Wednesday 28 May 2014

The Story Starts Again

There was movement at the station... well, movement here, anyway.

As of next Tuesday I will have some pieces hung in a joint exhibition. It's not a big thing, but it is a thing (well, it's not a thing. Technically a thing is a viking "leaders" meeting and a meeting of all the leaders is an allthing. But I digress).

It's at The Entrance Gallery and is the inaugural joint exhibition of the Central Coast Collective, thanks to a Council grant. One thing our council does well is support the arts in our area, and this exhibition is part of that initiative. We don't have an upfront fee, but instead have a commission of 25% taken from any sales. That's not too tough as commissions go. We are also required to each man two shifts at the exhibition. Which isn't a bad idea. It is nice for potential customers to be able to talk to the artists, and can be a boost to sales.

I got the notice about the exhibition yesterday and confirmed my participation. It starts next week. Not a lot of time. I am now panicking a little, which is why I am writing a blog post instead of getting my arse in gear. The question is: what to hang?

Most of my paintings are now three to ten years old (I have been without a studio for a few years). The abstracts are a good six months away from being finished (and I have plans for them, so they were a no regardless). Do I beat myself mercilessly to start and complete some new works? Or do I go with these (and all their friends)?

Tangle 1, Megan Hitchens 2014

Tangle 2, Megan Hitchens 2014

Tangle 3, Megan Hitchens 2014
These are abstract pieces created using a drawing system known as Zentangle. As I have said, I struggle with abstract, and you can see why from these. I mean, they aren't entirely abstract, are they? There are certainly objects in these. Shells, sheafs of wheat, whatever. But Zentangle has become very useful in moving me along the path toward true abstraction. It has given my brain an inroad and taken the anxiety out of it. I have also been teaching my son and his classmates how to do this. Children are unbelievably good at Zentangle because they very quickly let go of the "rules" that stop real creativity (and I mean "rules" as opposed to technique. Zentangle is very much about technique).

We are told there will quite a few school groups coming through the exhibition, so I thought why not do something that they might like to try.

Okay, this is a small exhibition. It isn't going to catapult me to fame and fortune, but I haven't had an exhibition for a while, and it is a start. And what is the point if I don't start, if I say "It's not big enough"? I mean, have you watched "Withnail and I"?

I want to do a series of drawings on mechanical animals, but I don't know that I can get enough of them done in time and I want to do them justice. So, opinions, thoughts, feedback. Am I taking an easy way out?

In the meantime, yet more Abney Park (I'll put up something else when I feel it fits) - "The Story That Never Starts". I love Titus' violin intro. It always gives me a physical thrill.
Don't let them check you
They're sucking the wrong brew
The cowards should not steer
Your life by their own fear
Don't care what they're dreaming
The future is teeming
With stories that wait to start
 

Tuesday 20 May 2014

Ogres Aren't The Only Ones With Layers.

Alright, this is probably going to be immensely boring to most people. But here goes...

I said I would write a post about the process of painting and here it is.

When most people say "painting" these days, they don't mean what they think they mean. There are two types of "painting". The one with which most people are familiar, even if they don't realise it, is called alla prima. That means something like "all at once", it's also called "wet-into-wet" and it is what it says it is. You paint more or less all at once, wet paint up against or over wet paint. Sometimes this is exactly what's needed. Clouds and hair work particularly well alla prima. But it has its problems. It is harder to keep colours clean. It is REALLY EASY to end up with a muddy mess. It looks flat, no matter how thickly you apply the paint. Don't get me wrong. It can be very beautiful. But it is not all there is.

Have you ever looked at a modern attempt to copy an old painting (ie pre-C20th) and thought "the form is right, but something is wrong. It just doesn't look quite right"? That's because the technique is wrong. You'll find, more often than not, that the copy is painted alla prima while the original was painted. Or painted in layers, if you prefer (I don't).

So, "painting". This doesn't have a particular term or phrase because IT CAME FIRST. Sometimes you will hear it called "painting in layers", which is descriptive, and accurate, but irritates me a bit. The Dutch were the first to use oil paints, and they used them as if they were using egg tempera - carefully applied thin layers in very small strokes (egg tempera dries really fast, so you have to work that way). Oil paint takes longer to dry than egg tempera - much longer - so it took some time to perfect the technique. Once the Italians got playing with the stuff there was no stopping them, and Leonardo da Vinci was one of the leading practitioners, perfecting and even at times inventing technique. His oil paintings are still in beautiful condition to this day because of his profound understanding of the medium and the care he took (his frescoes... well, that's another matter. Some things don't wear experimentation well). Interestingly, the Italians did much the same as the Dutch with brush stroke and layering, but they blew it up. Similar number of brush strokes, but larger, bolder. And the paintings got bigger. The early (C15th) Dutch paintings are tiny.

Why does drying time matter? It matters because paint films expand as they dry.
Let me explain.
Actually, let me go back to the start and THEN explain.

To use the painting technique - first you put down an imprimatura. That is, a layer or layers of colour all over your support (be it wood, canvas, whatever). Some people call it a ground. It isn't. The white paint that covers your support , that's the ground.

After the imprimatura is touch dry you put on an underpainting, usually in lead white and burnt umber, ie lights and darks. I tend to do this in two stages - map in the darks and then the next day put in the lights. You use lead white and burnt umber because they both have a very low oil content. They are LEAN paints. They dry quickly.

The images are from a copy I did of JW Waterhouse's "Circe Invidiosa". This is the underpainting
Then you start putting on layers of paint. You do not have to cover the entire painting every time (in fact it's probably better if you don't). Wait for each layer to be touch dry before you apply the next. And make sure that each layer has a higher oil content than the last, either by using a colour that has a higher oil content (a FAT colour - alizarin crimson is a good example), or by adding more oil. It doens't have to be much, just a few drops, but it does have to there. This is called FAT OVER LEAN.


More layers for Circe. Images Megan Hitchens
Which brings us back to drying time. As a paint film dries it expands. Lean paints dry faster than fat paints, but each time you apply a layer of paint you reduce the oxygen getting to the layer beneath and so you slow the drying time of the lower layer. If the paint on top is lean (or leaner) it will finish drying first. The layer underneath will continue to dry and continue to expand. End result - your top layer will crack.

Go to any art gallery and have a good look at the paintings. You will see cracking somewhere. I am not talking about the concentric ring or classic spider web cracking. That is caused by a point of pressure on the canvas and hopefully is only in the varnish (although, sadly, not always). I am talking about the crazy paving style of cracking. You occassionally see it in very old paintings, you see it very often in modern paintings. The idea that you may need some technical aptitude to use oils seems to be anathema these days. It really shouldn't be.

Some colours are transparent (like alizarin crimson), some are opaque, so light travels through the layers in different ways, going through the transparent layers and bouncing back at the opaque layers. No wonder painting looks different to alla prima. No wonder alla prima looks flat - the light comes back from the one level. And this is why it is only painting that will give you that particular sense of luminosity.
"Circe Invidiosa" Megan Hitchens 2010 after JW Waterhouse 1892. Oil on canvas. 180cm x 90cm
There is a trend when painting alla prima to apply the paint thickly in places, to give depth or texture. Couple of problems with that. It can be applied too thickly so that the weight of the paint causes it to slide or fall off the canvas. Also, the top part of the thick paint ends up... cracked. You can guess why.

Thin layers of paint can easily be textured. It is subtle, but once you put a glaze over the top it becomes dramatic. Look at any number of Rembrandts. That beautiful texture he achieves is done thinly (or at least thinly by today's standards).

Notice I have said "touch dry" above. It takes SIX MONTHS for oil paint to fully dry. Six. Months. If you don't want to worry about fat over lean, but you do want to paint, you shall have to wait six months after each layer before applying the next. I think it is simpler and I know it is quicker to just master fat over lean.

I paint. I use alla prima for quick colour studies for reference for paintings, but then I paint. So when I say "process" now you know what I mean.

(There were many more layers for "Circe Invidiosa" than I have shown. There is a series of photos somewhere for one of my original paintings, but I have no idea where it is. So you get my copy of someone else's work. It's a valid way to learn.)

Monday 19 May 2014

A Few Abstract Thoughts

I am a bit ticked off today. I had a series of drawings planned and it hasn't worked out, or at least hasn't worked out as I planned. Rethink. Redo. Ticked off. (Don't get me wrong. I am still mad as hell about Tony Abbott and the Budget. That's not going to change. But with the drawings I am ticked off - which is a nicer feeling).

So instead of dealing with my immediate minor fail, I'll obsess over my major fail - abstractionism. In the years I spent at the Charlie Sheard Studio School this was the one thing at which I comprehensively failed. The course covered C15th-C19th oil techniques, but we also had an abstraction component (Charlie is one of this country's great abstractionists) and it cut me completely adrift. I struggled with it and repeatedly lost. It would reduce me to tears in the night. In class I would feel like I was drowning. There is suffering for your art and then there is just sheer frustration and bewilderment. I was not alone. There was one other student also struggling. We would sit together at lunch and agonise over the afternoon of painting to come and would compare our levels of panic and dread. In hindsight that probably wasn't very helpful. (We both nailed layered glaze and sfumato in our Leonardo da Vinci exercises, so I suppose that's something).

Even after all this time, abstractionism is still my real stumbling block, the form I struggle with and am regularly defeated by. It is really, REALLY difficult. Alright, yes, anyone can splash some paint around and call it abstract, and to a certain extent that works. But I am talking about GOOD abstract painting. And GOOD abstract painting is hard to achieve.

No.11, 1952 (Blue Poles), by Jackson Pollock, oil, enamel, aluminium paint, glass on canvas 212.1 h x 488.9 w cm
Purchased 1973 Accession No: NGA 74.264 © Pollock-Krasner Foundation/ARS. Licensed by Viscopy.
Okay, it seems a bit of a cliche, but go and look at the real thing in the NGA in Canberra. It is a revelation. No image does it justice.
Walk into the AGNSW, the NGA, the MCA, MoMA or anywhere and you can see modern abstractionism ranging from the great to the utterly puerile (for the record, I consider Pollock one of the greats - I know, I know, I am such a herd animal). There are works on display that cause unexplained emotions as you stand before them, and there are others that simply give rise to derision. Quite a lot of abstract, and for that matter modern, art is really just bull artistry - the application of a clever explanation and some vague attempt to shock or be outrageous or simply odd. As viewers of art I think we all have it within us to sort the genuine from the dross.

Piece of advice, people, trust your instincts. You know what you like and what you respond to. If "clever" people start saying "oh, no, you're wrong, you don't know enough" just remember the emperor's new clothes. And if a work requires a written explanation before it evokes any response then it has failed and you shouldn't feel bad about saying "what a piece of crap". Art is subjective. Don't let others tell you what to think.

Then there are the artworks that are really good, moving, emotive, that fire your imagination and your soul. And are fading. Or flaking. Or cracking. Those ones make me want to cry. And you can see these in just about any gallery anywhere in the world. Here are artists who are producing amazing pieces, but they have no or little technical training and their paintings are not stable. What a pointless waste. If you are creating a thing of beauty make it last. Make the effort to understand your materials and make them work for you. On the upside, just about all the crap abstractionists have no idea of technique either, so their works will eventually vanish, unmourned and unloved.
I will never be great, but I do not want to be puerile. And while I have the technical ability to produce paintings that could survive centuries, my attempts at abstract to this point have not deserved to be loved.

So what's my creative problem with abstracts? I am very figurative in my work. My brain likes things to look like things. I am one of those people who looks at patterns, or swirls, or grain in woodwork and sees faces or creatures. It used to scare the crap out of me as a child. For instance, we had a large, old wardrobe in our bedroom and there was a dark knot on one of the door panels. At night I would lie in bed and stare at that knot in terror, because it looked for all the world like an angry face with a great, gaping maw. My sister couldn't see the face, no matter how many times I pointed it out (it occurs to me - perhaps I am just mad. Oh well). Maybe it's just as well she couldn't see it. Otherwise there would have been two of us lying there in the dark looking at this thing, unable to sleep.

And why should I care about abstractionism? Because there is no actual "thing" in an abstract painting there is nothing to distract you from technique, from colour, from materials. It is a very pure form of painting. Perhaps that is why it so easily separates the sheep from the goats (terrible phrase - I like sheep AND goats, but you get the meaning). Here is a perfect way to examine how colours work with and against each other. Here is a perfect way to explore the amazing effects you can get with just pigment and oil, how different types of brush stroke can change things completely. And I hate being defeated by anything. For me abstractionism is the great challenge.

Now here is the weird thing. I have started three, THREE, abstract paintings. Purely abstract. Voluntarily. For the first time there is nothing in them that I can see, nothing I can point to and say "Oh, that looks like X". It will be a slow process. I work in layers (I can see the need for a post on process). And I may yet turn them to the wall and never look at them again. But for some unknown reason I WANT to produce some abstracts and I am EXCITED by the thought. There is no dread, no panic, no bewilderment. What is going on?

I've included Abney Park's "Evil Man" just because I am still and always will be angry with Tony Abbott and because I like the song. So there.

Thursday 15 May 2014

There are not enough words...

Colossus, 1808-1812 Francisco de Goya
 I have other posts ready to go, posts about art, about technique, about positive things. But at the moment I am not feeling very positive. I am actually feeling very, very angry. So instead, this is a post about that anger.

Why am I angry? How to put it in a few short and probably intemperate words -

This bloody stupid arse of a government that Australia is currently having to endure!

Where to start? Yeah gods, where to stop! We all know all the stupid, short-sighted, heartless, mean-spirited things that are in the budget, all the ideology-driven idiocy that has been spewed out over the country.

Let's see - unemployment. What are people supposed to live on for six months WITH NO MONEY COMING IN? How are they supposed to afford to catch a bus or train to a job interview? How are they supposed to pay for their phones so they can ring about jobs? WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO LIVE? HOW THE HELL ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO EAT?

Not content with that, the LNP in all its "wisdom" has cut funds to vital training schemes, job skills courses and to youth support programs, such as Youth Connections, which has done such great work here on the Central Coast. Comparitive chicken feed funding, which was vital to programs and which was money well spent, will go, causing immediate job losses and closing off vital avenues for those trying to find work.

The Disability Support Pension - I have a brother who is on this. He barely manages to get through. Even with rental support my mother (who is on the age pension) has to help him out so he does not end up on the street. The linking of the pension to CPI rather than wages makes me worry if he will be able to continue to live independently. He is unbelievably stressed about what is going to happen to him. He is petrified of being forced to work (which is beyond him) or of being left with no support.I am sure he is not alone in his fears. The number of people rorting this pension is small, and all who are should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. But the government decides it will put all recipients on the rack. The rorters are merely a convenient excuse for the government to reduce payments to the vulnerable in our society.

The Aged Pension is also to be CPI linked, rather than linked to the average male wage, so again it will go up more slowly (note the politicians do not link their wage increases to CPI). And we all know about the age eligibility increase. Clearly a decision made by people who sit on their arses all day long. How are labourers to work until 70, or builders, or shearers, or anyone doing any other form of manual work?

No, wait. The plan is really plain to see - make sure that such uncouth people are WORKED TO DEATH before they even make it to pension age. The savings will just keep rolling in.

Climate change? Don't make me laugh. What did everyone think was going to happen? Abbott has said long and loud he thinks climate change is "crap". One of his first moves on getting into office was to ditch the Minister for Science. The trouble with scientists is that they tend to say things that a man like Tony does not wish to hear, things that may contradict the interests of his high-powered friends, things that may actually require all of us to change our habits for the good of the entire planet. He can't be having that.

Universal healthcare? The LNP has made no secret of its hatred of Medicare since it came in, back when it was Medibank. And now there's the perfect way to kill it. Make no mistake, that is what these co-payments are really about. Costs in healthcare are not blowing out at the GP level. It's higher up, with specialists that you start to see problems. The co-payments are a false economy, costs rise as illnesses are left untreated and the mild becomes the serious. But this is not about a handful of savings, or "user pays" (gods, we pay taxes and the Medicare Levy and we have a safety net, so sod "user pays" - we already do). This is about killing Medicare, the end of universal healthcare. This is about services only going to the deserving (ie, those who can comfortably pay for them).

And on, and on. I could write a whole post on its own about how the education crap is making me feel, how short sighted it is. I could write a whole post on the attacks on renewable energy investment. There have been whole posts on the attacks on the video game industry (very lucrative, but clearly beyond the limited imaginations of the cabinet). The huge waste that is the humanitarian disgrace of asylum policy is beyond words. I am sure you can each come up with your own foci of seething anger.

Let me get this straight, right now. THERE IS NO BUDGET CRISIS. What there is however, is an underlying structural problem with our economy. Our spending compared to other OECD countries is quite low. The problem we have, the reason there are deficits that are increasing, is a very simple one. THERE IS NOT ENOUGH COMING IN. Howard started the rot, he massively ramped up middle class welfare, pushed up negative gearing as a great tax dodge (and that is all that it is, one great big tax avoidance scheme), undermined tax streams. And guess what? The people who benefitted from all this were in the top part of society - middle class and up, with the burden falling on the poor. Rudd and Gillard failed to fix the system (I could write a whole post on how cranky I am with Labor).

Abbott makes Howard look like a big softy. The gloves are definitely off and the poor are getting absolutely hammered.

But the 2014 budget is not all doom and gloom. If you are a mining company you have it good. That nasty mining tax is gone, just as it was about to pour huge amounts of money into the Australian bottom line (remember that structural problem in the economy? Abbott sure as hell hasn't). A polluter? No problem. The carbon PRICE has gone out the window (it was a PRICE on carbon, not a TAX on carbon, you economic pygmies. There's a difference. Aaargh). And don't be fooled by the politicians' pay freeze. They recently got a 20% pay rise, so it is a freeze in name only. As usual, they are only pretending to join in the pain.

Got a family trust? An investment property (or a string of them)? Happen to be one of the 75 richest people who pay $0 tax? One of the 1000 next richest who pay next to nothing? Well, have no fear, you are all okay. No one is going to make you pull your weight. None of you are going to have to do any "lifting".

Cuts all round and yet $245 million goes into the school chaplaincy program. Inane, stupid, inefficient. Does Abbott think he is buying brownie points with the Pope? Demonstrating his Christian ideals? Don't make me vomit.

Here is the worst thing about all this. I have heard a lot in the last few days about the cabinet having no idea how ordinary Australians live, and less idea about how the poor and the vulnerable manage, and that is the case. They don't know

AND THEY DON'T CARE. That is the really awful truth of the matter.

THEY

DON'T

CARE

You could explain it a thousand times, use facts and figures (oh no, wait, that smacks of science. Cross off that approach), get in those hardest hit to talk to them, hell, ask the Pope to talk to Tony. None of it will make the slightest difference. They aren't interested. They don't care.

So what can we do? We can sit back and bitch to each other about how awful it is. We can share memes on facebook and pass comments. We can have a good moan.

Or we can start making a nuisance of ourselves. Abbott may have a large majority in the lower house, but I don't think he realises that a lot of that majority is made up of VERY MARGINAL seats. Got a local MP who is in the LNP? Ring them up and give them a serve. You'll probably get their hapless PA, so be polite (don't shoot the messenger, so to speak), but be firm. Don't just ring once, ring a few times over a few weeks, asking each time what has been done to address your concerns. Let them know their seat is in peril. Email your MPs. Email government ministers. Email Tony Abbott (you can't ring him. His office number has been removed from the PM's website). Flood his inbox. Tell him what an evil little scroat he is (only be polite when you do it). Tell him we expect better.

If you haven't already, join GetUp. We have been hearing a lot about lobbyists and the sway they have over OUR parliamentarians. GetUp is US AS LOBBYISTS. It is our opportunity to get our voices heard. Think how much the powerful hate GetUp. We must be threatening their position or they wouldn't be so bothered.

March in May is on this weekend. Sunday, 18 March, meeting in Belmore Park at 1pm in Sydney. Times and places for other capitals can be found by following the link. This is a great chance to join with others in the immediate aftermath of Budget night and say "NO".

Think all this is a little too difficult, a little too time-consuming? As Edmund Burke said,

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".
So what's it going to be?


Thursday 8 May 2014

The Flesh Pots of Sparta

I was going to call this "300 Naked Men", but a friend has just put up a post with the title "2 Naked Men..." Quick and the dead in the blogosphere.

300 Sketch, Megan Hitchens, May 2014, red chalk on buff paper
I have always loved life drawing. The human body, in its many forms, is endlessly fascinating. I have been to a lot of life classes over the years with many different models - fat, thin, young, old, ghostly pale redheads, honey-skinned dark curly mops, everything in between and beyond. The best was probably the thin, fragile, ancient man with the long white beard and hair in a top knot. I was even a life model myself when I was about eight months' pregnant (more job offers than I could cope with, but it was an experience I would never swap).

Back it up with some basic anatomy study and life drawing is a great way to learn about how the human body looks and behaves and how gravity acts on it. Also, bodies are difficult to draw, all those weird shapes and strange intersections. If you can convincingly draw a body, you can convincingly draw just about anything.

But there is a problem. Life models are not cheap (and nor should they be), male models can be a bit like hen's teeth, and life classes ebb and flow in terms of popularity. Sometimes there are three or four on offer around a particular area, other times nothing. And then, when they are on, the time may not be suitable. At the moment I can kiss goodbye to midweek evening classes because I need to be home with my children.

So I have had to come up with an alternative.

When I was in Year 11, doing school by correspondence, I attended a Department of Education week-long art workshop. We were SUPPOSED to do life drawing, but some of the parents objected so we got a semi-naked model. It was still a good class, it was still a good opportunity, but it wasn't optimum (don't question the value of the uninterrupted line).

My alternative to a life class is even less optimum, but it is a damned sight better than nothing. "I can't..." is no longer acceptable. If I can't do a particular thing, then let's see what I CAN do instead. And here is my solution

300

The film. About the Spartans and the Persians. With David Wenham in it. You know the one.

Personally, I don't much like it. The violence is gratuitous and cartoonish, the homoeroticism is overdone and tedious, it villifies the other, it drags like concrete overshoes in places. It does have its plusses. Visually it is beautiful. You could pause it at almost any point and have an amazing poster people would pay good money for. The two palettes (amber for day, cool blue for night) are gorgeous. But what it has in spades, and which fits my purpose, is acres of male flesh.

It is not the same as having a real model standing before you. I can't walk around to get an angle I like. There is not the depth or the subtle play of light. And most of the time the Spartans have their little shorts on, and their cloaks. But there is still enough to see form and musculature, to see how weight is placed on a foot or arm. And the almost treacle-pace flow of some of the battle scenes gives ample time to pause on interesting poses that I could not get from a life model (well, not without them falling over after about a minute).

These sketches are about getting back the ability to make up figures, about re-acquainting myself with the human body and its structure. They are about seeing what is really there rather than what my brain THINKS is there. So I made a couple of rules which may seem odd, but they make sense to me:

No sketch is to take more than three minutes.
No more than two colours to be used (preferably one)

300 Sketch, Megan Hitchens 2014, red chalk on buff paper. Actually, this is my favourite. It was also my fastest. No time to think can give great results.
300 Sketch, Megan Hitchens, May 2014, red chalk on buff paper.
I tend to overwork and fuss, so these two simple rules kept me in check and made me just worry about what is important - the form. Many of the sketches don't have faces, or only hints of a face. I ran out of time. Oh, and if you know about Spartans weapons and armour, good for you. I don't want to know. What I put in is a suggestion of what is on the screen. It is the body I am worried about. Everything else is secondary.

There are over a dozen of these sketches now, and growing, so I have picked a handful just to show you what I am doing. Frankly, I'm getting a little bored. Time to go to the AGNSW and start sketching the statuary.

300 Sketch, Megan Hitchens, May 2014, red chalk on buff paper
Okay, they aren't great (some of the proportions are a little off), but they are a good exercise and they show what CAN be done when the best or favoured option is not available. I'm not satisfied with them, but I am happy with them.

Hmmm, that's something of a first.