The view you would be seeing while sitting outside Kailis Brothers Fremantle which munching on fish & chips
Yes, I “wasted” yesterday relaxing by the ocean, sipping tea at Dome and cruising the secondhand bookshops. I should have been painting.
Brought home two books: one on Velazquez (which only almost satisfies the itch over the one in my Amazoncart) and another on Alan Fearnley’s paintings of classic cars. Will review that one another day ‘cos it made the day off worth it even if it didn’t ease the guilt. Well that one and another book, which I didn’t buy, on American artists. Liked it because it had a few pages on Andrew Wyeth but didn’t like it because it only had a few pages on Andrew Wyeth. Thus the book on Velazquez in the Amazon cart has been joined by two books on Andrew Wyeth. (I’m thinking Memory and Magic and Autobiography. Comments anyone?*). Those joining a book about the Spanish artist Antonio Lopez Garcia which was already there. Oh crumbs.
What do Wyeth and Garcia have in common (along with my other idols Alex Colville and Edward Hopper)? They are all sometimes classed amongst the “magical realists”. The what? If you want to know know more there’s a pretty good article at Ten Dreams.
And Antonio Lopez Garcia? Try this:
Have fun, a
*Too late too wait for comments on the Wyeth books they’re here. They’re great.
The Technique of Modelling in Clay by Eric Griffiths (1987) is essentially a book about just that but Eric also has opinions on art in general and isn’t afraid to say so. In his own words “this book is full of my opinions …remember it is only another artists approach” and the “only duty you have is to accept or reject this book’s contents as it suits your need and fancy”.
In the introduction he talks about the role of the teacher, expressing a preference for being considered an expert. He sees a teacher as someone with access to specialized knowledge which may be taught, examined and rewarded with meaningful qualifications. He believes this approach has little to do with the practice of art because it’s a course of study without an end, for which the exams are the models made and for which the most important skill is the “ability to rely on your own self judgement”.
Craft skill is a commodity that one person can hand on to another whereas art is a much more indistinct thing – more difficult to define – and is not something that can be passed from hand to hand. It is a mysterious quality that is either part of your personality or not. Art is a combination of ego or individuality with a quality of creative imagination. Whether you have art within you can only be resolved by you.
Eric Griffiths’ first lesson is that we must travel our own road accepting responsibility for our art and then learn to make our own evaluations of what is right .
Copies of The Technique of Modelling in Clay are available secondhand from Advanced Book Exchange. I found the one I’m reading at my local library. I’ll continue this next time with his thoughts on craft…
This week’s Artist Safari is looking out for a city. Or rather it going to the city to look out. Or the city is looking out for the safari. No, no, no the good Safarians are off to the lookout in King’s Park to look at the city. Jeff suggests a change of pace – bring your paints as well as your chair, hat, sun cream, drinking water, easel and the usual materials.
Meeting time and point: 2:30pm Sunday 16th August, in the carpark at the end of Fraser Avenue. If you get lost or are running late try phoning: 0402563841 More information: Artist Safari website.
While I’m partial to printmaking, I spent most of last year animating for an upcoming film Underpass Motel which will be released on DVD in October. Thankfully, this year has disappeared under tubes of paint and assorted sculptures without a puppet or print in sight. Doesn’t mean I’m not interested… Here we have a couple of very different animations – both involving printmaking.
made by a sort of video silkscreenlike printmaking process. The images are printed over the underlying video…
While this one from You Tube is a “linomation” (hand carved animation using lino prints) by Mark Andrew Webber with music by Adam Dedma. It was done using 296 10cm square individual linocuts. It was took Andrew around 500 hours to produce. The work is titled Dehisce – a word which means:
(biology) release of material by splitting open of an organ or tissue; the natural bursting open at maturity of a fruit or other reproductive body to release seeds or spores or the bursting open of a surgically closed wound
A friend mentioned this ages ago. I promptly forgot about until it popped up out of the grey matter, as it does, for no good reason other than needing a blog post in order to procrastinate on the painting I’m supposed to be getting on with. (I will, I will. In a minute…) Thus, I am not speaking first hand (yet…)
Created by New Yorker Molly Crabapple Dr Sketchy’s Anti-Art School is a life drawing session with a distinctly burlesque flavour. Molly draws saucy Victoriana for magazines and used to work as a life model during art school. She thought they were boring and decided to take a stab at the medium. Thus, Dr Sketchy’s was born. Molly has been running Dr Sketchy’s in New York since 2005.
How different?
In normal life classes, silent students sit in a silent room and draw a bored, oft-uninteresting model. In Dr. Sketchy’s we’ve got scandalous performers as models. We’ve got ridiculous art contests (best incorporation of a woodland animal? Best imagined costume?), comedic skits good music and flashy prizes. We’ve got a selection of posh beverages – alcoholic and not – available to buy. At Dr Sketchy’s we don’t care if you picked up a pad yesterday or 50 years ago. Come to drink or to draw. We’re happy to have you.
Clearly popular, as a quick Google will attest, Dr Sketchy has spread as far as San Francisco, London, Phoenix, Melbourne, Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Scotland, Tokyo, Austin and even, Perth.
Curious:
Dr Sketchy’s takes place once a month on a Wednesday at The Burlesque Lounge which is upstairs at 267 William Street, Northbridge (the old Ginger’s Garage). The next one:
When: 7pm, Wednesday 26th August Model: Clara Cupcakes Cost: $15 on the door
Some of the classic art books are just that: classic! There are, however, some real gems amongst them.
Of the several online libraries that have titles available for download my favourite is the Internet Archive because they offer books in PDF format among others and don’t tease with a bunch of books that are just “snippet view” as do Google Books.
When you go to Google Books do a search but don’t get too excited with the list that comes up. At the top left of the results of your search there will be a drop-down box “Books showing”. Select “Full View” – to get the ones worth bothering with. Once you have the book you want you can read online or look to the top right for ways to save the file – eg PDF…
One can spend a lot of time looking at You Tube. The MOMA suggests that one should spend a lot more time looking at art. One could also spend more time making art rather than looking at You Tube…
I haven’t printed in ages and it’s not going to be happening any time soon. Something to do with an upcoming exhibition of paintings… Doesn’t mean I ain’t interested though. Take a look at this 1968 film about woodblock artist Lowell Naeve working step by step on a project. It’s from the Academic Film Archive of North America. Fascinating.
Colour theory! Not just the “normal” one, but all of them: obscure, technical and obsolete. For a long while books after book arrived at Studio A from around the globe – mostly secondhand, cheap and old. Why not go back to the source, eh? I read everything that came in and, for that matter, did pretty much all the suggested exercises. Used a lot of paint for a while there…
If I were to boil down what I learned into a practical course it would be this:
Munsell Student Set
Values Can’t go past the Munsell Student Set for getting values nailed down and understanding hue, value and chroma. It comes with little colour chips (like tiny paint chips) that the intrepid gets to organise and stick down on the charts supplied. Worth the effort. Not a huge read (it come in a small ring binder) but it covers it and it works. The value chart you make is really small but it is enough, with some practice, to mix the greys to make a bigger chart – an exercise that is an absolute must. Frustrating first up but worth persevering.
If you can’t stretch to the book the Color Academy has a pretty good tutorial on Munsell. Then get a grey scale with a 1 to 10 range from somewhere and mix the string of greys. Then mix another colour in the same string of values (tones) by mixing and squinting til they read the same. Better still, don’t stop at one colour, do ten. Or, even better, make it twenty. You want to be able to do this without thinking about it. Plus – and this is important – it sensitizes your eye to see values in your subject.
Colour
The second exercise is Michael Wilcox’s Blue and Yellow Don’t Make Green. Michael’s theory is much debated and I’m not going get into the fray because, to be honest, I can’t be bothered. What is of value here are his exercises. And yes, that means doing them – all of them – just reading is a waste of time. You’ll not only get your head and brush around warm, cool and knowing what to mix for what you’ll end up with a set of charts in own poison, be it oils, acrylic or watercolour, that are good to have around.
thousands of little squares… It worked. A friend at a plein air get together was fussing over having left a tube of something at home. A quick forage through her box yielded a couple of others that mixed and matched the colour on per painting perfectly. Problem solved (or Solvered for the locals. West Australian in-joke). She needs to do Blue and Yellow… Oh, and didn’t need the same colours used in the exercises either.
Making colour charts
Colour mixing charts
All combined Munsell and Wilcox are probably going to chew through 6 or 7 tubes of paint, a bunch of small panels or a couple of pads of those hideous fake canvas sheets. I used panels – 3mm MDF cut to approx A5 primed with acrylic gesso. Made a template with a sheet of acetate – cardboard would do – to trace on the little boxes. For watercolour, just used fairly cheap watercolour paper from Artshed – make sure it’s white not cream. Other than that: determination. Both paint and patience will be paid back in the time saved mixing colour, ending up with a small palette for ever and getting mixes right first go. Oh, and losing the frustration with all that? Priceless.
Oops. I forgot to give the dates for City of Swan’s Printmedia exhibition Print(Ed) 2009 when I was enthusing about the opening night a couple of days ago. Which, I might add, was a great night. The show will be open for a couple of weeks yet so, if you didn’t get there, you still can.
There are over 70 entries with examples of pretty much every print process there is including collographs, lithographs, digital prints, screenprints, embossed monoprints, etchings, linocuts and much more. Basically everything under one roof. If you’re a printmaker, would like to be or just love prints this exhibition is worth a drive. The standard is very high.
Open to the public until 16th August 2009
Wednesday to Saturday 10am – 4pm & Sunday 10am – 2pm
at the Midland Town Hall,
Great Eastern Hwy, Midland
Also. Listen up. More than half of the awards for this show were won by members of the Printmakers Association of Western Australia – if you’re not a member and would like to be – email me for details.
