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- Ashley Hanson
FRI 30 JAN
Pushing, pushing...brave, brave... a sweeping curve across the purple, a line of movement but also a line of definition, redrawing the harbour, taking it outside the painting...possibly. This final mark is transformative: an exquisite balance now in the painting between curves and geometry, line and shape, stasis and energy, freedom and control. We're done.
I think this will be my entry for the RA Summer Exhibition.
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THURS 29 JAN
A dash of blue brings colour-glow and excitement to the grouping of shapes in the top right corner (10) hinting at the busyness of boats at the back of the harbour and its scale reinforcing the possibility of a receding space (11). What is the blue? A brushmark, a colour, a shape, an image/boat? It simply belongs.
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MON 12 JAN
Getting a grip of the scale by pushing a new unifying yellow across the painting - revealing the range of yellows (9) The painting now has more movement, with reworked purples and a dry-drag of electric blue across the central orange, springing upwards. Just below, a shallow curve across the bottom of the middle shape/pier, essential amongst the geometric. A yellow boat now sits in the top-right corner a reflection of the curves along the top. A subconscious homage, perhaps, to a favourite painting, Edvard Munch's 'Melancholy Yellow Boat' 1892, with a similar tension between horizontal and diagonal and tumbling shapes. A big thank-you to my son Ollie for his perceptive observations and insights during the making - we are both agreed that the yellow boat brings context, meaning and visual interest to the painting.
yellow boat
'Melancholy, Yellow Boat' Edvard Munch 1892
'Yellow Boat', a motif from my own art history, Munch's symbolism repeated in my autobigraphical 'The Garden of Eden' and three in a row in this subversive early 'Porthleven' painting:
'Porthleven 8 (Yellow Harbour)' 50x60cms 2007
detail
A couple of drawings showing the idea of the repeated paralellograms in the landscape, the fishermans pier and the wall and steps in front of the Ship Inn, with curves of movement/the wind. I can see the drawing below as another painting.
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THURS 31 DECEMBER
A reworked bottom left corner, more physical yellows and sharper shapes with an 'incident' of purple on the left side (8).The blue is now moving and twisting over and behind the yellow curve. and the yellows in each shape are distinctive. If you are working with yellow, you have to find yellow and its tonal range. A purple triangle at the end of the Fisherman's pier, bringing colour and contrast inside the yellow. The painting seems more playful now, with the open and closed triangles and diamonds, shifts in scale and spatial intrigue created with colour and edges, cut and imposed shapes.
(7)
THURS 27 NOV
Giddy with excitement, this latest Porthleven painting is now more extravagant, exotic, magical, fantastical, with new diamond-shapes dancing across an even richer blue! (7). The purples were also revamped and a linear 'v' - crane - introduced onto the bottom edge, bringing context, precision, difference. This small piece of drawing has transformed the painting. It mirrors the triangle on the end of the Fisherman's Pier top-left; it throws the too-flat yellow behind and starts an upwards clockwise movement, linking to the linear diamond and the small shape beyond.
(6)
TUES 25 NOVEMBER
The breakthrough came with intensifying the blues and bringing in new geometric shapes into the bottom yellow, the flat larger shape, carved out of the paint and glazed, the smaller shape leading the eye into the painting (6). Love the interplay between this cascade of geometric shapes and the surrounding curves, my definition of this harbour landscape.
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19 NOV
The green on the left was extended and the harbour redrawn with liquid Indian Yellow and a new purple line on the right (4, left). In the next session, (right, above), lively brushwork on both sides of the harbour brought in new dynamism and movement, increasing the contrast with the yellow stillness inside the harbour.
(3) Real!
18 NOV a.m.
Things are starting to move! In my sleep, I saw green, introduced first thing as a pour, then extended into a large shape, almost like a heart (4). The central yellows were darkened with Indian Yellow, fabulous against the green/turquoise. I can see two ways to go, explored in Photoshop below. The first is the idea of bringing in a sheet of new orangey yellow over the green, leaving the curves at the top and the slanted rectangle to join the dance of shapes. The second possibility is extending the green to the left edge.
(2) Photoshop
17 NOV
Early days (1) but enjoying the simplicity and the shape of the harbour and the idea of repeated paralellograms. Also the concept of 'blue into yellow without green', tricky with oil-paint!. The purple is more lively now (3) - I'm enjoying the abruptness against the yellow, and how it tucks in behind as it gets darker. and yet there is more to find, it's either the wrong yellow or the wrong purple, I must find the optimum, an exquisite relationship. The painting has no depth or history or surprise - a long way to go.
(1) beginnings
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- Ashley Hanson
From the studio...
We recently welcomed 2 groups of artists to our Autumn painting courses in Porthleven, held in the fabulous Old Lifeboat House studio, located opposite the iconic clocktower. As always, we began each course with a visit to the galleries in St. Ives to check out the competition! I asked the artists to look specifically at 'scale', both the relevance of the size of the artworks themselves and scale of the elements and marks within. Each year, I try to have a different theme for the courses, so for the Autumn courses, tying in with the extraordinary Liliane Lijn exhibition at Tate St. Ives, the artists were asked to consider the idea of the figure in the landscape and the abstract-figure, with the possibilities of narrative or simply as a means to suggest scale. On our return the studio, we had a group painting exercise, the challenge of exploring 'scale' on a very small canvas!
Karen Martin's 'Scale' painting
On both courses, the sun shone brightly on Sunday morning for our drawing session around the harbour. Drawing is a critical element on all our courses: after the drawing session, we are studio-based with the paintings informed by our drawings, by ideas, intuition and the wealth of art history. After lunch, I gave a talk about the idea of the figure in landscape painting, looking at Van Gogh, Soutine, De Kooning, Keith Vaughn, Leon Kossoff, with some examples in my own work. Then it was time for my first demonstration - the beginning of Porthleven 85! - translating a simple drawing inspired by the walk around the harbour. Full of ideas and inspiration, our artists then started their own paintings.
The next few days were intense: painting, talking about painting, thinking about painting, with our subject, close at hand and ever changing. A charged creative environment, with plenty of one-to-one tuition and further demonstrations. And the paintings emerged: strong, surprising and highly individulistic, as it should be.
On Wednesday afternoon, we cleared the studio to prepare for Thursday's finale, a one day exhibition open to the public, a chance for the artists to talk about the work during the week, and, as always, very well received. Porthleven never fails to inspire but as artists, we have do something with it, make a personal statement, in paint, about our Porthleven, an ambition realised as you can see in the work in the galleries below. Hats off to the artists!
Exhibition
GALLERY / SEPTEMBER COURSE
GALLERY/ OCTOBER COURSE
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- Ashley Hanson
THURS 13 NOVEMBER
On the wall today, after the final refinements, I saw 'Goddess', now included in the title alongside 'Amarilla', Denise approves! Amarilla is a Spanish translation for yellow but feminine. For Peter Lanyon, the sea is male but my sea is always feminine...
The extended central purple is now denser and less patchy, a purer curve that pushes/competes with the gang of yellows above. Simplifying in order to see. Freedom...and control: the writhing curves and vertical gestural marks controlled by the paralell-lines of the Fishermen's Pier and the delicate horizontal along the bottom edge.
(detail: gang of yellows!)
(5) View from the sofa...
(4) In good company... 'Porthleven 84 (Stack of Piers)', 'Porthleven 77 (Kasbah)', 'Porthleven 85 (Amarilla/Goddess)'
(3) Nearly there...
SAT 10 OCT
Possibly needs some fine-tuning (3) but the essential new thing, the surprise is there - those central yellows are raw, wild, thrilling!
(2) Harbour and movement...
(1) Beginnings....Blue/orange and white mixes mixes with Prussian Blue and Cobalt Blue
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- Ashley Hanson
30 SEPT 2025
At low-tide in Porthleven, large chevron-shaped steps are revealed at the base of the pier outside the Ship Inn. An idea - and drawing - came, placing these chevrons at the bottom of a painting, 'lifting' the harbour upwards above, with a whoosh of water between piers (1). The clumsily drawn first marks (2) were covered by liqiuid yellows, scraped back the next day to reveal 'ghost-marks', with the orange and blue vertical streaks provoking the palette for the painting (4). Further refinements of line and colour led to the finished painting above which is joyous, animated and ctritically, different, capturing the spirit of the drawing,
'Porthleven 84 (Stack of Piers)' & 'Porthleven 77 (Kasbah)' in the Newlyn Society exhibition 'Perspectives' at Tremenheere Gallery
A curiosity: consciously, subconsciously, after finishing my painting, I thought of this Terry Frost painting with its stack of boats...
'Green, Black and White Movement' 1951 Terry Frost
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(1)
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- Ashley Hanson
'For me, abstract painting and figurative painting are not opposites. A painting should be both abstract and figurative.’ Nicolas de Stael 1952
As you can see from the gallery above, an exceptional group of paintings emerged during the recent Aylesbury 2-day workshop, responding to the work of Nicholas de Stael. In advance the artists were asked to make studies of landscape, still life or the figure to bring to the workshop.
The workshop began with an introductory talk, loooking at de Stael's influences, stylistic changes and legacy. This was followed by group exercises and demonstrations, exploring mark-making in both drawing and painting (with a palette-knife!) and translating and simplifying the studies in felt-tip pen. Now we had a way in to painting...
Paintings by Antonia Glynne-Jones
The ambition was not simply to imitate the 'style of de Stael', but to follow his ideals of a fusion of inside and outside, past and present, doing justice to the subject and expressing the feelings triggered by the subject. It's a philosophy that carries through all the 'Freedom in Painting' workshops and courses: paintings rooted in reality, a perception of reality but hooked on to the senses and allowed to develop and evolve as they are made.
The studio at Queens Park Arts Centre, Aylesbury
The 2 days were filled with one-to-one tutorials and further demonstrations, finishing with an invaluable group critique. Curiosity, bravery, hard work and the sprit of Nicholas de Stael certainly paid off during the workshop with some very exciting and inventive paintings produced. Hats off to the artists!
ARTISTS COMMENTS
'The course showed me a very different way of working. Very useful and inspiring. Very enjoyable and relaxed. I learnt a lot from Ashley and found his demos particularly useful' GUY ROSE
'Challenged me to explore new ways of looking at art, preparing for painting and including how to get back on track. Ashley is a kind, helpful and thoughtful tutor - method of teaching and feedback all help me develop my practice' KATY GARROD
'A great two days and thank-you.' JENNY LAW
'Very helpful - always wonderful to follow a specific artist - their style and techniques. Ashley delivers and 'homes in' to these methods which helps up learn and develop. Love the challenge of oils and abstraction - a little out of my comfort-zone!' JUDITH HARPER
'Reminded me that a palette-knife can be great!' PIPPA GREENSMITH
'A great teacher with always something new to give' KAREN MARTIN