Black I - I think it's finished

The story behind the black paintings...

I've been saying for a long time, several years possibly, that I could just paint grey forever. I love it! In fact I do have to try and control my tendency to grey down everything because otherwise I worry I would never sell any paintings.

So one day I was chatting to Veta over coffee and mentioned this again. At the time I had a giant canvas sent to me by mistake (right size, wrong brand) from Jacksons and it was cheaper for them to just let me keep it while they sent the replacement than return it. So one thought was to chop it up and do a bunch of grey paintings, just for me. Alas, the perfectionist in me couldn't bear to use the canvas (too thin and cheap) for anything.

But then a few other people in a rather short period of time responded to my idea of black and grey paintings very positively. This took me totally by surprise.

So I felt a certain justification in doing something reckless. And so began a very quick dive into the abyss! I admit the so-called "recession" was another factor - this is my year to really focus on production. An opportunity to focus on the studio side and create work so it can develop and progress without pressures the the commercial side, which is starting to falter anyway. Part of my 09/10 business plan is to pursue purely experimental projects. (the result being that in time the economy will recover and I'll be ready and already present with strong new sets of work)

It started with Black I ("Oh What a World"), which was a rescued failed sky painting as you know. Then I realised I needed to go bigger. Pulled out the 120x150cm canvas. A 120x120 canvas is aside for the Black III. And I know I want to go even bigger, so I'm hoping a sale will come my way to buy a bespoke 2x2 metre canvas (which can't be purchased 'off the rack' as it were, even in the good Italian brand I use).

Black I, finished, has had only positive responses. Everyone seems to like it. Veta seems to think it's even art-fair worthy (art fair work, for very commercial fairs, tends to need bold colour impact), an opinion I take seriously. Veta knows her stuff when it comes to selling. The business side feels some vindication.

And the creative side of me is extremely happy, working on these is just a joyous process!

Painting image: Oh What a World (Black I), acrylic on canvas, 120x100cm © Tina Mammoser, 2009 (better photo to come after it's varnished)

Flashback Friday - black painting

Lightning Storm over the Lake
Acrylic on canvas
20"x20" (50x50cm)
2004 © Tina Mammoser
All rights reserved.

A combination of an earlier horizon and a dark "black" painting. This is from the first Lake Michigan set of paintings, which were technically the first set of all-horizons paintings - before the English Coast series began.

The goal was to create a deep dark nighttime feel with imposing weather, a crash of lightning on the lakefront in Chicago. Like my current black paintings the dark tones were created entirely with colour - in this case deep crimson reds and ultramarine blues combine for the darkest area of water in the middle.

Cliffs - tackling the nemesis

So despite the cliffs being a source of frustration (and challenge, which I rather like), they once again jumped out at me to be painted.

When preparing the canvases for the Essex paintings I realised something: I needed to paint that little sandy cliff. It just spoke to me, even though the photo and the sketch weren't the strongest.

And a realisation struck. Out of the corner of my eye I spied a large pastel drawing from a while ago. Actually inspired by Filey Brigg. You may remember, I decided to re-try that painting. (the original diptych painting of Filey Brigg is in yesterday's post)

Now looking at this pastel drawing I once again saw the strength of a composition. A composition I actually did try to start painting on a large canvas - the 80cm square was also lurking in a corner, faced to the wall.








So down came the little white hut painting and up went the sandy cliff. Out came the little 5" study on canvas with it's oddly bright orange yellow and green.

The charcoal is down on a 1 metre square painting, and I'm quite excited! Wish me luck with attempt number... well, I've lost track.

Cliffs - my nemesis!

Cliffs cliffs, everywhere cliffs... white, brown, red. Tall, short, sandy, rocky. My constant challenge is how to paint these verticals in a way that speaks to me.

Photos in order: The Needles (Isle of Wight), Alum Bay (Isle of Wight), near Dover, Yorkshire, Portland Isle.


Various attempts over time. From 2.5" to 5" to 48" wide! Still the perfect composition eludes me. And I'm starting a new painting of a small cliff at Walton on the Naze, inspired by all my previous cliff attempts. More in the next blog post!

Paintings in order: "Golden, Chesil Beach" (Weymouth/Portland), ACEO of the Needles, "Scale Nab" (Yorkshire), Filey Brigg (Yorkshire), study for Chesil Beach.

All images © Tina Mammoser, 2009.

Sketches vs Photographs

Last month I had a visitor to my studio who got the chance to see the very start of the Essex coast sketches and photos.

What struck me was how much she enjoyed seeing both the original photographs and the tiny little sketches - and she could pick out the photo that a sketch matched, even though they were just scattered on the table.

So I thought I'd share that with you my blog readers too! You've seen photos, and you've seen the sketches. You've even seen some of the 5" colour studies. So I thought I'd line up a few for you to really see side-by-side how I distill the photo in the first instance.

The similarities are obvious. But in the sketches seen alone you wouldn't necessarily see the "place" or seaside features, though they're easily matched in the photos.

This process is what my studies are about, reducing the image bit by bit to just find the exact elements need to keep a clear reference to landscape but eliminate unnecessary visual clutter. Every painting in the coast series started from a specific photo just like these.

Progress on Black II

The second Black painting is coming along nicely - a warmer painting this time. (The finished version of the Black I will be posted later this week.)

It will, of course, become much darker!

Podcast - 3 Shows

http://files.me.com/timelady/stzmdt.mp3
Duration: 10min 55 seconds, approx. 10Mb

This month I podcasted live while visiting 3 exhibitions in London: Miroslaw Balka's new installation in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, Estelle Thompson at Purdy Hicks, and Turner and the Masters at Tate Britain. A cross-London tour! You can hear what I see and how these 3 shows might influence me and my paintings.

• Remember you can subscribe to the podcast specifically at
  studiowaves.blogspot.com
  
• or through iTunes at
  tinyurl.com/studiowaves

Flashback Friday - beginnings of abstraction

Waves
Oil on loose canvas
size unknown
est. 1998 © Tina Mammoser
All rights reserved.

An early abstract seascape - created from a photo I took of water hitting the side of a barge on the Thames River in London. This was done with the help of an "abstract seascapes" class I was taking at the time at the Blackheath Conservatoire, and my venture into abstraction. You can see that even here I was simplifying my canvas areas, almost creating colour fields but looking back that wasn't really my intention. Paintings that followed were still very impressionist and my abstraction first came from areas of texture rather than areas of colour.

The colour studies: Your votes!

Well the "vote" for your favourite small studies was fun. Every painting got at least one vote, and there were no totally clear 1 or 2 winners. Just goes to show that we all like different things!

Now I fully admit that it was difficult to see the tiny images but that was sort of part of the plan. Since these are just studies even I will squint at them to get only a very general idea. There was a flaw in the whole things though - some of the paintings aren't quite the colours I would actually use, since I was trying to test out those Daler Rowney paints at the same time (half of which are colours I wouldn't buy). So I still need to go back and possibly compensate for a few by considering the actual palette they would be if big.

Here are your votes! (which came in via the blog, Facebook and direct emails - thanks so much guys!)

This image will enlarge bigger than the original one.

The numbers are your votes. The red ones are my choices but I did not count my own votes in the numbers. And of course I have a slight advantage of knowing what imagery is in my head. ;)

A few surprises both to myself and from your input. A few I immediately turned face down (rejected) got middling votes - the paintings third from the right and the left. On a personal level two others frustrated me. The 4th and 5th from the left were ones I really wanted to work from the photo stage. But the 4th, with a pale strip across the middle, I'm quite sure I've painted before. I need to pull out old canvases and my database and see what this is reminding me of! So that kinda freaks me out. The 5th, with the little white square (a beachhut), just doesn't work at all here. Just plain old disappointment at play for me. The idea is good I think but the composition is very boring - I may play with that one though.

Also worth noting - the votes did fall into a visual bell curve (paintings on the ends got less votes than the middle). The scientist in me would love to do this again with the paintings rearranged to see what the results are!

Black paintings... continued

And the start of a second one - this time 150cm x 120cm (60"x48"). (note: the painting from yesterday is 48"x40"(120cm x 100cm))

Just so you don't think that I actually use any black in these black paintings.

Black paintings...

No narrative on this one, because it's mentally a work in progress as well as painterly. It's the side project that developed from the failed Sky painting.

Flashback Friday - the first horizons?

4 Lake Michigan paintings
Oil on canvas, appx. 21x29cm each
1999 © Tina Mammoser, all rights reserved

These oil paintings are one of those things that you look back at and see the future.

These are pre-horizons. Pre-Lake Michigan series. Pre-abstraction. Pre-bridges and river paintings! In fact, I created these paintings when I first started experimenting with seascapes and abstraction generally - at the time my work was still quite colourful, very impressionist and painterly, and still contained objects (boats, piers, bouys, statues, etc). Figures, portraits and Scottish landscapes were my main output. I hadn't yet focused mainly on water as my subject matter and I certainly hadn't simplified anything down to something as simple as just a horizon line yet.

Painted sitting with my wooden Russian easel and oil paints (and are mainly knife-work too) on the lakefront during a Chicago visit - in winter! These paintings are a somewhat spooky prediction of things to come and clear sign of how much Lake Michigan and my home has influenced all my work.

Small studies finished

My first round a small studies for the Essex coast paintings are finished.

These are 5" canvas paintings of the 11 final sketches chosen. This essentially is the colour round of the studies (the sketches having been black and white - you can see them in last week's post). They're also another quick round of composition.

Some are inherently week - the colour either weakens the composition or they weren't strong enough to start with. A few are automatic contenders for larger paintings.

So out of curiousity, even this small and from this distance which ones catch your eye? Which makes you go "ooh, that would be a cool big painting"?

I'll share my choices and yours in another post!

Greenwich Park paintings now on Etsy!

You may have seen me Twitter it, but for the die-hard blog-only fans here's the news! My Greenwich Park paintings are now available through my Etsy store. (2 have already sold, heading to Australia) If you prefer to buy in GBP you can purchase on my website instead.

What do you think of my new "home" product shots?





Paintings:
"Tate & Lyle Sugar Factory" © Tina Mammoser, 2009
"Towards Squirrel Heaven" © Tina Mammoser, 2009
All rights reserved.

Testing testing...

This week I've received a variety of new paints to trial from Daler Rowney - they're launching a whole new Cryla "brand". New sized tube, new labelling (and far more information), possibly new paint but not being a Cryla user generally I'm not sure on that count. (I have a couple colours but they've always been a back-up.)

I'm using them to do my small studies for the Essex coast paintings. Starting small to get a feel and general impression of colours (pigment load), texture and body. Of course I would like to test them larger, since my small work is far more forgiving of different types of paint - but am struggling slightly due to the colours I was sent. Daler Rowney was not to know of course, but I don't really use half these colours. (by "don't really" I rather mean "not at all") But I shall persevere! I'm quite impressed so far so feel I really do want to go large with them and see how they hold up with my masochistic glazing techniques.

Back to work...

New work in full flow, well the start of it anyway... so I'm afraid it will be a leaner meaner blog this week. You can see how I'm getting on but I'm going to focus more on the actual getting on.

Clean water ready for brushes and fresh paintings - a rarity! (man, I never clean this thing and the brushes live in it 24/7)