Experiments in Art

When luck is kind and an opportunity presents itself to work in peace and beauteous quiet, experiments in art-making are a serious option.

As part of the WCAGA Drawing Marathon, a day of plein air work had been organised for yesterday, Saturday.  Luck was indeed on our side - it had poured with rain the previous days, and today, the day after, while Saturday dawned crystal clear, sunny and delicious.  With such good auguries, it was time to try different media, different subjects in art.  It seems to me that it is so important always to try to grow as an artist by experimenting, refining one's voice and one's style of art, whilst still remaining true to that little "inner voice".  As artist/art coach Bob Ragland once remarked, "Being an artist is like planting a garden - plant the seeds and see what sprouts".

Seeing what sprouted was fun as I worked yesterday.  I used sepia Prismacolor to tell the story of a wonderfully contorted dead red cedar which was slowly decaying, lichens and other forces working on its reduction.   Growing right at the edge of the marshes, the tree showed what happens when salt water levels rise and affect both the tree's root system and the solidity of the oyster shell bank into which its roots burrowed.  Using Prismacolor to depict the tree is a very different medium, as compared to graphite or silverpoint, with its wide range of tone and its waxy quality that can lead to build-up on the paper.  Like silverpoint, Prismacolor does not allow erasure.  So the experiment was about flying blind, to a certain extent.

Another venture I tried was to look around me with fresh eyes, to try and see possible subject matter that was totally new and different for me. It is always tempting to return to the same types of subject matter in art -in essence to stay in a zone of comfort and depict things/places/people with which you are familiar.  I am not sure, however, that one grows a great deal if you are always doing the same things - whether it is making the same pastries over and over again, using similar phrases only when learning a new language or doing the same things again and again in art-making.  Charles Hawthorne, the American painter who founded the Cape Cod School of Art, declared that "in his attempt to develop the beauty he sees, the artist develops himself"...  In other words, try putting on new spectacles in life.

I spent some time prowling along the wonderful interface between salt marsh and high ground, with sunlight filtering through the many live oaks, cedars and palmettos.  But what I finally "saw" was the wonderful patterning of the marshwrack, the amazing amalgam of dead stalks of the Spartina alterniflora or Cord grass, the essence of the salt marshes of the South Eastern coast.  The high tide gathers up these dead stalks and deposits them in wonderful rafts  at the high water mark along the banks and higher ground.  There, they eventually break down, aided by the activities of a myriad small crabs and insects, and contribute to the enrichment of the marshes and salt water, nourishing all life in the marshland nurseries.  This marshwrack was the subject of my next drawing experiment, using metalpoint to follow its rhythms and weavings.  Gold, copper and silver followed the Spartina's patterns,a meditation about life, decay and new developments, both for the marshes and, I hope, for my art.

The White of Paper

I have drawing on Stonehenge paper, which I find so responsive (http://www.legionpaper.com/) and the white of the paper came again to the fore. It is fascinating how the white of the surface on which one is painting or drawing suddenly takes on its own life and begins to dictate.

Initially there can be the white paper fright - rare, I have to admit, but it happens. This is when one is totally intimidated by that pristine white surface facing one on the drawing board. It is so pure, so virgin, so unsullied. Where on earth does one start? And CAN one even start sensibly? But then that stage passes, usually pretty quickly because one is already all involved with the project already and anxious to move ahead.

Once into the work, the decisions as to where to leave the white of the surface, or even if to do so, become more interesting. And the paper itself begins to talk and dictate. White is a powerful colour; it is not just the negative part where one has not put colour. It can hold its own against all comers, and can even dominate too much unless care is taken. And, of course, it does not have to be pure white - I draw on cream papers where the same situation pertains. Since, ideally, I try to adhere to the concept of "less is more", that plays hugely into the role that white can play, particularly in a drawing. It is all a balancing act, where a sense of composition becomes important. And of course, it becomes fun and interesting, because you never know if you or the white of the paper is going to "win".

I think every artist should cultivate their own personal relationship with that powerful player, Lady White, because it can lead to endlessly rewarding dialogues and good art.












The Three Feathers

metalpoint/watercolour

Metalpoint's Voices

Sometimes, when I am working in silverpoint - or metalpoint, when I include gold or copper in the drawings - I find that there is a wonderful parallel to music and musical instruments in these shimmering lines.  Perhaps my imagination runs away with me - who knows!

I find that the pure, simple line produced by silver being passed over a surface prepared with ground reminds me of the ineffable beauty of a boy's soprano voice as it floats out into Gothic vaults and dies away to a whisper.



Perhaps  a drawing like Solitaire, Wild Acres could illustrate what I mean for the silver lines are essentially simple.  As I drew this image, the mountain air was crisp and thin, again a suitable parallel to a soprano voice.

When the silver lines are more sustained and yet their delicacy is evident, silverpoint reminds me of violins.  The range and subtlety of this instrument is echoed in silverpoint's capabilities.  This drawing, Balsam Mountain Beech, shows some of these characteristics and was great fun to "orchestrate" as the leaves curled more and more as they dried out during the time I drew them.

Silverpoint allows for deeper, complex tones, such as those of a violoncello.  Sometimes the choice of ground for the paper surface will allow these darker, more sonorous voices to emerge from the silver lines, just as the cello sings in that wonderful lower register.  A Day at Manassas Bog allowed me to explore this aspect of silverpoint, for the subject matter, all dried plants, seemed to resonate with deep memories of past seasons.

Even the sound of a human whisper has a parallel, I feel, in some ways of using silverpoint.  Often whispers go from soft to loud, or vice versa.  They seem staccato, truncated, random, muffled ... at times.  This  drawing, Mist on the River, made me think of whispered voices carrying on the river Edisto as I sat quietly on the bank, early one fresh spring morning.

Perhaps I am being more fanciful than ever, but a drawing like Grevillea makes me think of a piano playing.  The Grevillea tree is so wonderful in its silver-white to dark green-black and its pulsating energy sets up rhythms and harmonies that seem to echo those one hears so often, with delight, from a piano being skilfully played.  The leaves are sturdy, yet light, and the branches tough and resistant - similar to aspects of the piano, an instrument of such versatility. 

My last "interpretation" of silverpoint's voices: when all the lines are working, some light, some dark, some deep, some quiet, but all in miraculous harmony, then one can perhaps think of the drawing as paralleling an orchestra playing.  Rhythms, pauses, simple passages and complex moments... a drawing can have those aspects that one finds also in an orchestra.  Fallen Palmetto, while I was drawing this complicated pattern, made me think of such an orchestral performance.

Sometimes, drawing can become even more fun to do when one imagines other aspects of the medium.  I love listening to all the voices that silver, gold and copper can produce.  It enriches the whole experience of drawing in metalpoint.

From Reading about Art to a Metalpoint Show

Threading my way between matters of health, matters of daily life and delights ranging from markets that are a visual and sensual feast of fresh produce to turquoise-sapphire seas sparkling enticingly, I keep trying to remember I am supposed to be an artist!



A reminder of this came this week with the opening of "Luminous Metal: Contemporary Drawings in Metalpoint" at the Clement Art Gallery in Troy, New York. Despite Hurricane Irene being in evidence in the area, apparently there was a goodly number of people at the reception. Photos of the show can be seen on Facebook. I was one of ten artists invited to exhibit in this show, something I was delighted about. We each had to submit three pieces for the show, and judging by the photos and sneak preview, we are all as diverse as possible... which of course makes for a fascinating exhibition when it comes to savouring of the wide range of possibilities even within this relatively narrow medium of silverpoint/metalpoint.



Meanwhile, threading though my daily life, I keep dipping into a truly interesting book which I found recently. Entitled "Artists' Techniques and Materials", it was written by Antonella Fuga, translated into English by Rosanna M. Giammanco Frongia, and published by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 2006. One of the simple reasons I looked at it originally in the Royal Academy bookshop in London was that it was one of the few books dealing with artistic techniques and media which talked of silverpoint. (I found some seemingly definitive and weightly tomes on drawing there, which did not even mention the words "silverpoint" or "metalpoint" - shame on the authors, for they did not do their homework.)



I soon realised, however, that the book I did buy by Ms. Fuga is a gem. It is teaching me, in succinct and clear fashion, with wonderful, annotated illustrations, about media in a way that has me enthralled. Not only are drawing media talked of, but all manner of other media - printmaking, painting, sculpture, mosaic and intarsia, ceramics, glass, metalwork and jewellry, as well as contemporary techniques. Within each discipline, there are a myriad techniques explained, many of which are new to me ... filigree glass, reticello work in glass, scagliola intarsia.. for instance. There is a page of text for each, so that you learn enough about each technique to be at least sensible about it - and it is a door opened to further exploration if you want. Such fun!



It certainly keeps reminding me of the privilege of belonging to this great band of incredibly diverse artists, one that has existed since time immemorial in such intensity, imagination and skill.