THURS 23 FEB
Reflection and final marks. The severity of the squared off black shape niggled me (5), now softened with a red-oxide glaze and resolved by a sweep of orange/red and a vertical line of small dots beneath. It's a return to the curve/branch from the early stage of the painting (1) and the possibility of 'tree' and 'hanging-harbour' - hence the name-change!
detail
5
SUN 29 JAN
The idea of 'tree' is less explicit, transformed into colour but we have a painting... It's a beautiful piece of red, with Pyrolle Red and Michael Harding Venetian Red in the mixes, picked up by the red crane. A softening of the transition between red and black. I kept seeing a face which slowed down the movement around the painting. I took out the black mark/eye - now you can see better the red crane and the procession of small marks/colour-incident in the detail.
Colour versus drawing - balance. Done.
In this morning's session, denser colour down the left, a new red!, a new blue and simplification along the top, and opening up and re-drawing the bottom right. The messing around in Photoshop (4) last night didn't go to waste. If you've been on one of our Porthleven painting courses you'll know the significance of the thin sliver of yellow towards the top of the painting and also see that the end of the long pier at the bottom twists the wrong way but is the right way for the painting!
SAT 28 JAN
Nothing yet clear about this painting (3). It looks familiar but not my own. Too graphic, not enough about colour.
To stir up the Porthleven series, the idea is to bring in a new element; a tree or 'telegraph-tree' - either side by side with the harbour or the harbour hanging.
I thought about stopping in (1) but felt it was too sketchy, with the bases of the two trees, too similar, with the harbour barely descibed, but I liked the simplicity of the language, reducing it to a few vertical and horizontal lines. The space under the arched branches, sparked a memory of Matisse's glorious 'Entrance to the Kasbah', which co-incidentally also has a red triangle...
(2) kind of works but do the three elements cancel each other out?. Replacing the tree on the left didn't resolve it either in (3). Love the flowing reds and the left edge with the nobble but the painting is now too static, closing the harbour at the bottom a step backwards. Should I move the red further to the left or does it belong in the painting at all? In all three, the top strip is a mess and making the blue straighter in (3) a mistake.
I've just seen something. The red is the tree - a great title - exploiting the 'v' shape at the top of the red, splitting the tree into two branches, perhaps taking the right branch all the way to the right-edge. Need to open up the bottom of the harbour again...
beginnings...