Of Mice and Megans - Part 2

The whole point of going to Sydney on Sunday was to catch an exhibition before it closed. If it hadn't been the last day I would have waited until there was no damned trackwork.

The exhibition was Prints and Drawings: Europe 1500-1900, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It took up four rooms in the Upper Gallery (you know those stairs behind the Information desk and opposite the bookshop? That's what they lead to. Now you know). Each room was a different century, so there was a nice chronological progression in style and technology. The only thing they could have done better would have been to have had a good explanation of each technique and maybe a display of some of the equipment involved, even if it was just at the level of "this is a woodblock, this is an etching plate". The catalogue, lovely though it is, has the same problem. The only thing described in any detail is mezzotint. I heard a few people saying "I wish I knew how this was done". So I know it isn't just me. An understanding of process does really help with appreciating these things. Yesterday and today were spent doing some cursory reading on auqatint and mezzotint, drypoint and lithography, but I wish I had known more about them on Sunday.

I had to get to the C18th and C19th rooms to see any drawings, but I suppose part of that is because there is more chance for mass produced prints to survive. And they don't cost as much as original drawings from 300 and 400 years ago. Initially I was a little disappointed, but that soon turned to fascination, partly because of the chronological arrangement, but mainly because of the breath-taking skill on display.

One of the things that struck me as I moved through the exhibition was the sheer number of artists who became printmakers in a desperate attempt to make a living. You couldn't, in all fairness, say "Oh, they did that because they weren't good enough". Clearly they were, but it has ever been thus. Once the patronage and guild systems broke down most artists struggled. Printmaking was a way of keeping your hand in and feeding the family.

Some printmakers became very inventive, playing with chiaroscuro and later with colour printing. Registration (lining it all up) was really important. Others played with effects of dark and light, thick and thin lines. There is a great deal of art and creativity involved.

So, some favourites.This was difficult to narrow down, as most of the exhibition was fantastic, but here goes.

Claude Mellan's "The Veil of St Veronica".

The Veil of St Veronica, Claude Mellan, 1649, engraving, AGNSW

It doesn't look like much here. The print is 43 x 31 cms, a good size, but what is interesting about it is how it is drawn. Here is a detail

The Veil of St Veronica, detail, Claude Mellan, 1649, engraving, AGNSW

The entire image is one continuous spiral line. Contours, shading, details are all achieved by varying the thickness of the line and by slightly altering its path, making it wavy or undulating. It was an impressive thing to see. Very clever. What becomes really interesting is when you try to reproduce this electronically. As an engraving The Veil could be easily and accurately reproduced in large numbers. Try scanning this or photographing it, and it's a nightmare. The AGNSW must have worked really hard to get the beautiful reproduction for the catalogue, but when I try to scan it I get strobe lines unless I blow it right up, and even then some areas aren't right, as in the detail. Look it up on Google and you'll see what I mean. So I find it ironic how modern technology cannot handle this, but old technology can.

Drapery study for Cymon and Iphigenia, Frederick, Lord Leighton, 1883, black and white chalk on brown paper, AGNSW 

Cymon and Iphigenia is one of my favourite paintings in the AGNSW. I often just stand before it, transfixed and strangely moved. And apparently the Gallery has a lot of the studies and preliminary drawings for it. On top of the joy of that piece of news, the simplicity of this drawing is wonderful. Just black and white on brown. And so well observed.  I just love it.

Then there's this:

Study of three male figures, Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1713, sanguine on cream paper, AGNSW

I love this because of how much it tells us about how Watteau worked. He was one of those artists whose technique said "stuff the academy". Normally an artist would arrange a tableau for the prep drawings and sketches, hiring in models for the figures, making everything just so within the studio. Not Watteau. He hired models alright, but he would hire them for an hour or two, get them to strike multiple poses and would sketch madly. The three images here are of the one model. All these poses and sketches were made in books to which Watteau would refer when he had an idea for a painting, adapting figure and clothes as needed. So he dreams up a painting with fifteen people in it (not unusual for him) and instead of hiring multiple models (fifteen if the artist isn't imaginative, less if he or she is), Watteau saves money and merely goes through his source books looking for what he wants (the books have since been largely broken up and sold as individual sheets. Someone made a tidy sum out of them). Funnily enough, the most highly worked figure on this particular page never appeared in any of his paintings. Watteau was well known for his use of trois crayons (my favourite, sanguine, black and white), but all his source books are in red alone.

There were a number of Rembrandt etchings and engravings. There were Rubens ones too, but there's a big difference between the two. Rubens closely supervised others to make prints of his paintings. Rembrandt made his own. Get rid of the middle man, keep all the profits. This is a big thing when you want Rubens' lifestyle but can't command his prices.

I was going to go into the old galleries afterwards and do some sketching, but the trackwork had severely eaten my time, so I bugged out and walked up to The Rocks to go to Parkers for some supplies. Great walk across the Domain and up past the Mitchell Library. Which is just as well. Parkers is closed on a Sunday.

So all that was left was to fight the reduced train timetable back to Epping and drive home with the music on. On the whole a good day, but not all according to plan. Still, as they say, the best laid plans...

Of Mice and Megans - Part 1

I had plans for yesterday, modest plans, but plans nevertheless. And I realised most of them, so that's not too bad. But no thanks to State Rail, or whatever it is called at this particular moment.

Yesterday was the last day of European Prints and Drawings: 1500-1900 at the AGNSW. All from the Gallery's own collection. Having missed several exhibitions lately I was desparate to get to this one. The initial plan was for Saturday, but Saturday was a bad day for me. Since having my health wrecked twice I think bad days are just part of my life now. Ride them out, get on with it.

So everything got shifted to Sunday. And got off to a bad start.

Drive to station, find excellent car park (not many cars, that's weird). Get out, realise glasses still at home. Sad fact of me aging is I need my glasses to see detail. Get back in car, drive home.

I had missed my train so I killed time doing a couple of things before driving back to the station. Still a strange dearth of cars in the car park. Get to the top of the stairs. Platform blocked. TRACK WORK. All weekend. All the way to Strathfield. So I drove to Epping and got a train to Town Hall. I couldn't have done this on Saturday. I wasn't even able to drive to the next suburb on Saturday.

Whenever I travel by train I go well-equipped - book to read, drawing things (always), usually a spindle and some fibre, iPod and headphones. The trains were in utter disarray so it took ages for one to turn up. Instead of having a couple of hours of activity and entertainment I ended up with about 40 minutes. So I suppose all was not lost.

Actually things looked up after that. I had a lovely walk to the Gallery from Town Hall Station. The weather was much nicer than Saturday had been. The oppressive heat and fierce winds were gone, people were out and about doing what people do. Equally amused and irritated by the signs in Hyde Park saying "Beware of tree failure". I'm sorry, trees dropping branches is not a failure on the part of the tree, it's just something they do sometimes.

There was a LARGE yellow packing crate in front of the AGNSW when I got there. I mean LARGE. It blocked most of the stairs at the entrance and all access to the pedestrian crossing. Some advertising moron's idea of clever, post-modern referencing for the Pop to Popism exhibition that is currently on. I watched a woman struggle to get a pram round it so she could cross at the crossing and thought anyone with a mobility device would be completely stuffed. The fact that the box was obscure and ugly and not really effective in what it was trying to do is neither here nor there. The fact that it was placed so badly was the real problem. 

So I started my gallery trip with a formal, written complaint. I mean, what else could I do? Say "I knew that would happen" when news comes out of an accident in front of the Gallery? Yes, I am a Grumply Old Woman. But I was a Grumpy Young Woman, and a Grumpy Child, so why change now?

As a member of the AGNSW I get certain perks - free access to all exhibitions (because I am a country member), reduced entrance fees to exhibitions at other galleries around Australia (including the National Gallery in Canberra), and access to the Members' Lounge. I love the Members' Lounge. It is quiet and comfortable. The food is good and nowhere near as expensive as the cafes and restaurants upstairs. And you can get a nice glass of wine if you want, as well as the usual hot beverages. They change with staid regularity what is hung on the walls, always something from the Gallery collections, usually interesting. Great place for lunch, and to calm down.

When next you are in the AGNSW, it is worth popping into the Asian Gallery on the second floor. Down one escalator and turn right. There were the usual (and beautiful) pieces from past centuries, but there were also some great modern pieces. Several inkjet prints by Akira Yamaguchi, designed to look like Japanese woodblock prints, but showing modern scenes, like "The Department Store" or "Roppongi Hills".

Tokei (Tokyo) Roppongi Hills, Akira Yamaguchi, 2005, Inkjet Print, AGNSW

The piece I fell in love with was "Infinite Landscape" by Yang Yongliang. This is a seven minute video projected on a dark wall. It was in amongst some traditional paintings and scrolls of Chinese landscapes. You know the sort of thing - those impossible, steep mountains with spikey trees on top, rivers and flat valleys in between. Just what comes to mind when you hear "Chinese landscape painting".

Infinite Landscape, Yang Yongliang, HD BluRay, 7.23 minutes.

All those mountains are actually buildings, and the spikey trees are cranes. Airships swim in and out of view, cars travel the new rivers of ribbon highways. You can view the whole thing here, but really, in order to see it properly, you have to go see it projected in high res. The image at the Gallery was about six feet tall, and back projected so no one could get in the way (hooray). It is endlessly fascinating (at least I think so). Yang has done quite a few of these. It is well worth Googling him and having an explore.

The actual exhibition I went down for was wonderful, but this post is long enough, so I'll write that part up later. In the meantime, go have fun with Yang Yongliang

Hare-Brained

The next two Nautilus shells are drawn up in pencil. I need to tint another sheet of paper for the last one, but at least that's two more underway. They just need colour, but if I start now it will time to go to collect son from school and I won't have eaten. So stop for lunch, and blog.

Nothing much to show for the shells. At the moment they look almost like the first one, only there's no ink, and they have chambers and markings sketched in. Which are really interesting, because you can see the external markings from inside and...

But that's for later.

So instead it's me delving back into the past, in more ways than one.

As I have said before, I like to copy other artists. It's a great way to learn, and a time-honoured tradition for that very reason. Sometimes I copy drawings, or oil paintings, sometimes illumination, sometimes watercolours.

My son loves Durer's Hare. He has a picture book from when he was little, "A Child's Book of Art: Great Pictures First Words" (pub. Dorling Kindersley), which introduces words and concepts using images from great paintings in both Western and Eastern art and from antiquity (up the back it lists each image and who painted it and when). And in the Animals section is the Hare. 

I love this book. Good for children of all ages, including me.

So a few years back I did him a copy. It hangs on the wall in his bedroom and he still loves it (yay). I got it down to photograph it for this post and he was quite protective of it. "Will you have it long? When will you hang it back up? Be careful with it."

In order to do the copy I had to do quite a lot of hunting around on the internet, not just for images but also for analysis. I would love to see the original, but I don't think that will ever happen. The original painting is rarely displayed because it is now very fragile. It was, after all, painted in 1502. It was done in watercolour and bodycolour (aka gouache) on cream paper. Even in his own lifetime other artists were copying the Hare and learning from the way that Durer abandoned or adapted conventions of painting.

Feldhase, Albrecht Durer, 1502, watercolour and bodycolour on paper

One reason I would like to see the original (apart from just the breathtaking experience of seeing the original), is I would love to see the real colours of it. Have a quick search on the internet for images of it and see what I mean. Some are more yellow, some are more grey, others more red. Fortunately there is a lot known about the Hare and the colours it was painted in, so I went with those. Although it took a while to find a proper analysis (in an actual book). Most of what is published on the web is art waffle rubbish (the insctrutibility of the hare as indicative of man's inability to understand the mind of God, and so on. Please).

Over the years pigments can shift. They may be sourced from different places, the paints are made under different circumstances (a lot of paints have "fillers" these days, making the tones more muddy. Always buy the best you can afford, even if you have to build up your paints a tube at a time, or a jar of pigment at a time). Even the fact that our air make up has changed, with pollution, can alter a pigment. But all in all the colours are more or less right (unless you look at Venetian Red. It has shifted dramatically).

Hare, Megan Hitchens after Albrecht Durer, 2011, watercolour and bodycolour on paper

My version is not on cream but on off-white (I should have had the guts to start tinting back then. C'est la vie), but other than that is in the colours listed - ochres (red and yellow), sienna, umbers (burnt and raw) - with one exception. Durer had lead white gouache.

Oh, how I want a tube of lead white gouache. It has to be handled carefully, gloves and all, but it has an opacity that cannot be matched with substitutes. White watercolour and white gouache are not sufficient. White watercolour is not opaque at all, and white gouache is not opaque enough. And they are cooler in tone than lead white. Lead white has a warmth to it, it is more in the yellow, whereas Titanium white is more blue. Actually all the whites are more blue compared to lead white. I ended up using an "Opaque White" that I usually deploy in illuminations, and it was okay, but still not quite... right. Or enough. Or something.

As much as possible I worked as Durer did - put down areas of watercolour to build up form, shading, etc, then come back with gouache for the details. And oh, there is so much detail. The image appears remarkably quickly. The whole thing took less than an hour. But I did think I was going to go spare from all the little individual hairs. It would have been warmer on cream, but even so, it's not too bad. And I learnt so much from it, about technique and brushwork and paint, not least of which is 

I want lead white gouache

Ooh, look, it's school pick up time. But at least I've eaten

Spiralling Inwards

Drawing One in the Nautilus set. Actually, Drawing Two, but it's the first one I have finished because it will set the size of the other three.

Nautilus Two - Construction, Megan Hitchens, 2014, black ink on tinted paper

I went and tinted another sheet of paper with yellow ochre (properly this time. Thanks to Mark Calderwood and Jo Abrahams), and cut it into sections. I need to tint one more sheet to have enough for the full set of four, and then I'll have leftovers for play.

Each piece is cut to the ratio of 2φ:2φ+1, same as the rectangles that build the spiral itself.

This was a bit of a challenge for me as I was working backwards. I can draw these in my sleep, providing I am working from a square outwards. But because I wanted the spiral placed precisely in the centre of the page, this time I had to work inwards. It took me a couple of tries to readjust, but once I came to grips with it the thing just sailed along. I really, really love Golden Spirals. All the construction lines are left in purposefully, and I have notations for the φ ratios at the side. Although looking at them now I think two of them are misplaced. They are correct, but would have been more helpful arranged a little differently.

All the construction lines are left in so that hopefully people can see how elements on the actual Nautilus shells, internal and external, relate to the geometry. The Nautilus is an amazing geometer. One of Nature's marvels.

So here's the question. I am thinking of putting ratio notation under the spiral, probably aligned with the left edge. Something like this:

0A = 1 

0B = φ 

0C =  φ ² 

0D = φ ³ 

CD = φ ⁴

Should I do this or not? Would it be helpful or confusing or just pointless? I love how all these things relate to each other, but I know I am a bit weird, so I can't really see this one clearly. Suggestions?

(and, because I couldn't resist, despite the picture quality):

 

Try, Try Again

Yesterday I struggled with this drawing. It was a Catweazle day pretty much from beginning to end. Nothing worked.

This morning I sat down fresh and looked at it anew. Completely rubbed out what I had done and started again. Twenty minutes later I had this.

Ghandi, Megan Hitchens, 2014, charcoal, white chalk on grey paper

It was going to be more than this. His crossed legs, the books and papers. But I got this far and it was enough. No tortillion either. I quite liked the lines. It doesn't need the dreamy softness of smudging.

This is the grey paper I was using to draw Arlene. But it has tiny pink fibres in it which I didn't notice at first. They make the tone warm, no good for sanguine but perfect for black and white. It ends up being a reverse of the norm - cool, warm, cool, rather than the more usual (and easier to work) warm, cool, warm. By which I mean light, medium, dark. It's normal to have a warm light, cool midtone, warm dark, but the warm grey flips that around. Still, I think it works here.

Ghandi is one of the historical figures I greatly admire. He gave up so much for his country, he gave the world structured civil disobedience, he tried so hard to keep India together after Independence. He was a towering intellect who understood the needs of ordinary people.

I love that he gave people ideas of how they could empower themselves. Simple things like making salt and spinning and weaving their own cotton. Things that the British Empire had taken from them in order to protect English business interests and monopolies. Challenging the use of entrenched poverty as a means of political control.

The film "Ghandi" never really grabbed me. Yes, it was a good film. But I always felt that surely an Indian actor could have been cast in the role. I doubt that Ghandi himself would have been happy with an Englishman in what was little better than black face playing out the story of his life. It was the last feeble dig of English Imperialism at the man who helped to bring down the Empire.

K.I.S.S.

Further to yesterday's post about drawing with coloured pencils, I found this image in my files (after a little looking. I had given it a strange name, so it wasn't where I thought it should be. Problem rectified), and it the only image I have of the original drawing, so I am relieved to have found it. The original sold. For a tidy sum. I love that someone else loved it enough to buy it.

Bactrian, Megan Hitchens, 2011, black pencil on paper

It is a baby bactrian camel. So unbelievably cute, and another glorious fibre animal.

This is even simpler than the Snow Leopard and the Bison, as it is one colour on white. Just a black pencil. Not graphite, not a 2B drawing pencil. A black colour pencil. That's all. Different pressure, different number of layers gives me different shades, from a pale silvery grey through to the deep black wells of the eyes.

You don't need a huge number of colours to make something beautiful (although you certainly can do that. Colour is a wonderful thing). Keeping it simple can work wonders too. There is a serenity to this that cannot be achieved with a broader palette.

Anyway, I'm happy with it.

Touchwood

I am having a bit of a Catweazle day. There were specific plans for today, but I have a child home sick. Again. So there it goes.

Son went to camp last week and had a ball. He came home more confident, more willing to do stuff for himself, but also worn out (good) and with no voice (bad). He spent the weekend cranky and croaky and yesterday his eating petered out. This morning? Temperature, sore throat, day in bed.

I had planned to work on the abstracts. About 2 am this morning I got a vision of a new one and desperately want to set up the imprimatura for it and put another layer on the other two. But no. Sooooo, drawing.

Made a start on a portrait of my friend, Arlene. Remember when I did Riyaz I said I wanted to do Arlene, but on grey? The paper is a beautiful colour, but it's wrong for this. So that needs a rethink. However, the colour is right for a simple drawing of Ghandi, which I have started, but something isn't right and I can't see what it is. So the best thing for the moment is to turn it over for a few hours and then look again.

I thought about working on the shells, but... I don't know... just no. Or at least not right now.

Like I said, a Catweazle day

"Nothing works"

So, in a desperate bid to feel productive, I thought I would regale you with "what you can do with coloured pencils".

You know, just basic Derwent colour pencils. Not watercolour pencils, just the ordinary ones. I bought them in a tin a couple of decades ago. They have lasted this long because I don't use them very much, but I have such fun when I do. I really should get them out more often.

Snow Leopard, Megan Hitchens, 2011, coloured pencil on paper

Anyway, these two drawings were done a few years ago. I like them both for two reasons. One, I think they are quite good (and I don't normally feel so satisfied with what I do) and two, they use very limited colours. There are only four in each one.

Bison, Megan Hitchens, 2011, coloured pencil on black paper

They were both done from photographs. The snow leopard, I don't know where it came from. One of my photos from a zoo visit? (I spent a lot of time at the snow leopard enclosure) One of the hundreds of photos of snow leopards around? I don't know. Sadly, there are more photos of snow leopards than there are actual snow leopards. And the more the Chinese government opens up access to Tibet, with the fast trains and what have you, the more their numbers plummet. Passage for poachers was greatly facilitated by the train and, with backhanders and bribes, the government does nothing to curb the trade in snow leopard pelts. Or at least nothing serious.

The bison came from an ad in Wild Fibres. I have read a lot about bison fibre, how soft it is, its thermal properties, and would love to spin some. Maybe one day. I have some yak fibre sitting waiting its turn. Mmm, fibre.

I digress.

The snow leopard is mainly black and yellow ochre with a little pink and a touch of sienna. That's it. I removed all trace of the background and any outline because I wanted it to just be in the page. The white of the paper became the background and the main colour of the leopard Minimal work, maximum effect.

The bison is yellow ochre, two browns and white. That's it. The black paper does most of the work for me, just as the white did with the snow leopard.

I keep telling my mum not to add hard outlines to her drawings and paintings. Sometimes it is a good idea and serves the outcome well, but a lot of the time it just flattens the image and makes it look odd. And there is a difference between a defined edge (such as along the bison's nose) and an outline. The trick is to see what's there rather than what your brain is telling you is there. Brains lie. Plus, one of the tasks of fur is to smudge the outline, making the animal harder to detect. Have you noticed that a lot of predators have fur while their prey have hair? Silly prey.

The point of all this is, I suppose, you don't need a lot of tools and materials to create something. Go for the best quality you can get (it'll last longer and give you a better result), but you can start with a small amount, or a limited number (which makes it easier to afford).

And the point for me today is to remember that not every day is a Catweazle day.