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Painting 2: Finding Your Way

Written by Ian Simpson



Contents

Introduction: developing as an artist

You and your course

The painting course books

Making progress

The paints for the course

Other items required

Keeping sketchbooksWorking from photographs

Notebooks and logbooks

Visiting museums and art galleries

Annotating

Theoretical studies

Reading and books for the course

Keeping your logbook

Amateur and professional painting

Aims and structure of the course

Your and your tutor

The aims of this course

The projects

Project and tutorial plan

Notes for students tutored by post

A working pattern

Student profile

Your tutor

1: Painting animals

Introduction



Animals and sentimentality

Painting moving animals

An opportunity to combine oils and acrylics

Painting from direct observation or drawings

Theoretical studies

What you will need

Project 1: painting animals

A painting to consider: Bacon’s ‘Study of a Dog’

What have you achieved?

2: Moving figures

Introduction

Deciding on a suitable subject

Making a working drawing

Theoretical studies

Project 2: figures in an interior

Deciding on a second subject

Drawing moving figures

Project 3: moving figuresA painting to consider: Weight’s ‘The Day of Doom’


3: Movement

Introduction

Creating a sense of movement

Theoretical studies

Project 4: movement

A painting to consider: Severini’s ‘Suburban Train Arriving in Paris’


4: Relating to other artists

Introduction

Theoretical studies

Project 5: a personal statement



5: Introducing the extended project

6: Art from artIntroduction

Theoretical studies

What you will need

A note on the three projects

Project 6: analysis of a painting

Project 7: in the style of …

Project 8: extending a reproduction What have you achieved?

7: Painting without paint

Introduction

Theoretical studies

What you will need

A Note on the projects

Project 9: a collage

Project 10: painting and collage


8: Painting from objects

Introduction

Theoretical studies

A Note on the Projects

Project 11: a single object

Project 12: a landscape

Project 13: the urban scene

9: painting people

Introduction

Theoretical studiesA note on the projects



Project 14: a portrait

Project 15: a nude

Project 16: a portrait group


10: Abstraction and the abstract

Introduction

Theoretical studies

A note on the projects

Project 17: a minimal seascape

Project 18: a grid paintingProject 19: constructionist painting

Project 20: a painter’s mathematics


11: Themes and ideas

Introduction

Project 21: themes and ideas


Looking ahead

If you plan to submit your work for formal assessment

Skills

Knowledge

Invention

Judgement

Theoretical studies and the logbook

The logbook

Written work

The assessment portfolio

Allocation of marks

Specific requirements for each grade



Introduction: developing as an

artist

In Painting 1: Starting to Paint I said that learning to paint was something like

learning to ride a bicycle. I began Painting 2: Relating to Other Artists with a

quotation from Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first President of the Royal Academy,

saying that the popular concept of art-making was that it was 'a kind of

inspiration ... a gift bestowed upon peculiar favourites at birth' but that in fact

it is the 'result of long labour and application'. Eric Gill (1882-1940), a very

versatile artist himself (a wood engraving and a marble relief by him arereproduced on page 76 of British Art), dismissed, in a different way, the

notion of the artist as a specially gifted individual. 'I don't and never did like

'flairs', he wrote in his autobiography, 'How can you like something you can't

get by trying?'

But playing down 'flairs' and 'gifts' in the artist's make-up doesn't mean that

individualism shouldn't be encouraged - far from it. From the very beginning

of the Painting Course, in fact from the first paragraph in Painting 1: Starting

to Paint, I have been encouraging you to paint 'what appeals to you'. Even

earlier in the Introduction to the Painting 1: Starting to Paint course book I

told you that 'While anyone can learn to paint, not everyone can be a great

artist. Everyone however is a special kind of artist because each person is

different'. In Painting 2: Finding Your Way I will be placing more emphasis

on this 'difference' and on painting 'what appeals to you'. I will be asking you

to start to think about how you relate to the many different kinds of paintingthere are and the different ways in which artists work. I want you to begin to

examine your own beliefs and to consider how you see yourself as an artist.

The Painting 2: Finding Your Way course assumes that you have successfully

completed Painting 1: Starting to Paint and Painting 2: Relating to Other

Artists and that you can devote at least 7 hours and more probably, on

average, 10 - 12 hours a week to study on your own. The working pattern

established in the first two courses, of practical projects which are completed



in time for your attendance at tutorials or for sending to your tutor as part of

an assignment, is similar in the third. The course is planned with ten tutorials

(if you are tutored face-to-face) or five assignments (if tutored by post) just

like the first two courses.

Painting 2: Finding Your Way continues your studies from the previous

course but it has its own identity which I have already mentioned. It

encourages you to think more about your own particular view of the world

and how you intend to recreate it in paint. In the previous two courses I have

constantly asked you to try working in a particular way or to investigate a

particular subject. In this course I will be encouraging you to become more

self-reliant and independent. There will however be specific things I want youto attempt but more choice of projects and a wider use of painting mediums

possible.

One of the features of Painting 2: Relating to Other Artists was that you were

required to spend a longer period of time developing an idea for painting

than previously. There was also one project which extended throughout the

course so that you had to keep it in mind constantly. In Painting 2: Finding

Your Way you are expected to spend approximately the same amount of time

on each project as last year - four weeks - and there is an extended project

which will take you considerably longer than this.

The first three sections of this course book, like many in Painting 2: Relating

to Other Artists, have particular paintings by distinguished artists that you

are asked to consider. There are also illustrations by OCA tutors and students

which I am certain you will find stimulating and a source of inspiration.

To obtain the most from this course you will need to follow-up the references

to artists, past and present. In the next section, 'You and Your Course', I will

be reminding you about ways in which you can find out more about artists,

both those artists referred to in the text and others.

The amount of time you will need to spend on painting and other study can

only be described in vague terms because it is difficult to estimate, for



example, how long the study of other artists, mentioned above, will take. To

an extent it will depend on your access to books, museums and galleries and

it will also depend on your reasons for following this course.

We recognise that, for some students, the primary reason for doing the course

is the practical work. This work alone - and some may feel it is all they have

time for - we estimate will take you about 7 hours per week. Although it is

only through the practice of painting itself that you can improve your skill as

a painter and try out your ideas, one of your important sources of inspiration

should be your knowledge of other artists' work. This involves you in looking

at reproductions or preferably actual pictures, learning about them and

developing an attitude towards them. These theoretical studies are mostimportant. They provide comparisons for your own work and working

methods, help to develop your judgement and will raise the level of your

achievement as a painter. The practical and theoretical work together we

estimate will take you, on average, 10-12 hours a week but even if you only

spare 6 to 7 hours a week we strongly recommend that an hour or so of that

time should be given up to broader Theoretical Studies and the development

of a logbook.

If you intend to register for assessment, concentrating solely or almost

entirely on the practical work will be insufficient. You will be required to

submit for assessment a logbook which, together with your sketchbook(s) and

notebook, will play an important part in enabling the assessors to form an

opinion of your overall achievement as a student. These books make it

possible for you to be given credit for good ideas - even when these haven't

been developed into completely successful paintings. There is moreinformation on the logbook in the next section.

Many of us have a tendency to skim over the introductions to books - and

course books are no exception. If you happen to have skimmed this far, please

go back and read carefully through this Introduction. The next section 'You

and Your Course' must also be read carefully. Don't start the practical projects

without first having read it. It contains information which is indispensable if

you wish to have your work assessed. For those not intending to register for



assessment it is also very important if you wish to gain the maximum benefit

from this course.



Project 17: a minimal seascape



Merete Bates (OCA tutor): Three sea studies. Pastal on paper.

Each approximately 18 cm x 25 cm

Make several studies based on a seascape, with just the sky and a flat calm

sea. You don’t need to visit the seaside - visualise the sea and sky and make

the simplest statement you can. When you have made, say, six differentstudies, develop one into a large painting.

At first this may seem a very limited project but it will show you, for example,

how difficult it is to decide on the best division of the painting rectangle by

the horizon line and compel you to explore how colour can best be used to

create the illusion of the flat receding sea. Can it, for example, possibly be

painted in a single colour? The colours you use need not be based on nature.

Try different colour combinations for sky and sea.

In The Story of Art the painting by Nicolas de Stael, ‘Agrigento’ shows how a

few simple shapes and colours can be used to evoke a landscape with a strong

feeling of light and space.



Project 19: constructionist painting

Some abstract painters develop a ‘system’ for their paintings. FrancesSpalding, in British Art since 1900 (pages 176 - 184) describes the work of some

such ‘Constructionists’. She points to the underlying logic, often of a

mathematical kind, which these artists gave their work in the hope that this

measure and order would infiltrate the environment to good effect.

You might consider making a relief (which many of the Constructionists

made instead of paintings) using card or thin pieces of wood or metal. You

could however try to develop a system for painting. This could, for example,

be based on proportional divisions of your painting, restricting certain

colours to particular areas. You do not have to limit yourself to a grid of

horizontals and verticals. Circles, curves and zigzag shapes, for example, can

be developed into a personal ‘measure and order’.

Make at least four studies and develop one into a relief or painting.



Project 20: a painter’s mathematics

Priscilla Fursdon: Studies for the project – A Painter’s Mathematics

The Spanish painter Juan Gris (1887 - 1927) gave a lecture at the Sorbonne in

Paris in 1923 called ‘On the Possibilities of Painting’. It appears in the

appendices to Juan Gris - His Life and Work by Kahnweiler (Lund Humphries,

1947). The whole lecture is a tortuous read, but the following are the main

points.

• true architecture cannot be broken up into parts which combine, like

oxygen and hydrogen do to become water. A motor car is not

architecture. It is merely a ‘construction’.

• painting is flat coloured architecture and not construction.

• it is based on the relationship between colours and the forms which

contain them.

• how do forms correspond to colours?• flat forms have two properties: size and quality.



• examples of qualities of form are: circle, equilateral triangle.

• quality does not change, but size can.

• colours also have two properties, quality (hue) and intensity.

• hue does not change but intensity can.

Gris, using his terms defined above, went on to make a number of statements.

1. The size of a form is not of great importance; colour intensity can

substitute for size. Hence, if there are two forms of similar quality but

different size (such as two squares, one larger than the other) and these

forms are of the same hue (e.g. red) the smaller one will seem as large as

the other if its intensity is greater. [This, of course, only applies to slightdifferences in size!]

2. Some colours are luminous and expansive, others darker and more

concentrated. Some forms are expansive (e.g. curvilinear ones) as

opposed to concentrated (rectilinear) ones.

3. Some colours are warm (tending towards red) others cold (tending

towards blue). Forms are colder the more geometrical they are. Freely

shaped forms are warm.

4. Some colours (earth colours) are heavy and dense. Some forms have an

accentuated sense of gravity - symmetrical forms are heavier than

asymmetrical ones.

5. Opposition of colours equals contrasts of forms.

Gris called these statements a form of ‘painter’s mathematics’ which can

establish the composition (in his terms the ‘architecture’) of a painting. He

proposed that a painter could assemble a variety of elements in his paintings

and balance them by applying the analogies in the statements above.

It is interesting to read that he went on to say that abstract forms arranged in

the above way could then be turned into representations of objects. ‘The



power of suggestion in every painting is considerable. Every spectator tends

to ascribe his own subject to it. One must force, anticipate and satisfy this

suggestion.’

Once you have grasped what Gris is proposing, try out what he states in 1 to

5 above and test in several studies how you can achieve balance. Develop one

study into a larger painting making ‘pictorial architecture’ along the lines of

Gris’s ‘painter’s mathematics’. You could turn this painting into a

representational painting.

Allocation of time

The time allocated is four weeks. Depending on the size of the finished

paintings and the amount of research undertaken, complete one or two of the

above projects in this time.


Don’t forget to keep asking questions of yourself, and to record this self-

appraisal in your logbook.

This is a sample from Painting 2: Finding Your Way. The full course contains 5 tutor-

assessed Assignments.