Diary of a Painting - Michael Roberts

Frontier, 2019 Oil, wax and resin on linen. 61 x 36 cm

French fine universal primed linen, Russell & Chappell
branded stretcher, Old Holland and Michael Harding
oil paints with various mediums. Sandpaper.


I’m not in the habit of rescuing a painting. Off with
its head, out with the Stanley knife, into the bin. In
the spring of 2017 Frontier started out well and I
left it alone, almost finished before going on my
summer holiday. I constantly thought about this
painting and right royally fucked it up within an hour
of my return.
Painting, my obsession with painting and the activity
of painting pretty much fills my head and heart all day
long. When things go wrong, frequently, the results
play on my mind and nervous system, its uncomfortable
and I’m told I’m difficult to be around.
However, I’m dammed if I going to give up on it.

Some time was spent sanding back the surface and I
began again with a clean slate, one imbued with echo’s
and ghosts of previous versions.

This version of Frontier superficially resembles the
previous two, except it inhabits a different universe.
This is an important small big painting. Important
because it unlocked space, gave new permissions
and air to my practice.I’m of an age where friends and
Ffamily start dying, unfortunately. I’m thinking long and
hard about what really matters and apart from my
private life, everything comes right back to painting.
It’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.
Frontier is a circuitous meditation on the fragility of
life, how we are held in suspension as time keeps
pushing forward and dragging us along whether we
like it or not. There’s also a passing nod to Munch
and Johns along with some crap sci-fi TV shows
from the distant past.

What pulled me through to completing the final
version of Frontier was an injection of ‘get on with it’
after a visit to the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg
last winter. This museum was high on my bucket list
with its amazing collection of paintings and especially
its holdings of Matisse and Picasso, those two old
chestnuts. Going from room to room was totally
re-energizing. They contained powerful and life
affirming work, which confirmed my love and desire
for painting. Starting with Matisse’s purple decade,
Red Room (Harmony in Red) 1908, Dance 1910, Music
1910. These wonderful perceptive paintings proudly
showing their corrections. Meanwhile next door was
Mr. Picasso with bloodied axe chopping away at
painting with Dance of the Veils 1907, Dryad 1908
and Farm Woman 1908. The list goes on, never mind
the superb artists in the subsequent rooms. Francis
Bacon said, “Painting is the pattern of one’s own
nervous system being projected on canvas”. For me
these words give form to this experience.

Michael Roberts 31/12/2019

Images by Peter Abraham
www.lucidplane.com

I rarely have music playing whilst painting, I find it too
distracting. I do listen during the cleanup process but
mainly at home.

Albums recently around the hifi-

Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks
Miles Davis, Bitches Brew
Trio Lirico: Max Reger- String Trios - Piano Quartet
Trio Lirico: Weinberg, Penderecki, Schnittke -
String Trios
Edith Mathis: Selected Lider
John Ireland, A Downland Suite: Richard Hickox,
City of London Sinfonia
Marianne Faithful, Negative Capability
Doris Duke, I’m a Loser
Stan Tracy Trio with Peter King, The Last Time I Saw You
Jonathan Dove, In Damascus with the Sacconi Quartet
Feico Solo, Feico Deutekom
John Coltrane Quartet, Crescent
Talk Talk, Spirit Of Eden


Personal standout exhibitions seen in 2019-

Bridget Riley @ Hayward Gallery
Reinhard Mucha @ Sprüth Magers
Victor Willing @ Hastings Contemporary & Turps Gallery
Tal R @ Hastings Contemporary
Elizabeth Murray @ Camden Arts Centre
William Blake @ Tate Britain
Don McCullin @ Tate Britain
Lee Krasner @ Barbican


Two standout books-

Into Words.  The Selected Writings of Carroll Dunham.
Fantastic take on Art by a wonderful artist.
The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay by Michael
Chabon. Just get copy and hold on for the ride, truly great
writing.

Diary of a Painting - Jo Hummel

Clinch and Comedy, Emulsion and Acrylic on watercolour paper and ply, 60 x 60 cm, 2019

I’ve chosen two paintings which were made simultaneously, Comedy and Clinch, created August 2019. It would be difficult to discuss a work as a single entity as they are all made in twos, threes or sometimes fours.

Comedy and Clinch were created at the end of an intense 9 month studio period. In this time I’d created work for 3 solo exhibitions as well as taking part in the Turps Painting School correspondence course. They were the final two paintings to make the cut for the exhibition in Sweden. There were some interesting questions cropping up at this point. I have been using positive and negative space in large central areas of the canvas to create commanding pure forms which are governed by the details in the outer margins. I’ve been asking myself ‘Who is the painting performing for?’. I see visual motifs in the work which I find reassuring, calming, soothing, energising, empowering, and I have a notion that the subconscious is guiding the conscious self in some profound, personal, developmental way. I’ve also been using visual routines such as symmetry, stacking and repetition. The recent intense studio period helped me to reach a new visual understanding of space which I’d easily compare to the sensation of standing in a room which you have grown to know intimately. I worked on the two final pieces quickly, over 3 or 4 days. My decision process had sped up. Clinch took longer than comedy and presented many manifestations before it became the finished piece. Because of the repeating deadlines I’d been adhering to a strict work routine, balancing practical and physical tasks with conceptual development. By the time I’d started on Comedy and Clinch I was already looking towards a slower, less militant pace.

My process is separated into two stages, painting and then assembling. I work onto a watercolour paper made by St Cuthbert’s Mill. Using brushes and rollers, I paint or artwork the paper sheets on both sides in household emulsion or mixed acrylic. In this case it was a very dark purple which is a nearly black aubergine when dry. On the reverse I used a chocolate grey colour. Often I’ll force the accidental bleeding and printing which occurs naturally when working the material in this way.

All of my colour understanding comes from what I see around me. The green corrugated iron boat shed next door to my studio is the same green in Comedy, in a certain light the dog’s aubergine nose contrasts with his black coat which you see in Clinch, the orange life aid at the pool was also a trigger. A colour will stir an emotion, then I go find it or mix it. Other colour choice is made in the moment, recycling what’s around and placing and rearranging until I see a relationship which satisfies me. Because I colour the paper front and back, the reverse might withhold the solution so I flip sections on both paintings, working back and forth. In this case with Comedy and Clinch, nothing was lost or discarded, material and understanding being shared between the two pieces. It’s an economical way of working which harks back to when I used found material.
Once dry, the paper has the weight and flex which is similar to a piece of thin leather. I cut into it using sharp tailor scissors. On smaller sections and straight edges I’ll use a knife. I don’t pre-plant he shapes. It’s all decided on the spot, however it’s far from random. I’ll have combinations of shapes and colours readily available, either on view within previous works or lying on the floor. Ifs omething is the wrong colour, but the right shape, I’ll use it as a template. The paper sections are fixed to the ply substrate using PH neutral PVA and UHU for the small pieces. The paintings weret hen weighted under several smooth, heavy kitchen cupboard doors. Any large panels might get an extra bit of heat press using a domestic iron. I allowed 24 hours for the glue to set, before I varnished them using an almost invisible UV protective, matt varnish by Lasquax, and then some satin Windsor and Newton for the final layer.

I listen to soundscapes, ambient, electronic, sometimes acoustic. But I usually favour beats and digital noise. I find it more hypnotic and a useful tool for accessing the right psychological space for making work.

Whilst creating this work I was listening to:
Tycho
Mount Kimbie
Blackbird Blackbird
Beach House
British Sea Power (https://youtu.be/J9fDQxt9A70 )
Reading.

I made a choice to remove news from my life whilst working on the exhibitions and Turps course. I decided that in order to reach the quality of concentration I needed I had to select stimuli and distractions carefully. So I stopped buying papers, deleted news apps and unfollowed journalists. I’ve recently enjoyed returning to the chitter chatter of papers and news apps, but it was a healthy and peaceful escape from the political noise and helped me focus on my own tasks.There is a clarity in the two paintings which I think reflects the isolation I was forcing upon myself.

Recent Books:
Everybody Lies, Big Data, New Data… Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Throw Away Unopened by Viv Albertine
Constellation of Genuis, 1922 Modernism and all that Jazz by Kevin Jackson
The Class Ceiling by Sam Freidman and Daniel Laurison
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Exhibitions etc
Studio visit, Carol Robertson
London Art Fair
Sara Dare, Sid Motion Gallery
Harder Edge, Saatchi Gallery
Shape Recognition, Eagle Gallery
Carry On, Fold
1000 Years of Collage, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

During the time this work was made and the months leading up I was regularly running at the gym and exercising a friend’s horse. I like both for the early mornings, the physical engagement, and the thrill. I’m no good in the studio unless I’ve thrashed about on a running machine and arrived with a clear head. Also walking the dog is good, anything to balance out the long indoor studiop eriods.

Jo Hummel 

Diary of a painting – Katrin Mäurich

I painted ‘dunkelheit hält alles an sich 2017’ (49x51cm) in January/February 2017 on beautiful 18mm B-grade birch ply. I bought a 1,22 x 2,44 m sheet of this last year [2016], cut it up with my jigsaw, sanded the pieces and priming the surfaces with oils or varnish (though sometimes I leave them raw).
This painting has been primed with linseed oil. It is quite a typical painting for me in that it has been build up or constructed over time in a rather oblique fashion – through successive adding and removing of figures, lines, layers of colour and texture. I used pressed pigments (conté, pastels) and acrylic paints. Colours in this painting (as far as I remember): Ivory and Mars Black, Zync and Titanium Whites, Cadmium Yellow, Burnt Umber, Ultramarine, Titan Buff, Raw Sienna, white, brown and black conté (Carrés Esquisse de Conté).
Terry is always very interested in the colours used in the making of paintings and I know that many other painters are too. It is not something I can talk about very well as my approach to colour is entirely intuitive and I do not think about it in an abstract way but rather use it as circumstances suggest. At the beginning of this painting for example I had a rather lovely mixed brown left over from a previous painting and hating waste I used it to tint the birch (which was golden and shimmered in the light – the sanding and oil finish made it into a very seductive, precious object). Then the next thing I did was in response to that brown – I rubbed some of it off again to let the surface ‘breath’ a bit more. That created a vague, smokey atmosphere that was asking for something definite or substantial to contrast with. So I responded with a conté (iron-oxide) line drawing. After some looking and working on other paintings in between, I saw how I could take the next step – there was something interesting going on with two shapes in the centre, a wrapping and surrounding which I liked. Playing around with this took me a few steps further, then it became too rigid and I decided to sand some of the paint back again and do some more looking and turning-away, working on other paintings in the meantime. Often I will find the next step for a painting while I am working on another. In this case it was the Yellow I was using on ‘shanten 2017’ which I was working on nearly concurrently to ‘dunkelheit…’. I could see that the yellow would push this painting on and that worked well – further opportunities opened up in the wake of introducing it which brought me quite close to the finish of the painting. The very final move was to apply a very thick, textured White to the centre. I sat with that for a while and returned to look a couple of times until I was absolutely certain it was finished. Since then, the painting has grown on me more and more. As time passes I can judge my paintings more clearly and appreciate their quality.
I used to give utilitarian titles to my paintings but changed this over the last couple of years or so. They are now more considered and personal. This painting’s title is from a Rilke poem I translated for a close friend during that time:

Oh darkness, whence I came
I love you more than the flame
That so confines the world,
in that it shines
only for some exclusive
circle,
beyond that it remains illusive.

Darkness though, holds everything close:
creatures and flames, animals
and me,
How it gathers
humankind and deity
both –

And thus it may be: with great might
Something stirs close to me.
I believe in night.

I believe in that which thus far remains unsaid.
I want to set my pious notions free.
What no one yet dared to desire,Will soon be second nature to me.

(German: http://www.rilke.de/gedichte/das_buch_vom_moenchischen_leben.htm)

During the making of this painting I read and listened to audiobooks of fiction:

’I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ by Maya Angelou,

‘Abendland’ by Michael Köhlmeier,

‘A Whole Life’ by Robert Seethaler;

and non-fiction: various articles of political analysis (mostly online), Drift into Failure by Sidney Dekke and some other texts on systems thinking, risk management, incident investigation and clinical governance in general (for my job);

I saw: ‘Moonlight’ by Barry Jenkins,

‘Play me Something’ by Timothy Neat and John Berger,

‘Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000’ by Alain Tanner and John Berger;
Gorky’s ‘The Lower Depths’ at the Arcola Theatre;

^^I took a trip to Scotland and walked along the coast from Cromarty to Rosemarkie.

I was mostly listening to BBC Radio 4 and 3 and Spotify:

Spoon – They Want My Soul

Dutch Uncles – Oh Shudder

DIIV – Is the Is Are

SBTRKT – Wonder Where We Land

The Clientele – Strange Geometry

Cults – Static

AHNONI – HOPELESSNESS

Laura Marling – Short Movie

Hamilton Leithauser – Black Hours

Hundred Waters – The Moon Rang Like A Bell

Natalie Prass

Dead Man’s Bones

Julia Holter

Nick Cave

Courtney Barnett

Cass McCombs

Jeff Buckley

Max Richter

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Britten, Berg, Webern, Schubert, Schostakovich, Mozart."

Katrin Mäurich

Diary of a Painting - Roland Hicks

‘Four Part Dissemblage [COMM]’,  Acrylic gouache on birch ply gesso panel, 40x20cm, 2019.

I start with a single birch ply panel, primed with white acrylic gesso front and edges. Next, pencil lines are drawn to divide the surface into sections, which will, in due course, start to look like separate offcuts of various types of chipboard or melamine shelving.
It’s based on a linear composition worked out previously in a sketchbook, with four equal sized, vertically stacked sections, but I often change my mind at this stage too. In the original sketch the coloured panel is second from bottom, but I decide to move it up a place. It’s important the composition can appear both carefully considered and fairly spontaneous. I want the painting to seem ‘successful’ as a piece of geometric abstraction, or as a found material assemblage piece, as well as a realist trompe l’oeil illusion, and to treat these different aspects as equally important. I think a lot of trompe l’oeil falls flat [both literally and figuratively] once you ‘get’ it – trickery by itself isn’t that interesting unless it opens up other conversations.

There’s no pre-existent chipboard model to work from, so arguably this is a work of pure [albeit deliberately limited] imagination. I’m now able to make much of the work without direct observation of the materials suggested, though I do have bits of actual chipboard etc lying around for reference if needed... [In fact in this case when I get to the top section I do need to look closely at a real piece of painted chipboard to mimic the way the brushmarks peter out towards the exposed area on the top left, and the way the right hand edge appears to have been damp stained.]

I’m using Japanese acrylic gouache paint – it has that same soft, flat quality and density of pigment of standard gouache, but is more durable and water resistant, so more suitable for unglazed work. I think I was partly drawn towards gouache from looking at works on paper by South American Concrete/Neo-concrete artists [Helio Oiticica, Lygia Clark, Willys de Castro, Lygia Pape etc]. Some years back I only ever worked in oils, and only used photographs as source material, but that’s all changed over the past few years. I suppose it’s still a fairly meticulous process, but now a piece usually takes days/weeks rather than several months. Consequently I feel more present in the creative moment, as my mind is far less likely to have moved on to something else I’d rather be doing. I used to think there was some value [possibly in a slightly masochistic way] to spending months continually on a painting, that some kind of endurance and suffering was necessary to achieve desired results. And I suppose that can be true, but it’s also no guarantee of good work. Likewise working more speedily feels less frustrating and more spontaneous, but this also doesn’t in itself make the work any better or worse. It’s just a different way of working. Much more enjoyable for me though, and it’s definitely made the work seem more playful and free to experiment. Perhaps less risk averse. [Though that’s all relative].

I paint the white ‘melamine’ sections with a small, soft roller, the white mixed with varying amounts of greyish beige to suggest different degrees of discolouration. 
On one section I decide to add a pure white area with a painted screw hole to suggest where a shelf bracket has prevented aging. 
Roughly sawn edges are added with yellow ochre/burnt umber. I spend a fair amount of time considering which edges should appear cut and which not, as it subtly changes the visual flow of the work. I also think of them a bit like Barnett Newman’s ‘zips’.

‘Chipboard’ is created with a base colour overpainted with hundreds of tiny dots, dashes and whorls of darker and paler tones, using very small brushes [I get through a lot of these]. This is the first painting I’ve done where the chipboard looks like it has already been partially coated with emulsion. 
The blue painted ‘OSB’ section [that’s Oriented Strand Board, by the way, the more highly textured chipboard made from compressed layers of chunky wooden shreds] here is just Peacock blue mixed with white, though I tried several other colours before deciding on this. It’s actually ended up very close to the colour in my original sketch. [Sometimes first thought is best thought]. Highlights and shadows are added to suggest the surface texture, and ochre/umber again to suggest gaps around the edges where the paint has missed or chipped away. 

‘Staples’ are next to be painted - I often angle these deliberately to discreetly lead the eye around the work. I don’t paint too many - I like the suggestion that they provide a pretty flimsy means of holding the work together, that it could maybe all fall apart at any moment. 

The side edges are last to be painted, continuing and completing the illusion that these are separate 3D sections joined together, making the work seem both object and image.

I realise I’ve used a lot of inverted commas around described materials - which might suggest the work is steeped in irony. I suppose there must be some element of this, but it’s not the overriding factor. And I’m pretty sure there’s nothing cynical here. Even though I’m being deceitful in not using the materials I appear to be, it’s far more an act of homage than mockery. And a desire for the work to be several things at once.

While making the work I find it increasingly difficult to work with the wrong kind of noise. I used to always have the radio on, or listen to podcasts, or just any current favourite albums, but often find these too distracting now [probably because of what I said before about feeling more present in the creative moment these days] so I tend towards more ambient/instrumental types of music in the studio. Though not always – it’s not a sacred code of practice. And sometimes a bit of silence is good too, along with the background sounds of passing trains, or birds’ feet tapping across the skylights overhead. [No wind chimes or whalesong though...]. 
Anyway, old favourites like Eno, German ‘kosmische’, minimalism/Steve Reich etc, and some types of jazz and dub generally seem to work well for me – repetitive, quite hypnotic, not too intrusive but more interesting than just aural wallpaper too. Which I guess might also be qualities I want from the paintings...

----------------------------- 

Studio listening:
Ryuichi Sakamoto ‘Async’, 
The Durutti Column ‘The Return Of The Durutti Column’ 
Miles Davis ‘Get Up With It’, 
Hiroshi Yoshimura ‘Music For Nine Postcards’
Cate le Bon ‘Reward’
Cluster ‘Zuckerzeit’, 
Jon Hassell ‘Listening to Pictures’ 
Robert Wyatt ‘Cuckooland’, 
Tirzah ‘Devotion’, 
The Comet is Coming ‘Trust in the Life Force of the Deep Mystery’, 
Joni Mitchell ‘Hejira’, 
Fennesz ‘Agora’ 
Lee Scratch Perry ‘Super Ape’, 
Grace Jones ‘Hurricane/Dub’, 
Eno/Harold Budd ‘The Plateau of Mirror’, 
David Sylvian & Holger Czukay.’Plight and Premonition/Flux and Mutability’ 
Tortoise ‘TNT’,
[I also listened to quite a bit of Scott Walker and Mark Hollis [of Talk Talk] who sadly both died during this period]

Books:
[studio reference]
‘Concrete Matters’ – Moderna Museet/Koenig books catalogue 2018
‘Lygia Pape’ – Metropolitan Museum catalogue/Yale UP 2017
‘Robert Ryman’ 1993 tate catalogue
‘The Paintings of Sylvia Plimack Mangold’ Albright-Knox Art Gallery catalogue, 1994
‘Vija Celmins - To Fix The Image In Memory’ SFMOMA catalogue/Yale UP 2018
‘Carmen Herrera’ Ikon gallery catalogue 2009
‘Rauschenberg Cardboards’ Menil Collection
‘Nature Morte’, Michael Petry, Thames and Hudson
‘Looking at the Overlooked’ Norman Bryson, Reaktion books

[home]
David Toop ‘Ocean of Sound’
Rebecca Solnit ‘Wanderlust’
Max Porter ‘Lanny’
David Sedaris ‘Calypso’

Exhibitions visited:
Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, Hauser & Wirth
Christopher Hanlon, Domo Baal
Tom Hackney, Eagle Gallery/dalla Rosa
Franz West, Tate Modern
Vincent Hawkins, Sid Motion
Agnes Martin, Levy Gorvy
Alan Reynolds, Annely Juda
Narbi Price, Herrick Gallery
Christian Marclay, White Cube Mason’s Yard

Roland Hicks 

Roland's painting: Four Part Dissemblage [COMM] can currently be seen in the group show 'Graduation' at Patrick Heide Contemporary Art until 21-09-19.

Diary of a Painting - Paula MacArthur

Paula MacArthur, I know it’s dark but do not fear, oil on linen, 100 x 100 cm, 2017ption

Primed linen 100x100cm

Primed again with 2 coats of Lefranc Bourgeois titanium white diluted & well mixed with a little Robeson's siccative to help it dry. It's hot, 30 degrees, but I'm short on time, only five days left on an artist residency in Switzerland.

…..

Waiting for the primer to dry, drawing and painting on paper.

…..

I've been contemplating and/or struggling with the relationship between the object and the ground in this new series of monochromatic paintings. Hoping this time the end result will be more satisfactory whilst holding onto the unfamiliar/weird/surprising qualities that the start of a new series brings.

Turps - a lot in a big yogurt pot

Brush - Jackson's black hog no.12 in my right hand & Jackson's black hog no. 6 in my left

Rag

Michael Harding's paint - Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue and Phthalocyanine Green Lake which I think I bought because it's a hell of a lot cheaper than Veridian - very roughly 4:1:1, all mixed together in a yogurt pot with a slosh of turps, 

Drawing a grid using barely dirty turps which divides the canvas into thirds and quarters. 25, 33.3, 50, 66.6 & 75cms.

I've edited several inkjet printed photos by blacking areas out with charcoal. It covers the photos well, has a similar matt quality and rubs off with fingers if I decide to reveal a little more. I draw a similar grid on this. 6, 8, 12, 16 & 18 cms

I like maths & geometry. Sometimes objects get distorted to 'fit' the grid; sometimes not, I’m not very strict with rules. It's an easy way to enlarge my source image and avoid using a projector which I have tried but drawing from a projection becomes too automatic and careless; it takes away some of the challenge, decision making & mistakes. Mistakes are often fruitful.

Start drawing with just turps to almost invisibly map the basic structure. 

Start drawing with the big brush in my right hand with mixed 'black' paint, much thicker than usual, almost no turps in the mix, except using the smaller brush with turps in my left hand to draw in the highlights.

Listening to and writing down lyrics as always, a title will appear

'We all fit together in puzzle pieces'

'We are all so over the moon'

The green hasn't mixed in very well. Annoying. Leave it for now, maybe it will turn out to be a happy accident - I doubt it. 

'I think you should'

'Do you ever stop to take a breath'

I'm standing, my feet are starting to ache, 5.15pm

'I'll take you back for sure'

'I know it's dark but do not fear'

'Take my hand and I will lead you out of here'

More tea 5.35pm.

Change the record.

'Does anything mean anything'

'Maybe you will say that you love me now'

A break for dinner.

New album.

Start again 7.25pm

Cake break

Look at 'The Triumph of Painting' will read the essays before going to sleep.

Another new album 

Start again 9.15pm

'I ask once again'

'To prove that I don't mind'

10.10 time for bed

Stand back for a final look at what I've done but I really need to do something about that bit the underneath of the object.

10.20 time for bed 

…..

Didn’t read the essays last night but read them at breakfast.

Start again, adding little spheres by painting an area of black and washing away the highlights.

I wonder if starting with a wet, completely black canvas would be the way to go? Would it stay wet enough for long enough? I’ll have to figure out a way to keep the paint wet for longer.

Working on the background, floundering a bit, working it out. The background is 'black’. 

Back to my photo, I wipe away some of charcoal that I edited it with and uncover some of the photo which was hidden.

I use the contours of the original object to direct my mark making on the ground. Does that work? Contrived? Intentional?

A conversation with the other painter here; he tells me De Kooning added Safflower oil to slow drying, will add it to my shopping list & google 'de Kooning safflower oil'. I'm pleased it is de Kooning who might hold the answer.

'I'm going to stop pretending that I didn't break you heart'

The object seems to be hanging in space. Floating in a void though the brush strokes flatten the space somewhat. Not from this angle though; the light doesn't catch the brush marks, I can see the object with a 'flat' ground just by steping to the left a few paces. 

I move over to another canvas, already started, similarly nearly finished, the object is almost dry. With a two inch flat Edelstahl synthetic brush I paint in a smooth 'black' background, even vertical strokes just going over the edges of the object. Then drawing the edges back in by washing off the overlapping marks with generous amounts of cleanish turps. Faint dribbles of the ground veil the object and trails of turps run into the ground connect object and ground in a satisfying simple way.

Shall I give this painting the same treatment?

Hope it dries enough to survive the drive back home.

Paula MacArthur

Diary of a Painting - Kes Richardson

The painting Bit Bot Bug is the latest in a series of 300 x 250 cm acrylic on PVC paintings derived from multiple drawings. The PVC attempts to mimic the coated paper the drawings are made on. It is a heavy-duty, non-porous material and gives very little resistance when making marks. The painting was made unstretched on the floor to avoid the effects of gravity on the liquid medium and create a certain distance or blindness when making the work. It was made in several hits. Each hit is a sustained painting attack and creates a layer. Each hit is guided by a drawing or part of a drawing. The painting is stretched and propped upright after each hit to ascertain the next move.

Listening to:
Flying Lotus
Kamasi Washington
Frank Ocean
Captain Murphy
Oscar Peterson

Reading:
Burglar Bill

Watching:
The Night Garden

Kes Richardson 

Diary of a Painting - Tom Robinson

Reading:

Running with the Buffaloes, Chris Lear
The Bachelor of Arts, R.K. Narayan

Listening:

The Köln Concert , Keith Jarrett
Guillaume Dufay, Norwich Festival

Looking:

Ken Kiff, Sainsbury Centre Norwich

 Tom Robinson

Diary of a Painting - David Manley

Scotch & Water, Acrylic on board, 30 x 30 cm, 2017

a) Choose a support…well there’s another 30 cm. square plywood panel, wood primed and then gessoed with Golden primer to hand so thats it. As it stands that suggests another in my All That Jazz series of paintings that started just over 15 months back with an ambition to muss up the geometry of my Wonky Geometry pictures with a little more incident and contrary imagery.
b) Ground…not exactly sure why but I tend to split it in two colour wise. Here’s a lightened up Dioxazine purple that I mixed up too much of so I’ll slap that on half the panel.
c) In my mind to use a dirty yellow to counterpoint the purple…an obvious primary/secondary combo but then again why not?
d) oh – now the ‘idea’ stage…as it’s going to be another in the Jazz series…I have a ‘sketchbook’ of forms and elements (culled in part from fifties album sleeves and wallpaper/fabric designs) so time to rifle through these I guess.
e) but not until I’ve put something on the panel to resist the inevitable sanding back with this series. I favour GAC500 from Golden.
f) now a form to work with…or against. Its usually a triangle but maybe this time a rectangle – and as for colour…another batch surfeit.
g) mussing up time…a stroke across the lot.
h) ah…the image…working up from photoshop…listening to Laura Jurd’s Dinosaur album, there’s lot of young UK jazz talent about at the moment and they are amongst the best. I tend to spend a wee bit too much time on this as the resulting image is simply a rough guideline.
i) right…let’s get to it…session one with a soundtrack of Derby County v. West Brom in the FA Cup on the radio. Lots of colouring in now that I find is one of the most comforting parts of this funny old business. Now back to the garage for a light sanding back. Session two a couple days later with a soundtrack of the marvellous Billy Jenkins (I can only manage instrumental music when painting though the spoken word is oddly enough ok).
j) So thats broken the back of it methinks…a period of cogitation now. Getting on with other projects (too many really) with it just sitting there. I know it will only be minor adjustments, I just don’t know what! Some of the thinking takes place whilst out and about in the north east of Leicestershire walking around villages as part of the early stages of the Melton project. Itself a part of a larger plan to make a small canvas for every village in the county.
k) Ok sit and really think. The soundtrack is Cannonball Adderley’s early 60’s sextet and on the album is an early Zawinul composition – Scotch & Water that will do nicely for a title. All sorts of things go through my head now, poems by Cavafy and Seferis have been on my reading list as I’m tucking into Mary Jacobus’ Reading Cy Twombly…and he referenced them a fair bit. Oddly though I’ve had a copy of the Penguin Four Greek Poets since August 1969 I’d never properly read them. An omission that I’ve managed to rectify after nearly 48 years…
l) So a few adjustments the most significant being a blue ground change utilising a lightened prussian blue. My old college friend Dave Thomas comes to mind with his oft repeated maxim that any picture is improved by slapping some prussian blue on it. Pity I’ve added a large dose of titanium white but there you go. I’ve been invited to show in Colour: A Kind Of Bliss by curators and exhibitors Lucy Cox & Freya Purdue at The Crypt, St. Marylebone Church in April through June this year (with Andy Parkinson, Julian Brown & Jeff Dellow) & this painting is one I hope may be selected.
m) So that’s it then…Scotch & Water…maybe I’ll have one, after all the Xmas gifts included bottles of Jura, Glenmorangie & Talisker.

David Manley

Diary of a Painting - Tess Williams

‘Rewrite’ 122x183cm, Oil, Acrylic & Ink on Collaged Canvas, 2019

Making:

- Starting out – Large-scale collage - Stretcher size: 122 x 183cm.

- Thinking about positive/negative space, balance, contrast, composition, colour, layering, edges.

- Important to me that my paintings have the right balance of dissonance and resolution - that relationship is always on my mind.

- Stretch the initial layer of canvas. Raw unprimed cotton duck. A coat of Ivory black once stretched. This layer will be barely visible when the piece is finished. It’s just a base surface to collage onto.

- Painting separate individual sections of canvas of various shapes and sizes – using Oil, Acrylic, Inks. Ripping, cutting. tearing the canvas. A very physical process. Each piece of the collage has its own separateness and materiality. Pattern, texture, mark-making.

- Not yet knowing how these sections will come together exactly, but thinking of what I want the outcome to be. Have a rough idea of what I am aiming for, but my work is also intuitive so I allow things to develop as I work.

- The balance of control and spontaneity during the making process is always important.

- Working with the stretcher always horizontally on the floor. Add a few base layer pieces onto this to start with. Using Matt Medium gel as the glue.  

- Then start pinning other pieces – playing around, constantly reconfiguring. Adding, Removing, Painting over.

- Only when I lift the stretcher upright can I see the painting starting to take shape. I do this regularly – inbetween adding more sections of canvas. The composition slowly evolving, piece by piece.

- This process continues – taking breaks to do other things in the studio while the canvas layers dry and set.

- Constantly shifting, resolving, shifting again, becoming uncomfortable, looking for readjustment - until I finally decide that the painting is finished.

Listening:

- Albums by Prince & Jamiroquai.

- Various episodes of Desert Island Discs

- ‘Painters Today’ Podcast – episodes with Fiona Rae and Biggs & Collings.

-  Russel Toveys Podcast ‘Art Talk’ – an episode with Marin Creed.

Reading:

- Robert Motherwell ‘Early Collages’

Really interesting insights into collage as a medium, and as a discourse for painting. The book goes into detail about which elements of the collage making process Motherwell wanted to be evident. How much he wanted the artists touch to be present, and which parts of the materials he wanted to show – for example he often made a conscious choice about when he wanted the ‘glue’ to bleed through to affect the paint, or to stain the raw side of the canvas. These parts of the making process are things that I am constantly thinking about, so this book has been really on point for me.

Tess Williams