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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 sketchbooks
Working 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 figures
A painting to consider: Weight’s ‘The Day of Doom’
What have you achieved?

3: Movement
Introduction
Creating a sense of movement
Theoretical studies
Project 4: movement
A painting to consider: Severini’s ‘Suburban Train Arriving in Paris’
What have you achieved?

4: Relating to other artists

Introduction
Theoretical studies
Project 5: a personal statement
5: Introducing the extended project

6: Art from art

Introduction
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
What have you achieved?

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 studies
A note on the projects
 Project 14: a portrait
Project 15: a nude
Project 16: a portrait group
What have you achieved?

10: Abstraction and the abstract

Introduction
Theoretical studies
A note on the projects
Project 17: a minimal seascape
Project 18: a grid painting
Project 19: constructionist painting
Project 20: a painter’s mathematics
What have you achieved?

11: Themes and ideas

Introduction
Project 21: themes and ideas
What have you achieved?

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 are
reproduced 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 painting
there 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 you
to 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 most
important. 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 more
information 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 different
studies, 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. Frances
Spalding, 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 slight
differences 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.

What have you achieved?

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.