It’s hard to quote examples of paintings which have spoken to me and inspired me over the years. I didn’t visit art exhibitions as a youngster and stand and stare at great paintings, bowled over and inspired to be an artist for ever more, as other artists sometimes recall – my family weren’t art buffs and fine art of any sort didn’t feature in my life until I pursued it. But I remember one painting which stuck with me. It was in a little private gallery where my parents were looking at something else. We children had been taken inside, grumbling probably, as they talked to the owner. But this one painting took my attention. It was a picture of an old silver-barked tree lit up by the sun against one of those stormy, navy blue skies which appear just before the rain arrives. It was one of those skies which still make me stop what I’m doing and reach for my camera or just stare and enjoy. (It’s particularly effective in the Cotswolds where the yellow stone buildings look spectacular against the dark blue).
While I painted this little image, I was able to take time to remember that painting. I have no idea who the artist was and I’m sure it was no particular ‘great painting’ but it inspired me as much as anything in the great galleries of the world.
Many years later and I know that the painting wasn’t a picture of a tree at all, it was a picture of light. Someone was doing what I was doing here – grabbing a moment and trying to save it and remember it.
This is another oil on 12in squ wooden board. Painted from a photograph taken from my front window on one such day when a camera was nearby during one of those moments when I was lucky enough to look out as the scenery changed dramatically.
This little sketch doesn’t really do justice to the light, apart from giving me some time to pause and think about it. I’ll paint more of these one day.
Just some search results after Googling ‘tree against a stormy sky painting’ (the fourth one along is most like the light I’m talking about)
Following what seems to be a general theme of focusing upon the seemingly mundane, this little painting depicts a bit of roadside verge. If you’re familiar with this blog, you’ll know that this is a series of paintings which have been based upon (or mostly upon) those photographs one takes to use in the future.
I can’t remember taking the photograph that this was based on. One of millions (ok, thousands) I take as I wander about. This came up in discussion recently – I’m sure I haven’t coined the phrase ‘craft photography’ but that’s how I think of analogue photography (or it could apply to technically brilliant digital photography just as well) where a photograph is made, rather than taken. Time is spent on composition, lighting, atmosphere. Most of the time I’m not interested in ‘making’ a photograph. I ‘take’ them – the photograph is not the primary focus. I guess what I tend to generally do as I wander the world, while being more than a snap, is less ‘craft’ – like blinking and saving what you see to think about later. Aide-memoires I suppose. For my ‘files’ – which aren’t real but kind of are…!
I enjoyed this little examination of the leaves and plants amongst the stones (oil on 12inx12in wooden board). It made me think about how fortunate we are living in so fertile a place, that even the tyre-cut edge of a roadside, is sprouting and teeming with life. On the flip-side, it also makes me think about another theme I very often consider while I work with landscape – the opposite to the welcoming image of the pastoral – the endless fight against nature, and man’s efforts to tame the wild.
By the way – for some reason this painting was particularly difficult to photograph. It’s a really unexpectedly and infuriatingly difficult task to photograph a painting well – best advice is to hire a professional as it’s a particular skill, both in the photography and the pre-press stages. Coincidentally, I just got an email from US artist Owen Garratt (AKA The Pencilneck!) who shares his experiences of the commercial market in an online blog (Marketing Tools for Artists). Here he interviews Andy Derrick, Head of Artist Community at Artsquare on this subject- I know nothing about Artsquare I must stress and it seems a US service only in any case – but it’s an interesting discussion there seems some good advice amongst it.
There is a time in the late autumn, and sometimes way into winter snows, when the last of the leaves drop from the fruit trees and unpicked fruit is revealed. It’s almost eerie to see these fruits dangle without leaves; unchosen ones. They look cold, as if they’ve lost their coat. Some, like this one which caught my eye, have mutated or grown around their stalks – clinging on; trying to be part of the tree; battling against the inevitable.
This portrait of a lonely, cold apple now apparently speared by its branch (looks like a russet perhaps but could be a very old variety; the real-life version was in the garden orchard of Croft Castle in Herefordshire one November a few years ago) is painted on a portrait-oriented rectangular primed wooden board, for a change – 12 x 18in.
Not much more to say really, except that you can use that chubby fella as any metaphor you choose. Are you gripping onto your branch? Did you leap off to your fate? Did you ensure your attractiveness so you’d be snapped up straight away? What kind of apple are you as winter approaches? Is this a fruit of opportunity? Does it show dogged determination or avoidance of the things that matter (Try to take no notice of the chance occurrence that this painting has the most unlucky number of all!).
I think it was a little yellowhammer who visited our garden and I lazily photographed it up on a branch (the bird, not me). Maybe I leaned backwards from a chair in the lounge with the doors open and a sunny day streaming in.
Its memory is now imprinted on this board; a reminder of a time when its path crossed mine and its yellow chest was so bright against the blue sky.
It’s another 12×12 wooden board and just oil paint. Fairly quickly painted and not too far fussed over.
It’s better in the flesh; this further filter of viewing takes something away from the original, as is often the case. It is surprisingly and frustratingly difficult to photograph a painting well.
Of course, we’re all colluding in the illusion that it’s a painting we’re looking at but it is, in fact, a digital photograph of a painting uploaded, adjusted, here and downloaded there – dots viewed on screens. Print it out and it’s neither painting, nor photograph nor digital image. Just some ink dots on a page.
Another layering of images. A landscape from a photograph (mine), which became less figurative with the painting of it, and a tiger, which popped into my field of vision, online I think, during the time I was painting it. It is rare for me to use any other image that isn’t my own. This tiger image struck me by its colour perhaps, and I followed the thread of serendipity.
There is a border left bare on the wooden board (12″x12″) and the pale oil washes keep the wood grain running between border and painting. Looking back at it now prompts the same thoughts as when I painted it and I suppose some explanation as to why I stopped where I did: Have I painted a tiger in a field in Gloucestershire? There’s no shadow or imprint to connect him to the ground. Is he on another plane? Does he symbolise something? Why have I put him just there? Is that still a landscape now the ground drops away into brush strokes, now the leaves have been wiped away?
It is – and is always – just some paint, arranged.
From Gerhard Richter ‘A Life in Painting’[Dietmar Elger – English translation, University of Chicago Press, 2009]
“During the 1972 Venice Biennale, Richter tried once more to explain why photography had come to mean so much for his painting.
“ ‘Because I was surprised by photography, which we all use massively every day. Suddenly I saw it in a new way as a picture that offered me a new view, free of all the conventional criteria I had always associated with art. It had no style, no composition, no judgement. It freed me from personal experience. For the first time there was nothing to it; pure picture.’
“The dialogue between painting and photography is as old as photography itself. The fearful predictions of the French history painter Paul Delaroche, who believed that photography would be the death of painting…never quite came to pass, though there is no question that the two mediums have competed and profoundly affected each other in both theory and practice. It was not long after the invention of the photograph that the medium took on and even bettered some of the functions of painting; whether in portraiture, the recording of cityscapes or scientific illustration, it at least seemed to offer greater objectivity and precision….
“In fact, the practice of photography served to embolden painting, even helping to pave the way to abstraction.”
… “As many have noted, artistic engagement with photography has prompted or inspired all sorts of critical questions regarding objectivity, manipulation, authenticity and cliché in photographic perception, aura and its loss as a result of unlimited mechanical reproducibility and the suggestive potential of photographs as reproduced images in the mass media.”
…“As an artist in the 1960s, Richter did not question the objectivity and authenticity of photography itself (this in a day before digital imaging). Indeed he has always worked to transfer the attributes and vocabulary of photographs into painting. He said in a 1972 interview with the journalist Rolf Schon:
“‘I’m not trying to imitate a photograph, I’m trying to make one. And if I disregard the assumption that a photograph is a piece of paper exposed to light, then I am practicing photography by other means; I’m not producing paintings that remind you of a photograph but producing photographs.’
“Richter intends on the one hand to undermine representation painting but on the other hand, to rescue it from the turbulent discourse surrounding artistic practice during the second half of the twentieth century…he transfers the fundamentals of photography, a relatively unburdened medium to the painted representation.”
It’s a daisy – just a simple little homage to the gloriousness of tiny things.
10/100 Daisy
Is there anything more jolly than a little bobbing daisy in the grass? Petals pure velvety white with a soft, yellow, pollen-rich centre – opening its happy face to the sun and then showing its shy pinky underside as it closes up for the night?
Stomp on them, mow them down; they reappear with their unfailing little summertime smile.
I was also playing with my paint, as with all in this 100 series. The (12in sq) wooden board grain remains under light wash, leaving, with green-ness, just a hint of a grassy background (but not). Layers couldn’t reach the unachievable whiteness but there is a certain impasto, 3-d effect from the effort, which also expresses the ridges of the petals.
Another of the greatest reasons to paint, or to draw, is to look closely and consequently think closely, about something which has grabbed the artist’s attention.
The painting therefore, even if not considered a superior image to the original photograph, has performed a function for the artist. I guess the hope would be that it would perform the same function for an audience – leaving aside any personal connection the flower might bring – a little musing upon on the humble lawn daisy. More so than the photograph? If someone has gone to so much trouble to lay the image down in oil paint, is it imbibed with greater significance? Might that significance lead one to consider the subject more so than an aesthetic admiration alone?
Ian Hamlin ‘Wednesday Conversations’ – oil on canvas 40x120cm
On seeing that New Zealand artist Ian Hamlin had ‘liked’ one of these posts, I took a tour around his site and had a nosey at his paintings, which are photo-real in nature, although containing a vibrancy and depth/sense of colour which a camera perhaps couldn’t convey. I was curious how he viewed/used the photograph within his work and cheekily asked him if he could tell me, to add to my discussion here. He’s been generous enough to respond and share his views and experience, and here’s his reply, below, for you to enjoy. I hope it’ll be the first of many points-of-view.
Ian Hamlin’s a professional artist of some 40 years experience and a member and former president of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts – I’m hugely grateful to him for taking the time to talk to me from across the other side of the world. Please have a look at his work/follow his blog at http://ianhamlin.co.
BTW (always following coincidences) I find I’m very appropriately beginning this conversation on a Wednesday, having picked out the painting above as one of my favourites on Ian’s site. It was the colour which drew me to it – and adding to my last post about phyical effects of colour, the combinations here almost make my heat beat faster. I almost have to look sideways at it; it dazzles me.
Iam Hamlin, 2015:-
“I make it a point to ALWAYS use my own photographs. If someone offers me a photo to paint from as a commission I will still go there myself. This also means it doesn’t then have any copyright implications in using someone else’s.
Most importantly there is so much sensory information gathered by actually being there to take the Photo that is not recorded by the camera. So a huge part of the process for me will be unavailable if I don’t have the experience of being there at the time. This can be negated somewhat if I am familiar with the location/subject but I learnt early on that the painting will flow a lot easier if it comes out of my own impressions and experience of the place and time.
Also it’s important to have a number of different views (photos) of the subject which you can combine into your composition. It’s rare that a painting is derived from a single photo. The photo is rarely the perfect composition, lighting or both, and usually includes a lot of extraneous detail that is easy to get bogged down in. These details are spontaneously left out on site if working directly on location due to having to work more quickly.
The photos are really only the starting off point for the painting which can often take a completely different trajectory as it evolves through the creative process. It is easy to become a slave to the photo and I always encourage my students to focus on their internal impressions, feelings, memories and take their cues from the emerging painting rather than leaning too heavily on the photographic image – which is only telling half the story.
In terms of light and colour the artist has the opportunity to creatively include a lot of the colour/light spectrum that is not captured by the camera. This is important in creating a sense of spacious aliveness that is much more difficult to achieve in a photograph without a lot of photoshopping etc.
One of the main advantages of using photos is that it can allow you to take your time, so it is not a race against the changing light and weather conditions. This is quite a factor here in New Zealand where our weather is very changeable, and the wind can make painting on location a challenge in itself!
I’ve also found that using photos can help with spontaneity in the painting process, it means that most often I don’t need to complete a number of preliminary sketches etc which can result in the final work retaining some of the freshness of the original inspiration.
As I’ve said above the painting should always add an emotional tone and felt quality of space and the artist’s personal experience to the photograph. To take the viewer to another place, beyond a record or representation of the setting.”
If you’re an artist reading this, do join in the discussion and have a think about your own relationship with the photograph. You can email cmorrises@gmail.com.
The Significant Objects project is worth a look at if you haven’t heard of it already – have a read at http://significantobjects.com/. It’s all about giving objects a back-story to add to their value.
Do the back-stories/this blog about these paintings give them more value/worth? Are they more precious now you know the stories behind their conception and creation? This is kind of the point of this blog, so the paintings become more than a sum of their parts, in a way; so that forever each one will be ‘one of the hundred’. An object aside from what it actually is. What if this is then published as a book?
Some people say they buy paintings only for how they will look in their home, and affect the owner or surroundings, they therefore don’t want to know anything else about it or its artist. Personally, I know that I like the story of objects, they become more precious to me when I know their origins and I consequently have a sense of moving the story onwards with my own additions. I guess this may be the museum/gallery difference. I see my home as more of a museum than a gallery maybe? The things in my house aren’t there for their aesthetic alone (or they would be decoration alone? – some things are that, by the way) many are there because someone gave them to me; they remind me of something or someone; they have a story of their manufacture or their use; they’ve been treasures since childhood – the list goes on.
I like to tell the stories to interested visitors. That’s probably why I find it difficult to throw things away.
It’s representing a scene from a family holiday in France. An impossibly perfect village – St Jean-de-Côle – in the northern part of the Dordogne. Very touristy while pretending it isn’t. A little bit of a sense of ‘the summering’ furrowing their brows at ‘the holidaying’; how lovely for those with the luxury of time to adjust and to take it in slowly. We walked through this theme park of a place in true ‘mad dogs and Englishmen’ style, at lunchtime, when all was deserted and we could hear just faint clinks and murmurs coming from behind iron garden gates or the odd net curtain billowing against an open shutter. The photographs I took, on a perfect blue-sky day, like brochure images, remind me of this mid-day lull which makes us British folk feel so ‘abroad’. In composition terms, I was drawn to the contrast in light. Strong shadow is something we don’t get in Britain so often either.
In terms of the painting itself, I do a fair bit of pen and wash drawing, (for commission work, for illustrations etc) and I wondered how that style would translate into oils. Using the 12in square wooden board again, I made a border by masking the edge of the primed area and then drew the scene, loosely, with a heavy graphite pencil and used oil wash to fill it, like I would with a watercolour wash, although I did add some detail with stronger colour as well. I stained the wood around it afterwards, to bring out the grain and darken the colour, which lifted the scene within. You’ll notice it’s been set into a tray frame and that’s because it’s living at present in our house, hung over our en suite loo where it acts as a window out onto a sunny place/memory from our windowless little bathroom. One of the major purposes served by a painting on a wall in a home: A window, never showing us a dull day and offering a little escape into another world.
What has this brought to the scene which the photograph didn’t? It’s gone through another filter. It’s become an object with another story. It’s more than an impression of light on a piece of paper; it’s more solid. You can still see my line drawing underneath the colour so you can trace where my hand has been. It’s a ‘photographic scene’ in once sense but, in its nuts and bolts, it really isn’t. It reminds me of a souvenir and I suppose that’s what it is.
It just seemed to go with the wood grain on the board so I stopped before painting further. The photograph was a moment when I just marvelled one day at an avocado cut in half – rich buttery flesh, glorious stone and the leathery skin – just a perfect package.
I can’t re-photograph this as it found its way onto a art market stall and was bought by a person for her avocado-loving husband. I hope he liked it. Funny how things can find the right person. I enjoy watching the stories of objects grow and change.
I’m also interested in how long it survives, on a painterly level, as it was made by applying light washes directly onto the wood (it was sold very reasonably just in case!). But I think it would survive a good few years, at least. It’s a very practical and professional consideration when you make a painting that you think someone will want one day – and something which is a concern when you mix and experiment with media – how long will it last? And when you buy a painting can you reasonably expect it to last a lifetime – if not, how long?
Opinions/advice from archival experts (and everyone else!) much appreciated…
Tenty Oils 