RJ2a: Tutorial with Craig

Talked about what I am currently working on. Collaboration with Elle. Very different to the work I had created previously on my own.

How I feel about our current work: different but I like it. Trying to bring my style into it, had to meet in the middle. Different experience.

Half piece: struggling with it. Not my usual style, experimental. Said I'm trying to bring my style into it but looks like its by a completely different artist. What do I identify as me in it? Have kept the same colour palette as I work with this scheme throughout my work. Enjoy working with a thick brush, about the movements in the strokes and the body of the paint more than the subject or the detail in the work. By the time of the tutorial this piece was only half finished, the bottom half Craig felt was more tightness, loosens up towards the top, because of the movement? - just unfinished.

What sort of painters do you identify yourself with? Francis Bacon, Jenny Saville - strong links. I thought the links were more evident in my previous work, however Craig helped me see how it was maybe more evident in my more recent works. More happening in the way I apply the paint in the recent pieces.

Passage, 2004, Jenny Saville

Portrait is clearly a picture, the other is a painting - theres a difference. Jenny Saville - the paint becomes skin, happening more in my second piece. She uses the brush strokes to move your eyes around the body. Cling film isn't quite working in the first piece. The preliminary image I had painted prior to the larger piece Craig felt was much stronger as a piece. Think this may have been caused by the scale of it and the fact that it is on paper. Don't feel quite so precious over it. Luminosity within it. Letting the paint come through. The larger piece I used black primer whereas the smaller piece I painted first then went in with the brown around the edge. This separated it out. Whether I want that or not. First painted on black, didn't allow the colour to come through as much. Craig suggested I tried a different method eg. black base, paint greys and whites to build up from that, glaze of colour over the top. Or start with grey and use black and white over the top. Or paint the colour then paint the background.

Richard diebekorn - artist. Application of the paint. Reminds of my work.

Berkeley No. 22, 1954, Richard Diebekorn

Seawall, 1957, Richard Diebekorn

Daniel Coombs - slightly older work - referenced Francis Bacon. The Neurotic Realsim - look for in library. His work in that is what I should look at.

Katy Moran -

Descision made to make marks that mirrored those in the image, marks made by the body, could've done the opposite, said could create a friction with the body, could have a block of paint. Why did we make that decision?

Try turning it upside down and painting on it. We as humans are effected by gravity, defined by it does that mean the image does too? Could it be that we turn it upside down or on its side even? Does it then become more of a landscape?

Have a look at it all in the corridor.

What about the White space round the edge of the image? Originally we were going to paint over it to combine it with the images but found this didn't work very effectively and decided we would cut it instead. Could mask the image off and paint just the White bit. Starting to activate it. Crop the rest of the white, just leave the side bits.

How are we going to hang it? Not 100% sure yet, maybe nails. Lots of painters who hang sheets of work - Leon Gollers(?) who hangs work with eyelets and hooks. Like a curtain. Easiest thing might be to just stick it to a piece of board. So hung like the rest of the work (which is on board).

Acetate work: paint onto acetate, lots of individual paintings then come together, maybe layer them? Maybe lay them all out. Not sure yet - see what works best when it's all finished and being tested in the space. Try photographing through them as well - scene in the background - focus on the moving body in the foreground then it will automatically blur the background. Distorted. Can control what is distorted.

Coming quite performance based work. How does that relate to painting as a performance and as painting as a live action being made. In relation to the figure moving and a brush moving. Something to consider. Lots of research and artists. Finding yourself. Painting as a performance. Crowd splattered with paint - artist name? Filmed not performance. Film you can control things a bit more. Matter of concealment. Goes back to talking about Francis Bacon - what's within the mark what's behind the mark quite important in his work. Sometimes important to echo the image sometimes important to let the paint do the work.

Exhibition next week.

2nd big piece, not as much movement, don't like it as much. Don't try to focus on the movement too much, just let things happen. Look as though we're very self conscious. Yes I'm taking the movement in this image and making the same marks, whereas times where you could look a lot closer and pick a mark that you can then recreate and create our own movements rather than copying the image. Extra dimensions. Starting to do something else. Create little relations. Looks like we are too scared to do anything onto the figure. True as we don't want to ruin the image which we thought was very effective in itself. Craig thinks we should try doing stuff over the figure. Could start to experiment with transparent sheet and experiment with paint over the figure and see how it looks before actually doing it. See what works. Level of worried-ness in the big work that there isn't in the half work. Start to do smaller pieces, even less precious over it. Katy Moran sometimes works with an image on a phone so has a phone covered in paint. Works like that. Or sometimes with the image upside down. Don't have is preciousness over the image. Essence of painting a bit more than the actual depiction. The way my works going should experiment with oils a bit. After the exhibition. Start some more, smaller ones. On board, canvas, even paper? Paper kind of is a skin. Animal skin? Vellum? Texture with paper. Make the paper ruffle. Embrace that and make it your own. End up with something that is not static in any way. Surface of it is also doing something as well as the marks.

More freedom this unit. Way you deal with that freedom is important however.

Try working on paper, lots of work. Own it as a buckled up thing. Could involve very watery.

Do you think it looks too feminist? Not at all. About the body. Big gap for some works. We were worried about this. But don't need to be worried about it, such a lot of female students so probably quite hard to be feminist.

The Artists Body - find that book in the library.

Maggie Hamblin.