As ever, we had a day of fascinating discussion, and much by way of really exciting work was revealed. I am constantly humbled by the work, and by everyone's openness and honesty to talk about it and share it - thank you.
ELIZABETH stepped up first. She showed us the work from the sessions at the NMM, as well as some work which has evolved from it. Two things really came to the surface. One was her sensitivity to the human condition; to observing people individually or in groups; to briefly and succinctly capturing their conversation through an elegant gestural line. The second thing was some work which has popped up every now and then, where she uses the device of a window, or some sort of frame, to divide up the picture into little mini pictures. Each one works as a magic window, and the whole thing works as a complete piece as well - clever.
The main thing we went on to discuss was how she can, on occasions, get stuck with the concept of 'watercolour' and the 'techniques' which need to go with it. We all agreed, as did she, that she should use watercolour as a vehicle for colouring areas in her work, not for overall sloshing!
She needs to use all sorts of tools, watercolour included, to get her idea across - she even had one piece using a mascara brush!! This led on to discussions about the continuum which is drawing and painting. There is no absolute divide between them - they are both part of a whole, and go together to express. When is a mark 'drawn' as opposed to 'painted'? Impossible to define.
Elizabeth's challenge now is to really explore further this capturing of the human condition.
Then we had GERALD's work. His paintings now have such confidence and maturity. the thing he said which was most telling was that he was really enjoying carving with the paint, modelling the image and getting it to reveal itself through the process, rather than having a preconceived idea beforehand of how it should end up looking, and just rather superficially plopping the paint down.
He had one piece where the movement of the blades of a huge propeller (see his drawings below) were just indicated with an elegant scored circle. He was really concentrating on the composition and balance, and more than anything, the potential rhythmic qualities.
Pat W. (who hasn't been for 6 months) really noticed the difference in his work.
MAGGIE had had a rather frustrated day at the NMM, but boy, did she come up with the goods this time. She laid out a sequence of paintings which had all evolved one from another. The start was the collection of figureheads (see below). She then got really interested in the eyes, and especially the Pierrot with a mask, and the eyes being highlighted or shielded by the mask. So, she then produced a series of paintings of a Pierrot character, some done in a 'Maggie style' (her conclusion), and ending up with two masked heads painted very realistically, or were they???? In Maggie's usual way, they had an uncomfortable edge to them, a feeling that not all was quite as it should be. Really great. She is going to concentrate on this stream of thought for a while.
PENNY sadly has been very unwell, so didn't have any work to show, but was a great contributor in other ways.
PAT W. has been out of the picture for a while, and has bounced back looking great, and had work to show!! They were all invented pieces, or pieces where she'd 'played' - always successful in Pat's case. The star of the group was a great piece of painting and collage, of 3 pots on a collaged shelf. we all loved it. It played with representations of space and flatness, painted textures against plain, colour against greys, symmetry against assymetry. Probably one of those things that cannot be reproduced, but well done Pat.
JANE brought in loads of work based on Dr. J's house. She had tried many different colourways, working with more mixed colours against more saturated areas. These worked very well, and I was delighted to see how her range of colours was expanding. She had looked at De Hooch's work. The problem with many of her pieces was that she had her main area of saturated colour (red) against her area of maximum tonal contrast, which was not ideal. Penny brilliantly brought up a De Hooch interior on her tablet, and there it was - bright red skirt and a very light doorway, BUT with an neutral strip of colour between them to separate them. I suggested to Jane that she should try and copy a De Hooch, and learn from it.
PAT K. laid out two blocks of work. The first lot were based on some trees she'd drawn in Greenwich park. Her drawings were raw and expressive - winter branches and trunks. her paintings had become more sanitised, and 'lollipop' trees (her word) had appeared. We had a long chat about where these images come from, and the need to stick to the drawing.
The second batch were based on some interior drawings from the Queen's House. Again, her drawings had clear definition of colours and planes, and the paintings had become a bit 'all-over'. Each painting had some beautiful bits, little intimate conversations. However, these were rather drowned out by the cacophany of other things going on in the painting. So, maybe it's an issue of scale, or brush size, or just getting carried away, as we all do at times.
The main thing is to be conscious of what you have in your drawing, and build on that, not dismiss it.
So, a bit of a struggle at the end there, but we've all been there, and we know that Pat will use this as a springboard for moving onwards and upwards.
Thank you all very much.
