At the last tutorial we discussed how I might improve my work by allowing the paint to create the image rather than trying to force it. I had been working on glazing over a grisaille to try and recreate the patterns found within the thin layers of an oyster shell.
I decided to try and carry on developing this painting by putting more varied layers of glaze on to try and give it more depth.
I think that this has improved the painting and has certainly knocked back the harshness of the white.
I then started a new painting again based on an oyster shell.
Source image:
This has a dynamic quality that evokes a feeling of a storm at sea.
Rather than creating a grisaille for this painting I used an acrylic extender medium with Golden Open acrylics to allow me to work wet-in-wet and blend and mix with the brush on the canvas. Layers of glaze were then applied over parts of the image to build up a sense of depth.
Texture
Since coming back from Cornwall I had been thinking about how Stephanie Sandercock uses texture to develop her stone-based paintings and so I decided to take a small deviation over the Christmas period to experiment with her techniques.
She now uses a fine plaster used to create plaster mouldings and decorations on ceilings that she orders specially from a company in Scotland, but looking at her videos she started off by using tiling adhesive and so that is what I used as it is cheap and available from Homebase.
I prepared a 60 x 60 cm canvas with several coats of gesso to give a solid base before building up layers of the adhesive.
As a source image I used a photograph of the rocks on Porthmeor beach in St Ives:
The tile adhesive is quite difficult to manipulate and it’s not easy to get a sense of the texture from the photograph, but as an experiment it didn’t go too badly. However, I don’t really have enough time to get distracted from creating content for the exhibition, so I may come back to playing around with these ideas sometime in the future but not now.
Shingle
Discussions with Linda about our joint exhibition led me to consider the space on one of the walls and what I might use it for. Looking at the work of Helen Thomas and in particular her paintings of how plants and weeds can grow within the built environment got me thinking about the plants that grow on the shingle beach. These hardy plants manage to survive in very hostile conditions battered by the wind and sea and with no soil and are a vital part of the shingle coast in binding things together and preventing erosion.
I ordered a bulk supply of 30 x 30 cm canvases with the idea that I can create a matrix of 9 of these small paintings to fit the space and it would also provide a purchase opportunity for those whose pockets are not so deep.
Of course one problem with the plan is that I had to work out how to paint a shingle beach and not just single stones. In fact I have now developed a technique which I feel gives a reasonable result without driving me completely mad.
These realist paintings are something of a departure from my other works, however in terms of the exhibition plans I feel that they will serve as a link between my paintings and Linda’s photography and reinforcing the contextual aspects of my work.