I am not planning to make a long review of each meeting, only those where I am not present. However, it is useful to have notes from each meeting to keep as a record of everyone's ongoing projects.
I have to say, I was SO impressed by the amount of progress that had been made since I had last seen the work - maybe less of me is a good thing!!
First, we had JANE's work. It was a chance to see, in the flesh, the work illustrated in the last posting. Inevitably, some of the colour relationships were a little different for real, rather than in reproduction. We discussed the thorny issue of colour relationships / tonal relationships. Jane had both things happening in her work, well controlled, and intelligently laid out (ie. not dotted around all over the place). She especially had good neutral colours, all working hard to support the more brilliant colours. However, she still needs to consider which facility is going to create the primary statement of the painting - colour or tone. They were tending to come through equally strongly, creating a bit of a confusion as to where to look first. Think of a hierarchy. Everything can be in there, but which one do you look at first? A strong tonal statement is often what leads you in, and then you can fully appreciate the colour nuances.
Her best compositions were the ones where the image was tightly contained within the frame, with shapes reaching to the edges, rather than floating in the middle.
Then PENNY produced some really interesting work, with a great statement about the fact that she wanted 'the paint to do the work'. This is a great step for Penny, whose intellect usually dictates the composition and content too much, not allowing enough room for 'things' to happen as the painting progresses, and moves away from the drawing. She had two oils, which were especially interesting as a development. There was definitely room for dreaming in some of her pieces.
GERALD laid out loads of work, which had taken huge steps since last time. He had done a copy of a John Piper painting, and this experience has fed all sorts of new ideas into his own work. The thing that was particularly striking was the mark-making/scratching/ drawing/ texturing - brilliant. His colours were being put to use very intelligently, and the whole thing was great.
ELIZABETH had produced a couple of pieces where she had worked with different colours at one tone (again!), but this time, I think the penny dropped! The subsequent work was full of richness and colour, combined with her distinctive use of tone and marks. We were all struck by how free she is when using mediums other than watercolour, and encouraged her to use whatever she needs to to get what she needs. Just because a piece is done using felt pens and wax crayons doesn't make it a lesser work! Having said all this, there was also one very sweet 'pure' watercolour - simple and lyrical.
MAGGIE was feeling a bit despondent, having reached a point with her 'wandering line' work where it wasn't stimulating her any more. Her use of colour in the pieces she did show us was definitely more developed, but she was just fed up with them! So, a very sideways step is needed next time.
PAT K.'s work was simply lovely. Elegant, expressive, reflective and pared-down. We had a long discussion about what she thought she meant by 'cliched' as compared to 'gritty'. Not sure we got to the bottom of it, but one piece with stronger marks and richer red colours seemed to have element of grit to it.
PAT W. produced two super cut-out collages (a la Matisse!) based on her drawings. Really fabulous. Her accompanying paintings were also strong, but she knows she has tendency to fiddle. It would be great to try and paint completely flat, like one of the collages, just to see what that sort of diciplne feels like.
We won't be seeing Pat for a while, as she will be undergoing quite serious surgery, and we all wish her a very speedy recovery. Come back soon, Pat.
It was also really great to have Pam back, and looking so well.
