INSIGHT

Up to a lovely sunrise before the last day of our ArtHouse Week.  Gaining insights is one of the secrets to success in life.  See something others can't and it gives you an advantage.  Understanding the world around you better makes life more enjoyable.  This week has been full of insight.  Using different materials to represent what I see and giving thought to how colours, textures, tones fit together or fight each other has been a real education.  Spending a whole week on the process brings something new each day and gives a deeper appreciation of what there is to see if you keep looking deeper through an artists eye.  A big insight has been following emotion and feelings this week and pushing thoughts to one side.  This is frightening as the thoughts fight to get back in and warn you repeatedly of the dangers  ahead.  But as I let go of them I went to some interesting places and some pleasing effects emerged.  As ever coffee at La Glorieta this morning where we meet Julia having her morning coffee.

I work on Penelope today on my newsprint prepared canvas.  Julia stresses the importance of putting constraints to one side and letting the idea have its own pathway.  She repeats our lesson of first the foundation (structure/drawing), then information (tonal values) and finally effect (colour).  So here goes.
Foundation.....

Information.....

Effect.......

Karen continues with her scene and then while it dries goes in to effects of texture and paint.

Lunch at La Glorieta is a treat.  A homemade Fideau con pescado presented by Julia.

What an amazing week.  I think we will do it again and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who wants to explore their artistic side.  Julia shows me I am exploring Fauvism and shows me some great examples.  I finish the afternoon preparing a canvas with collage for another representation of Penelope.  I will varnish over this collage and then go in with paint to develop an effect.  And then we will let the idea take its own path.  Great job Julia, wonderful week and thanks. xxxx

For anyone interested in working with Julia go check out her website and make contact.  I cannot recommend her highly enough. http://www.arthouseonline.net/

SHIFTS

Today the plan is to do the same image of Antonio as yesterday but on a newsprint prepared canvas as background.  I have an idea of pink as my light colour and need to find what works with pink for a dark and mid tone.  As ever google comes to my aid as I type in 'colour combinations' and find a site that allows me to look at combinations that work in diad, triad and any 'ad you want.  So pink with a green as mid tone and brown as the dark tone is my choice.   Coffee at Balesta after the breathtaking drive in to Benidoleig.

First shift of the day is the newspaper canvas is not ready.  Oil on paper will absorb and give unpredictable results.  So first task is to prime this surface with varnish which will not dry until tomorrow.  So I take my canvas primed in black gloss and get my mind round painting on this.  The shift idea I have is to take the same shapes and tones from the Antonio deconstructed face and using the same colours switch the lights and darks.  So yellow for dark tone and blue for light tone.  Chalk gridding and outline and set out the picture ready for action.

Meanwhile Karen is working on her Spanish scene.  On the way in she talks admiringly of the sky she has done and that no matter what Julia says she is going to insist they don't varnish over it.

Karen and Julia applying varnish to the sky under the watchful eye of Mary.  Does look good and Karen is happy.  She creates some fantastic effects creating an amazing tree and a multi textured landscape.

By lunch time I have my shifted reverse tone image first version ready.  Ominously Julia says we need a long chat after lunch.....but lets go eat first.

Lunch at Bar Ballesta is Patatas Bravas with spicy sauce, Patatas Fritas and various Bocadillo.

The long chat starts with 'so why doesn't this one work as well as the first version'.  Karen's distraction by the red high heel shoe in the right cheek is not the answer.  It is all about the relationship of the shapes to each other.   They don't quite work in the way they did yesterday.  Also there is a dissonance with the tonal colours the wrong way round.  The afternoon task is to make something of the picture.  Don't think, just feel is the instruction.  Bring in a range of tones and see what evolves.  I put the brushes away and play with the paint with my finger, blur some edges, bring in some white to blend with the colour on the canvas and move things around.  Very enjoyable and learnt lots as I followed my feelings.

Karen continued working her masterpiece to great effect and is creating a fabulous piece of work.

COMBINATIONS

Today we give thought to what combinations work.  Which colours combine in a pleasing way, what base should they go on, do we want movement in the brushstroke or to make it smooth and which brush should we use?  Should the paint be thick or thin.  I play with brushes on my iphone to try out colour combinations and decide on cadmium red, cadmium yellow and prussian blue.

We stop off at Bar Banesta for our morning coffee and planning session.  I decide to go for Antonio rather than Penelope.  A change overnight giving a bigger challenge.

Karen gets to work on her Spanish riverbed bringing in her stipling, textures and varnish.

I start with the turquoise primed canvas.  I have lots of fun building light layers with oil and turps to consider the effect.  I like it and Julia encourages me on.  On with the thicker paint and bringing movement in to the fragments.  It starts to feel good but I don't know when to stop.  Take out my iphone and add colours in via brushes app and see what might work and what will not.  Stand back, think and notice how it feels.  Stop.  That is about right for now.

Karen ends the day in the detention room (that is what we call the back room) and is happy with her palet knife developing some amazing effects.

Julia carries on teaching other students, keeping an eye on us and making helpful comments when we need a nudge.  I reflect more on the artistic process and how an artist might spend their life developing the insight they have stumbled upon in to the representation they want to show.  Each time saying next time I will get it right.  So close but next time yes.  I am already thinking about my work tomorrow on my newsprint covered canvas.  What other colours work, what other combinations can I bring together?

THE ARTISTIC PROCESS

There is truth in the statement that the more you look the more you see.  Today was about taking the play from yesterday and trying it out on images we are interested in.  Karen is going for landscape and texture and I am going for faces and deconstruction.  I took images of Antonio and Penelope and explored how few shapes and colours can make a representation.  Each iteration prompted more ideas and I begin to see how the artistic process works.  Have an idea, play, explore, trial and error, discover, along comes a new idea, play, explore, trial and error and so on for a lifetime.

  Julia and Karen in to the fine art of varnish, glue and paper.

Karen dipped in varnish.

After a coffee at Bar Glorieta on the square and a walk around the Campo collecting grit and sand for Karen's priming we returned for the afternoon session.  I have prepared three canvases with one primed in black gloss, one in paper/glue/coffee granules and one in turquoise.  Tomorrow I plan (at the moment!) to do the same image on the three different backgrounds to see what effect we get.  Penelope is my subject and I had a go at a dry run with pastels on paper this afternoon.

Karen and Julia have lots of fun stippling.

PLAYDAY

To get to the ARTHOUSE studio in Benidoleig we drive through Orange groves with mountains on either side and a view to the Mediterranean behind us.  We don't see any traffic or another soul, the scenery is breathtaking and we feel lucky to be alive.  We go for a coffee at Bar Balesta across the road from the studio and review the material we have gathered.  I feel at ease and curious about what the day and the week will bring.

As soon as we see Julia we feel at home.  It is such a great place to be.  A welcoming hug, other artists there who are always a mix of interesting and friendly people and it just feels good.  We go through our project ideas as Julia puts the kettle on and talks us through our PLAYDAY.  She has assembled a huge array of materials for us to explore with.  Chalks, pastels (oil and chalk), charcoal, powder paint, glue, tissue paper, watercolours and crayons.  The idea today is to get rid of thoughts and constraints and play with different media and see what happens.  I vow to ignore the judging thoughts and just be a child again.

What great fun and surprising results.  We spent the morning playing with wet on wet, using oil based material then spreading water products on top to see the effect of them not mixing.  Lots of differing effects and lots of learning.  Antonio Banderos has never seen himself in so many different ways!  The morning disappeared in a blink as it always does at Arthouse with Julia.

After lunch at Bar Balesta it was back to attempt more measured versions of pictures we had created in the morning.  Again great learning as I discover you can't correct watercolour in the same way you can oils.  Also how difficult it is to get the different media to stay in the places you want them to be.  Thoughts keep rushing to the fore 'let me back to the comfort of oils...please please'.  As Julia sees me struggling with my media my final task today is to break my pictures down in light, dark and mid tone shapes.  This is preparation for some collage work tomorrow.

Exhausted but fully energised from the experience today.  A wonderful way to spend a day and it did actually feel like being a child again.

An Artistic Adventure

I have lived most of my life dominated by my left brain.  I can plan, organise, manage, implement and review.  I can analyse, consider, argue and present a well structured opinion of what is going on.  But I am not artistic, can't draw or paint or create music.  I have a right brain but it has been a slave to the scientific and commercial world of my life.  So it is time for an adventure at ArtHouse in Benidoleig to explore what happens if I paint and create for a week.  Who knows where it will go and the most important thing is not to plan too much.  Maybe I can/can't paint and can/can't create.  Who cares....this is an adventure.
Julia has asked what excites me as I think about this week that starts on Monday.  What has surfaced is an idea called España.  The more I explore and learn about Spain the more diversity and beauty I see.  It is a country of contradictions, energy, dramatic landscapes and full of personality.  As I prepare I noticed tension as my drive to perform comes to the fore.  I notice this and breathe and relax.  Whatever happens this week the intention is to notice and be interested and not to judge.
I am taking some initial ideas in.  Faces interest me so I have taken some images of Antonio Banderas, Penelope Cruz and Salvador Dali.  I am interested in deconstructing different parts of their faces and seeing what comes out for me.  I would like to explore what would happen if I do this with the Spanish colours of yellow and red.  But that is probably enough to start me off and see where I go.
I start Monday at 10.30 and finish Friday at 17.30 and will capture what happens as this adventure unfolds.