Art and science

Mary Adam, Botanical drawing c. 1983, pencil, Desmodium incanum

Back in the 80s I made a series of over eighty botanical drawings of some of the small wild flowers that grow in Trinidad and Tobago. My aim was to make the drawings clear and accurate enough, and with enough detail, to enable positive identifications to be made; and to convey something of "the grace and charm peculiar to their nature".* I made written notes too, and went frequently to the West India Reference Library, which was in Belmont at the time, to consult the Flora.

I enjoyed doing them and all were drawn from life, out of doors in front of the subject. I took drawing materials with me wherever we went and developed a keen eye for specks of colour in the undergrowth, or an unusual habit or shape of leaf. I became a collector, eagerly snapping up new species.

This particular one here, I remember where it was exactly ... to the inch, and that's the case for many of them. Wish my memory were so good for other things. This one, I was sitting in front of it for perhaps an hour or two. At one point, a tiny puff of pollen was ejected from the flower as I looked at it, a detail which I don't think was in the Flora (how would it be?).

However, from an art point of view I felt these drawings were a blind alley. They occupied a grey area between art and science, neither one thing nor the other. I became stuck. I didn't know enough and there seemed to be no way to find out. It was before the internet. I put them aside, and didn't do very much drawing or painting for a few years. When I began again in the 90s, every now and then I would look at the folder of drawings and wonder what could be done with them. This is where it's at now, but with the tools and experience acquired over the last seven or so years, I'm hopeful of a different outcome, mainly from an art point of view but overlapping into science. In fact, there's a lot going on now in art with exploring the boundaries between art and science. I find it wonderfully exciting and it fits well with my background in both fields.

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About the Monthly Art Market in December -- It went well, was a positive experience, and I sold more than enough to cover the expenses. It was pleasant being among artist friends and visitors who were interested in art, for two whole days.

* B. Jaxtheimer, How to paint and draw

The Monthly Art Market

I'm going to have a space at the Monthly Art Market on Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 December, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. It's held in the courtyard of  27 Jerningham Ave which is at the corner of Jerningham and Norfolk St. It will be a new experience, no idea what to expect and lots of preparation to do. Looking forward to it and will post about it afterwards.

Zinnias

Mary Adam, Zinnias, a screenprint on Canson Edition paper

Just finished this screenprint on 100% cotton acid-free Canson Edition paper. It came from some drawings of two small potted plants I got in the garden shop about six weeks ago. The plants have withered now, would they have lasted longer if transplanted to a flower bed? I like the rough unfinished aesthetic which came from painting the separations by hand. This was one of the first drawings:

Mary Adam, Zinnias, pencil and gouache

Time taken to do the OCA degree

Right click and "open in new window" to enlarge

Belatedly, this table shows the total time taken to do the OCA Painting degree: 5 years and 8 months from receiving the first course to finishing the last one, excluding assessment. I saved almost two years by doing two courses concurrently in level 1 and level 2. The letter with the final result arrived in the post on April 12, 2011, exactly six years to the day after starting.

Related posts: 

http://mary-adam.blogspot.com/2009/09/time-taken-to-do-oca-courses.html
http://mary-adam.blogspot.com/2010/01/more-figures-stats.html
http://mary-adam.blogspot.com/2010/12/landmark.html

Drawings from Scotland and Ireland

Looking around the internet for interesting drawings I found these. 

Angela Palmer, b. Scotland 1957, makes her drawings on many sheets of glass, building up map-like linear patterns which have an other-worldly clarity. The subtle shapes remind me a little of ancient Greek sculpture. More info at http://www.artnet.com/artists/angela-palmer/

Angela Palmer, Robert Harris Portrait 3

Ink drawing on 16 sheets of glass, 34.5 x 29.5 x 24 cm.

Lucy McKenna is a young Irish artist who studied at NCAD in Dublin. The drawing is from a series called "The Darker Wood" which arose from a residency in Canada and which includes photographs and paper sculptures. 

More info at http://www.lucymckenna.com/art/thedarkerwoodgallery/index.htm.

Lucy McKenna, Tree VI, 35 x 30 cm, pencil on paper

Thanks to both artists for permission to post.

I wanted to know

Mary Adam, Little House in the Forest, 2007, collage

A lot of art is at first puzzling and bewildering and like many others I feel stupid and ignorant until I have some sort of handle on it. Science too is full of bewildering things but I'm happy to leave those to the experts, maybe read up on it or maybe not. I know someday there will be an explanation. Art though is different. Unlike science there are no right or wrong answers, it's subjective. But everything has a reason and a genesis and sometimes I want to know what the reason is.

As an artist myself I'm aware how motivation can come from odd places, from deep inside oneself or from some passing fancy, something seen or felt. And this may intertwine with all one’s experiences and skills and an idea may be born, like the tug of the fish in A Room of One’s Own. From there it may gather momentum and take physical form, although there can be long gaps between the idea and the realization of the work. This is a stage in my own learning process, understanding that the idea and the final work may be widely separated in time, during which something has been evolving in the mind of the artist. A small example might be Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings with the canvas laid on the floor, connecting back to his experience of Indian sand paintings in which coloured earths were dribbled onto the ground.

It can be very satisfying to find those connections in art, and my experience has been that usually something can be found that sheds light on the work. I ask myself, why did the artist do that in that way? The question can take one on a walkabout, looking up the artist’s biography, statements they have made, their materials, more of their work, reviews and so on. I tend to do it when I like the work a lot and want very much to understand where it came from.

If after thorough searching no reason is found one might conclude that it was in some way arbitrary. And yet on occasion something has appeared in my work for no apparent reason, and long afterward the reason makes itself known (influences for example). The main problem was not being aware of it in time to include it in a write-up. Because of this I don't see arbitrariness as an issue any more because there's always a reason.

An altered book

A first try at an altered book. The hardest part was finding a suitable book to alter. This one was an abridged edition of The Three Musketeers and it fitted the bill because I've never been keen on abridged editions. I feel it's better to read the book as the author wrote it -- because it's not the story that counts so much, it's how it's written. Altering the book was enjoyable to do, I was lost in it for a few days, in the zone.

P.S. If the YouTube video above is not showing up please use this link:

http://youtu.be/PnHNettof-I

Collage workshop

 Announcing a 3-day Collage Workshop

http://artclassesonline.blogspot.com/2012/08/collage-workshop.html

From Paul Klee's diaries

Paul Klee 1911. Photo by Alexander Eliasberg from Wikipedia.

June 1903 [...] "Toward the end of the month I prepared engravings; first, invented appropriate drawings. Not that I want to become a specialist now. But painting with its failures cries out for the relief of minor successes. Nowadays I am a very tired painter, but my skill as a draftsman holds up."

From The Diaries of Paul Klee

 Black Columns in a Landscape 1919 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 

Collage from Plant Life series

Mary Adam, collage and monoprint, 12 x 9" approx

Trees and foliage

Two logbook pages from March 2010. These are about Van Gogh's trees and the marks he used to show the foliage.

Right-click and "open link in new window" to enlarge.

A logbook page from 2009

Page 28

Looking through an old sketchbook today for something to post, I came across this which might be of interest to some. It's from a hardcover A4 book that I was using as a combination sketchbook/logbook in the last two years of my Painting degree. This page records some basic observations about a Rembrandt etching which was the subject of another post -- here. The related thumbnail of the rainy Savannah at lower left evolved into some abstract paintings about a year later. It's often amazing the length of time between the genesis of a thing and when it actually happens though to my knowledge I hadn't been thinking about it .

Pakchoi screenprint

Mary Adam, Pakchoi, screenprint on 9 x 12" paper

The screens for this were made with drawing fluid and screen filler which is time consuming because of waiting for the screen to dry at each stage. I like the technique because it allows for some precision, and clean-up is fairly easy. It's not ideal for fine lines however and in fact this is the third try making this print, the first two fell by the wayside -- it's been going on for months! There won't be many prints left after editing but I'm pleased it has finally come into existence.

New wooden screen attached to desk with hinge clamps

I also want to correct some misinformation from a while back about the availability of wooden screens (http://mary-adam.blogspot.com/2011/08/testing-gummed-paper-tape.html). In fact wooden screens are still being made in the traditional way with a groove on the back to hold the cord which is used to stretch the fabric -- I got one recently from Dick Blick, along with a pair of heavyweight hinge clamps specially designed for screen printing. The clamps are fixed to the desk with screws and the wing nuts are adjustable to release the screen for cleaning. And the fabric can be changed at home.

Maracas

Mary Adam, Maracas Bay, graphite, 9 x 12"

 A drawing from a photo of the sea at Maracas after an ASTT plein air session on a recent Saturday, 9 x 12" sketchbook. The one below was done while there on the day in a small sketchbook. It was very fascinating to sit there in a small patch of shade contemplating the endless movement of the sea.

Mary Adam, Maracas, gouache, approx 5 x 8"

[Edited 22/3/2012, photo of Maracas drawing replaced]

Set-up for printing a collagraph

Work table ready for printing a collagraph. This is one way to lay it out, there are many other ways. In this case the work flow is from right to left but it could just as well be left to right.

Clockwise from top right:
Inks -- several tubes of ink in different colours.
Glass plate for mixing and rolling inks.
The collagraph block -- various things glued to a piece of cardboard. Ink will be rolled over it while it's on the newspaper, then it will be moved to the printing area.
A board -- this is an old canvas board that I use for printing. It has registration strips or guides securely glued on. When ready to print I put a sheet of the printing paper up against the strips and then glue it to the board. Then I center the printing block on the paper and mark the outline in pencil. This helps to get the block in the right place after each inking.
A baren -- for pressing on the back of the paper to transfer the ink from the block.
Brayers (2) -- small rubber rollers for rolling out the ink and inking the block.

Which is your family of painters?

From an oral history interview with Robert Motherwell (1915--1991):

PAUL CUMMINGS: You've mentioned before something about visiting the Stein collection and how that happened in Palo Alto. Had you seen many paintings before that in going to museums out there?

ROBERT MOTHERWELL: I used to collect books, little Italian books of all the old masters. I really learned to draw copying Michelangelo and Rembrandt and Rubens' Baroque paintings. But I didn't know modern art existed except from some Cézannes that I had come across in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which I also copied. You see, I was only seventeen when I saw the Matissess and they were literally the first twentieth-century pictures I ever saw. And I fell for them at first glance, and to this day au fond Matisse moves me more than any other twentieth-century painter. But I also think there are families of painting minds quite apart from history; that there are about -- I don't know -- five or six basic psychological types; and that whatever the type is that Matisse is, I think that is the family that I naturally belong to.

PAUL CUMMINGS: How would you describe those? What is an example of a family?

ROBERT MOTHERWELL: For example, Vermeer is the family I feel the most alien to. Several years ago in a very learned article in the College of Art Bulletin I was very pleased to discover that he used a machine -- the camera obscura. And I would say that, say Norman Rockwell, and Wyeth, and all kinds of people belong to that objective eye who love to work with photographs or machines and look at everything in a very retinal lens-like way. There's another family like the Caravaggios and the Spaniards -- Murillo and so on, and one aspect of Rembrandt that loves dramatic contrasts of light and dark and blackness and so. And there's certainly a linear type like the ancient Greeks and the Siennese and the Florentines. And there's another kind that's very sensual, that if you look at the picture from a distance it's very beautiful in its way and if you look at the surface very closely, you know, your eye just two or three inches away and just looking at a square inch or two it's intrinsically beautiful just as a painted surface, the way when you's having a beautiful meal if you look at the food, you know, you're sitting at the table and you're looking at the plate there's something marvelous about all the textures and colors and so on. And I think Matisses are par excellence that kind. And it's that kind I like. and Rembrandt has it. Titian has it. Most classical twentieth-century painting has it. The Impressionist had it, although the Impressionists are less clear-cut in their shapes than I like.

Oral history interview with Robert Motherwell, 1971 Nov. 24-1974 May 1, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-robert-motherwell-13286

Untitled Gallery

 It's online ...

http://www.untitledgallery.org/

Year-end figures

Subscribers (email and RSS) = 113 (last year = 95)

Total page views for the year = 15,096 (last year = 15,933)

Posts for 2011 = 34 (last year = 34)

Exhibitions: After five years of not exhibiting because of studying for a degree, this year I've had new work in five group shows from April onwards (the National Museum show from April to June, Women in Art annual exhibition in October-November, The Art Society of Trinidad and Tobago annual exhibition  November-December, Y Art Gallery Christmas show, and Soft Box Studios End of Year show), altogether about 12 pieces.

Yet another blog: I've started a new blog linked to my art classes website. It's mainly for announcements of upcoming workshops, additions to the website, new videos if any, etc. Partly so as not to clutter Drawing etc with things for which it wasn't intended.

Some of this year's work

28.12.2011: Post was edited to correct dates of exhibitions.

JSTOR early content

Just stumbled on this a while ago: JSTOR has made some of its content available free to the world at large. The relevant content is pre-1923 in the USA and pre-1870 in the rest of the world. I've had a peek, will have to go back when there's time. It could be useful for projects with a historical element or slant.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showAdvancedSearch?ModifySearch=Modify+Search&wc=off&acc=on

Christmas cards

Mary Adam, three cards from an edition of nineteen

I thought I'd try to make my own cards this year and have almost finished. The design is from a drawing done at San Rafael in late August and is in seven colours, partly relief printed and partly screenprinted. The last colour is still to be done. They're printed on Strathmore 5 x 7" acid-free blanks. The card stock has a marked texture which I wasn't expecting but the ink went on smoothly without any problems. The thing is that I almost never send cards -- this year will be different because I made them myself . . . not sure it makes sense?

Sketchbook website

"It takes me a long time to fill up a sketchbook, but when I do it’s so satisfying. They are my diaries, and when I look at old pages I can remember exactly what I was doing and feeling, even though there is no extensive writing."

http://www.book-by-its-cover.com/sketchbooks/sketchbook-series-becca-stadtlander

Work-in-progress completed

Mary Adam, Flowers on Ledge, charcoal on paper 24 x 18"

A work in progress

Flower piece

This is a work in progress, charcoal on cartridge paper, 18 x 24". I'd like to take it to a good state of finish which I haven't done very often  with charcoal (and have so far resisted the urge to switch to paint). The flowers are frangipani and plumbago. Lots of measuring here, and checking in a mirror. An earlier version actually looked better, hope to be able to get beyond that as the drawing progresses. (Now I'm committed, why did I do that?)

Looking back and looking forward

Mary Adam, Savannah Rain study, A4

Looking back over the last few months I've been doing too much, if that's possible, and yet not achieving enough. The degree result came on April 12. Since then I've made a couple of complex prints plus a whole lot of small experimental prints; researched and written a paper on the length of the OCA painting courses; filled well over a hundred sketchbook pages; made a couple of short videos as preparation for online art teaching (if anyone happens to find them, please give them a thumbs up if you like them); painted a number of small still lifes, some of which are junk and some I'm pleased with; had a linocut accepted by the National Museum for the "Women and Art" exhibition (proud of that, it's in the catalogue); had a couple of personal setbacks; finished, sent and got back the third assignment for Printmaking 1 with great tutor feedback; and started two new websites. Now it's time to take stock and get some idea where I'm heading. Not to beat around the bush, this blog might go quiet for a while. But probably not for long, I just need some time to think. Not complaining, it's an ok place to be.

Gummed paper tape 2

The screen with the new fabric and gummed paper tape. This will be followed by two coats of urethane varnish over the tape and about 5 mm of screen. A heavier weight of paper would have been better but this is doing the job well enough for now. Will try cartridge paper next time.

Testing the gummed paper tape

Brown paper with a thin coating of gum arabic.

The fabric on my small screen needs changing. It's an old-fashioned wooden frame which enables me to change the fabric myself. I found out yesterday that this type of frame is no longer being made,*** (wooden frames are available, see below)  the aluminum ones are preferred because they don't warp. The disadvantage of aluminum frames is that you have to send them to a shop to stretch new fabric.

Luckily screens don't need new fabric often. The small screen has held up well for about three years, through countless washings, often with chemicals such as bleach. Now it has a haze of ghost images and the gummed tape is breaking up. The tape on that occasion came from a roll which was new at the time but which has since become stuck together because of humidity. So that idea about making my own gummed tape in small amounts as needed now comes into play.

For this job the tape has to stick well to the wood and the screen fabric, I want it to last for a couple of years. The idea is to seal the join between the fabric and the wood so that ink can be cleaned out of the screen thoroughly after use.

The brown paper that I have is rather thin but I tried it anyway. The first try didn't go too well. I applied a single coat of gum arabic with an ordinary soft bristle brush, about a No. 8. Afterwards I realised the gum was thick in places. Went ahead today and cut it into two-inch strips, moistened them with a wad of damp kitchen paper, and stuck them onto the inside of the frame and about 3/4" onto the fabric. The tape stuck in some places and came away in others, which isn't good enough, so I pulled it all off.

I  used the same tape to stick a piece of watercolour paper to plywood and that was fine, it stayed firm.

I made a second set of tape, applying a second thin coat when the first was dry instead of just one coat. I then cut the paper into strips as before, moistened it and applied it to the screen. This appears to have stuck properly. When the tape is fully dry tomorrow I will varnish the whole frame and it should be good for another couple of years.

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*** EDIT, added March 11, 2012: Wooden frames for screen-printing are in fact still being made, see http://mary-adam.blogspot.com/2012/03/pakchoi-screenprint.html

Tree, Chaguaramas 5

Mary Adam, Tree, Chaguaramas

Not how I envisioned it but this is how the final print looks (but no two are identical). I cut a new block for the grey because the previous one had thrown off the registration. Unlike a reduction cut I still have the blocks and may try it again with variations in the colour, this isn't quite what I was after.

Enlightenment

It's such a wrench to sell books but it must be done,  Having a quick re-read of some sold books before they go on their way, this passage from Immanuel Kant (1724--1804) strikes me as fresh and direct and relevant  -- must be something wrong with me.

"Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another."

(In The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology, ed. Donald Preziosi, 1998, OUP).

Plate drawing

Mary Adam, Bread and plate, coloured pencil

The reason for doing this was to keep on drawing and to make the plate sit down flat on the cloth, so it's not very exciting. I used coloured pencils, my least favourite medium. I don't have a big selection, just a box of twelve from the supermarket and a set of five from the art shop that I've had for ages. Even with that I used very few colours, maybe five or six overall. The main place I couldn't get the colour right was the inside of the bread. I'm definitely not a colour pencil-ist but they're nice to have, it's a different kind of experience, slow and measured. I was surprised to find that they can be erased as long as the mark doesn't make a dent in the paper.

Art books for sale 1

Frameworks for Modern Art, ed. Jason Gaiger, 2003, Yale Univ Press in association with the Open University. ISBN 0300102283 Paperback, good condition -- US$ 12.00 SOLD

The Shock of the New, Robert Hughes, Alfred A Knopf, New York, 2002.  Paperback, good condition.  ISBN 0679 728767. US$ 12.00

Keys to Drawing, Bert Dodson. North Light Books. ISBN 0891 343377. Paperback, good condition. US$ 10.00

Drawing Essentials, Deborah Rockman. Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN 9780 195314328. Paperback, good condition. US $ 10.00

A Foundation Course in Drawing, Peter Stanyer & Terry Rosenberg. Watson-Guptill, New York, 2003. ISBN 08230 18687. Paperback, good condition. US$ 10.00

Complete art foundation course, Drawing, watercolour, oils and acrylics, Curtis Tappenden, Anna Taylor, Paul Thomas, Nick Tidnam. 2006, Cassell Illustrated. ISBN 1-84403-4879. Hardcover, like new. US $ 12.00

Collins Artist's Manual, ed. Angela Gair. 1995. HarperCollins Publishers. "The complete guide to painting and drawing materials and their use". ISBN 13: 9780 00 4133638. Paperback, like new. US $ 10.00

Experimental Drawing, Robert Kaupelis, 1992. Watson-Guptill Publications, New York. ISBN 08230-16226. Paperback, fair condition, US$ 10.00 

Clement Greenberg, Art and Culture: Critical Essays, 1961. Beacon Press, Boston. ISBN 08070 66818 paperback. Very good condition, includes “Avant Garde and Kitsch”. US$ 12.00; weight: 0.5 Kg, 1 lb. SOLD

Clement Greenberg, The Collected Essays & Criticism, Vol. 2, Arrogant Purpose, 1945-1949: ed. John O’Brian. The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226306224, paperback. Good condition. US $ 14.00; Wt >1 lb, .5 kg. SOLD

Malcolm Andrews, Landscape and Western Art, 1999, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780 192842336, paperback, used, good condition. US $ 12.00.

David Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon. 2007, Thames and Hudson. ISBN 9780 500274750, paperback, good condition. US$ 15.00 (wt .51 kg.) 

Donald Preziosi, ed. The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology, 1998, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192842420, paperback, good condition.  US $ 12.00. Wt over 3 lbs, 1.5 kg SOLD

Luigi Ficacci, Bacon. 2006, Taschen. ISBN 9783 8228 21985. Paperback, good condition. US$ 8.00 (wt 1 lb, 0.5 kg.

Added Wednesday July 13, 2011:

Drawing: Seeing and Observation, Ian Simpson. A & C Black, London, 1992. ISBN 07136 68784. Paperback, good condition. US $ 10.00 

Creative Paint Workshop for Mixed Media Artists, Ann Baldwin. Experimental techniques for composition, layering, texture, imagery and encaustic. Quarry Books, 2009, ISBN 13: 9781-592534562. Hardcover, like new. US$ 12.00 

If you are interested in any of these please email me on folio12@gmail.com.

Gummed paper tape

I've been thrilled to discover a way to make gummed paper tape when you need it. This could be useful in our climate where the humidity dampens those very expensive rolls of gummed tape enough to stick them together and ruin them before you've used a fraction of the roll. The way to do it yourself is to cut some strips of ordinary brown paper, a heavyish weight, brush on gum arabic and allow to dry. When you're ready to use the tape dampen the glued side with a sponge and apply.

What's it good for? It's good for stretching watercolour paper (on a board that's bigger all round), and easy to remove afterwards by dampening it because gum arabic remains water-soluble.

It's also great for sealing the edges of a screen for art screenprinting. After it has dried give the tape a double coat of polyurethane varnish.

See also Testing the gummed paper tape

Tree, Chaguaramas -- Update

After printing a few sheets of the third colour I've decided to abandon this print for now because the registration of the yellow is way off. I didn't realise it was so bad until the third color went on. Luckily each colour is on a separate block so starting again is no problem except I'm out of paper and will have to wait for more to arrive before going ahead. Expecting to resume in a week or ten days.

Tree, Chaguaramas 4

Tree, grey and yellow blocks

The grey and yellow blocks are printed. Started out with fifteen, printed one upside-down by mistake and a couple more are doubtful. There was a complication with the grey because the "plate" is thick styrotex and it threw the registration off a bit.