What is art?

Acrylic, house paint and black gesso on the reverse side of hardboard c.33" x 30"

I have spent a few days clearing out the attic, which is our painting space in the house. I unearthed some big, semi-abstract paintings I did around 2005. I decided to recycle them but with this one I was almost out of black gesso when I started so I went and found a tin of house paint - white undercoat - and using the same brush started to quickly cover the image. It gave me some nice greys. Let me just say there was a woman on the painting; she was in profile and seemed to be looking out to the left. Towards the end of covering up the image I found I was skirting around this eye, almost not wanting to cover it. Not because it's a good painting of an eye, because it isn't, but partly because it seemed gradually to be looking at me, the viewer, rather than at a point outside. I found I was too reluctant to cover the eye at this stage.

It raised the question yet again in my head - what is art? I felt I had produced something rather more interesting than the original painting. And indeed I am conscious that with my own work sometimes I produce simply "paintings" and sometimes I try to produce "art" - and sometimes "art" happens.
(nodp)

Bonnard - a copy of his painting "The Dining Room in the Country" (1913)

This painting has been sold



Acrylic on hardboard 9" x 12"

I spent most of yesterday making a smaller copy of Bonnard's "The Dining Room in the Country". As I worked I photographed the various stages as I thought it might be interesting to some of you. Please browse down the blog to see the earlier stages.
This is the finished painting.

Step 4: Final stage:

What a difficult process this has been. The first thing I noticed when I started was how similar in structure this painting is compared to my last one ‘A reflection’. I am in no way trying to compare my poor efforts with Bonnard’s but I realise that this image of his must have imprinted itself onto my right brain without me realising it. The strong verticals to the top left coming down about two thirds the way, then the rounded table with a few objects on it; a figure to the right and where he has sky I have a mirror filled with light. Now, honestly, with my hand on my heart, I never consciously thought of Bonnard’s painting when I structured mine. And yet it must have been there somewhere in my subconscious. It was a sheer random choice which caused me to pick that particular painting of his to copy – although it has always been one of my favourites. It just shows how deeply we are influenced by others even when we don’t realise it.

Of course there the similarity ends. His surface is filled with colour and light and that is how his work is often described. I think the acrylic did a reasonable job of representing that but I think oils would have caught the subtleties better. Of course the original is in oil. I wanted above all to capture the “feel” of the work and not to worry if small details were inaccurate. An interesting experience. I think I might become a copyist; it was totally enjoyable.

My painting measures 12” by 9” – Bonnard’s was 81” by 65” so about 7 times bigger than mine. It took me a full day to do (about 7 hours). Every time I thought I was through I would see something else on his. Each area was full of marks and surface shading. It was so decorative. I can see where Matisse was coming from – also Klimt. Pattern and decoration were dealt with firmly and even sought out.

I think one of the things it taught me is that some paintings are essentially “about” colour and some aren’t. Bonnard paints in an essentially “modern” way. He injects his modernism by using colour and pattern to define shape and he never loses a sense of shape and form; that is retained right to the end. Every area of the painting has brush work in it –of at least two different colours. He really is a fearless Master of colour. What a privilege to get to copy him.

Bonnard - the set up and the palette

I thought at this stage you might be interested to see the set-up of the work and a pic of my palette. This palette is so unlike my usual palette - to me it is almost shocking! Beautiful colours but so unlike me.

Bonnard - The Dining Room in the Country - step 3

Step 3: Starting to block in the main colour areas
I started with the table cloth and door and left hand red wall. I am beginning to see already how he used small brush strokes to build up colour. (Picasso apparently said to one of his wives “Don’t talk to me about Bonnard with his mincing little brush strokes one after the other”). Maybe it’s a hang-over from the Impressionists, although Bonnard was outspoken about having moved on from them and to be sure he had. This brush work again is totally different from the way I work where I slosh on large areas of almost uniform colour first to cover the surface. Even in my final layer I rarely use these small brush strokes. I know my colours here are not quite accurate to the reproduction but this is partly because the acrylic keeps drying to a different shade than when I mix it. Sometimes it dries too dark and sometimes too light. Normally I wouldn’t notice this because normally I am not trying to copy someone else’s work, so this is an eye opener for me. I mean I knew about it in theory but I ignored it because I thought it didn’t matter – as long as my painting “worked” that was all I was bothered about. (Not that I don’t have many failures mind you).

Bonnard - The Dining Room in the Country - step 2

Step 2: More underpainting
Did I say the fear had gone? Well, if this was my own work I would be scared ******* by now. Once I realised there was so much colour – I would already be toning it down. I would also be “squaring up” the shapes, making it more uniform. My convent education is coming through loud and clear at this point, LOL. Talk about feedback for learning!

Bonnard - The Dining Room in the Country - step 1

Step 1: the underpainting:
As soon as I started work on the Bonnard I realised immediately what it was that first attracted me to him. It was his emphasis on form and shape. I then realised what it was about my work which was leaving me a bit flat. Bonnard had no fear. Yes, he had a framework of verticals and horizontals but he also had curves and further than that, unusual shapes. Seems that he never forget the big shapes when working on the detail though. I sketched in the main shapes with weak burnt sienna onto a raw sienna underpainting (on white gessoed hardboard). I had decided to work in acrylics as I wasn’t sufficiently confident on doing an accurate job in oils, although I might try that later. It was interesting anyway to see how far the acrylics could go with Bonnard’s vibrant colour.

In this painting (The Dining Room in the Country, 1913) he has used 3 main colour mixes – reds, greens and lavenders. I underpainted the predominantly red areas in their complementary, green, and the green areas in their complementary, red. The lavender table cloth I gave another coat of its complementary, raw sienna mixed with a bit of yellow ochre. By this point a lot of my fear had gone. Working had simply pushed it aside.

A Reflection painting interior figurative woman mirror>

This painting has been sold



Acrylic on hardboard 8" x 8"

I might have said this before but I think what we see when we look in a mirror is coloured by our personal perceptions at that moment in time. Certainly I don't think we see ourselves as other people see us - and maybe each one of them sees us differently. As to the pic, the objects on the table are slightly less vibrant in the real thing.

In Louise's kitchen (keywords: interior kitchen garden figure yellow lavender green acrylic painting)

This painting has been sold



Acrylic on hardboard 8" x 8"

With these paintings I am beginning to explore shape, form and colour. In one sense they are quite removed from a "realistic representation" and yet in another sense they are just as real to me as anything else I have done. This painting for instance "feels" to me like Louise's kitchen. There are the glass doors leading out to the terrasse and looking down on the garden below and there is Louise in her yellow sweater with a brew in her hand. Hello dutti.

Setting the table (Keywords: figurative abstract painting kitchen window interior blue pink green)

Acrylic on hardboard 8" x 8" £65 (British pounds) plus postage & packing (£3.50 to UK; £7 to rest of world)

I have always enjoyed interiors; simple tasks like setting the table, figures moving around the rooms, the patterns the different colours make. It's interesting to me.

The Piano Room (Keywords: piano interior painting)

Acrylic on wood 10" x 10" £85 (British pounds)plus postage & packing £7 to US; £3.50 to UK and Europe.

I have a couple of friends with pianos in large rooms and we also have a piano in a smaller room. Occasionally when I am cooking the evening meal my son will sit down and play - might be Chopin, might be Scott Joplin. I don't hear too well these days but I can hear enough to enjoy that. A piano sitting there always seems a little sad; it's just waiting for someone to come up and play. A bit like when I go back to my paints and boards and easel. They have been waiting for me.

Anyone looking at this painting who is not a painter might assume this approach takes less time than say my landscapes on my Stalybridge blog. It actually takes a lot more time. For me, the "simpler" a painting is, the more important it is to get it as right as you can. I like the soft, chalky effect the acrylic gives and it allows me to scumble with a dry brush many layers of colour. I couldn't do that, I don't think, with any other medium.

The Waiting Room

Acrylic on wood 7.5" x 8" £65 (British pounds) plus postage & packing (£7 to US; £3.50 to UK & Europe)

I'm trying a bit of a new approach mixed with a bit of an old approach. The new approach is to work on a base coat of white rather than black; the old approach is to use a lot of dry brush work. It felt nice working on a lighter background.
(I haven't finished putting up all the small landscapes yet on my Stalybridge blog but will keep adding them every day. I want to get on with this figurative series now).

Update

I have been working on a small series of landscapes on my other blog - Stalybridge paintings. Click here to see it. I'll be back with the 'RealArt' paintings soon.
(nodp)

The bird lady

This painting has been sold




Acrylic on wood 10" x 10"

Some people take their dogs for a walk in the park. This lady takes her birds for a fly. Or does she steal the cages from other people's houses and run away with them and give the birds their freedom?

Maths test

This painting has been sold



Acrylic on hardboard 12" x 9"

Ok, here's the story - I was eleven and had missed my convent school's entrance examination through scarlet fever so I had to take it later, on my own. For some reason the nuns put me in what looked like an empty bathroom - but no bath, no washbowl, just a toilet. The maths bit of the paper I couldn't do at all and ended up screwing up most of my efforts and throwing them on the floor. I was really scared but couldn't use the loo because at any time a nun might come back and poke her head through the door to see what I was up to and I would be mortified. I didn't realise till I started painting it how deeply the scene had buried itself into my subconscious.
I suppose this is another in the 'Not the Sheila I know' series. I keep revisiting it but don't always bother saying that.