Brick Wall

Ian had the novel idea that I should paint a brick wall for the next 3 weeks: doesn't sound particularly inspiring, I know, but it's a great exercise in colour mixing, and will force me to 'luxuriate' in the process of oil painting (I'm a bit speedy gonzalez at the moment)! I'm not going to lie to you, it was a bit of a mental slog to begin with - I felt more like a bricklayer than a soaring artiste. But once I got into it, things started coming together. It's a nice, loose start I think - hopefully it will shape up from here.

Morandi

Today we looked at the work of Giorgio Morandi - an Italian artist who spent his life painting the same bottles and jars, over and over again (bit of a basket case). Not a big fan, I've got to say; but his paintings did provide a good starting point for our experiments with space/composition. Had an excellent day actually. Working from a Morandi esque still-life, we started by sketching 'thumbnail' images (mine ended up looking a lot like an advertising storyboard). From there, we chose the composition we felt was most dynamic and made a quick acrylic painting of it. My attempt was purposely pared down- I wanted to eliminate the detail/description that I'm usually drawn to, and focus on the objects' arrangement in space (in this case, a jug and cheese grater). The whole exercise was really productive. Though what I produced was not necessarily 'art' per se, it symbolised a small departure for me. George was pleased (heheh, teacher's pet)!

Mr Crabs

Shot off to Oxford yesterday afternoon, for a night of drum and bass madness - which meant cutting my painting class early (playing hooky already, tut tut). This is the fruit of my three and a half hour labour: the resplendent Mr Crabs. Apparently he'd been sitting pretty in the Heatherleys freezer for a week, stinking out the joint. The studio did get pretty pongy, but it was worth it - such amazing colours/planes to its shell.

Life drawing

In today's drawing class we worked from a rather entertaining life model (a buxom, elderly French woman, prone to cranky outbursts re: insufficient heating, and her aches and pains). Though my morning sketches were a bit lackluster (matching my inexplicable hangdog mood), things picked up in the afternoon. The pencil sketch was intended as a study in proportion - my use of line is a little 'constraining', but I'm pretty pleased with its general weightiness/dimensionality. The other sketch is in acrylics, which I've never used before. With a limited palette of yellow ochre, black, and white, George asked us to capture the various tones and contours of the body (which I think I've achieved in parts). Being such a quick-drying medium, you have to work extremely quickly - even so, I didn't quite finish this 30 minute study.