We woke up late this morning and opened the curtains to a really miserable day. Not looking like a day for the planned gardening. As we sat in bed drinking tea, the rain started to clear and a strange light appeared down in the valley. Slowly it spread up into the sky and, equally slowly, turned from a vague streak of colour into a bright rainbow.
As the rain moved away the rainbow faded again and then finally disappeared. The sky turned blue and gardening looked possible.
Later Simon, who helps us look after this hilly wonder nowadays, turned up and the three of us set off clearing, planting, pruning and cutting down, now that the leaves have gone. The rain kept coming and going but not enough to stop us.
We had a really productive day, from the top right down to the bottom of the garden. Holes in the laid hedged were filled, brambles cleared, redundant, rampaging wild roses removed, perennials planted, the garden produced, garden pole stock renewed and a spot the difference created in one corner of the top area, where a maple needed its yearly trim and an old ailing cherry tree needed to come down to make room for more planting. Now I need to decide what to carve the cherry stump into.
I happened to pass the window where the camera phone is set up when there was a rush of birds. Some bits are speeded up others slowed down. Originally they were there for around six minutes after I pressed the button.
This is one of those experiments that crept into my brain and worked first time. I make quite a lot of variations of a cauliflower, broccoli, potato mix from dry to moist, from roasted to plain cooked vegetables, from full vegan to a combination. I used cheese this time but you could add more nutritional yeast or a touch of marmite into the mix instead and perhaps add crushed , mildly salted, salted cashews to the top when browning off.
Ingredients for the roasting tine – 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 tablespoon turmeric, desert spoon mint, tablespoon thyme, teaspoon paprika.
To add later – tablespoon nutritional yeast, half teaspoon of arrowroot, teaspoon whole mustard, 100g barber’s crunchy, desert spoon bouillon.
Vegetables – chopped large cauliflower, about 20 small salad potatoes, 1 small onion chopped fine.
Heat the oil, herbs and spices in the oven in a roasting tin (210c).
At the same time pre-cook the potatoes for 5 minutes in the microwave, add to the hot oil and turn.
Keep pre-cooking the cauliflower a batch at a time (4 minutes each), adding to the roast and turning to catch the turmeric colour.
Add the onions to the roast before the last batch.
Add the remaining ingredients, except the cheese and mix round. Add 100 cc of water and half the cheese, then mix up. Top with remaining cheese and return to the oven, until the cheese is browning.
Angela at the Shelley Art Group I go to said the other day that we should enjoy it when we work on something. Very wise. This when everyone else was painting a bit like Monet, while I just messed about. Previously, I’ve tended to expect to produce a finished product when I start painting or drawing. When it doesn’t work out right, I would get annoyed with myself.
Over the years the huge number of times I’ve been out sketching, often in public, have helped me relax more. Age and experience have probably helped too. Sometimes I even produce things that people really like.
Angela isn’t the only one who has recently helped me enjoy it more. When we were doing a session on abstract art there was a tip about folding up what you produce, snipping it and looking it from different perspectives. Now I’ve also got used to playing with palette knives and raw paint often mixed on the picture, that has also allowed me to take a more relaxed approach.
So when I wanted to paint a picture of Ruth sitting by the Coe river, as in Glencoe, from a sketch done when there were masses of dragonflies about, I started playing with both the picture and with different ways of doing dragonflies. I fully expected it to be haphazard, scruffy and throwaway. As it evolved I kept trying new ideas, Some work better, some don’t. Taking photos and cropping them allowed me to look at different compositional ideas and highlight what worked.
The bottom one of those is probably where I’ll go. Adding a bit of sky peeping through the foliage tells me to do a layer of sky first and then trunks and foliage on top. On the right I’ll probably make the foliage stand out as nearer to give more depth. I’ve got to add three people in there too. That should keep me occupied for a while.
If you are playing with acrylics, particularly with a palette knife, you can use cartridge paper or heavy grade lining paper but put a ground coat on beforehand, as it helps the paint move. This tip I owe to Julie and it helps make the acrylics behave more like oils, rather than the watercolour-like method used by Anthony Barrow. I am in the habit of using white gesso mixed with a touch of red for some reason.
Where I had little hope that I could manage it with my skill set, I now think I may be able to have another go using what I’ve learned. I may have accidentally produced a bit of a Monet as well.
Chimp keeping up with the craze for grass in the ear decoration
That picture is serious. Scientists have discovered that chimps adopt self decoration fads and crazes like grass in the ear.
This first bit of our art history covers a nice vague stretch from ‘the beginning’ to some time over three thousand years ago. As the latest indications are that hominids and probably Home Sapiens have been making tools since around 2.7 million years ago, that is a long time. Indications are also that different types of hominids overlapped, and in some cases, interbred for a lot longer than previously thought, so the history isn’t limited to Homo Sapiens.
Those early tools were made for over 300,000 years in the area around Kenya. That means that there was a consistent culture passing on ideas and skills. As animals use props to impress others, it is highly likely that humanoid groups did the same. Unfortunately evidence is slim. Apart from rare preservation specimens (like Ötzi, the Alpine hunter preserved in ice from around 5,000 years ago), most artifacts made by early people are hard to find. The most commonly preserved things are hard materials like bone, stone and metal. Metal items particularly can be associated with richer individuals. Even large objects, such as canoes, are rare. The earliest so far, 10,000 years ago, is quite likely not the first. Items used by everyday people may not be as long lasting.
The earliest known musical instrument is a flute from around 50,000 years ago but even before that there may have been less robust noise makers and alongside that people will have vocalised and danced. They will almost certainly also have decorated themselves in some way.
In Australia indigenous art dates back beyond 20,000 years and that is from a people who had to migrate over millennia before they got to Australia. Discoveries are still being made using better dating techniques and both in Australia and Indonesia it is thought that examples may date from over 50,000 years ago.
When talking to people about art, I often mischieviosly refer to larger artworks and buildings as Totalitarian art. By this I mean work where someone has so much power and ego that they can commision art that is grandiose. Unfortunately people often admire this sort of art without thinking too much about the conditions involved in its production. I think all forms of craft and art have value. Some just grab you visually or emotionally and this effect varies from person to person. Some have more intellectual content or more subtle emotional effect than others and these often benefit from more study. No matter what the artist puts into the work, or thinks about it can sometimes be completely at odds with what people take from it. Interpretation is a personal and difficult thing. The further back in time we go, and the further from our own cultural assumptions, the more we need to take care before judging the work.
This post is a work in progress and I will add some visual examples of work and more detailed discussion to it over time.
Below is a list of selected early artifacts by date. The obvious, non building, art is in bold, but there will be art in later buildings, such as Knossos.
Ignoring the lists, categories, reviews and other opinions
I once heard a Blackbird imitating the ‘Captain Pugwash’ theme music, because it had been played so often on on a friend’s personal pirate radio station. The Blackbird didn’t call it Art, but many humans would have no hesitation in calling their own efforts at such imitation Art. Other birds create what many high minded artists would call Installations, to make courtship displays. Who amongst us that do art isn’t partly trying to impress others in the same way?
Mischievously, I have taken to saying about human art that it all went wrong when we stopped painting on rock walls. In the history of rock and wall paintings we have work that is observational, has elements of positioning and design, depicts heroism, invokes spirits and memory, employs abstraction and symbolism and is also simply, stunningly beautiful and skillful.
Just like Evolution has constantly kept re-inventing the crab, because it works, humans have reinvented ways of making art. To some extent this is often because part of showing off can involve denigrating previous efforts but there also exist a set of humans who don’t make their name by creating art but by listing, categorising, championing and judging it. One of our key historical sources on renaissance art is Vasari’s ‘Lives of the Artists’. It does all of those things and also gossips, passes on myths and has always to be taken with a pinch of salt. Incidentally Vasari does mention some women artists but makes the usual assumptions about their art being less philosophical or heroic. As another aside, for those of you interested in the renaissance, if you look hard enough you can find the tax records of Florencians on line. They are full of fascinating pleas to pay less tax because life has been so hard recently.
When I was at school and first thinking about art as something I did and should know more about, I won the Biology prize and asked for The Story of Art by E.H. Gombrich. It was the first of many opinions and lists that I have studied over the years. What has become clearer to me with each thing I read is that a good degree of scepticism is required with all opinions (including mine of course). During years talking to people about art at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, I’ve had some wonderful discussions and received interesting insights from others. I’ve also seen the light come on in people’s eyes when I give them permission to have an opinion, as long as they recognise that others might not agree and that better understanding often enriches experience.
The aim of what I am writing here is to help you see things more clearly with the aid of my lifetime’s experience of designing, creating, looking at and reading about, all forms of art and craft. Over time I hope to add to this post by highlighting some bits of the history to pass on some of that experience and knowledge to anyone reading. It will not be a long and specific list of art works. I want to widen the dialogue to include groups who are often left out of the story and to open our minds to let us do things without having to pay homage to particular ways of looking at the world. I have come to believe that we should respect what is around us and do our best to create what shows that respect and also tries to add our own perspectives and feelings to whatever we produce.
Last night we had a session at Shelley Art Group with Anthony Barrow.
He was very inspiring but threw a lot of information at us while painting rapidly. I work fast and free mostly but had to stop trying to take in every word to concentrate on transferring the ideas to the work. I thought I’d write what I learned and combine it with my own experiences to help others gain more from the possibilities in the techniques.
Thanks Anthony and also Sally for arranging the session.
This is what he produced as he talked, from a very small photo of the Langdale Pikes :
Let’s start with what we were painting on. Like Anthony I used 1400 grade lining paper taped to a board to reduce the curl as it got wet. You could stretch the paper beforehand by taping it down when wet. This would help the surface stay flat through the painting process. Mine still buckled a bit but is straight this morning. One advantage of the lining paper is that it is not brilliant white. So while the paper colour shows through with the wet on wet technique he used, it already has a warmer feel to it. Using acrylic you can then add white later if needed, either as as a wet in wet mix or a less transparent layer when dry. He also specified a reasonably large piece of paper. This is important to stop yourself getting trapped in detail and it also reduces the risk factor of over watering in wet on wet. You can scale down once you’ve become happier with the skills.
Next came sketching in the key shapes that are more important to get right. Using a colour that is part of the mix you want to end up with works well as many sketching mediums can interfere a bit, especially with wet on wet. When Heather Burton was doing the palette knife session she sketched the basic colour areas rather than detailed shapes, as she was using the paint in a different, undiluted, way. She knew that she could add detail later as the paint dried. Incidently Heather still uses thin layer with some transparency even with the palette knife, keeping the surface smooth to help adding upper layers. Because of the thicker paint and faster drying, it is also possible for her to scrape off areas of the upper layer to reveal more of the lower one.
What about that wet on wet technique? It’s scary isn’t it? It is easy to feel out of control but it tends to create smoother colour transitions. You also end up with nice thin transparent layers that you can then add on top of later. It is even possible to do that with water colour. Just make sure you have cloths or paper towels ready to dab off the worst mistakes and remember that with acrylic you can completely paint over the top later.
I’m not going to talk much about colour. Anthony was repeating for us the lesson of Jo’s session a couple of weeks ago. You can achieve a whole rich array of possibilities from a limited range of tubes or pots. Like all trained artists he obviously knows and indeed feels what different tubes can do in terms of warmth and transparency. It is hard to build up that knowledge, but starting with a limited range and experimenting helps. You can then add extras as you realise that a particular tube just adds something you want. Greens are particularly tricky.
Another little snippet Anthony said to me was that most people have trouble with foregrounds. It is not completely true, but in landscapes the foreground is often there just to look past. Unless it has something that you particularly want to come out in detail, a relaxed and sketchy approach to the foreground often works. Of course, unless you are way more naturally talented than I am, getting sketchy to still look true takes practice.
This is what I produced on the night. I’m a fairly literal person sometimes and like to respect the landscape I’m painting. From the photograph I was confused about the area in the middle, below the highest peak. As Wayne and I have climbed in that area, this niggled. Back home I found another picture and realised it was actually the area of rock on which we’d climbed, so that had to change. Next I realised that I had produced a misshapen version of the rocky middle right. One of the advantages of acrylic is that it is often easier to overpaint, if you haven’t gone overboard on texture. That bit got adjusted too. I decided that the picture we had been given was actually an amazing evening light, rather than a snow covering, so I adjusted accordingly. I also hardened up the mountain tops, that had been left blurred by the wet on wet. a few other little corrections and then finally I went back to that foreground. I decided to introduce a hint of another landscape layer nearer the viewer to add further depth and to balance the colours with the mountain shadows. I’m happier and have given it a single coat of varnish to bring out the colours. I’m finished now…. perhaps.
I hope that is helpful to anyone reading it. I certainly will be seeing if I can improve what I did last night and will think abut it all as an addition to my options in saying what I want to say.
I’ve been to the Sculpture lounge before to make sculptures with Mick Kirkby Geddes and David Mayne but this last weekend highlighted just how good they are as guides through this creative process.
Four people with different levels of experience and all of us guided through the choices very capably and skilfully. On the second day I was having a particularly trying day and making mistakes. Even though I don’t usually require large amounts of help, their joint radar was working all the time and gentle advice would appear at the right time.
I was making a design change to a previous mobile piece, then moving on to a butterfly on a garden obelisk for a friend. Both of these went well and were finished by the end of the first day. Ruth loved the butterfly and asked for on to go on top of one of our obelisks. Next day I got busy, but was tired and kept making mistakes. Cue David and Mick spotting my slips and digging me out of them.
The one above and immediately below is the one in our garden. I’ve added a transparent layer of green oil paint to the leaf since I first put it up, to tone it down a bit in bright light.
After a complete absence last year all the apples and pears have swung into full production this year. A pity that I no longer make alcohol and neither of us like crab apple jelly and that’s just one tree.
Sadly one of our cherry trees had become dangerously likely to split because of bark inclusion. It generated a lot of wood of one sort or another and a pile of wood chip for the garden paths. In amongst that I’m managing to find a toad and lily pads inside the tree remains. To be continued, as the wood dries.
