Bored with Bare Ladies?

Bare Lady in acrylic

No, I find that despite several terms of life drawing and life painting I am still not bored with the bare ladies. The nude figure is endlessly fascinating. Whilst some naked bodies are more aesthetically pleasing than others (and obviously nobody really wants to see a naked man!) each body, each pose and each situation brings new challenges in shape and form, light, shade, and colour. This example is my most recent, the final project on the painting course at the Art Academy on Southwark Street. I’m sorry the term has ended as it’s been a good class with very friendly people and a brilliant teacher.

I’m not sure what class to do next really. Carry on with the life painting I guess, and maybe now that I’m more confident with paint I might go back to the City Lit. I am going there to do a video editing course in April/May but that’s a different thing altogether. Yes maybe the City Lit, because I did like the teacher there too. And come to think of it my life drawing tutor at the Central St Martin’s was great too. So what ever I do next I will aim to stick with painting bare ladies, confident in the knowledge that a nice teacher will come around and tell me if I’ve got the proportions wrong or the limbs in the wrong place.

And if it wasn’t for this blog, where could I display the bare ladies. Let’s face it, the family don’t want to eat their dinner looking at a bunch of bare lady pictures.

Better or Worse?

Self-portrait with more paint

So here it is. The same picture with more paint applied. Is it better or worse? One (family member) critic asked “why the beard?” so I guess the shadow is a bit heavy. Somebody also said it was an unhappy picture. Well that’s just how it came out, I didn’t feel unhappy whist painting it. Anyway we move on.

The self-portrait was followed last week by some painting to music. It felt a bit odd, I must say. Listen to the music and paint what it conjures up, a picture without a model or solid subject to work from. Once I got going it was strangely liberating. The class had several goes at this to different pieces of music and after each one all the paintings went up on the wall. There was of course a huge variation between them and we discussed the various approaches, use of colour and mark making. It was great fun, but I did put pictures straight in the bin at the end of the evening.

This week it was back to more serious stuff. We bagan a life painting and the model will be back next week so we can finish off. I didn’t take a photograph of the work in progress so will just have to wait until it’s finished. I was much relieved though to find we had a female model sprawled naked on the cushions. A bare lady is Art, but frankly nobody really wants to spend an evening looking at a naked man!

It’s Life Jim, but not as we know it

Self Portrait

After last week’s disaster which was too awful to put on here until I get round to painting over it with some corrections, this week’s lesson was the first of two sessions painting a self-portrait. Does it still count as Life Painting, I wonder, when you yourself are the model? It’s a bit like Charlie Chaplin being both sides of the camera when making his films.

Now I don’t want to tempt fate, but I feel quite pleased with the way it’s going so far. Lot’s more to do to it yet. Only half way through as the time goes, so does that mean the painting is half way through? My main worry is that next week I will do too much to it and keep trying to improve it by slapping on more and more paint. How will I know when to stop? Sometimes less is more. Well we shall see. So the questions I’m asking today are:

1. How do you know when the painting is finished?
2. Does it still count as Life Painting when you are both model and artist (and fully clothed!)

If anyone can suggest answers to these please let me know.

Painting with a Palette Knife

Paint slapped on with a palette knife

Well three weeks in to my new painting course and not a great deal to show for it yet. It’s at the Art Academy on Southwark Street (so handy for the Tate Modern) and the teacher is full of enthusiasm, support and positivity which is helpful if you produce the sort of nonsense I usually do.

Week one was charcol sketches, fun but I put mine in the bin. Week two was a study in light and shade, so at least we got to use some paint. We had to paint a collection of white objects on a white cloth paying atention to tone and shadow, which was exacting. I did bring the picture home but probably won’t bother to put it up on here as it’s a bit obscure, especially if you didn’t see the original objects. And week three, this study in yellow. The thing about this was that we had to abandon the brushes and use only the palete knife, which I had never done before. The result is a mess as you can see but it was great fun. I really enjoyed slapping the paint on and plastering it all over the place. It is a quick way to paint, though as always the picture would have been better for a little bit more time. Lesson four tomorrow night, I wonder what that will bring.

Life Painting on Canvas

Girl with a Balloon, acrylic on canvas

Unfinished as yet, and rather rough, but here is my first attempt at painting on canvas. Taking the advice of a friend I told the model I was not painting her, thereby excusing in advance the fact that it doesn’t look like her. More work to do on this so update coming soon – assuming it looks better not worse!

Unfinished Nude

Unfinished Nude

Oh how frustrating is that! Despite being a pose held for two lessons I still didn’t get finished. I really wanted to come away with a finished painting, but the teacher kept pointing out the improvements required in the drawing and I had to make adjustments here and there. She said it was better to have a well drawn unfinished picture than a finished but wrong one and I guess she was right. But what now? The term is finished. Do I leave the picture unfinished or just buy some acrylics of my own and finish it from memory/imagination. I mean it’s not like I want to frame it and have a great big naked man on my living room wall, but I would so have liked to complete the work.

Now the question is what to do next. Of course I draw when I can but it’s so hard to paint or even draw in everyday life. I need a regular class to keep me going. More life painting, or life drawing, or maybe portraiture would be good. It would be nice to make my drawings look like the actual people they are of.

Painting Without Nudes?

Watercolour painting of an old pub

Just for a change, and because nobody will sit still for me, I abandoned Life study today and did this watercolour of my local pub. It looks a bit pinker and a bit more ramshackle than the real thing but on the whole I don’t think it’s too bad. Maybe I could offer it to the landlord in exchange for a free beer or two. OK maybe just a diet coke. Whatever. I will be glad to get back to my Life class tomorrow.

Another Bare Lady Painting (am I getting any better at this?)

Bare Lady Reclining

Well this week’s painting effort is shown. As always I found the drawing hard so, whilst bits of the picture might work OK on their own I don’t think they combine to make a believable human form as a whole. Something has gone a bit wrong with the relative positions of the head, shoulders and breasts, and the fore-shortened arm is much too small. That said, I do feel like I can see some progress at last. A few areas of the body have worked out quite well. One of the good things I learned in this lesson is to slap the paint on a bit thicker. We are using acrylics but the teacher said I was using it like watercolour and would I try using more paint. I am going to take her advice and thicken up my paintings from now on!

Paint!

After thinking that life drawing was hard, this week I started a new class in life painting and discovered that it’s a lot harder. I’ve signed up for a course at the City Lit, great as it’s half the price of Central Saint Martin’s and the materials are included. Sure enough we got three brushes each, paper and paint. There were boxes of palettes and jam jars. Everything the budding artist could wish. Er, except ability. We used only black and white acrylic paint, and had to start by using a very pale wash to “draw” the model, then once the composition was correct apply more paint. Well, by the end of the class everyone had a finished monochrome painting, everyone except me that is. I was still drawing, still trying to get the shapes and proportions right.

No picture to post on the blog for you (not that it was worth seeing!) because they get stored in a drawer in the class room. I guess this is so that at the end of the course they can pull out the crap from week one and say how much we have improved and learned. So I hope my painting improves by then!  Frustrated but not dis-heartened, I am looking forward to next week.

Writing on the Wall

For ages I meant to go and photograph the Banksy “One Nation Under CCTV” work on the wall of the Post Office yard in Newman Street. Then I read in the paper that I was too late, the powers that be had it painted out. Sure enough the next time I went up Newman Street there was a neat, freshly painted rectangle of Wermacht Grey. But wait, all is not lost. The words still show through the paint! Great, I thought, I can come back with my camera and photograph it after all, diminished, but not quite suppressed.

One Nation Under CCTV, scaffolding and paint

So today I went back to Newman Street with my camera, but for the second time I was too late to take my picture. I guess I was not the only person to notice you could still read the message, because the scaffolding is back and I think they must be giving it more coats of Wermacht Grey until everything is obliterated.

Unless of course the scaffolding belongs to Banksy and he’s putting his painting back on top.