This week’s been a little kinder to me that last week.
I did get the undercoat done by the end of Monday. It was very basic. James (our painting tutor) gives us a lot of good advice and guidance in how to paint with acrylics. But I never retain any of it. I should maybe reconsider taking notes? The problem I’ve had with that in the past is when note taking it takes me so much time to write anything and it takes so much concentration on my part that I miss 95% of what is said. Maybe I should swallow my pride and have a note taker again?
Well for now I’m going to try to compensate for this problem by reading and studying in my spare time. I’ve always struggled learning in a class or even on-to-one. But when teaching myself, like when I wanted to learn the history of Religion or how to play Brutal Doom on the highest difficulty, I do surprisingly well. I’m going to start reading more. Books on general art, and on whatever type of art I’m studying at the time in particular. I would like to thank James for inspiring me with this. He did suggest we look up ideas in the library (though I think he was more suggesting we go there to find unconventional artists to take inspiration from). I have borrowed a book on acrylic painting and a another one on drawings. Maybe this can be a first step to learning how to work with my third pool of energy I mentioned in my journal “Why am I so bad at this?” https://johnhawk.art.blog/2019/11/04/why-am-i-so-bad-at-this/ I’ve said in the past that I work best when I have to use all of my brain as well as my body all at the same time and being able to think about it when not working instead of just doing a purely physical task or problem solving in the moment. Or at least I might learn a little.
My undercoat was apparently good enough for James. I don’t remember Tuesday in much detail. But something was clear to me by that point. I didn’t have the skills I needed to make this the way it needed to look just using the basic acrylics and colour mixing. I would have to bring in my oils from home. Complete with the turpentine and liquin, it was a heavy bag.
So I had to make a whole oil painting in one day. That’s not an easy thing to do, even for pro. And even after all the years I’ve spent painting (And using painting in two of my final pieces) I have no more idea how to paint than a newcomer.
I regret having no pictures of the underpainting.
I started by adding washes and highlights to the piece. I think this prototype has the best contrast on the woman. And maybe the clearer brush lines on the background added something that has lost.
I like the pale blue for the shadow here. I tried to recapture the effect here but never could.
By now I had the background with the colour scheme I was after. It centralises the perpcitve more. Wish i’d kept more white though/
And I also tried photographing it in Sepia. Just for fun. I think it looks good.
I got some of the contrast back here. She has lost some of her curves though.
I tried altering her expression. But this one looks like she’s sleepy.
i altered it again. She now kinda looks like she’s pouting. But it’s the best expression I was able to get (And by this point the canvas was covered in paint and altering it more could have ruined it). I’d also made the background a little better by this point. It’s not great. But it’s okay for four hours frenzied work (With some breaks).
Sadly, as always when painting. most attempts at planning and logic devolved into a frenzy of just throwing more and more paint onto the canvas. I couldn’t remember any of the techniques or ideas James had told us about. I could only paint. I’m not sure the techniques he suggested for acrylic paintings would have been of much use for an oil painting anyway. But I need to learn how to really paint. With my brain and not just my heart.
Anyhow. Here it is at a higher resolution
When I showed it to James he actually seemed to like it. And he even felt the underpainting was still working. So maybe I did something right.
On Thursday we were given a new task entirely. I’ll give this module this. It’s not giving me too little to do.
We had to try out using hot wax techniques on acrylics. Similar to batique work.
We had to first make some simple paintings. No pressure. At least we were given pieces of wood and card that were smaller than A4. Keeping with the theme I’m working with, I painted them yellow.
I made one abstract with tick paints. One painting with heavily watered down paints and one with my watersolouable crayons. Thinking they’d blend well with acrylics.
Here’s how they looked.
And here’s how thay look after adding some wax techniques to them.
My crayon work had a hard, sketchy look, even using water. I liked how it looked. It could be great using the paint for backgrounds.
I tried using identical wax colours where possible. Only keeping the eyes free of wax. Honestly. I hate it.
My wash painting was fine. Not much to say.
This one actually really looked better with the wax. I added colours that either could have been in the original (Green on the human, Blue on the clouds) or colours that were similar but different to the originals, like orange over the yellow. I like this one. It reminds mr of Rembrandt’s ink and brush work (If I may be so bold).
This abstract was lovely. Why’d I have to ruin it?
But there are bits of the second version I like. I tried putting opposing colours on top of each other. I like the yellow wax on the red paint or the black on the pink. But other bits smudge together.
I think this is good for pieces that have a lot of texture on them. Not so much flat bits.
I did try all the techniques we were meant to try like adding sand or painting into the groves. But they didn’t seem to have any real effect on the pieces I made. And even though it was yesterday I’ve forgotten what a lot of those techniques were.
Still. Not bad for a days work. At least I experimented and tried.
Today I went for the life drawing class here for the first time… ever really. Even brought my huge A2 sketchbook. And despite being so rusty I felt like i could draw at all I somehow lasted about 2 hours. Not bad.
I’ve spent the rest of the day writing this journal.
By next Tuesday I need to have some designs and I ideas I can turn into cutout paintings. I should have been working on that today. So I’m still behind in my work. But not as bad as last week. And at least I still have Monday.
Let’s hope for the best.
John's Learning Journal 