Over the weekend I’ve been working on a small handmade concertina journal, with just 4 pages each side. It’s not finished yet, but my work is clearly less controlled thanks to the Marabeth Quin course I’ve been doing.
I’ve used paint, ink, collage, NeoColour II and pencil. It’s dying overnight and I’ll keep working on it tomorrow after work.
I have always loved the work of Cy Twombly, with his expressive gestural mark making and scratchy lines. It’s not what I create, but I love seeing it. Pen Kirk and I were talking about that the other day, that for many artists what we like to view is not the same as what we create. Which is not to say we don’t love what we create! Anyway…
I’ve been doing a course from Marabeth Quin called Mixed Media Collage and the Intuitive Landscape. I’ve been working on the 4 larger pieces from the second part of the course and I’m struggling to finish them so have put them aside.
Last night I grabbed an art journal and was playing with layering and mark making … and boom! Suddenly there was a combination of my old mark making, which I’d lost at some point, and a new visual language that’s emerging thanks to the course. I can see hints of Cy Twombly and the Abstract Expressionists and that makes me happy.
Working in a Gordon Harris mixed media sketchbook, I completed the evaluation exercise on the 12 small works. It was interesting to step back and consider favourite elements, what surprised me, what problems I experienced.
Project 2 in the course is 4 large works, using the same techniques; layers of paint, collage and mark making. I’m using the same three paint colours, plus black and white, and the same range of collage materials.
I’ve done the first few layers and am finding scaling up tricky. I keep using tiny bits of collage, which worked well on the original small paintings, but look fussy at this scale. I know the key is to just keep going, but I’m also going to make a deliberate effort to work bigger.
Part of the course I’m doing involves looking, really looking, at what you’re creating. What do you love, what sparks joy? Find the things you love and do more of that.
I’m onto the second part of the course where, instead of working on 12 small paintings, you work on 4 larger ones. I was sitting at my desk contemplating them and there it was … orange.
I added some more orange to the works, then made a stack of tissue with varying marks ranging from light to dark shades of orange.
Then my memory clicked in. When I did my Advanced Diploma of Art & Creativity almost 20 years ago we spent a term investigating colour as a material. I chose orange. I remember going to Gordon Harris Art Supplies and the French Art Shop and buying everything orange they had – ink, paint, crayon, pencil, pen, pastel.
I commented to my tutor, Peter A, that I wasn’t sleeping well. He asked me what orange stood for. Warmth, autumn, sunsets. Yes, but what else? Fire, danger, warning. Peter laughed and said the reason I wasn’t sleeping was because my brain was in constant alert mode.
Back to the present. I’m excited to have rediscovered my love of orange, and to see what it does for my landscapes.
I’m loving the Mixed Media & Intuitive Landscape course I’m doing with Marabeth Quin. One of her tools is encouraging students to go back to each piece, over and over – considering , adding marks and layers.
It’s uncomfortable … I’m on the 6th or 7th pass for each piece. I can feel the pull to finish them and move to the next step. I’m resisting it and staying with her process.
Why? Because I can see and feel the change. I haven’t done the evaluation exercise yet but I’m sure there’s better contrast and brighter highlights.
Note: these were done on thin paper, so are buckled, because they’ll be glued into my sketchbook along with all the notes Marabeth encourages us to make.
Cath Sheard Art 