Learning reflection 1

Through out the year so far, I have identified several areas in which I need to improve my approach to my creative practice. I have learned several invaluable lessons through out the year, including honing in on my painting, masking, blending and drawing skills, however in doing these experiments I have become aware of some of the limitations I harbour as an artist and areas in which I can improve.

The first area that I think I could work on is time management. As we near the finalisation of the final term of third year, I wish I was further along in the creation of all the paintings I've started. I think I should have started the painting process a lot sooner into the term instead of letting fear stunt my drive. In addition to this, I would like to have a better relationship with the consistency of my involvement in my creative practice. I appear to work in intense ebbs and flows and peaks and troughs of creativity and productivity, meaning sometimes I am inconsistent with my work, resulting in a turbulence of engagement which can breed bad results due to lack of familiarity with your craft. 

In order to overcome both of these time related issues, I think it would be helpful to allocate certain hours through out the week to painting, to ensure I'm working at it consistently and building up a relationship with the piece and the creative process, rather than employing an intense 'all or nothing' approach to my work.

Painting experiments

This term I wanted to ensure that I was taking more risks with my work and becoming more relaxed with the creative process. In the past I have struggled with stifling perfectionism that manifests itself in my inability to progress a painting to the next stage once I've done something in the piece that I like and am therefore terrified to ruin. A good example of this is a paint pour I made in second year with the intention of painting a narrative scene/ figures over the top. The background colours and the pour itself where only ever painted on the canvas to act as a background for a more detailed and focused foreground scene. 

Unfortunately, because I was so happy with the result of the background, I didn't add anything else or paint anything more onto the canvas for months and months, due to the fear of ruining it by painting something badly over the top. To challenge myself, I painted a very simple silhouette underpainting in the foreground which I will develop into a nude red figure that is dowsed in a ray of light peering into the scene from a nearby window. 

It was nerve wracking to commit to painting over the top of a background I was so happy with visually, but now that I have, I'm really excited to see how the piece develops into a fully formed narrative scene. It was really important to me to challenge myself in this way as I have identified this perfectionism/ fear as one of the limitations in my creative process, the fear stops me from developing the painting even further and therefore renders me creatively stagnant; something I need to consciously overcome if I am to create the images I have planned.

Gehenna development

 This term, I wanted to make sure I was utilising short windows of time between other arrangements to get art work done, I find that working this way has an accumulative effect and enables you to progress with your work at a much faster rate than if you simply waited for free whole days to do your painting in. In light of this, I have been painting in free hours or half hours here and there to ensure I'm working at a pace that aids the success of the piece and my meeting of the deadlines.

When I paint in these small windows of time, I make sure I tackle the basics of the image, for example, I painted the demon figure all black as an underpainting for the more detailed features I'll be adding in the future, I also did this with the plant, the window frame, the chest of drawers and the wine glasses/ bottles in the foreground. I find working in this way to be very liberating as you're giving yourself permission to simply paint the basics, it takes the pressure off of having to do something amazing or impressive in that creative session. I've really enjoyed working in this way and I find it to be a much more relaxing experience. 

As I add these basic aspects of the piece in these short windows of time, I can start to see the image taking shape and forming into something that replicates the original thumbnail, which is really exciting. Once I have an entire underpainting painted on the surface, I can then begin to add more detail and hone in on emphasising the shadows and highlights to really allow the piece to 'pop'. Next, I will focus on adding a background underpainting (simple block colours) and developing the red figure in the centre of the image, as I'm not happy with it just yet. 

In regards medium experimentation, I want to incorporate spray paint and oil paints into this piece to assist me in rendering some of the hazy light effects present in the thumbnail/ reference. I've not worked with these before so the prospect of working with an unfamiliar medium is really exciting. I will carry out a series of experiments with these mediums before committing to using them on 'Gehenna', to rule out any trial and error mistakes.

Gehenna development

I decided to start the piece by painting the red figure in the centre of the thumbnail first. I'm most comfortable starting with this aspect of the image first as I have painted several large scale figurative pieces before, so this is something of a comfort zone for me. 

Seeing as I had the large print out of the reference image on hand, it wasn't too difficult to get the main tonal contrasts down in a short space of time. Once I had done this, I began to mix various different mid tones, adding them where appropriate, to form the entire shape and structure of the figure. 

As this is a work in progress, the images below aren't going to be the same as the final result. But so far, I would say I'm happy with how I've captured the essence of the reference image in the painting, however I'd like to correct a few areas on the body that appear slightly patchy or have been painted at the wrong angle etc. As I'm working with acrylic paint for this section of the piece, it means drying time is relatively fast, meaning I don't have long to blend the paints to form the contours of the body, to combat this issue, I've been working with slow drying medium to encourage the acrylic to behave more like oil. When I next add pigment to the figure, I'll make sure I work consistently within a time window that doesn't allow the pigment to dry too quickly before I have a chance to blend the colours together. I will also make sure I measure the contours of the figure/ face more accurately to ensure I don't paint the features incorrectly and at the wrong angle. This is because I want to achieve a certain level of photo realism within a surrealist scene. 

Painting experiments - masking and gradients

While working on Gehenna, I want to make sure I'm developing my painting skills on other pieces alongside to ensure any human error moments/ mistakes take place on smaller, lower pressure paintings. I found an old paint pour I made in second year that I was never too enthralled with, I wasn't happy with the colour scheme or the composition and so I decided this would be a great piece to practice some techniques on, seeing as I wouldn't mind too much if the results were unsuccessful. 

I masked off the areas of the painting I wanted to preserve and left other areas bare, where I intended to paint a gradient over. I chose lilac and fuchsia to paint the gradient with, mixing slow drying medium into the acrylics and using a soft flat wide panel brush to add the pigment and blend the colours with. I thought by adding the lilac and fuchsia to the piece it would aid in creating a more visually pleasing colour scheme, which I believe was the case with this experiment. This was a great artistic inquiry to carry out as it allowed me to practice my masking skills (using a scalpel) and gradient/ blending skills, both of which have been quite difficult to master.

After this experiment I feel I learned more about how to mask properly, how to pair certain colour combinations to achieve certain aesthetic results and the basics of blending colours to achieve clean, seamless gradients - something I still need to improve at.  I'll take these developed skills into my painting of 'Gehenna' and employ the successful aspects of the experiment into the piece to achieve similar results.

Drawing experiments

Because I'm working on paper to create 'Gehenna', I want to make sure I'm continuing to draw with colouring pencils to ensure I'm fine tuning my drawing skills, enabling me to work flexibly with a plethora of mediums at play. This is important for me to keep practising as I'd love to use a variety of different mediums all within the same piece, creating a multi dimensional, visually diverse result.

As I have been learning a lot about Artemisia Gentileschi's work, the baroque period and the nuances of the styles of that period, I decided to try drawing a portrait over an incredibly dark paint pour experiment that I carried out weeks prior, to try and emulate the effects of Tenebrism, a popular style of painting seen through out the baroque period that harbours chiaroscuro features. Chiaroscuro is an Italian term meaning 'light-dark', in paintings the term refers to clear tonal contrasts of light and dark, often the darker tones dominating the majority of the image, allowing the sparse areas of light to really pop, creating a very dramatic and cinematic effect. 

I enjoyed the effect that was created by working over an incredibly dark background and adding minimal light linear drawings to overlay the paint pour. I'll definitely like to employ this technique in 'Gehenna' to enhance the dramatic atmosphere in the image. 

To achieve the best results, the brand and quality of pencil should definitely be taken into account. I noticed some of the cheaper pencils I used didn't show up over the dark background, yet when I used artist quality water colour pencils and chalk pencils the results were much more vibrant.

Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz-Starus, In Mourning and In Rage (1977)

An amalgamative performance piece and political protest, In Mourning and In Rage was created by Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz-Starus in response to a series of unsolved rapes and murders in California that the police attributed to the Hillside Strangler.  

Artists, advocates, politicians, and the families of victims all converged on Los Angeles City Hall to perform a ritual of mourning and rage before the press. 

In a tightly choreographed event that challenged the media’s sensationalising and inadequate approach to reporting these crimes, 10 women dressed as 19th-century mourners, traveling to the steps of City Hall by hearse. Their faces obscured by black veils, each performer stepped forward to describe a form of violence against women, explicitly tying the horrors of the Strangler case to everyday abuse and harassment. “I am here for the 388 women who have been raped in Los Angeles between October 18th and November 29th,” one performer announced. “In memory of our sisters, we fight back!” responded the group in unison. 

With roots in both 1960s political theatrics and 1970s feminist consciousness-raising, the performance is echoed in public protests today. In 2017, activists dressed as characters from The Handmaid’s Tale, assembling in the Texas Capitol Rotunda to protest a bill limiting abortion rights. Their matching red cloaks evoked the dramatic red-and-black costumes of In Mourning; their anger was familiar, as well. 

Women wrapped in red cloaks and wearing white bonnets gathered in the halls of the Texas state Capitol on Tuesday, channelling "The Handmaid's Tale" to protest a slew of anti-abortion bills on the state's legislative calendar. 

Standing side by side, the women each held signs outlining the history of abortion restrictions passed in Texas in the decades since the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure nationwide.  

Abortion stories being read while the handmaids stand silently with the timeline of restrictions passed in Texas.