Drawing 1, Part 3 – Expanse
Project 3
Exercise 1 – Developing your studies
Own image, own photograph (accessed 28th July 2019)
I decided to develop one of the sketches that I produced in the 15 minute 360 degree exercises in Project 2, Exercise 3 – Below.
Own image, own photograph (accessed 28th July 2019)
I moved the position over a bit so that the viaduct looked better and had less of the river. The area was vast and it was difficult to decide what to put in and what to leave out. Moving position along the river bank helped me to balance the image better so that the river did not take up so much of the image. I decided that the five elements in the composition – the buildings, the trees and foliage, the sky, the viaduct and the river all required equal space in order to keep the balance in the image. I felt I did not want one element to be too dominant in the drawing.
I drew heavily on the mark making that I learned in part 1, trying to give different textures to different areas in the image. I decided to use a very limited colour palette to add atmosphere to the dusky image. I really liked finding different marks to use in the composition and some worked really well like the tall grass by the river. However some of the foliage worked in some areas better than in other areas. The use of black and white helped me to work with the tones in the composition better, and helped me to stop using more lines in the image.
I did become very bogged down in detail and found it difficult as usual to work in a more free and expressive way, but in the mark making I feel I improved. The work of Vija Clemons and her detail was something I thought about when drawing this also the mark making shapes. The work of Henri Matisse as I mentioned in the previous project also made me think about using different marks for this piece of work.
I found it very difficult to simplify at first, but then when I decided the elements that I wanted to include and these decisions helped me to be more selective and see the marks that I could make. When I thought about the mark making, I went back into my sketchbook and text books and looked at the marks from part 1 and decided what would fit in the drawing. This helped me to focus on simple marks and patterns that I needed to use. When I experimented with colour I found that I could not get the right tone, this is something that I will need to work on more in the future. The trees in the distance were very dark and the foliage pronounced because of the darkness and this makes the drawing seem wrong in some ways because usually the foliage would be lighter and less pronounced in the distance.
The viaduct adds some distance and form in the drawing, drawing the eye to it from the farm in the foreground and taking it through the arches.
Research point
I saw Tacita Dean’s (b 1965) blackboard paintings at the Royal Academy in June 2018
Own Photograph from Royal Academy Pamphlet (accessed 14th August 2019)
‘The Montafon Letter’ pictured above is made up of 9 blackboard panels joined together and is seven metres wide. The work was created specifically for these galleries in 2017, and the title comes from a letter about what happened in the Austrian Valley of Montafon in 1689, when 300 people in a single village were buried in an avalanche. This work is so atmosphere you can almost feel the coldness of the snow and it’s chilling danger. The vast scale makes the viewer seem small in comparison, as if nature in all its glory is so much larger than the human viewing it. The black boards and chalk make me think of learning, as if I am learning about the power of nature and what it can do to humans.
George Seurat (1859 – 1891) Landscape with houses
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/337676 (accessed 14/08/2019)
The above drawing by George Seurat is in Conte Crayon and is 24.9 x 31.9 cm. produced in 1881-1882.
Similarities
The atmosphere in both drawings, is this sense of unease, they have an atmosphere of tension about them as if something is about to happen.
The darkness of tone is the same in both of them there is not much mid tone mostly black and white, creating a sharp contrast in both drawings.
Differences
The size of the drawings is very different with Tacita Dean’s work looming over the viewer at seven metres wide and Seurat’s work at just 24.9 x 31.9cm.
Seurat’s work is black conte stick on white paper and Tacita Dean’s work is white chalk on black board.
The marks are clearer on Tacita Dean’s work and there is more detail than Seurat’s work which is blurred and less distinct.
How contemporary landscape artists are influenced by earlier artists:
J M W Turner (1775 – 1851)
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/sea-star-sean-scully-at-the-national-gallery
https://www.nationalgallery.co.uk/products/the-evening-star-print/p_NG1991 (accessed 14/08/2019)
Sean Scully (b1945)
http://seanscullystudio.com/new-arts-holder/paintings/untitled-landline-8/ (accessed 14/08/2019)
I saw this exhibition at the National Gallery when visiting recently. The exhibition places J M W Turner’s painting at the centre as the inspiration that Sean Scully’s work. It was possible to look at the ‘J M W Turner’s painting Evening Star and look at the inspired work by Sean Scully at the same time.
Both paintings are similarly atmospheric of the dusk of the day, evoking the gentle swell of the sea. Thick layers of paint, worked with a brush or painting knife are a similarity of both works. The bands of colour used by Sean Scully echoing the bands of colour hinted at in Turners work. Sean Scully says that he is always looking at the horizon line and the horizon line seem to be clear in both works. The paint in both paintings gave me the feeling that it was coming out of the canvas at me it is powerful and both needed powerful strokes to achieve what the painter wanted. Painting on metal makes the paint look wet on Sean Scully’s paintings which is like the translucent oils that Turner used for his seascapes. Both paintings experiment with colour, light and landscape making me feel emotions through the paint.
These paintings are very different in size, Sean Scully working in very large proportions although some of J M W Turner’s paintings were also large this one is not particularly big. Turners painting is very traditional in style although with the sky so big it has an abstract quality to it. Detail is not something present in Sean Scully’s work but as I walk back from Turners painting I lose the details and see more to the abstraction in it.
In the exhibition is Vincent Van Gogh (1853 -1890) chair and Sean Scully’s abstracted painting. Sean Scully has given a feeling of warmth and comfort that we feel from the Van Gogh painting, in the colour palate that he uses in his paintings.
Vincent Van Gogh’s Chair (Own Photograph from the National Gallery) accessed 14/08/2019
Sean Scully (Own Photograph from the National Gallery) accessed 14/08/2019
Van Gogh – Tate Britain
In the Van Gogh exhibition at Tate Britain this year (Van Gogh and Britain 27th March – 11 August 2019), I saw many of Van Gogh’s works beside the works that inspired him on visits to the National Gallery when he lived in London. The most striking of these to me was the trees
Own Photograph from Tate Britain (accessed 14/08/2019)
Dutch painter Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709) ‘Avenue at Middelharnis’
Own Photograph from Tate Britain (accessed 14/08/2019)
Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) ‘Avenue of Poplars in Autumn – 1884
Van Gogh painted his painting two month after telling his brother to see the painting in a letter that he wrote to him.
There seems to be a great air of sadness hanging over the paintings, this emotional response felt clear to me standing and looking at them. This long enduring path of life which the figure in Van Gogh’s painting seems show is also there in Hobbemas painting but without the figure. The autumnal colour palette helps to give both paintings this haunting feeling.
Van Gogh’s painting is less detailed, but it is darker in the colour palette used. The sky is lighter in the Hobbema painting but the darkened landscape gives it the same atmosphere.
It is interesting to stand and look at both paintings and see what Van Gogh saw and how he used what he learned in his own work.
Exercise 2 – Foreground, middle ground, background
Own Photograph own drawing (accessed 14/08/2019)
In this drawing I wanted the rock and the post in the foreground to be very detailed and the middle ground to be less clear with more sketchy marks and the background more blurred although due to the type of trees in the background being evergreen they had to be darker than those in the mid ground. The boats in the background are less detailed but they can be seen as boats. I tried to get this structure into the composition of the drawing so that the sense of distance would work. I was sitting on the ground to get the post and the rock into the foreground and this helped a lot in the composition of this drawing.
I don’t think that I have drawn this very boldly however but I seem to have difficulty with this however the light is coming down towards this as I have attempted to show in the handling of the water.
I went to the National Gallery where they have two Claude Lorrain (1600 – 1682) paintings next to two J M W Turner paintings (1775-1851). They are in room 15, the paintings are Turner’s ‘Dido Building Carthage’ and ‘Sun Rising Through Vapour’ and Claude Lorrain’s,‘Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca’ and ‘Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba’. On Turner’s death he asked that they be hung together because of the influence that Claude Lorrain had had on his work. It is the light in all of these paintings that captures me. The sky in the background seems to glow with such an intensity that it draws the viewer through the painting it. The details in the foreground are clear and realistic with the details in the middle ground starting to be hazy and finally in the background there is a kind of haze created by a wash I think. The drama seems to be happening in the foreground in great detail the participants are portrayed in careful imagined scenes.
Nicolas Poussin (1594 – 1665) was a leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, his works are religious or mythological in subject. They are paintings with action and drama in the foreground which is done with a great amount of detail. One of the paintings that interested me was ‘Landscape with two Nymphs and a Snake’. This painting draws the viewer into the painting the foreground has the figures in detail, with the middle ground made up of paths and a lake. It is the misty mountains in the background that are very inspiring.
OCA Drawing 1 