Blog
- Details
- Ashley Hanson
FRI 3 APRIL
Tuning up the colours and strengthening the drawing this morning- love the strength and sharpness of the central black curve. A new yellow on the left, a flash of yellow on the shoulder and blue replaces black on the top of the head. A scruffy black mark on the left becomes a circle; a purer teal curve and weightier greens at the top, with a cut curve across. A new pink on pink. We're done.
This figure is an important motif to me: it's the figure from behind that has been repeatedly in my work since my first year at art college. Losing the figure was always an option in this painting and yet it wasn't: the figure had to appear in the 'Porthleven' series at some point, but with the harbour as an equal, remeniscent of the relationship between the harbour and clocktower in 'Porthleven 17' below.
'Porthleven 17' 25x30cms'
THURS 2 APRIL
The painting is not about the figure, it's about the relationship between the figure and the landscape, which I am trying to capture by finding a common, shaped edge, between figure profile and harbour, where each draws the other. I think we are getting closer to that vision today. The jolt of yellow (8) was transformative, electric, eye-catching against the surrounding cool palette. This led to a procession of smaller blocks of colour across the painting, across the figure: red to purple to emerald...
A lightning-jolt of Indian Yellow...
The trailing leg finally became an exciting piece of painting, an action, a mark of force: it is colour, it is dynamic and directional, leading the eye to the geometric purples in the top right corner. The blacks and whites were strengthened, the fat black mark in the bottom-right muti-faceted: outline, shadow, harbour edge. The large teal foreground shape with its beautiful curve describes and holds the now fragmented figure, which on occasion, does disappear, diminished by colour.
(7) (8)
WED 1 APRIL 5 p.m.
A destructive session, pushing paint through paint, taking away paint (7). The figure is more elusive and the harbour, with its flatter shapes starts to compete. I'm really enjoying that central group of green and pale pink rectangles and colour is starting to happen, helped with a new cleaner white in the top-left. I think we are getting closer.
(5) (6)
WED 1 APRIL
An early start today. the harbour redrawn with pale pink in the harbour and a large pink mark from ankle to shoulder (5) - that trailing leg is forceful now. Tried a heavier dark outline, repeated with pink but not convinced with the drawing. (6)
(3) (4)
TUES 31 MARCH
I thought the painting yesterday was too sketchy (3) but went backwards today with my changes (4). The figure is too dominant and all movement is lost, a standing figure replaces a moving figure. An idea is to extend the pink to the top and bottom of the canvas to push the figure behind. This could still be a black and white painting.
MON 30 MARCH
I had three ideas to work with for 'Porthleven 95':
Islands - where the pier in front of the Ship Inn becomes disconnected during bad weather and high tide
Black Ship - I like the name! A reversal of colours of the Ship Inn, in a mainly black and white painting
Figure - Bringing in a figure seems inevitable. I had everyone putting figures in their paintings on last years Porthleven courses! Two vertical elements, the left-hand outline of the figure describes the shape of the harbour. The 'Porthleven' and 'City of Glass' series come closer together!
(1) (2)
Beginnings. Some new colours, pastel shades, all very tentative and difficult to get excited about. The lyrics from Pink Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here' sprang to mind: 'Running over the same old ground. What have we found? The same old fears...'
- Details
- Ashley Hanson
TUES 24 MARCH
Looking at a painting, you often have to suspend belief: a harbour balancing on a line?! What am I looking at? A seagull's view, a shape of place, or a form, an image? And what is the yellow - merely a foil for the writhing blues and greens or equal billing - colour balance? At first glance, the yellow is flatter, quieter, but look again, there is a lot going on in those yellows: brushwork, knifework, pourings, layerings; transparency, opaque, heavy, delicate, directional. Saffron, lemony, cadmiums, Indian Yellow, Turner's Yellow (No. 235), Naples Yellow, every brand of Naples Yellow is different . And, of course, the painting would not have been made without Bonnard and Matisse.
Enjoy the questions, the ambiguities, the mysteries - a painting would be dull without them. Or simply enjoy the colour and the composition - ABRACADABRA, the rectangle has disappeared!
Piers: punctuations of pink and orange and a scraped-back fragment of the red underpainting...
The story of a painting...
In the studio at 6.30 this morning - we're done! An extended line at the bottom, slightly curved and now purple. An orange semi-circle at the point of balance. Love its ambigiuity: in its almost-perfection and tone, is it part of the 'form', helping to ground it, as surely the teal spike is too flimsy? Or does its' warm colour make is part of the ground? The bottom line of the harbour was staightened to bring back the triangle, the geometry - stronger. The final mark, a dry-drag of purple across the top yellow - got to balance the line below! Horizon line- possibly - subverting the space again. These two lines create another movement - the harbour seems to tip to the right - slightly - with the purple lines a slight tip to the left.
(7)
MON 23 MARCH
Balancing the harbour on the line subverts the scale and space, now sculptural (7). Getting close. Might try the clocktower again tomorrow.
(6)
MON 23 MARCH
Things are happening, a too static harbour ripped open (6). More yelllows, colour glow, colour flow, pink piers, loving the marks up the left-side. We need line...
(5)
MON 23 MARCH
A good session! Now we have a shape that excites - untethered.
(4)
SUN 22 MARCH
There is a wildness about this painting, switching ideas and orientation (3), (4), but the colour is starting to happen with new yellows over the purple. Might go back to that point of tension with the harbour balanced on top of a tiny clocktower...
(3)
(2)
In my eyes, the purple cancels the green (2). Which to keep?
(1)
A new harbour-shape, jack-knifing to the top left corner. I like the idea and title of a Black Ship Inn (with a white roof).
- Details
- Ashley Hanson
FRI 20 MARCH p.m.
The finale was blue, with the final, final mark the blue roof on the left balancing the blue brushstroke on the right edge. The red centre dominates, framed by piers, tempered by the pulsating hot pink below. We have a painting!
(4) Colour that grips the eyes
'The legacy of colour, the interaction of colour, the emotion of colour...'
(3) Nearly...
FRI 20 MARCH a.m.
The breakthrough came today by turning the canvas round and discarding the literalness of the drawings (4). The central section became the harbour, with its three distinct basins and the row of rooftops, hanging like washing from the long curve. The magenta brushmarks in the 'sky' nearly worked, creating depth but they seemed disconnected, floating. I should have used two different sized brushes.
(2)
I initially worked from drawings of Porthleven's finest view - the panorama from the bench at the top of Institute Hill (1) - an inspiration for generations of artists, including Wilhemina Barnes-Graham and Jeremy Gardiner. The painting began last year on the Nicholas de Stael workshop, hence the proliferation of block shapes and a similar josting between abstraction and figuration. A different start but of course I have to find my own language and painting - if De Stael's signature is the block, mine is the pour! Liquid oil-paint flooded the bottom half with colour, orange then blue (2) but things became too literal. The excitement was always the green lines across the earthy red - Venetian Red with a touch of Vermillion.
(1)
As I'm painting rooftops, I thought I'd include these two fabulous paintings that show De Stael's seemless transition from abstraction to to figuration: 'Composition', 1951 (left) and 'Roofs, Paris' 1952 (right). Something I took from De Stael was the simplicity of his late drawings, often made with a felt-tip pen, which create delicious ambiguities between positive and negative spaces, which i explore in my paintings.
- Details
- Ashley Hanson
SUN 15 MARCH
Around the painting one more time this morning, fine-tuning colours and edges, bringing colour inside the lines and adding a group of soft golden brushmarks/waves towards the bottom of the painting. A quiet presence (6). Very happy with the painting now - those yellows are gorgeous! - making simplicity work.
(6)
(5) On our best wall!
(4)
SAT 14 MARCH
Reworked the yellows today and the stripe on the right, now with a slight, slight bend (4). I also brought in image detail, a tiny crane and an almost invisible boat (3). The big boat in the title is, of course, the harbour! Tried several things in the bottom yellow, but kept returning to simplicity, shape and space. This simplicity is rare in my work: Matisse can do 'simple', Milton Avery and Etel Adnan too - why not? The question is whether this is enough, whether I can accept it or whether the painting needs to go further? This painting is about the centre, the interplay and shift in language between the almost soild building and the orange drawing. It is essential that if I make changes I make, this orange-line keeps its strength.
(3)
TUES 10 MARCH p.m.
Small moves today, working with the simplicity and building up the paint (2). Loving the repetition of shapes with the orange roof, the flattened orange wall and the open linear Fisherman's Pier, which I might repeat with a simple clocktower in the bottom right corner.
TUES 10 MARCH a.m.
It's only the first session (1) but enjoying the composition and the drawing and simplicity - perhaps an antidote to the flamboyance of 'Porthleven 91'! Working title is 'The Island', a reference to how the pier in front of the Ship Inn, in high tide and storms, becomes disconnected, adrift...
- Details
- Ashley Hanson
SUN 8 MARCH
Twisty lines and weighty blues transform the painting, full of movement now (6). The wind blows, inspiring the new title, taken from the sublime David Bowie track on 'Station to Station'. Enjoying how the painting reflects the three distinct sections of the harbour with the still centre...resisting. There is a different movement in the centre: colour resonance, Hofmannesque push/pull: the reduced top blue pier is pushed back, the yellow pier hovers forwards. Finding the balance between freedom and control.
This painting is extravagant!
detail
SAT 7 MARCH p.m.
The painting seems decorative, too sweet, spots and stripes and more spots (5). The blue pier is too strong a horizontal. There is no energy...or surprise. Time to be brave...
SAT 7 MARCH a.m.
The painting broken open, a new orange in the centre with a touch of Venetian Red (3). A few changes this morning (4), mainly going backwards. I still haven't found my 'shape of harbour' with the line and the bottom edge and the butterbean shape dull and predictable. Too many curves - looking back at (3) I'm missing that large squared off shape in the bottom half.
FRI 6 MARCH
The random marks in (1) become my harbour wall (2). Very raw but enjoying the openness and the orange centre...
