Part 2, project 2, exercise 1: Physical and visual texture – Experimenting

3 April, 2015. Had to force myself to stop experimenting, I could go on forever. Here I will therefore report only a very few of the things I did, on one occasion joined, and taught a lesson, by little son.
Frottage is sheer unthinking bliss, while drawing textures by hand is not quite so easily accessible. And as always, when the school girl of fourty years ago takes over thinking, I did the less straightforward first to save the fun for later. In retrospect I should have had the fun first, because it would have loosened me up. Consequently, the first set of drawings of textures in my sketchbook look just that. Tight, no fun.

I did 8 or so pages of textures, then started on frottage, diligently looking for surfaces to copy. Until Christoph arrived, wanting to do some, too. I include what he did. He didn’t care whether the object or paper stayed put, he didn’t care whether the outcome was regular. He spent 30 seconds and his results were what I should have been looking for in the first place. Loose, adventurous, alive.

So off I went and there were the results I had hoped for. I kept moving the paper, I made wild strokes, I tried the colours green and violet to see whether I could produce a pseudo 3D effect by using one colour, then moving the paper a millimeter or so, then going over the first layer with the other colour. The result does look like the pictures in  3D books. I would love to know whether the effect IS 3D, but have to buy the necessary glasses first. Will keep an eye out for some.

Thereafter I went back to combine frottage with one of my first temporary drawing experiments. I got out the nails, placed a glass plate on top and went over it with my magnets. After carefully removing the glass plate I produced a frottage copy of the pattern of nails.

And, since I love to draw something invisible to make it visible later, I got out my white oil pastel stick and hoped that it would work as a frottage tool. Of course it is too soft and so it doesn’t, but going over the pattern with antique ink left a beautiful structure reminding me of wood, or if using another colour, of rock or snow up on the mountains.

The above and a frottage I had done of a piece of wood my son had made an angel of at school (see left side of third photo from the top of this blog) brought me to try out the following:

I like the idea of combining textures in one object as in Lucian Freud’s Rotted Puffin on p. 40 of the study guide. The wood angel combined three different aspects of wood: dry cleaved wood on the front, the smooth but mottled surface you find after removing the bark on a tree (on the righthand side) and a horizontal view of the three rings, very rough presumably because it had been cut with a chainsaw. It also offered wings made of plaster bandage, a wooden stick neck, a head also covered in plaster bandage, a wire gloriole and some shiny, curly angel’s hair.
I prepared some A2 sketch paper with a very loose layer of coloured, water-soluble ink, leaving the centre of the paper white. Thereafter I chose the most interesting area of the cleaved surface of the piece of wood and added this as a frottage with a lumber crayon (which I find is a very suitable frottage tool). The remaining texture I added with an ink pen, charcoal, white pastel crayon and permanent marker for the hair and miniature golden star on the gloriole.
The wood came out as I had hoped for, but I have yet to find a satisfactory solution for the highly variable texture of the plaster bandage. I also think that the presence of the brown ink in some inadequate places did not make this easier, but I am nevertheless happy, because there is a lot of movement in the picture.

All in all this was a VERY enjoyable exercise. There is so much to learn that it might be worthwhile to start a texture/frottage inventory, but this will have to come later. Next week will be another one to focus on fighting for Christoph’s future. Which means going to Munich again for another medical test.
And which makes me think that Munich is a city of interesting surfaces. I’ll take some paper and my lumber crayon.

Part 2, project 1, exercise 2: Compositional studies of natural objects

30 March, 2015. Trying to take in the lessons learnt and advice given up to now I decided not to be too adventurous in my choice of natural objects no matter how tempting the structure of the beautiful large roots we dug up in our front garden yesterday. I will however store the idea for later.
I liked the idea OCA student Stephen Powell (p. 38 of the study guide, left page of his sketchbook) solved the task of “creating a sense of solidity” in his composition by outlining the arrangement and thought I would try to include an experiment with outlines in this exercise.
In order not to do the immediately obvious and open the fridge to see what natural objects it would contain I went into the cellar, where the remainder of our winter supply of potatoes and onions have started their kind of spring feelings and grown the first sprouts. To some of these I added a slice of leftover pepper and a well rounded bulb of fennel. These, arranged in a hopefully solid composition on top of a white porcelain soup plate, I tried to sketch with my great set of pastel crayons on grey A2 paper. I had not drawn with pastels in what feels like decades and was a bit anxious to use them again.

Although in retrospect I am not sure whether grey paper was an ideal choice I am happy with the result. In direct comparison with the photo (taken with my wonderful EOS 6D self-thinking camera) the drawing is less radiant, but I think that when viewed on its own it has a kind of warm reflected-light shimmer I was not very much aware of while drawing and which I quite like.
In answer to the set questions:
I do not really feel a difference when trying to suggest three dimensions in man-made or natural objects. Of course the former are often very regular in shape, which helps when defining shadows, but their make may add difficulty, e.g. when surfaces are highly reflecting in a mirror-like way. Natural shapes and forms may feel less immediately accessible, but after having mastered the initial problem of where to start looking, I think that the irregularities of natural objects help rather than hinder three-dimensional representation.
Three main points help to create a sense of solidity in my drawing: The choice of objects (all vegetables), the use of a plate as a support for all the objects, whether on top or touching it from the outside, and the use of outlines. The latter I tried to apply selectively, both regarding the choice of appropriate colour and thickness of the lines. Before starting I was apprehensive as to whether the lines would give the drawing a caged-in appearance, but the technique worked rather well. I am not happy with it in all places, but it is a start and I will try to become more expert at this.
After experimenting a while with the arrangement I was surprised that this particular set of objects did not leave many options. It was either the red of the pepper, which became too dominant, or the leaves of the small onion, which started getting in the way, or else the bulb of fennel, which needed to stay at the back in exactly that position. I think however that there is a reason for this. The arrangement does draw the view of the spectator. It does not correspond to the Rule of Thirds, but I can recognize a triangle, whose top corner rests where the tallest fennel leaf emerges from the bulb, which at the same time serves as the background. The brightest objects (small onion and pepper) are inside this triangle and form the midground, while the bottom corners of the triangle are occupied by the larger onion and the potatoes, all of which are somewhat darker than the midground. The plate serves to draw the three layers together, while at the same time also resting within the triangle. All of these, together with the shadows and reflections on the plate, the seat of the chair I used to raise the arrangement to eye level, and the vegetables themselves, add up to create a sense of form in the objects present.

By the way: I love the special solid character bulbs of fennel radiate. Their beautiful and at the same time teasingly simple form appears suitable to have another go at temporary drawings with nails and magnets. This time I will try out a different setup. The first time I experimented with magnets I found that holding them underneath the support left only little room for moving my arm and therefore limited the size and looseness in the lines created. I have a glass plate, which I want to place above the layer of nails so that they can be moved around easily with the magnet from a position above. Will report on it when finished!

Part 2, project 1, exercise 1: Compositional sketches of man-made objects

23 March, 2015. Walking round our house I found numerous places I wanted to use for experimenting with man-made objects and composition. There was no time to start straight away, so the ideas had time to develop in my head, which were quite separate from the instructions given in the book.
One of these I want to include nevertheless, because it turned out to be a very enjoyable exercise:
We always manage to have far too many jackets on our coat rack, especially near the end of winter. When looking at it, it appears as if the coats were struggling for space (which of course they are) and, probably due to their respective colours and cuts, they seem to do so according to their own “personality”. I have a very red windstopper jacket I use a lot for cycling and while pushing and pulling the coats to increase the “personality” effect, I noticed that the red colour and cut of the jacket together with the shape of the metal hook of the coathanger made it appear very impatient. This I wanted to catch in my sketch.
I prepared a piece of square sketch paper by glueing on top a piece of seventies style gift wrapping paper reminding me of wallpaper. This I covered in a loose layer of white acrylic, taking care to let part of the wrapping paper shine through. Wanting to transport a feeling of urgent motion I sketched the coats very roughly with a black marker pen, then highlighted the red jacket with a bright red marker. Although this was NOT what was required in the exercise (not a thumbnail sketch, not properly lighted, and therefore no detailed study of the shadows) I am quite happy with the outcome. Still I think that with stricter planning the feeling of impatience might be increased substantially.

28 March, 2015. After having had a look at our shoes right underneath the coat rack, which suffer from a similar space problem, I had the initial idea of putting them all on a heap to play around with the coincidental patterns I would undoubtedly find there. This came from having watched the brilliant “The Forger’s Masterclass” on youtube about creating a Cubist painting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRTH35O6hNg, 23 March 2015). In the meantime, however, I had received feedback on my first assignment and had been pointed to the important fact that I must not put the ideas leading to an arrangement before the arrangement itself to avoid a pastiched appearance. I have to admit that I had to do some research, before I could take in the advice given. Looking up the definition of “pastiche” given by Wikipedia I read a flattering “… pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, or music that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche celebrates, rather than mocks, the work it imitates.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastiche, 28 March 2015). I very much doubt that my tutor had this in mind, when pointing out the problem to me. I rather think that he used the word “pastiche” in its literal meaning, i.e. a jumble of different styles or techniques, which makes looking at and interpreting the picture awkward for the spectator. Which as a consequence excluded experimenting with my heap of shoes.

The same advice caused me to have a close look at composition. There is no specialist English language literature in our local libraries, so I ordered a first set book two weeks ago. Since it will  arrive from the US, I will have to wait a little longer before having access to it. In the meantime I get my information from internet sources. Today I found a site, which summarized the key aspects of composition in very attractive and, to me, accessible way (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php/232819-The-Secret-to-Composition-tutorial, 28 March 2015). I typed the most important three pages into my computer, printed them out and placed them on my drawing table. With this advice to think about I started the exercise on shoes.
I selected two pairs, my favourite pair of winter boots I keep running around in from October to March, and a pair of trainers, which our younger son has just grown out of. These I placed on top of an upturned plastic basin to make them interact in a mother-child-like way. I wanted my son’s trainers to give the spectator a feeling of “I want to take a step away from you, I am nearly eight”, while my own would try and stand back, but remain alert and control the direction of the step my son’s trainers would choose. It took a while, until I had placed the shoes in a way I thought might work to transport the idea AND work as a composition.

For these sketches I chose to use my all-time companion, the mechanical pencil, because its versatility (hard and soft strokes) allows to create a range of tonal values in a small area. I tried to apply the Rule of Thirds as consistently as possible, drawing grids and adjusting shoes so as to match them to the requirements. After a while I found a solution by putting the pairs on diagonal focal points. In this way the arrangement looked relatively dynamic. The pairs of shoes appear to interact with each other and – hopefully – the spectator, while, importantly, not leaving the frame.

For the final sketch I tried to put more emphasis on the shadows. I wanted some of my “mother’s shadow” to fall on my son’s trainers, but not too much, so that their next step would take them out of my shadow. I placed the arrangement in the bright sunlight coming in from the window and, being enthusiastic to get going, I failed to notice that the sun would disappear behind the window frame within the matter of a few minutes. Some of the shadows are therefore not in their proper place.
I also attempted to take in another advice given on the above website: Spectator interest and eye movement is in part controlled by creating a foreground, midground and background. By making the foreground darker, the emphasis is put on the midground, where the anticipated action is, i.e. the next step to be taken by the trainer.

I do believe that this sketch works, although of course the thumbnail size has its limitations and the shadowed areas do not come out in detail. If there is time, I would like to turn the sketch into a larger size picture on a background prepared in watercolour in two tones and draw on this in ink. Since this is a very emotional subject for me, I want to take a lot of care to transport this in the marks I make.

Part 2, Project 1: Composition and Still Life (research)

19 March, 2015. Composition. As it always happens when thinking about the meaning of words the Latin I learned at school makes it to the surface from the deep sea of oblivion. Componere is the verb, meaning to arrange, make up, construct, order, or something similar of that kind. Do I want to “make up”? Or do I want to use something made up to dig deep into my own state of mind and express an urgent concern? I want the latter.
Thinking about which gives me a headache. Usually I am someone to plunge directly into my projects, since I find that my mind has already “made up” and settled on a solution without necessarily being aware of a conscious process. What I have done up to now is to land the catch and see what species there are. Sometimes it is only bycatch, interesting on its own, but not necessarily of any nutritional value.  Now, no more excuses, I will need to gather information on the species I want to catch, choose my angling gear and time accordingly.

http://thames.me.uk/s00330.htm (March 19 2015)

Still life. No mystification about the meaning of the word in English. In German it is called “Stillleben”, no confusion either. Now. When I was a child, some incomprehensible spelling rules forbade the use of three or more letters of the same kind in a row, meaning no three l’s in Stillleben. It was therefore written “Stilleben”, which, understandably, everybody pronounced as “Stil-Leben”, which translates as something like “stylish life”. When I was little, one of my grandfathers had some rather beautiful traditional still life pictures on his walls, with lobsters, lemons with their peel half removed, glasses of wine and such like. The quintessence of a “stylish life” for me, the five-year-old, trying to make sense of what I saw. Only much later, when a committee of language experts forced a vicious set of new spelling rules on the unsuspecting German speakers, we were suddenly allowed three l’s in a row and were given the true meaning of still life.
In my research into the still life genre I went straight back to “traditional” still life painter Chardin, who I had come across by coincidence in one of my previous excursions into the internet (http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/still_life/chardin.htm, 19 March 2015).
The creative commons website http://www.jean-baptiste-simeon-chardin.org/ (March 19 2015, subtitled “the complete works” while at the same time asking to upload missing images ;o)) I want to mention, because the thumbnail image table on the home page forced me to compare images and see a characteristic most of them share – the use of light. In all the arrangements the group of objects gets most of the light, the wall immediately behind the arrangement is bathed in diffuse light, which at the edges gradually merges with the surrounding darkness, an effect I assume comes from using candles. In most cases the painter chose his position slightly to the right of the arrangement, so that the left side group of objects come to stand in front of a very dark background, allowing them to stand out, while the darker righthand side of the objects is in contrast with the illuminated background, reversing the effect. As a consequence, in
http://www.jean-baptiste-simeon-chardin.org/Still-Life-of-Fruit-and-a-Glass,-1759-large.html (March 19 2015) the glass of water, a transparent item, which would lose much of its appeal before an illuminated background, is placed on the left with a beautiful effect. The glass of water appears to me central to the appeal of the whole picture. Its physical properties make it a radiant object, while at the same time allowing light to pass through and be redirected onto the remaining objects:

Overall, the choice and placement of objects in traditional still life appears to follow a set of rules, e.g. one item always stands somewhat or much taller than the others and there are rarely two objects of the same kind, such as in http://www.jean-baptiste-simeon-chardin.org/Still-Life-with-Glass-Flask-and-Fruit-large.html (19 March 2015) or http://www.jean-baptiste-simeon-chardin.org/Rabbit-and-Copper-Pot-c.1739-40-large.html (19 March 2015):

Starting to move through the centuries I am reminded of the fact that the term “traditional interpretation” is not limited to periods in time but to collective states of mind. Every painter at all times experiments with what there is, but time and circumstances act as filters of art perishing and art remaining. Art buyers decide what remains, the taste and preferences of a time cause more works of art to be produced in a certain manner (artists need to survive, too). This of course also applies to the work of  Cézanne (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_C%C3%A9zanne#/media/File:Paul_C%C3%A9zanne_185.jpg and http://www.wikiart.org/en/paul-cezanne/still-life-bread-and-leg-of-lamb-1866#supersized-artistPaintings-215854, March 19 2015), whose arrangement of items and reproduction of true dimensions and perspective appears (or is made to appear) more random or somehow careless, looser, a little less radiant than with earlier still life painters, but still (probably) truthfully depicting what there is and following the unbreakable rules of harmony:

Moving further along, to cubists Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Juan Gris. For them, (everyday) object shape and form were of central concern, while traditional perspective, which they thought to distort the true essence of a form, lost its place. They rather looked at an object from a number of different viewpoints and integrated the results into one much simplified, austere, representation of that object using only a reduced colour palette. Composition remained however crucial. Since traditional compositional methods were abandoned, harmony is created by a regularization of the whole picture. A very good explanation of cubist interpretation of still life can be watched at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rejhieJL4CQ (19 March 2015) and some examples of cubist still life are found e.g. at http://www.allpaintings.org/v/Cubism/Georges+Braque/Georges+Braque+-+Still+Life+with+Fruit+Bowl_+Bottle+and+Mandolin.jpg.html (19 March 2015), http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/still_life/juan_gris.htm (19 March 2015), or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso#/media/File:Pablo_Picasso,_1916,_L%27anis_del_mono_%28Bottle_of_Anis_del_Mono%29_oil_on_canvas,_46_x_54.6_cm,_Detroit_Institute_of_Arts,_Michigan.jpg.

While cubists used a somewhat reduced colour palette, Fauvist painters like Matisse chose bold colours for their paintings in order to express the emotions evoked by the objects depicted (http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/still_life/henri_matisse.htm, 19 March 2015), e.g. in
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4f/Matisse518.jpg (19 March 2015):

Contemporary still life painters now enjoy the freedom of taking whatever subject and style raises their interest, to recombine preferred aspects in every way thinkable. At the same time there appears to have emerged a new love of realistic representation, and with the arrival of widely available and affordable high performance computer programmes a set of tools to push realism to its absolute limits (hyperrealism), e.g. in “fruitbowlwithmelons” by Mauro David (
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hyperrealist_paintings#/media/File:Fruitbowlwithmelons.jpg, 19 March 2015):

It seems that the genre of still life has never lost its appeal with both artists and spectators. Why that is, I can only guess. True, it is unsurpassed as a means of training for aspiring artists, but at the same time it seems to serve as a means of contemplation. Maybe it is the joy of letting the eye wander, to see for the sake of seeing and to immerse oneself in the stillness.

Assignment 1: A Personal Still Life

March 10, 2015. Back to drawing after a sciencey intermezzo, starting to prepare for Assignment 1. My objects with real personal meaning are not too many, I don’t like assembling (too much) stuff. But I have a few, which I carried together over a few weeks. When starting to set them up, bearing in mind not to leave too much negative space, I found they would not comply. They are too different in size, shape – and meaning. Still, I know that I want at least some of them in my drawing. And I don’t intend to put a tablecloth underneath just to draw them together (unless I can find one with a meaning).

I have a 19th century globe to indicate my love of travel and new countries, an odd ceramic vulture we purchased at our local Christmas (!) fair a few years ago and which has a very special meaning to us as a family, an old carpenter’s plane, which had belonged to my grandfather (also a sculptor), a small oil lamp (connecting with my sister), a painted sheet metal gecko brought back from Curacao, a tiny wooden “juggler” carved by my father when I first moved out nearly 30 years ago, and another tiny sculpture (an “Indian”), made about twenty years ago by our older then kindergarten age son from pieces of wax and then cast in bronze by my father.
First I did a quick thumbnail sketch in my small sketchbook, already having in mind the idea of wanting to create a backlight scene, avoiding the hard shadows created by my workshop lights.

Since, however, instructions for Assignment 1 require the use of a range of drawing tools, I reluctantly unpacked my newly acquired oil pastels. Until this day I had strictly avoided anything reminding me of the appalling wax crayons my parents used to buy for my drawing lessons at school. Ok, they were poor artists and they could not afford better crayons at the time, but I remember my desperate attempts at producing the colourful pictures my teacher expected of me. Of course, now, the oil pastels (Jaxon) are in a different league. I love the colour palette, but I soon found out that producing the layers of colour I had in mind requires expertise. I realised that some colours would not stick on top of others, in particular the blues, Naples yellow and greys, while black and white would readily blanket the rest. There is also a limit to the number of waxy layers, before the topmost layer will start to flake off. So I did some research on the internet on the use of oil pastels and went back to work trying out my stump and a brush to blend the background colours. I am not convinced by the result, in particular with my use of negative space and paper size (A2), and also with the grey relatively smooth paper (which seems to swallow the brilliance of the pigments) but I am determined to have another go at oil pastels, with a different setup.

My second setup was deliberately not a static one. What I did was to start with one object, then held the other items in my hand next to the first object until relative size and negative space appeared to work, then immediately added that object to the picture, first in my sketchbook, then as a loose charcoal drawing on off-white A2 paper. I am very happy with the outcome, especially about having left the loose sketch on the top left and bottom right, which acts to reinforce the dynamics of the vulture and bronze statuette. I realize, however, that I will need to put more emphasis on the emotion associated with each object. To this end I want to repeat this setup using oil pastels.

11 March, 2015. Having had a look at some relevant websites, such as http://www.artyfactory.com/still-life/still_life_oil_pastel.html, I decided on a rough 600 g Fabriano watercolour paper as my support, prepared with a loose layer of oil pastels, taking care not to fill the depressions in the paper, followed by a layer of watercolour to fill the depressions. Thus I hoped to create an interesting background, which I then wanted to draw on. Which was the theory.

17 March, 2015. I am not happy about the intervals between the times I get to work on my assignment. On the other hand, some of the interruptions are caused by an increasing number of orders for editorial cartoons and caricatures, which of course makes me happy no end. And I can already feel how having started Drawing 1 acts to change my approach to a new task. Still, I found myself struggling with putting the idea for Assignment 1 on paper using oil pastels. I did a few tests on small format paper and found that it would be better to do a quick sketch of my objects with my white oil pastel stick, then go over it with the watercolour, let it dry, draw over it again, etc.

This technique was very new to me and I think that I did not use it properly or consistently. I could see in parts of my test sheets how it might be possible to create quite stunning effects, but this will mean a lot more experimentation.
In my final drawing I did not use white but pale yellow for my initial sketch, a colour which I found went well with the other colours I used. While drawing I realized that a true backlight scene would be impossible to produce with the support, materials and expertise I had. Other than with the charcoal the dark background suggested that I leave the body of the vulture much lighter. My Jaxon sticks are also very difficult to use with rough paper. It was nearly impossible to produce a smooth surface or blend colours at all, even when pressing down hard with an old paintbrush. A few days ago, however, I went to our local arts shop – which, fortunately, is not around the corner ;o) – to follow the hint found on a website and buy a trial set of Sennelier oil pastels. What a difference to the Jaxon sticks. I think the Jaxon are more suited for very large sketches, while the Sennelier are much softer, more pliable and easier to blend, and less prone to flaking off. The colours I found in the test box did not go too well with the Jaxon palette, but with the help of the black and white, and scraping off some of the original far too dark background, and putting on some more watercolour, I managed to produce nothing of the kind I had in mind at the start. Still, I think that the setup worked well enough. I think that the green of the gecko helps the vulture to look more 3D than it would do without it. I like the way the bronze “Indian” communicates with the vulture and the “juggler” remains unfinished (which has a very personal meaning attached) just as laid out in the charcoal sketch. In the future I will however avoid paper with this grade of roughness for an A2 oil pastel drawing.

Reflecting on the assessment criteria for this assignment:
1. I tried to have in mind and apply the skills trained in the exercises leading up to Assignment 1, using a number of different supports and materials, while experimenting with composition. While searching the internet I found some information on the brilliant still life painter Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin (1699-1779) (11 March 2015, http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/still_life/chardin.htm) including a short diversion on “balancing the composition”, something I have become increasingly aware of while going through the exercises in Drawing 1. Composition is an aspect I think will be central to the next steps in developing my drawing skills.
2. I was happy with the quality of drawing in my charcoal sketch, but think that the final oil pastel drawing lacks some of its spontaneity and is probably somewhat inferior regarding use of space. The highly personal meaning attached to the objects of my choice is difficult to generalize, so probably nobody looking at this drawing will interpret it correctly. In order to communicate ideas of universal applicability I would need to choose different objects.
3. Still I was pleased to have tried out a medium new to me and found I liked to experiment. Whether a personal voice is visible in this I cannot answer at this stage of the course, although many people who know my style of drawing would probably recognize it.
4. Although at the beginning I was not sure what to expect when keeping a learning log, it has already become a very rewarding task and habit. For someone like me, who only rarely gets the opportunity to see real exhibitions, the immense wealth of information available on the internet together with writing a blog helps to structure the course and record and reflect on the progress I make.

Part 1, project 2, exercise 4: Shadows and reflected light

What a beautiful title to reflect on the past weeks. We went to Munich to have one of the best pediatricians and expert witnesses in Europe have a look at Christoph. It all went so much better than I had imagined in my wildest dreams and I know it was a major, major step forward in helping secure our son’s future. And I know it was a major effort requiring all our energy when looking at my result for exercise 4 …
I had got hold of a stainless steel cocktail shaker (our only reflective metal object apart from the bathroom fittings – interesting to look at but devoid of any shadows and lacking re-reflecting other objects) and some associated bottles and glasses. Before starting to arrange them, I read through the instructions again and realised that only two objects were required. I tried several combinations, but none of them was ideal. Then I noticed the way a small sample bottle seemed to lean against, and cuddle up to its own reflection in, the shaker. Which I liked so much that I didn’t see the problem with the proportions of the objects until I had prepared the sketch on A1 paper, travelled to and returned from Munich. Today I finished the exercise and I found I needed to add a third object, the sample bottle again, but removed from the pair, and the workshop window, and do something to the shape of the table, in order to give it the appearance of “composition”. There is still something wrong with it, the shaker looks massive. Oh well, never mind. Looking forward to Assignment 1!

Part 1, project 2, research point: Odilon Redon

02 March, 2015. I didn’t think I would come across Odilon Redon quite so soon again. A few weeks ago his “Smiling Spider” was part of a newspaper article announcing the opening of a new exhibition in the Vienna Albertina, “The Dream Archive” (30 January to 3 May, 2015), showing works by Redon, among others (http://www.albertina.at/jart/prj3/albertina/main.jart?ausstellungen_id=1402200582087&content-id=1202307119323&j-cc-id=1402200582087&j-cc-item=ausstellungen&j-cc-node=item&rel=de&reserve-mode=active, 24 Feb 2015). For me the smiling spider (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Redon_smiling-spider.jpg, 2 March 2015)  is a wonderful example of how the use of variations in tone, however subtle, may create an atmosphere of unease in the spectator. The blackness of its hairy body is interrupted only by the grey and white of one half-closed eye, and again, by the grey of the mouth area exposing some gleaming white carnivore teeth (never mind arachnid anatomy ;o)). The spectator’s eye is immediately attracted by the white, invoking the ancient fear of the keen eye and sharp teeth of a possible predator. Thus tone betrays the spider’s smile.

A more complex set of emotions, expressed exclusively by the use of tone, radiates from Redon’s “Primitive Man Seated In Shadow” (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Odilon_Redon#mediaviewer/File:Odilon_Redon_-_Primitive_Man_%28Seated_in_Shadow%29.jpg, March 2 2015).

The choice of medium (charcoal) and in part sketch-like strokes lend the mountainous, bare landscape a primaeval quality. It is difficult to say whether the ambient light, passing through and scattered by the low-lying, indifferent but at the same time threatening clouds, comes from the sun or moon. The “primitive” man in the foreground is defined by and mirrors the emotions emanating from his surroundings. He is squatting, a posture readily associated with the “primitive”, and at the same time appears to be hiding from something threatening by removing his vulnerable body into the shadow thrown by the rock behind his back. Here he succeeds only in part, since the light hits his body from behind and exposes his left side, making him visible to whatever visually orientated danger may be around. The expression on his face, most of which remains in the dark, is of a mildly suffering quality, reminding me somewhat of the “Noble Savage” concept (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage). If – in a thought experiment – I replace the shades of grey with colour, I think it would be difficult to create a picture of equal emotional density.