Two Steps Backwards…

Finishing Touches.

“If you want a happy ending, that depends of course on where you stop your story.” Orson Wells

In the beginning…at the start of the blog I could only think about the next post, blinkered by embarrassment, I kept my focus on drawing, unable to give much thought to the blog as a whole or as to how long it might take. By post #3 I was hooked and the blog began to take on a life and purpose of its own

“I have to keep working not to arrive at finish; which arouses the admiration of fools…I must seek completion only for the pleasure of being truer and more knowing.” Paul Cezanne

When I look back at some of the weird stuff I came out with, especially in the early stages I realise now that the blog allowed a greater mental freedom while enabling a suspension of self-criticism. I took myself in hand much as I would a student suffering from burn-out. The prescribed mark-making soon worked its magic.

“My pictures really paint themselves.” Howard Hodgkin

I liked working within the comfortable constraints of 700 words and 5 images per post, I liked too the research and quote gathering that became part of my weekly ritual. I will miss it. However at times it did feel as though the blog controlled me and that I was having to run to catch up, forever going onto the next thing at what felt like a considerable pace.

“It is difficult to stop one gets carried away; I have the strength to stop, it is the only strength I have.” Claude Monet

What I had never bargained for was re-discovering a deep emotional connection to drawing and painting and an understanding that it is absolutely essential for my spiritual well-being. By post #11, I fell back in love with paint and back in synch with myself and the flow of life.

“Did you stop because it was good enough, or could you have done more – but then maybe ruined it too? Sometimes you finish because you’ve gone too far.” Bruce Nauman

During post #13, I knew instinctively that I was moving forward into uncharted territory which was both exhilarating and fear-inducing. The strange “portraits” need processing which requires time and reflection, the perfect place to stop.

“What do drawings mean to me? I really don’t know. The activity absorbs me I forget everything in a way that I don’t think happens with any other activity…” John Berger

Of course it isn’t really the actual end, just a pause while I take myself off to Lyme-Regis for some reflection and disciplined rule-based working, before starting my next blog: Playing By The Rules. I hope you will still be here when I get back-and thanks for reading.

“In my end is my beginning.” T.S. Eliot

I Can See a Rainbow

“Any colour, so long as it’s black.” Henry Ford

When I said watercolour portraits at the end of the previous post, I imagined that I would paint as I had in the past, a face-to-face intimate two hour session much like these: http://www.ruthgeldard.com/travel-portraits/waterc… and I had someone in mind, my new friend fine actor and all round splendid person, Beverly Hills. However Beverly said no, and after three more attempts at trying to persuade her, I knew she really meant it. I thought about asking someone else but it doesn’t work like that for me, I am a one model at a time person and I couldn’t get her out of my mind, so…I had to find a plan B.

“There is no model; there is only colour.” Paul Cezanne

The blog has lead me back into mark making non-figurative territory and inspired by this tweet by Emily Speed ‘”Creation is impossible if you’re forever looking over your shoulder.” Yup.’ and so I decided to be brave (ruthless even) and try to paint Bev like a musical variation, with colour and pattern-non-figurative but somehow still representational.

“Who told you that one paints with colours? One makes use of colours, but one paints with emotions.” Jean Baptiste-Simeon Chardin

And so I began with small pieces of paper and test strips and lots of thinking hair twiddling and cups of tea. It took quite a lot of false starts but eventually an idea began to form figs. 1 & 2. As usual as soon as things started going well I managed to go off on one (or two) and made some embarrassingly horrible images. I took myself in hand for fig. 3 and kept to the rules and am quite excited by the results. All this has had the effect of my owning the work as my feeling response to the model.

“If one says ‘red’ – the name of the colour – and there are fifty people listening, it can be expected that there will be fifty reds in their minds. And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different.” Josef Albers

Of course I am still feeling my way in the dark, this is a new departure for me and I realised with a shock that I am not actually going backwards anymore-this is actual new work.

“All colours will agree in the dark.” Francis Bacon

Fig. 4 I felt the need to test this way of working and try again to make a “variation” of another friend, Sarah and this image does feel very different. It also feels like my own work, a free expression, inspired by the model, not dominated by them and not a literal illustration either.

“Who told you that one paints with colours? One makes use of colours, but one paints with emotions.” Jean Baptiste-Simeon Chardin

So, now that I am going forwards, I know that this blog has somehow set me on the right path and helped amalgamate various facets of my practice. I now feel the need to start a new blog, and have found the perfect subject. The title of the new blog is: Playing by the Rules and will be a documented attempt at me trying to work on specific projects to specially designed sets of rules. I am hoping this rule based approach will discipline focus and constrain my practice. I have just read this back and it immediately makes me want to behave very badly…

-describing a minimalist colourist painter…
“He is all palette, and no painting.” Peter William Brown

This is in fact the penultimate post for this blog-I am going to write a plenary to round off, as the last post. Happy New Year to all!

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