The LiterArties BLOG page. - LITERARTIES

TIPS ON DRAWING PORTRAITS - No.2

3/11/2022

by KAY JAMIESON

No. 2 Tips on Drawing Portraits Having established some proportions in our portrait we can also think about adding tone, or shadows, ie. the range of light-to-dark areas which help to suggest three dimensions on the flat surface of the paper. It is helpful to make a black and white scale like this...

Shading can be done with a pencil or ball-point in a cross-hatching style or more evenly using a brush with watercolour, or charcoal. Try experimenting with different media.

Notice the direction of the light before shading the features which are in shadow. Note that cast shadows, those that are caused by an obstruction to the light, such as the nose, will have a harder edge than shadows which describe a rounded form like a cheek. Mark the areas of darkest tone (black) then gradually add the two or three mid-tones where necessary, adjusting as you go. If all the shadows are the same tone it will tend to ‘flatten’ the drawing. Remember, you are aiming to create the illusion of forms receding in space.

Have fun practicing these techniques! I hope they help.

CONTRASTS OF LIGHT & DARK

2/4/2022

Croatian Shore

I have always been fascinated by contrasts between dark and light and how the shadows frame the sunlight. This was a scene painted on the beach in Croatia where there are wonderful views out across the islands opposite. So much of life goes on along the shore and just seeing the water lifts my sprits.

We lived for five years right on the beach in Papua New Guinea where sometimes the sea came right up into our garden, and when the waves were high it felt like being in a ship at sea! At night we could watch the fishermen out with lamps on each tiny boat, stringing their nets between them to catch the fish as they swam up towards the light.

A lot about painting is in catching the atmosphere and transmitting the feelings that stir us onto the blank page in front of us. Seeing the painting again later can transport me back to how exactly how I felt at that moment, sitting beneath the trees and listening to the gentle stirring in the leaves above.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO FINISH A PICURE?

1/26/2022

by ROSIE PHIPPS

In conversation with Rosie PhippsQU “How long does it take to finish a picture?”

ROSIE “Well, it depends. There are two ways of looking at it. Contemplation and action. Contemplation belongs to the inner man. Action is an extension of this inwardness. One needs to wait until one is possessed. It is like religion.A painting is not a painting until one is possessed. A religion which lacks possession is not a religion.”

QU “Are you saying that a religion is not a religion unless it has a technique of possession attached to it?”

ROSIE “Yes. A religion is like painting. It is something to be  experienced. This is why it is so uncomfortable to exhibit them. One is turning a private space into a public arena.”
John realised that what Frances painted showed both her pain and her pleasure. Was she, and were the pictures, crying out to be looked at and appreciated by others, or was the act of creation enough in itself?

QU “I listened to John Cage's  4. 33” at a concert last week. 4.3 minutes of silence. The pianist sat motionless at the piano.Her fingers outstretched and tense ready to play.The cellist raised his right eyebrow indicating to her that she should start. She sat there and did nothing. The cellist, reflecting her silence, sat  motionless again with his arms poised as if to strike the first note.”

ROSIE “ I know the piece. He is allowing us to  experience the silence as a composer, not just a listener.The room was filled with people some of whom were drawn into the silence. It felt like a cathedral. We were held in that state of being that perfect attention creates. ”

QU “Yes. He is allowing the audience to experience the power of silence. The possession, and the action that follows from the possession of silence, and from which compositions are made and played.”

ROSIE “ What Cage did was to take that private space into a public space. What the audience then did with it was up to them.”

QU “ Yes. The silence is there for us all.It comes and goes with one's awareness. One has to listen for it. It can come spontaneously when one is alone, or holding someone one loves, or just by walking in the woods. The point is to be able to recognise it.”

ROSIE “There are times in one’s life when one's inner state matches that of the world and there appears to be no way out.There is no starting all over again with a new beginning. One just has to start where one finds oneself, within that silence, and pick up the pieces and start all over again. With art there is always an empty canvas.”

QU “What are you working on now?

ROSIE “The sensuality of the land. The sheer eroticism of it. It is like flesh. I want to stroke it.I want to grab and mould it.”

Recent landscapes by Rosie 250 x 105mm

PRINTS vs THE ORIGINAL

1/17/2022

by ALAN KESTNER

Giclee Prints

When the Booker Prize is announced and you want to read the book, you wouldn’t dream of writing to the author and asking for the original manuscript – you would be quite happy with a printed copy. But, for some reason, this is quite different in the world of art where the original is prized far above any copy. The Giclee method of making a copy of your painting involves photographing it very accurately and transferring this to a computer and then printing it out with a special large inkjet printer. Unlike your desktop printer this typically uses ten or twelve different light-proof inks and makes an extremely accurate copy of your artwork. It is printed onto high quality watercolour or art paper and if done properly looks indistinguishable from the original. Of course, not all art is suitable for copying and printing using the Giclee process, e.g. thick impasto surfaces. But many pictures do reproduce beautifully and, provided the printer adjusts the colour correctly, a suitable copy is produced. So why do so many people turn up their noses at this?

The Birds

Bunting

Is your appreciation aesthetic or commercial?

The original work of art is clearly more valuable as, by definition, it has scarcity value. But should you be judging art by its commercial value? After all, you can sit down and relax listening to a beautiful piece of music on CD rather than going to a concert and it doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg. So why can’t you do something similar with a giclee print of whatever painting takes your fancy? It is possible to do this with prints from famous artists, but commercially they are often of rather poor quality with quite a distortion of colour. Hence, prints are viewed as something a student might put on their wall but not a suitable decoration for your adult home. Unfortunately, this then rolls through to less famous artists whose prints, even though of very high quality, are shunned in favour of originals. And this then means that their working practice becomes un-commercial. No-one wants their prints, so their price is pushed down and they cannot recoup the cost of their originals because of the long time and effort expended in producing them.

Limited edition prints

One solution that is often tried is to produce a limited edition of the print. The buyer then thinks this is something special and exclusive and justifies a higher price. But isn’t this just pandering to snobbishness? The vast majority of people are not concerned about whether a book is a first edition or not, they just want to read and enjoy the story. So, as an artist whose paintings often take months to complete, my plea is – Buy the Giclee Prints!– these copies of mine are every bit as good as the originals and you can buy them very reasonably! If you would like to see them look for “prints” on my website at “ludwikart.com” or contact me via my “contact” page.

Atomic World

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO FINISH A PICURE?

1/17/2022

by ROSIE PHIPPS

In conversation with Rosie Phipps

QU “How long does it take to finish a picture?”

ROSIE “Well, it depends. There are two ways of looking at it. Contemplation and action. Contemplation belongs to the inner man. Action is an extension of this inwardness. One needs to wait until one is possessed. It is like religion.A painting is not a painting until one is possessed. A religion which lacks possession is not a religion.”

QU “Are you saying that a religion is not a religion unless it has a technique of possession attached to it?”

ROSIE “Yes. A religion is like painting. It is something to be  experienced. This is why it is so uncomfortable to exhibit them. One is turning a private space into a public arena.”
John realised that what Frances painted showed both her pain and her pleasure. Was she, and were the pictures, crying out to be looked at and appreciated by others, or was the act of creation enough in itself?

QU “I listened to John Cage's  4. 33” at a concert last week. 4.3 minutes of silence. The pianist sat motionless at the piano.Her fingers outstretched and tense ready to play.The cellist raised his right eyebrow indicating to her that she should start. She sat there and did nothing. The cellist, reflecting her silence, sat  motionless again with his arms poised as if to strike the first note.”

ROSIE “ I know the piece. He is allowing us to  experience the silence as a composer, not just a listener.The room was filled with people some of whom were drawn into the silence. It felt like a cathedral. We were held in that state of being that perfect attention creates. ”

QU “Yes. He is allowing the audience to experience the power of silence. The possession, and the action that follows from the possession of silence, and from which compositions are made and played.”

ROSIE “ What Cage did was to take that private space into a public space. What the audience then did with it was up to them.”

QU “ Yes. The silence is there for us all.It comes and goes with one's awareness. One has to listen for it. It can come spontaneously when one is alone, or holding someone one loves, or just by walking in the woods. The point is to be able to recognise it.”

ROSIE “There are times in one’s life when one's inner state matches that of the world and there appears to be no way out.There is no starting all over again with a new beginning. One just has to start where one finds oneself, within that silence, and pick up the pieces and start all over again. With art there is always an empty canvas.”

QU “What are you working on now?

ROSIE “The sensuality of the land. The sheer eroticism of it. It is like flesh. I want to stroke it.I want to grab and mould it.”

Recent landscapes by Rosie 250 x 105mm

TIPS ON DRAWING PORTRAITS

1/8/2022

by KAY JAMIESON

To most of us a portrait means a recognisable likeness. We judge a portrait by how well it represents the subject - in looks, manner, character, etc. For an artist this involves keen observation and careful measurement. Is the face round or rectangular? What is the distance from the top of the head to the chin compared with that from ear to ear? Features may be beautifully drawn but if they’re in the wrong place the result is not pleasing. In landscape or still life genres objects can be rearranged to suit the composition but not so in portraiture (unless you are Picasso!)

Firstly, establish placement on the page, ie. Composition. Is the head in the centre or to one side, looking up or down? If it’s to be a profile then perhaps more space is needed on the side the subject is facing. Will the background be important? Maybe some tone behind the head will help in producing a 3-D effect.

Any emotions which are expressed will show in the face: sadness, joy, contemplation, smile or frown. Capturing these feelings will entail some concentrated study of anatomy, particularly around the eyes and mouth.

Basic measurements which help to establish placement of the features. The width of an average face equals approximately two thirds the length, but of course this will vary according to the individual.

Once the shape of the face is outlined with vertical centre line and horizontal halfway measurements marked, divide into three sections, the first line indicating eyebrows, the second line the end of the nose. Between the top third and halfway lines is the position of the eyes. The lower third is divided into three to indicate mouth and chin. Ears are generally situated between the brow line and tip of the nose in a frontal view.

Lastly, practice, practice and practice some more.

I hope my portrait drawing tips help you.
Have fun!

BEING CREATIVE

12/2/2021

by ROSIE PHIPPS

Ones personal truth is always mute – when it is truly expressed it is communicated in silence – and if one really has to speak what results is the translation of that silence into pictures, music, dance and other creative acts – personal, social and institutional.

Every dream is a plan that lends itself to enactment in the outside world, behind every enactment in the outside world there is a dream – or a picture, a note, a movement a thought, an idea – or perhaps something that is only waiting to be discovered.

Keats said – that which is creative must create itself. Creativity arises from itself, you can’t learn it, explain it, teach it – it comes upon one and creates stillness and a presence where the images and colours take on a life of their own. One becomes obsessed by it and it is creates an urgency and demands that have to be satisfied, one cannot avoid it, it has to be done.

Before we talk about this aspect let us first enlarge on a few of the things it is not.

We like to think that every child is filled with creative potential that is extinguished by parental control, so that as adults we go around feeling that there is a book inside if only we could get it out. Self expression of personal ideas and emotions do not necessarily go hand in hand with creativity, which goes beyond the personal. The test lies in how relevant it is to the collective mind.
The second mistake is to think that creativity is linked only to art, music and drama – this ignores the rest of creativity which manifests in business and technology. Creativity releases itself in many fields of activity. People say to me, “why do you have a marketing college when you can paint?" The answer is very simple: creating an organisation is a creative act, each relationship can also be a creative act.
Confusion lies also in equating creativity with production, creating objects that can be judged.Creativity is an end in itself. Just being in "it" is enough. Rather like meditation the presence is enough, for me. With painting I get the added benefit of the image and the colours forming themselves out of the silence. I would imagine musicians experience the same process as do dancers and actors and so on.
Creativity needs also not be confused with the word good – all creativity is not good- one only has to think of the atom bomb. The confusion of goodness comes from thinking that everything that God creates is good – therefore if we create, then we are mimicking an act of God, therefore it must be good. Creativity can also be destructive. It can also have a dual face. With painting one needs to harness both sides, creativity and destruction.
Creativity must have a personal "I " that does the creating. However, the "I” has to be set aside, or at least not be in the way. At an art group we were encouraged to walk round with our pictures and say after the experience -“I did that. This is what I did.” But this owning comes after the event, part of the communication process that has nothing to do with the creativity itself. It is part of the selling process which is narrow and oppressive and focuses on the product. Creativity happens unobserved and without judgment. If creativity relied on judgment it would have to rely on the personal ego- the observer who is judging – this process would be destructive. Here the observer and the observation is one. There is unity and no duality. Duality comes after the act; it is not part of the process.The original vision is where one needs to start from.
Different artworks also help impregnate other works of creativity – for example I listen to music and that helps set off a hot spark, I dance – one image whether it be music, sculpture or art will set off another spark. Creativity then builds upon itself and continues to pressure one to move to the next work.

Birth of the Sunchild - painted around 1976

Mother and Child Bella - painted around 1998

A Celebration of Life - painted 2020

Getting in touch with the imagination and the little people (internal objects) that inhabit it is rather like dreaming, the images are able to do as they please, one has to trust the voices, the images, and the sounds and allow them to come from themselves and not control what you want them to say. It is like a dream, one is always a player in a group, sometimes an observer and at other times taking command. Other people in the group are also of value. So what comes first in a painting may not be the final image, as one has to allow other images to speak for themselves. This may involve destroying what has initially been created to allow creativity to reform itself and to recreate itself. In painting a picture this process can go on, over and over again, so that one learns that the act of creation is also one of destruction. The creator and the destroyer work hand in hand. One has to learn to live with that tension.

The painting is a mirror that reflects who one is at a moment in time, the images and colours form the archetypal background to one's life and the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind. The grid so to speak on which one is built, enabling one to battle with questions like chaos and control, black and white, dark and light, creation and destruction, duality and unity – the unification of opposites. These questions flow from out of the paint into being itself, so the work is both meditation on life and a meditation where paint becomes an extension of psyche: one’s battle with one’s soul.

A conversation with Rosie Phipps

2/20/2019

I went to see Rosie in her new studio. One she admits is really only used to do relatively clean work. Light and airy with a high roof and sliding glass doors that look straight out onto a small magical garden. At the back of her garden is a shed filled with paint and canvases, “mostly old”, she confesses, used to practice on over the 40 years she has lived in Oxford. Recently retired after creating and running Oxford Professional Education Group, an independent post graduate college. She is also a Tavistock trained organisational consultant.

As she made the coffee she said, “Every material is a medium that can be used for self expression. Including creating a business. It gives one a way of transcending the outside world. The medium, or indeed the ideas, becomes part of one in a way where one can feel love and a deep sense of relatedness to the world outside. A sense of equanimity. The paint on the paper creates what feels like a living being that takes one into a relationship with oneself. The deepest aspects of oneself. And then extends towards the outside world.”

She explained to me that the process of painting demands an emotional flexibility. The tolerance of the spoiling and imperfections of a creation for long enough so that one is able to delay destroying it in order to be able to take in a new point of view. Sometimes one can destroy what has been created, but the real purpose is not to tear it up, the real purpose is to be able to look at the imperfections for long enough so that they can be viewed in a different way. Sometimes this can take years. It is like the way one runs one's life. The liquid puddle of paint becomes an eternal presence from which new possibilities can be reached.

She said, “The canvas, is like bringing up a family , I work on it until it reaches the perfection I think is possible . And like a family it would never be abandoned, it would always be there. Something that I could never be able to walk away from.”

I looked around her studio and noticed the paintings that lined the walls. Others stacked up on the floor. “Yes, “ she admitted ,”The paintings stay on the easel until they reach in my mind, or rather create, in my mind, or heart the sort of equanimity I look for in real life." She laughed, ”A relationship that I can rely on. One I am able to retreat to when all relationships began to exhaust me. A unity. An eternal bond to the process of painting, to creation. A visual diary of my life.”

The subject turned to Rosie's choice of mediums. “I love the smell of turpentine and oil paint and the texture of gouache and watercolor. I sometimes say to myself, Why not try felt like Beuys, or straw like Anton Kiefer, or emblems of my body like hair like Barbara Kendrick, or blood ( Heman Nitsxh)."

When I asked her if she had exhibited many of her paintings, she replied to me that most of them had rarely been exhibited. “Never good enough.” She said she wanted her paintings to have “legs”, such that they would walk into another’s imagination and create an eternal presence. Perhaps even experienced by them as something that in the looking, or rather in the process of gazing would transform them as well, and reach a point when the atmosphere in the room in which the painting hung became one of contemplation.

Though Rosie said she liked her surfaces smooth, unbroken and unflawed, like skin, I noticed that some were painted on crumpled paper. She said she likes to start with disorder and chaos. But all were patterned, mostly deeply patterned. “Light creates the brush strokes and the forms, I follow those.” The broken surface of the collage did not attract her and she found them rather disturbing as she was required to bring the shattered pieces together, but she felt they always showed some area where the pieces could be pulled off. “Like some damned itch waiting to be scratched and always reminding one that the beauty that could be created could also be pulled apart. Exposing not mere skin, but the flesh behind it.” Peeled apart, what was she worried about? I understood from her that that what looked so good was merely a temporary state before decay set in. The boundary to the world was not complete and would face disintegration. A world glued together. An absurd fragmented world where the parts did not always fit. Her paintings did not remind me of this. she was concerned with wholeness and tranquility. She wondered if this was why people liked jigsaws. The disorder and then the satisfaction of seeing it all fit together. Painting had the same quality only nothing for her had to be preformed - but there again perhaps she needed a different sort of chaos and intensity to create her own finished jigsaw. A making sense of her life.

Currently Rosie is working on vases of flowers. "Like the flowers of life, growing, decaying. I feel the abundance of life. Life at 74 is full of beauty. A celebration. I have had a wonderful time living in Oxford with more flowers raining in on me every day.But they are also a reminder that the same flowers will soon decorate my grave." I asked her then about the landscapes. Small paintings in stunning white frames. “Ah, the landscapes. The pleasure of sitting in a field all day staring at the way the fields are shaped by the contours of the earth. And shaped again by the shadows of the clouds that tumble across the sky. Always changing. And always there giving one a sense of familiarity and stability. The Cotswold's. So different from where i was brought up. The wild and endless landscape of the Transvaal in South Africa. No neat fields.”

What are Rosie's next plans... “2019 Oxfordshire Artweeks. All my energy is now placed on preparing for the opening of my studio. I also belong to LiterArties and we have exhibitions coming up over the next year, and there are the Oxford Art Society exhibitions.

So, I concluded, a full life and one filled with peace.

BEING CREATIVE

1/2/2019

by ROSIE PHIPPS

Ones personal truth is always mute – when it is truly expressed it is communicated in silence – and if one really has to speak what results is the translation of that silence into pictures, music, dance and other creative acts – personal, social and institutional.

Every dream is a plan that lends itself to enactment in the outside world, behind every enactment in the outside world there is a dream – or a picture, a note, a movement a thought, an idea – or perhaps something that is only waiting to be discovered.

Keats said – that which is creative must create itself. Creativity arises from itself, you can’t learn it, explain it, teach it – it comes upon one and creates stillness and a presence where the images and colours take on a life of their own. One becomes obsessed by it and it is creates an urgency and demands that have to be satisfied, one cannot avoid it, it has to be done.

Before we talk about this aspect let us first enlarge on a few of the things it is not.

We like to think that every child is filled with creative potential that is extinguished by parental control, so that as adults we go around feeling that there is a book inside if only we could get it out. Self expression of personal ideas and emotions do not necessarily go hand in hand with creativity, which goes beyond the personal. The test lies in how relevant it is to the collective mind.
The second mistake is to think that creativity is linked only to art, music and drama – this ignores the rest of creativity which manifests in business and technology. Creativity releases itself in many fields of activity. People say to me, “why do you have a marketing college when you can paint?" The answer is very simple: creating an organisation is a creative act, each relationship can also be a creative act.
Confusion lies also in equating creativity with production, creating objects that can be judged.Creativity is an end in itself. Just being in "it" is enough. Rather like meditation the presence is enough, for me. With painting I get the added benefit of the image and the colours forming themselves out of the silence. I would imagine musicians experience the same process as do dancers and actors and so on.
Creativity needs also not be confused with the word good – all creativity is not good- one only has to think of the atom bomb. The confusion of goodness comes from thinking that everything that God creates is good – therefore if we create, then we are mimicking an act of God, therefore it must be good. Creativity can also be destructive. It can also have a dual face. With painting one needs to harness both sides, creativity and destruction.
Creativity must have a personal "I " that does the creating. However, the "I” has to be set aside, or at least not be in the way. At an art group we were encouraged to walk round with our pictures and say after the experience -“I did that. This is what I did.” But this owning comes after the event, part of the communication process that has nothing to do with the creativity itself. It is part of the selling process which is narrow and oppressive and focuses on the product. Creativity happens unobserved and without judgment. If creativity relied on judgment it would have to rely on the personal ego- the observer who is judging – this process would be destructive. Here the observer and the observation is one. There is unity and no duality. Duality comes after the act; it is not part of the process.The original vision is where one needs to start from.
Different artworks also help impregnate other works of creativity – for example I listen to music and that helps set off a hot spark, I dance – one image whether it be music, sculpture or art will set off another spark. Creativity then builds upon itself and continues to pressure one to move to the next work.

Birth of the Sun Child - Painted around 1976

Mother & Child Bella - Painted around 1998

Large Bowl of Flowers - Painted 2020

Getting in touch with the imagination and the little people (internal objects) that inhabit it is rather like dreaming, the images are able to do as they please, one has to trust the voices, the images, and the sounds and allow them to come from themselves and not control what you want them to say. It is like a dream, one is always a player in a group, sometimes an observer and at other times taking command. Other people in the group are also of value. So what comes first in a painting may not be the final image, as one has to allow other images to speak for themselves. This may involve destroying what has initially been created to allow creativity to reform itself and to recreate itself. In painting a picture this process can go on, over and over again, so that one learns that the act of creation is also one of destruction. The creator and the destroyer work hand in hand. One has to learn to live with that tension.

The painting is a mirror that reflects who one is at a moment in time, the images and colours form the archetypal background to one's life and the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind. The grid so to speak on which one is built, enabling one to battle with questions like chaos and control, black and white, dark and light, creation and destruction, duality and unity – the unification of opposites. These questions flow from out of the paint into being itself, so the work is both meditation on life and a meditation where paint becomes an extension of psyche: one’s battle with one’s soul.

Small landscape - Painted 2021