Image Workshop

Focus on mark making, brush strokes, how it differentiates from digital media

Practice painting from photographs. Something that some will be very used to, others not

Oscillating between representation and abstraction. How we can use painting to either depict or create an illusion.

How the paint makes the image and how the paint IS the image.

We first primed some boards

We were first asked to use the cropping tools to isolate one part of one of our images. The aim was to find something that was 'nameable'. It is easily identified. So in this case you can say 'this is a nose'.

We had to paint in monochrome using only household gloss paint. The only equipment we could use was large brushes, with the aim of making as good copy of the image as possible. We were told to paint rapidly and not be too careful. We had one hour to do this. 

I really enjoyed this task as I am quite used to painting with larger brushes, I also often paint nameable objects (particularly faces) in my current practice. The only thing that was a real test was painting with gloss paint.  In my current practice I use acrylic paint on either black or white primed board, and in the past have often struggled with oil paint. So when hearing it was more like oil paint I was a bit concerned. However, I was surprised by how much I actually enjoyed using it. I loved the thickness of it and the way the paint mixes on application, it begins to blend into each other and combine to create one layer. I found once you used black or grey it was almost impossible to ever get pure white again. So something I took into my next paintings was to be careful around the areas of pure white and pure black.

We were then asked to paint an unnameable, ambiguous or abstract piece. Again, we were only allowed to use large brushes and black and white gloss paint. I cropped part of an image of a head covered in clingfilm as I was intrigued by the pattern and texture it created.

I began by painting in the pure white sections and pure black sections then using extra paint to blend in the grey. I found it really difficult to recreate the texture that the original image gave as the gloss paint was very one dimensional. It was difficult to create the right contrast, you either got a high contrast between white and black or a low contrast between the greys. 

I like to paint quite quickly, and found when using this paint it didn't dry quickly so once the entire board was covered there was limited things to add to it. Therefore I started on a second board. For this I decided to choose a section of an image that was more 'ambiguous' than actually 'unnameable'. 

Again, I struggled with keeping the white sections pure white, as soon as some of the black started to seep into the white, the more I tried to fix it just the worse it became. I like how this image kind of resembles a landscape even though it is actually part of a neck. It demonstrates a connection between nature and the human body, which I have previously considered in my practice.

These are some images of other students work. I really like the butterfly, I feel she has successfully managed to incorporate a lot of detail, despite the fact that we were restricted to large paint brushes and the paint was so thick. I also like the range of abstract images that were created. The majority of them relied on creating patterns and a sense of texture.

We then as an extra task poured left over paint onto oil primed paper and began to move it around the page using gravity. It created really interesting patterns and a marbled effect which was really intriguing to look at.

Once all the paintings were dry they gave a really interesting, shiny finish. They appear still wet which is a particularly unusual effect for a painting.

Aritsts to look at in response to this workshop:

Gerhard Richter 

Luc Tuymans

Wilhelm Sasnal

Marlene Dumas

Gary Hume

Ian Davenport

 (see Research File)