Two Steps Backwards…

The U Turn Portraits-Part Two.

“Of course you will say that I ought to be practical and ought to try and paint the way they want me to paint. Well, I will tell you a secret. I have tried and I have tried very hard, but I can’t do it. I just can’t do it! And that is why I am just a little crazy.” Rembrandt Hamerszoon Van Rijn

The drawing of Kyri (see part 1) was made at the kitchen table in close proximity. Kyri was compelled to look at the drawing as it progressed, which created a kind of gaze tension-translating as an awareness in the drawing. This made me think about the years of attending and then teaching life classes and how I disliked not having the model’s gaze. While understanding the need to objectify the sitter and to technically master the subject, it sometimes made me feel like a voyeur, almost stalkerish. I hankered after the model’s live human gaze and awareness.

“You would hardly believe how difficult it is to place a figure alone on a canvas, and to concentrate all the interest on this single and unique figure and still keep it living and real.” Edouard Manet

Fig. 1. Is Mimi my granddaughter and sister to Kyri. Utterly curious and mercurial keeping still is not yet one of her strengths, but participation is and she kept up a flow of chatter and poses both entertaining and distracting, so that I had to work around her, and patiently wait for her to come back to me, had to remind myself to breathe. So worth it though.

“When you’ve got it, you’ve got it. When you haven’t, you begin again. All the rest is humbug.” Edouard Manet

Having coped with Mimi’s youthful exuberance, I felt ready to notch things up a gear. I did something that I used to do regularly until my self imposed ban, and that was drawing bands in packed pubs. It is a challenging thing to do, the musicians sway and sometimes thrash about, never still, the light is usually dim and people are curious and jostle you or worse. But the atmosphere is fantastic.

“Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.” Frank Zappa

The band was called Willie and the Bandits they play an eclectic mix of “Folk and World music to Blues and Rock. Boy can they play such earthy energy that goes right through you and unfortunately like Mimi I found it very hard to keep still. Perched on a stool with squinty eyes and mouth open it was like walking a tight rope (probably not really) their engagement in the music and awareness of my presence meant that they were not passive models. I loved it.

“If my people look as if they’re in a dreadful fix, it’s because I can’t get them out of a technical dilemma.” Francis Bacon

So rusty and forgetting old rituals like doubling up on all materials in case the lead drops out of your propelling pencil etc. And coping with other people’s expectations and reactions can be always tricky but I have to say that all the academic rigour has paid off in that I feel calmly capable. This type of drawing is a kind of performance art and people feel entitled to see the results and comment freely. Often the remarks are positive but the negative one’s stick, like “My auntie can really paint.” And the perennial “Yes but what is it for are you going to sell it?” “And on this occasion a concerned music goer asked “Are you going to fill that in properly when you get home?”

A painting is finished when the artist says it is finished. Rembrandt. Rembrandt Hamerszoon Van Rijn

I think probably there will be a part 3.

The U Turn Portraits-Part One.

“I am tired of myself to-night. I should like to be somebody else.” Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Grey

Well…my blog seems to be doing its work. After a period of illness, accompanying ennui and reflection, it seems that I have gone back stepwise as far as I can go. My intention for this project was to explore the absence of drawing in my current practice and its possible relevance to future work.

The blog has given me the mental space to play at drawing again; the process up to now has been progressive in that I have continually invented new projects for myself. During and after the long period of academic study I have had an aversion to even the thought of drawing a human-I should have known that this meant unfinished business. To fully understand I had some unpicking to do.

I began drawing in earnest as a child, when moving schools left me inadvertently friendless drawing portraits on the school bus was a great way for a shy girl to find friends and a new identity. It soon became an addiction every social activity was an excuse to draw from life. It was my coping mechanism, through hospital stays, third world countries, difficult times and fantastic times my sketch book came with me like a nervous tic.

“Art is never finished, only abandoned.” Leonardo Da Vinci

And then one day I went back to university and what had always been a support and something to be proud of, had little currency within an academic context. It became difficult to take on new concepts using such a familiar medium. Eventually I moved into the sculpture room and embraced a new medium, leaving behind thirty years of representational painting and drawing. It was tough but had the desired effect of making easier the transition to new critical and conceptual territory. And in the 4 year self imposed abstinence, I have never had a desire to make a portrait…until now.

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist not the sitter.” Oscar Wilde.

So…I woke up the other day and just knew-that I absolutely had to draw a human. In a fit of nervous procrastination, I rushed over to favourite art shop where I was overwhelmed with sights and smells-so familiar. An artist friend was at the till and asked me how things were going, if it had been anyone else I would have sidestepped the question but she is the kind of person who demands honesty. I told her truthfully about the going backwards and the desire to draw a human. She said: “sometimes IT (the work) dictates.” I had a wonderful feeling, an exhalation of giving in to what was happening and a letting go of responsibility. I rushed home again.

“The model should only serve the very private function for the painter of providing the starting point for his excitement.“ Lucien Freud.

Luckily, we have a guest staying with us at the moment. Fig.1. Her name is Stella and she is from Argentina and sat watching: “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Her expressive face reflecting the emotionally charged content of the film.

Fig.2. Drawing someone so close to me was challenging-as I am not sure where I end and he begins…

Fig.3. There is progress here; a tension in the way Kyri couldn’t take his eyes off the drawing and being a consummate playground portraitist himself, gave me tips on how to do hair.

I really thought my drawing people days were over-and yet it seems as if these drawings mark the end of a mere (albeit 4year) interruption. I cannot wait to see what happens next.

“The aura given out by a person or object is as much a part of them as their flesh.“ Lucien Freud.

Here endeth Part 1.