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).