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- Ashley Hanson
I’ve just returned exhausted/exhilarated from our September ‘Freedom in Painting’ course at the Old Lifeboat House in Porthleven. Once again the artists - and Porthleven – delivered: 5 days of intense working resulting in a magnificent final day exhibition, inspired by the complexity of the harbour and the beauty and drama of nature, with ever-changing weather, light and tide.
As always, the course began on Saturday visits to the best exhibitions around. This time we were in Penzance to see ‘Making Her Mark: A Celebration of Women in Art’ – fabulous Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham and Joan Eardley paintings! – followed by the David Mankin PV at Cornwall Contemporary the ‘St. Ives and Modern British Art Show' at ’Belgrave St. Ives. We were all energised by the paintings we saw – back to the studio for a challenging exercise, sourced in a fabulous abstract painting by Dutch artist Ad Raats.
Ad Raats
The loose theme on the course was space and depth in painting, so we discussed the spatial possibilities and ambiguities in an abstract piece by Dutch artist Ad Raats, and how it changed as the painting was rotated. The artists weren't told which was the correct orientation! The artists were then given a black and white copy of the painting and asked to draw the composition onto a 20cms square canvas, keeping the same imperfect proportions. Then they had to do somethire with it, using the memory of colours seen on our gallery visits either from the landscape or the art, making it as abstract or figurative as they wished.
The great thing about working on a small canvas is that you can make multiple changes very quickly and after a couple of hours a remarkable range of paintings emerged, expressing the preferences and personalities of the artists. The lessons learned and the geometry continued into many of the later paintings on the course.
On Sunday morning we had a talk and demonstration about how to create space and depth in painting and how space can create focus, visual breathing, intriguing ambiguities and even elicit emotion in a painting - see the large area of the negative space framing the figures in Edward Hopper's 'Nighthawks'.
'Nighthawks' 1942 Edward Hopper
The artists began their paintings, working from drawings and memory, A drawing session around the harbour provided further inspiration, the artists picking out curves and negative space in the landscape.
Back in the studio, over the next few days, the artists developed their paintings, with group critiques, frequent one-to-one tuition, analysis, conversations, more demonstations, working towards our final-day public exhibition. As part of my teaching, I also work on a new painting for the exhibition, 'Porthleven 103', often sneaking in early before the artists to make some dramatic changes!
On Wednesday afternoon, the studio was cleared and the paintings revealed, with a very amicable group hang - no egos here!The exhibition, as always, was a great success, a chance for the artists to reflect and talk to visitors and each other about their work, after an exhausting week! The group bonded really well with most of them signing up for the course next year. Hats off to the artists!
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- Ashley Hanson
Night watch from the house, night walks around the harbour, strung with coloured lights; reflections, startling blue...
The final mark the white curve that implies the harbour extending beyond the paintings edge. A big thank-you to Antonia Glynne-Jones for the suggestion of the title -perfect - bringing the unintended resonance between the llght and shade of Porthleven and the chiaroscuro of Rembrandt's 1642 masterpiece 'The Night Watch'. Rembrandt's painting lost three figures when it was moved, mine lost two clocktowers during the making!
Light and dark: black baulks thumping, black waves pushing, pounding.....night forces. The sense of being followed: figures lurking in the dark outside the studio, after a night time visit, and then again around by the clocktower. This was after the painting - night paranoia - everything made sense.
Nearly...
After a restless night, an early morning session, where transparent purples and blues eradicate the yellow - almost - allowing the darks to dominate. Animated 'redrawing' blue on the left and framing line brings precision and contrast, clarity and focus to the still centre (above). 'Battenburg' - a considered title, but too flippant.! A painting about the flat planes of colour in the gap between piers. Later, Ollie thought the harbour at this point looked like a nuclear bomb - Fat Man - I'm glad I moved on with the painting!
Beginnings
Looking for harbour-shape, looking for composition, looking for colour-resonance, looking for meaning...
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- Ashley Hanson
I recently hosted the 'Purple' Workshop at the fabulous Queens Park Arts Centre in Aylesbury. This was the latest in a long line of 'Freedom in Painting' workshops around the country over the past 10 years, where a group of curious artists get together to investigate a niche of painting, responding to different genres, artists or colours over 2 days. The theme is often sourced in something happening in my own work or something seen, or, in this case, a theme suggested by the artists themselves.
Egon Schiele & Helen Frankenthaler
We began, as always, with a talk about the history of purple in painting, from its regal origins to the Purple explosion in the mid-nineteenth century and looking at purple in the work of the Impressionists, Klimpt & Schiele, Chagall, Georgia O'Keefe, Helen Frankenthaler Mark Rothko and contemporary artists. Purple is a brave colour to use: it's in nature of course, but can be extravagant, moody, exotic, nostalgic, spiritual. The artists were asked in advance to consider the question 'Why purple?' and bring in studies and ideas to develop into purple paintings.
Exercise 1: looking for contrast in purple - temperature, tone and transparency
A curiosity of purple is that a majority of ready made purples/violets are transparent colours as are most of the blues and reds used to mix strong purples. Our first exercise followed a colour-mixing demonstration: working on paper and outwards from a small central block of contrasting colour, the artists were asked to find/mix/apply purples looking for contrast in temperature, tone and transparency. The mystery of purple began to emerge! (above)
Exercise 2 - responding to words in purple Di Oldfield
The second exercise was more challenging. Working on a small canvas, the artists were asked to interpret a set of words into purple. Some of the artists worked in a methodical way, like Diane Oldfield above, others worked more expressively in their interpretations.
Just like society in the late nineteenth-century, after the discovery of Cobalt Violet, after the exercises 'Purplemania' gripped the room! The artists then began their purple paintings working from their own subject or developing the exercises further into painting. Each artist worked their own way in their exploration of purple, some working on a few pieces, others sticking to one or two. During the workshop there were further demonstations and individual tuition with all the artists. We ended the workshop, as always, with a group critique. I must congratulate the artists for working hard under extreme conditions - two of the hottest days of the year! What emerged was a fantastic set of paintings demonstrationg the mystery, extravagance and mystery of purple. Hats off to the artists!
Great to see the artists continuing their paintings back home (see Anna Badar below - more depth and energy - and myself!). I'm looking forward to hosting a 'Sandra Blow' in workshop in Aylesbury next year.
Early and final Version of Anna Badar's 'Trebawith Moon'
Joanna Brownridge paintings
'Porthleven 102 (PURPLE - Dark Steps, Yellow Pier)' 35x45cms Ashley Hanson
'Thank you for a wonderful two day workshop- I was really inspired to continue with the theme of purple when I got back home'. KAREN MARTIN
'Thanks so much for the Purple course. I found it really interesting and learned about integrating purple into my work'. HAZEL CRAWFORD
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SAT 4 JULY
A celebration of purple (and its yellow complimentary). A tilting, rocking harbour tethered to... something. A point of tension, a holding, controlling line, preventing a falling harbour...
Another point of tension with the almost touching violet and yellow discs: will they, won't they, repelling like two positive magnets. This pairing of colours is acute: a three colour yellow and deep violet made from Ultramarine and Magenta.
Simplification, revealing the essential. The left of the harbour drawn by a new purple, the four piers a powerful central cluster, each with their individuality and difference.
I had to look again at the painting this way again - landscape - as a ship/boat/windsock, a more whimsical painting! I had a great chat about the 2 versions with my son, Ollie, who perceptively pointed out that the line that draws the left side of the harbour is a strength in the version above and a weakness as a 'boat' below. We were both fascinated by the tension between the two discs, the potential energy, the discussion leading to protons and electrons and nuclear physics. Thank-you for enlightening me Ollie!
The drawback as an 'image'- boat- is that the scale is fixed whereas as a vertical harbour the scale is indeterminate and unwordly, thus more evasive and interesting. A curiosity though: once you see it this way, you see the version above in a different light, another layer of interest. Harbour or boat, from the side or from above? All good fun - delicious ambiguities.
'Boat'
Beginnings: an idea about the Ship Inn ' Ship Inn a Ship'! (below) Too specific too soon, but the whites made a great base for majestic transparent violets, the ship becoming my harbour. Chaos (left above) but with the three harbour basins established. Simpler and more ordered on the right, purple expanding, yellow shrinking.
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- Ashley Hanson
'Revisit, rethink, rework, resolve...'
SUN 28 JUNE
A couple of tweaks today. A thin line rising above the bottom edge that cements the orientation. A stronger triangle on the left, echoed by the tiny open triangle bottom right, A new leaning yellow stripe on the right which makes the large yellow rectangle even stronger. A wristy ultramarine curve across the top - love the curl! - adding movement and vitality to the painting, contrasting the dominant verticality. Painting decisions...
We're done. Now the painting realises that ambition of presence, autonomy and surprise, provoking intrigue, questions: 'What am I looking at?' Blue expressive curve or the wind? Why yellow, why pink? Where am I? Place or a painter's space? 'Image' - piers and buildings and harbour-shape ambiguous and implied by scale and colour incident, subservient to the painting. Abstract or figurative or 'In Between'?
detail
(A)
THURS 18 JUNE
My new favourite! (A). Love the way the harbour sits on the bottom edge and the prominence of the yellow profile that describes the right side of the harbour. I think the yellows are more intriguing spatially as verticals, the painting reading less obviously as landscape, with the tiny sliver of blue bringing depth. There is an exciting range of scale of marks in this piece, the yellows framing an intensity of small but powerful marks.
I'm enjoying the dialogue between the large bright yellow upright rectangle and the yellow block on the left - they are the same yellow. (B) was rejected because I read the yellows at the top as buildings and they shrink the scale of the harbour.
(B)
(C)
WED 17 JUNE p.m.
'Porthleven 67 (The In Between)' that I've gone back to but can't decide which way up! Below, it's called ' Long Pier', above, 'Chimney'. I'm enjoying the lean and movement in 'Long Pier' but perhaps 'Chimney' is more surprising, the harbour more intimate and protected, pivoted on the bright yellow block/chimney, which acts a stop in 'Long Pier'. The blues up the side in 'Chimney' hopefully stop it being a tasteful landscape!
(D)
WED 17 JUNE
This is getting exciting! Each possibility has its qualities and weaknesses. in the portrait orientation above, I love the angled orange line but confused by the two shapes top left and feel I should take the yellows to the top.
The story of a painting:
