets around that by giving something to measure against. I followed Paul Foxton’s lead and made a set of Munsell “chips” a while back (the bits of wood in the photo) to do exactly that. Using them, by the way, did not turn out to be a crutch for life, as some folks reckon, it was only a matter of months before I was mixing the greys without looking and for the most part even thinking about it. They’re in my head (somewhere…).
Now, that’s all very fine when painting from life in the studio or (gasp!) a photo or other reference. Yeah, I do use photos when I need them. For one I paint ’til late (* think 2am…) and there ain’t much out there to see if one is painting landscape. Or in my recent clouds series: not many to be seen in Chittering over the past months. OK, so there’s the occasional fluffy white against the endless blue but not a one of the moody storms I had in mind. Besides, getting on into the series, I needed inspiration cos my plan calls for a hundred studies – I got to 67 before a more urgent project elbowed them aside – I’ll be back. Anyway, on topic, photos rock sometimes and dovetail very nicely with a value chart or chip while learning to see.
However (there is a point to all this), when I switched from using prints to a screen to display my reference (lots of reasons: among them zooming in on detail and way better depth of colour) there was a problem. Holding the chips up to compare to the screen didn’t work because the screen is bright and light and no matter what angle I held the chip to it I couldn’t get a match as I could with the hardcopy.
That’s where a tiny freeware utility called Pixel Pixie came in. What does it do? Simply a small box (on my screen about 4cm wide) floating over the top of any other software that’s running it displays all kinds of colour info – among them HSV. It does other stuff too but that’s what we want right here. The V in HSV stands for value… the value of the pixel at the end of the pointer. Can you see where this is going?
Read the values off the image, match it to a Munsell chip (or other value chart as you wish) and from there to your paint. Maybe in 10% divisions where, say, everything in the twenties is a value two, or the 50’s a value five etc. This works nicely with Munsell which goes zero for black through to ten for white. Some other value charts have it back to front – no problem – a nice fat red crayon can fix that…
The end result won’t be perfect, of course, because that’s where the art rears it’s head again. Beyond the blocking in of a painting it’s time to “go with the force” (Peter Dailey said that in class once – it still has me chuckling) and adjust to your eye and temperament. It can also be desirable to change values on the fly – raising or lowering the temperature of the painting by mapping to a compressed range. For example, decide that it’s a really moody sky and move everything down to a smaller range of dark colours.
Anyway, have a go, because anything that takes the frustration down a peg or two is worth doing and don’t worry about getting dependent on any tools (photos, chips or software) ‘cos at some point the eye does kick in, especially if you have a guess first, then Pixel Pixie or compare a chip to check it.
Have fun.
Amanda
(* Painting day and night (really should get a life…) offers another problem: colour shifts under different light. I solved the problem with two Daylight lamps: one on the easel and another over the palette table. Works OK. A perfect south facing window – Australia remember – and shorter working hours would be better but neither of those is happening any time soon.)
Scratch that last post on setting up a cheap and easy backdrop for photographing art. There’s a better way. Actually there’s a proper way. As luck would have it Paul Leathers was running a workshop on exactly that topic (and what goes on in front of it) yesterday at SODA in Fremantle. Why am I telling you now? Because it was good, really good, and it may just be worth giving SODA a call. Word was, that since ten people went on the waiting list, in case anyone cancelled on one of the 15 places (not very likely!), there’s a chance they’ll run another before Paul returns to Canada.
The course description went “Paul Leathers has lectured on digital photo-documentation internationally and has documented artworks for institutional collections and individual makers. His images have been published in numerous books and magazines. Photo-documentation is the final step in finishing your artwork! This hands-on workshop will introduce the principles and practices of digitally photo-documenting both 2D and 3D artworks. The emphasis will be on keeping the process simple and inexpensive…”
Worth every minute and the 2 hours traveling each way… and guess which twit left her camera sitting on the kitchen table? Nevertheless, I came back with a dozen pages of notes and confidence sufficient to polish up that undocumented stuff known to be lurking under the studio dust.
Contact: Fleur Schell on noonan@preciseit.com.au or 9433 4836
Also, Paul has a show coming up at Perth Galleries from the 10 April – 3 May.
A thought offered, in all humility, from one who knows not much (if anything) most days. And some days even less…
Found myself in the studio looking for an urgent means to block out the background for a photo of a sculpture. (Yeah – it’s a mess in there – not a blank wall to be had anywhere.) The usual thing the pros have is a tall frame and fabric. Such things can be had on E-Bay but they’re pricey even there. Couldn’t find anything even remotely like that here that might be pressed into service – besides all the bed sheets on hand have patterns on them. Ninja Turtles anyone? I didn’t think so…
Then the desperate eye rested on a stack of canvases. Yes! Add a handful of clamps… Pictures say the rest. Note that the structure is clamped to the table top as well as the canvases to each other. And if they get a bit grubby with storage and use? Well, I reckon they might just take a coat of paint.
Form I (2007) Wood and stainless steel, 600mm x 900mm – 600mm
I spend a ridiculous amount of time driving. I don’t even like driving, but needs be, having chosen to live outside the city. Boredom set in pretty quickly beyond a basic number of trips along the same road.
Initially, the solution was borrowing talking books from the library. Bung them in the CD player and the car reads me all these books I never have time for. In short order I worked my way through the art related titles, the classics (The one’s that one really should read. Yawn…), and then the racy novels. To be honest I tired of them fairly quickly. What I really got into were the non-fiction books: learnt all kinds of nifty stuff.
Then? I discovered podcasts. Along with no time to read, I also find myself too disorganised to be next to the radio for the shows I’d like to hear. (Can’t bear radio in the studio! Can’t think!) Well, no more of that problem either. Not since I discovered that lots of shows are sitting there as podcasts waiting to be downloaded, burnt to CD and then played at leisure (or several times over) in the car. I find I’m getting about 15 shows onto a CD. That’s a lot of driving.
Currently I listen to: ABC Radio’s Artworks, By Design and The Philosopher’s Zone. At any one time they have the last four shows available but anything older than that and the audio file goes away – the transcripts are still available but it’s not the same. So I make sure I get there at least once a month to get them. Not all is lost though, I did find recently that Google Reader (and no doubt other places) have them archived. But they’re Quicktime files, not MP3, and I haven’t gotten around to figuring out how to get around that. Only, of course, because I didn’t find anything that I really, really wanted (yet). Because…
There are also about five years worth of MOMA podcasts recorded at their brown bag lunch lectures. Some of them are a bit heavy going but there are some real gems. I just fill a CD with them and if I get the odd one that doesn’t get me in I just hit the “next” button on the CD player. No big deal.
What else? Just try Googling “art podcasts”…
Yesterday saw two Artist Safari events in the one day – the first being an experimental weekday visit to the museum. Then this, the second, a mid-evening virtual meeting. Lots of fun. Organised (ok sprung on us) by Jeff Bryant , the idea was that we all turn up at the Artist Safari chatroom at 8pm, with drawing materials in hand, to await instructions. What then? He announces that we’re off to Italy to draw the Basilica… “Click here,” the screen said. I did:
Then, in between lots of chatting, we drew what we could see. It’s actually really good ‘cos the Google map can zoom and pan pretty much instantly.
I went in a bit and panned until I was more or less looking at something that was one point perspective. I know, I know what happened to the clause in the manifesto about getting out of one’s comfort zone? Well I was. I had chattering family, a cat winding around my monitor, two dogs scratching at the door (undecided, at five minute intervals, as to whether they wanted in or out) and a grumbling tummy – no dinner yet. It’s amazing I drew anything at all. In fact it was amazing that I was there at all. (After the hour and a plus drive home from the city I’d gotten straight back into Winckelmann forgetting about the promise to be online at 8pm…)
The Basilica, it turned out, was more or less a warm up drawing followed by another link, this time we were standing on a bridge in Firenze.
Still in Italy it seemed really appropriate when a family member took pity on my trying to draw, chat, read notes and type an essay (simultaneously) all on an empty stomach, and dropped a plate in front of me with, you guessed it: pasta. So that was it. A scratchy warm up Basilica and an unfinished Firenze. Oh, an evening with Wincklemann. Ciao.
PS. Try Google maps. You’ll never be stuck for a bit of landscape to draw again.
Trying for a bit more peace, an intrepid few Artist Safari attendees decided to tackle the museum again. Maybe it would be quieter on a Tuesday afternoon? Maybe…
You know that feeling? The one where you just know that someone is standing right behind you looking over your shoulder? Drawing in public has it’s moments. The ones when the public forget their manners.
What about when you’re drawing with a small sketchpad practically tucked under your jumper, facing into a corner trying to look really, really inconspicuous (‘cos you hate people looking over your shoulder) and just know they that someone is doing just that? How did I know someone was doing just that? Because I could see their reflection in the glass. Grrr…
Jeff reckons I get it more than the guys do ‘cos I look more approachable. They’ve suggested a nose ring, leather jacket, copious bits of chain and a scowl. It would help to be taller too. I’ll work on the scowl.
We gave up after an hour… and headed to the coffee shop for a conference. Conversation inevitably turned to materials and revelations of the interesting inventory of a nearby Asian newsagent… I came home with a bunch of stuff: a “writing” brush, ink and huge sheets of drawing paper that, I find, takes the ink beautifully. The ink is really different – it’s slightly thicker and smoother flowing than India ink – rich, dense and indelibly black. The paper is amazing as well – soft and incredibly absorbent but not hint of bleeding at the edges of marks. Held to the light there a very fine gridded watermark. Kind of tissue paper, but not, if you you what I mean. Fascinating.
The best thing though (for the ever curious) is a what I think is a kid’s calligraphy practice book. There are pages of figures interleaved with sheets of paper not unlike the drawing paper. Just thinner and transparent enough to see and draw the figures underneath. What a great toy! I imagine by the end of the book I’ll get a (bit of a) an idea on handling the brush and ink even if I can’t read a word of it…
