Play 2

String, strung, strong: seascapes in red this time.

The marks? String wrapped round the plate, then inked - a bit of embossing results, some white - some of it masked off.

Seascape in red, 25x20cm
Monotype on blotting paper
Masked plate and string for marks


Seascape in red, 25x20cm
Monotype on blotting paper
Ghost print
Masked plate and string for marks


Seascape in red, 25x20cm
Monotype on blotting paper
Ghost print on wet blotting paper
Masked plate and string for marks

This is the print order. Some serious serial experimentation: note the marks of the string as they change; note the intensity of colour on the wet paper; note the embossing on the dry ghost print; etc. etc. etc...

So, this is the technique of my seascape project. Now I just need to overlay different colours

The sea... in colour

A day out, arriving at low tide and sunshine (well, once in a while):









Now I'm thinking of lines, markings, reflections, more lines in sand and water...

The repitition of agricultural produce

The produce in question: of course the cornfield.

While the last attempt yielded long grasses, it was far too wild and rugged for good German, intensively fertilised corn. So, rather than pursuing Brian's good advice for variation, I veered intensively into the opposite direction: repetition, repitition, repetition (which figures as another point on his list).

So much so that I felt I was doing a caricature rather than a pastel painting. That wasn't a bad feeling, though: I'd love to be able to do them, but again: a lack of illustration skills gets in the way.

Just for memory purposes:

The first attempt at something bigger cornfieldish is here

Cornfields, Acrylics/Pastel on board 35x25cm

This, then is Cornfields # 2

Cornfields #2
Pastels/Acrylics on board, 35x25cm

And? Enough repetitive intensity?

Cornfields #2 Detail
Pastels/Acrylics on board, 35x25cm

I think so. But all the same, I notice something majorly wrong with this. Do you see it?

A hint: try to figure out time of day, direction of sun etc - usually the practicalities I don't bother with too much when I pick hues/values I want to. But with this one it struck me afterwards - too much realism gone wrong: The trees are getting full on sun from the left (south east) while the distance is almost in an evening/dust type dullness. Doesn't quite work, does it?

Will fix it, though. And then let cornfields be cornfields for a while.

And another cornfield

...

This morning I finally took out the easel again after a while. I took out one - the only red! - already prepared greyboard (acrylics and pumice powder).

The bulk of the cornfield still kept me wondering - and the comments I got to my earlier request here pretty much went along the lines: yes, something I'd like to know about also.

Ok. My rationale was to do more persistent, stronger lines rights throughout the field, and to do them in acrylics - in highlights and lowlights.

Cornfields, Pastel/Acrylics on board
35x25cm
WIP: stage 1, underpainting

I then split the field into... hm, well,... really into a side view and a top view, trying to construct it somewhat 3d. While that wasn't the view I had IRL, it still seemed an appropriate way to counter the flatness.

Cornfields, Pastel/Acrylics on board
35x25cm
WIP: stage 2, pastels go on

In went a lot of repetitive marks - lines, about an inch long, overlayed and varied across the field.

Cornfields Detail , Pastel/Acrylics on board
35x25cm
WIP: stage 2, pastels go on

For the foreground, I put in much longer lines. Then I went back in to really work on the negative space by adding a lot of dark values in the foreground - to work on the illusion that one could see into the undergrowth.

Cornfields, Pastel/Acrylics on board
35x25cm
WIP: stage 3 foreground

Well, it's not flat anymore. I did prepare two panels with a similar underpainting. With the second one I'm thinking about constructing the field much more obviously 3d in acrylics before I start with the pastels. Would that work?

How much texture do you need?

I have written much recently about the importance textures have for me in paintings.
In fact, when I begun to move away from pastels to paint, I was keen on working with oils precisely for their ability to layer heavily and thickly. In fact, one of the first purchases for my acrylics (which were the paint I started with, rather than oils) was heavy impasto medium.

In any case, talking about textures also made me realise that it's more subtle than 'a lot of texture'. In fact, with may heavy layering and impasto I often find I lose the interest in some paintings - e.g., while I admired Leon Kossoff's drawings at the National Gallery, I was rather quickly moving away from some of his oil paintings.


Similarly, Strindberg's abstract and evocative land- and seascapes are heavily textured but... hm... I dunno... I haven't quite figured out what it is about texture/too much texture, but my first hunch is a question of opaqueness and how much light is coming through the painting. Strindberg's waves and clouds are very dark and brooding, at the same time he seems to work liberally with white to lighten his darks, yet it seems flat and opaque.

August Strindberg, Stormy Sea, Broom Buoy
Oil on Board, 1892
Nationalmuseum Stockholm

Does the light of the canvas balance texture?

There's a question to contemplate for a bit... or maybe it's a different question that needs asking...

Virtual museum visits

August Strindberg, Town Oil on Canvas, 1903 Nationalmuseum Stockholm

... to the Stockholm Nationalmuseum at night introduced me to some new painters. I have already briefly mentioned August Strindberg's experimental photography in a previous post. He has also painted a series of dark and brooding seascapes - high waves, dark clouds and the emotions flying all over the place. - There's much more to say about his landscapes... but above is a brief taster, and here's another one:

August Strindberg, Stormy Sea, Buoy without Top mark
Oil on Board, 1892
Stockholm Nationalmuseum

The second Swedish painter I discovered is Eugene Jansson - also painting from around the late 19c, Jansson produced a whole series of evocative, enticing and melancholic cityscapes and landscapes. Many of them in various shades of blue, they are at the same time full of light and lightness.

This one here just made my new desktop background: those icey blues just sing even in their 72dpi flatness.

Eugene Jansson, Sunrise over the Rooftops. Motiv from Stockholm
Oil on Canvas, 1903
Nationalmuseum Stockholm

And here's another one:

Eugene Jansson, Hornsgatan at Night
Oil on Canvas, 1902
Nationalmuseum Stockholm

Thank you, J.! Such good suggestions!

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Anna Ticho's landscape drawings

I was in Israel - Jerusalem - this spring, meeting up for a holiday with my two longest friends, Irene and Katrin. Irene has been living in Jerusalem for a couple of years. On the first day, after I arrived to glorious sunshine in the morning, we went to the Anna Ticho house.

Its upstairs exhibition of Israel's most famous female artist is a branch of the Israel Museum. Anna Ticho and her husband moved to Jerusalem from Vienna in 1912 and lived in the building since the early 1920s. Ticho spent the following years producing a range of intricate drawings and prints of the landscape surrounding Jerusalem: barren hills, the Jerusalem Forest - some of them are sweeping lanscape views, other are much more intricate and detailed, such as these ones:

Anna Ticho, Horizon, 1968, Charcoal

Here, the horizon line is almost right at the top margin of the paper - and what we can see is a highly varied web of lines and markmaking - shaping and filling out the slope of the hills. The ridges, in the distance are far less defined and marked with blended charcoal.
I didn't take a note of the dimension, but it is fairly large-scale, about 60x70cm or so

And, the second one:

Anna Ticho, Tree Branches and Moon, 1964, Ink on paper

With much more defined lines that shape tree branches likes spider webs in front of a pale, eery moon, this ink drawing again if full of detail and intrigue.

Irene took these photos after I had already gone back home - many thanks! Also - Irene and Katrin - on the evening of my birthday: I had a great time with you two, am looking forward to the next time and would love to have a drink with you tomorrow :)

Pastels for detail - Inspirations

One of the inspiration for the wall textures was an article I read about the artist Sarah Bee . What struck me in her atmospheric landscape of English countryside was the way in which she provides intriguing detail of nature's textures such as hill and cliff slopes, moody pine forests and of standing stones.

Many of these have high horizon lines - just take a look at the standing stones for instance. - This, along with the level of detail in the foreground , makes the viewer become part of the scene quickly.

One painting that I found particularly fascinating was one of a chalky cliff face, again, painted from a low point. The limestone cliff took up two-thirds of the painting (Cliffs at Slapton Sands, 76x46cm) - beautifully rendered in muted beige, sandy greys with just a few structural lines of the rock visible and at the cliff top some bushes and low trees. - The painting made the cover of the June 2007 The Artist magazine:


I had been grappling with detailed texture for some time before I stumbled across these paintings. The ways in which they combine acrylics and pastels and explore density and small-scale textures was a true find for me - I ended up taking the article around with me for some time. So far, it has translated into the Textured Walls, but a plein air outing is still waiting to get closer to small-scale patterns in nature.