That series

This is it, on Picasa, all six pictures. Click one to see at a bigger size.

Or (some html, not sure what it will do . . . )

Home Thoughts From Abroad

Beginnings No. 1 final stage

. . . except the series isn't called "Beginnings" any more, it's not even "Remembered Landscapes". This is the final version of the first piece with the tree screenprinted on. I guess there's some explaining to do, and I'll do it in a few days. In the meantime I'm still recovering, and the last few days I've been doing a massive studio clean-up. Before and after photos coming soon!

Related posts:
Series overview
Beginnings 1 stage 4
Stage 3
Stage 2
Stage 1
Choosing a theme

Series overview

The work goes on and the pieces accumulate. Every day I lose faith in the series and in myself and every day I tell myself to just push on, it's got to be done. This is a literal snapshot of where it's at right now, with a long way to go and a deadline in the middle of January. The pieces are at various stages, some more finished than others, the nearest one just started. I seem to be learning mostly how not to do stuff next time. For instance, I tried to give each of the pieces its own identity while maintaining a resemblance to the others. The idea was to avoid repetition. But I'm learning that a series needs a strong family resemblance and repetition, probably more than I have here. And too, I wouldn't embark on a series again where much of the information would have to come from photos. I tried a real live Trini sky in one and it just didn't work. So it goes!

Beginnings 1.4

Since the last stage I've done some soul-searching, which led to re-thinking both the concept and the individual pieces. It ended up with simplifying the concept even further so that it's now down to remembered landscapes. This one has changed somewhat but not as much as some of the others. It will stay like this for a while because I'll be putting it aside for the time being until some of the others are done.

Earlier stages:

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3

Related posts:

Choosing a theme

Beginnings 1.3

Stage 3

Here's the next stage of this painting. Not an awful lot has been done, except I've repainted the sky again and put in the house. I'm working on the tree separately but am having misgivings about not only this painting but the whole series. Nothing like showing something in public to bring the issues into focus. If the photo seems a bit weird it's because I don't have a regular camera at the moment and took this rather awkwardly with a webcam. 

Earlier stages:

Stage 1

Stage 2

Related: Choosing a theme

Beginnings series, No. 1 stage 1

The revised series for my major project is provisionally titled "Beginnings". In addition to the other things, I thought about the size, the surface and the medium. The maximum size is limited by the cost of sending the work to England eventually, but for this project I wouldn't be working at a large size anyway because of the silkscreen prints which will be part of the process. So the size will be 16 x 22", and the surface will be canvas which I like because it's versatile and tough. The medium can't be oil because of the silkscreens so I'll do the series in acrylic. I still have to decide between thick paint or thin and drippy paint in transparent layers. Either could work, and a combination of techniques could work too. I feel I will need to maintain some sort of consistency across the series, to bolster its identity, but I'll go with a combined approach for now to give myself flexibility. The first piece will be a sort of pilot. If it doesn't go well I may need to rethink the process.

Beginnings, first stage of first piece

The subject for the first piece is the same as the first one for the original "Transitions" project but with different handling, and this is the first stage, the basic division of the canvas, which I chose to do in thirds. After a couple of days of studying the result, I'm thinking I don't have enough space in the foreground and will need to fix that. But at least acrylic is easily overpainted and I can change it. I fear it will be a very ordinary landscape but at the same time I'm determined to be positive about it, it's been way too long already.

Testing

I'm posting this link to the Theme post again to see whether e-mail subscriptions are working, because yesterday's post didn't arrive in my mailbox as it should have. I've taken out some widgets in the sidebar in case they're affecting the mail-out in some way.

Choosing a theme

A recap

Is it too soon for a recap? If a blog is thinking aloud then that is what I’m doing now. I chose these three drawings totally at random, they just happened to be nearby. They remind me that my natural instinct is for variety which in these days of the tyranny of the theme could be a bad thing. There are three types of drawing here: 1) a drawing from life (the old lady in the wheelchair); 2) an analytical drawing of an abstract painting, and 3) a drawing from memory. I doubt that classifying them in this way is the least bit helpful, though I did recently come across a claim by a 19^th century British writer that all thinking is classification, or something to that effect. I will look for the quote. It bothered me at the time because it had a dogmatic, closed-mind kind of ring. Plus, in terms of classifying I’m a joiner and not a splitter. I tend to look for common factors. In these three drawings a common factor is that they’re all scribbled, they’re not neat or tidy. This suggests that my intention in making them was not to make presentable drawings of the kind you could frame and sell. Which brings up the matter of “the artist’s intention”, a whole subject by itself, with its attendant theories and controversies particularly in the last fifty years. To put down my stake: in my view figuring out the artist's intention is the surest straightest route to understanding art.