Ink and wash

Two busy evenings at City Lit, grappling with some of my demons but ... ah it's the same old story ... eventually relaxing and enjoying it. 

The demons are: where to start; how to start (what to do); persevering to "the end"; the sorry spectre of "is it nice/good enough"; and the most sorry one, how does it compare with other people's work....

Where and how to start - I love having an instruction about this, a theme and/or a technique. Fortunately I've been to so many classes over the years that it's getting easier to set a theme and technique for myself - hah, isn't this what "inspiration" is?

Perseverance - well, I find that having a clear end point is key to this. "Cover the entire page" is one such. "Put it aside for the ink to dry" can be another. A time frame is good, too. But best of all is to be immersed in that process of dialogue with the work, when it tells you what it needs and when it's finished.

Is it "good" enough - good for what, and how? Aesthetically pleasing? "Strong"? Something to suit Auntie Maud's chocolate-box standards? Tidy? A contender for an art prize? Good enough to frame? Bad enough to tear up immediately - no, I don't believe in that; put it away for a few weeks, till your disgust with your inadequacies has faded, and pull something useful from it, maybe a pleasing detail or maybe a clue to how not to do it next time.

"How does it compare" is the killer. Really, the comparison isn't with other people's work - they are on trajectories unique to them - the comparison is with what we want to do and it involves facing up to our current inadequacies ... which is helpful in seeing what to work on next and knowing what we're working towards. 

Some days things don't work out right, or well, and the first evening was like that for me. But I did end up enjoying the process and not dreading the next class!

Great to see a lot of examples of "wash" done by Proper Artists -

After a demo, we chose a landscape photo - a demon drove my choice of this one, and the entire thing (following directions via the demo; using watercolour) was a struggle -

Washes of blue and ochre over the gradations of black

Even as I write, a penny has dropped - I'm drawn to that photo because of the resonance with Maya Lin's earthwork wave-forms ... and my rendition has a sense of waves on the sea, which links with my admiration of Vija Celmin's work... (Also it looks like twisted cloth!)

Another demo, of different brush marks -

 and a look at how various artists have been fast and loose with representations of trees -

 Again, a photo and a frustration -

 My insight here is that I "should" have started with the background and put the trees and leaves in last ... and probably I knew that at the time!

Another demo, of using wash to roughly shape objects, and how the background further defines them - Lisa made it look very doable -

 ok, let's try....

The background does help, but how on earth can you make it look less messy, fussy, fractured, hopeless....

Surprise of the evening was to see the too-dark foreground being washed off under the tap - what was left was perfect -

Before the next class I read the handouts

 and had another go at the simple landscape, following written directions. My piece of paper was quite flimsy and buckled terribly - it should have been stretched first but, as usual, I was in too much of a hurry -

Class #2 was about line, pens, ink ... the different kinds of marks, including "lost and found" (when the pen skips over areas, leaving a gap in the line); braceleting (rounded marks to define form); brillo pad marks (smallish, curved, close together); and random hectic marks -

 Goya used braceleting on the hat, and Van Gogh used a variety of marks in his wonderful pen drawings -

 We practised a few marks and then started channelling Van Gogh -

 for interpreting a photo of a landscape -

 Next, hands -

 drawing our own hands, first with areas of wash to catch tone (on the right), with pen added; then (on the left) starting with pen -

 I prefer adding the wash later, but wash-first is more "interesting" (and dangerous!) -

Then, buildings - and a lesson in not drawing each and every brick. The lesson in "don't use too dark a tone" came too late for me -

 but adding in other areas of darker tone, and the suggestion of something beyond that gaping void, helps a bit -

 Finally, adding a few ink lines to our shells. My ink lines define the outline in areas of shadow -

 When I got home I laid them out on the table and had another look in the clear (blue) light of morning....

Now they're put away (not thrown away), to resurface for reconsideration and recollection another day.