Blog
- Details
- Ashley Hanson
SAT 4 JULY
A celebration of purple (and its yellow complimentary). A tilting, rocking harbour tethered to... something. A point of tension, a holding, controlling line, preventing a falling harbour...A similar point of tension with the almost touching violet and yellow discs: will they, won't they, repelling like two positive magnets. This pairing of colours is acute: a three colour yellow and deep violet made from Ultramarine and Magenta.
Simplification, revealing the essential. The left of the harbour drawn by a new purple, the four piers a powerful central cluster, each with their individuality and difference.
Had to have a look at it this way: back to the ship/boat/windsock, a more whimsical painting! Had a great chat about the 2 versions with my son, Ollie, who perceptively pointed out that the line that draws the left side of the harbour is a strength in the version above and a weakness as a 'boat' below. We were both fascinated by the tension between the two discs, the potential energy, the discussion leading to protons and electrons and nuclear physics. Thank-you for enlightening me Ollie!
The drawback as an 'image'- boat- is that the scale is fixed whereas as a vertical harbour the scale is indeterminate and unwordly, thus more evasive and interesting. A curiosity though: once you see it this way, you see the version above in a different light, another layer of interest. Harbour or boat, from the side or from above? All good fun - delicious ambiguities.
'Boat'
Beginnings: an idea about the Ship Inn ' Ship Inn a Ship'! (below) Too specific too soon, but the whites made a great base for majestic transparent violets, the ship becoming my harbour. Chaos (left above) but with the three harbour basins), more ordered (right), purple expanding, yellow shrinking.
- Details
- Ashley Hanson
'Revisit, rethink, rework, resolve...'
SUN 28 JUNE
A couple of tweaks today. A thin line rising above the bottom edge that cements the orientation. A stronger triangle on the left, echoed by the tiny open triangle bottom right, A new leaning yellow stripe on the right which makes the large yellow rectangle even stronger. A wristy ultramarine curve across the top - love the curl! - adding movement and vitality to the painting, contrasting the dominant verticality. Painting decisions...
We're done. Now the painting realises that ambition of presence, autonomy and surprise, provoking intrigue, questions: 'What am I looking at?' Blue expressive curve or the wind? Why yellow, why pink? Where am I? Place or a painter's space? 'Image' - piers and buildings and harbour-shape ambiguous and implied by scale and colour incident, subservient to the painting. Abstract or figurative or 'In Between'?
detail
(A)
THURS 18 JUNE
My new favourite! (A). Love the way the harbour sits on the bottom edge and the prominence of the yellow profile that describes the right side of the harbour. I think the yellows are more intriguing spatially as verticals, the painting reading less obviously as landscape, with the tiny sliver of blue bringing depth. There is an exciting range of scale of marks in this piece, the yellows framing an intensity of small but powerful marks.
I'm enjoying the dialogue between the large bright yellow upright rectangle and the yellow block on the left - they are the same yellow. (B) was rejected because I read the yellows at the top as buildings and they shrink the scale of the harbour.
(B)
(C)
WED 17 JUNE p.m.
'Porthleven 67 (The In Between)' that I've gone back to but can't decide which way up! Below, it's called ' Long Pier', above, 'Chimney'. I'm enjoying the lean and movement in 'Long Pier' but perhaps 'Chimney' is more surprising, the harbour more intimate and protected, pivoted on the bright yellow block/chimney, which acts a stop in 'Long Pier'. The blues up the side in 'Chimney' hopefully stop it being a tasteful landscape!
(D)
WED 17 JUNE
This is getting exciting! Each possibility has its qualities and weaknesses. in the portrait orientation above, I love the angled orange line but confused by the two shapes top left and feel I should take the yellows to the top.
The story of a painting:
- Details
- Ashley Hanson
FRI 12 JUNE
At long last, a homage to both Matisse's 'The Red Studio' (1911) and Peter Lanyon's 'Porthleven' (1952) in the same painting - undoubtedly the two most influential paintings on my journey as an artist. The studio is the Old Lifeboat House in Porthleven, where many of the works in the series were made, and is painted in Venetian Red, the key red in Matisse's 'Red Studio'.
I have tried several times before to have a 'Red Studio' in a Porthleven painting but without success. Here, there is a rightness about the presence of the studio, how and where it sits in the painting, bringing control, precision and context, serenity amongst the movement, a visual stop, preventing the eye from sliding out of the painting in the bottom-right corner. I like the 'pose' of the harbour.
Speedy blues across the reds squeeze and frame the harbour. These are some of my best reds. I'm enjoying the procession of curves in the three sections of the harbour and the colour surprise of rarely used Ultramarine and hot greens as foils for the reds. It's also a rare 'viewpoint', from the Ship Inn side of the harbour. The painting of 2009 (1) gave me a composition and a palette and a startpoint. The painting now fits my ideal: a visual simplicity that is also a complexity, a conclusion of experience, exploration and imagination. We're done.
The painting, incredibly, began in 2009, during a Residency at Canford School (1) but I was never convinced by the drawing or the orientation, or never fixed it. The painting was lively but sketchy and raw: my paintings rarely survive the first stages.
- Details
- Ashley Hanson
When I was at art college in Canterbury in the early 80's, I lived for three years in Whitstable and the beach huts in Tankerton appeared in several of my paintings (see below). A return visit in 2022, sparked a return to this favourite motif, with a new series exploring colour and geometry and difference within sameness...
'Beach Huts (Purple & Teal)' 35x45cm
'Beach Huts (Window)' 50x70cm
Beach huts through a window or yellow wall - with a painting - or yellow frame? Or does 'window' refer to the solitary window, in the beach hut on the left?
'Beach Huts (Cobalt Blue)' 35x45cm
'Beach Huts (Red Door)' 30x40cm
'This is colour, this is drawing, this is composition, this is a love of oil-paint, all the things it can do: wet-on wet, wet on dry, opaque and transparent, thick and thin, weight and lightness, glowing colour - new yellow, new reds - knife, brush, pour, fingers. The decision-making is intuitive and from the painting: what to leave, what to embellish, creating space and colour relationships and ambiguities. I'm enjoying the unintended subversion of reality. The beach huts face the sea, the viewer is on the beach, but the colours of the sea creep in from the right side, behind the beach huts, until a form appears'
'Beach Huts (Pink)' 30x40cm SOLD
'Beach Huts (Yellow)' 30x40cm 'Painting of the Day' with Contemporary British Painting
'Yellows on a wet Red-Oxide/Phthalo Green ground first...then the beach-huts. Work the imge, work the ground, re-draw the image with the ground...move the image, get the spacing right, open up the image, allow the ground equality: this is colour, this is drawing, this is composition, this is instinct, this is knowledge, this is now, this is art history, this is painting...'
'Beach Huts (Stripes)' 40x30cm
'Beach Huts (Ultramarine)' 30x40cm
'Beach Huts (Green Brushmark)' 30x40cm SOLD
'The Lighthouse' and 'Harold Parkinson & Gnasher' 1983
- Details
- Ashley Hanson
We recently welcomed a group of artists (including a returning artist from Canada!) to our spring 'Freedom in Painting' course in Port Isaac. The ambition, as always, was to explore the possibilities of painting and find a personal vision, inspired by the stunning Cornish coastal landscape. As you can see from the gallery above, a collection of strong and innovative paintings emerged over the 5 days, with the artists taking away ideas, studies, methods to inspire new works on their return home.
Our first day was spent on location, meeting in Rock and catching the ferry to Padstow for a drawing session around the harbour. We made sketches from different heights, different viewpoints, moving around the landscape, looking for ideas for painting. After a fantastic lunch at the Harbour Hotel, we continued drawing, recording repetitions and change and movement in the landscape, with criss-crossing ferries and the sandbanks emerging with the receding tide.
'Ladder of Colour' exercise
On Thursday morning, after setting up the studio in Port Isaac Village Hall, I set a colour-exercise, asking the artists to remember and then mix five distinctive colours from Padstow and stack them, like a ladder, onto their canvas. Then they were asked to flood the rest of the canvas with one of those colours. Next they introduced a map-view of Padstow harbour from memory, followed by an image from a drawing, giving their paintings three distinct elements from the subject. The idea behind the exercise was that with a different beginning, you'll get a different painting and in all cases the artists went beyond the exercise to make paintings full of invention and personality.
This is the essence of 'Freedom in Painting', a fusion of information, imagination, intuition, emotion. Working from drawings, away from the subject, allows the freedom to invent...
The artists bonded further with a group dinner at the fabulous Tiny Thai in Wadebridge!
On Friday morning, the sun was shinining brightly as we headed out for a drawing session around Port Isaac, once again drawing from various viewpoints around the harbour and looking for ideas for painting. After lunch, I gave a talk about the translation of drawings into paintings, looking in particular at the work of Van Gogh, Nicolas de Stael, Pierre Bonnard and Frank Auerbach. This was followed by an interactive demonstration, before the artists began their own paintings.
The studio at Port Isaac Village Hall
The next few days were packed with individual tuition and further demonstrations, also referencing the great resource of art history and contemporary painting. As the artists pushed their paintings forwards, there was a wonderful creative spirit in the studio, the artists working hard and generously discussing each others paintings, including my own! (below). On Sunday afternoon, after clearing the studio, as always, we finished with an invaluable group critique, a fascinating discussion of the artists ideas and direction. Port Isaac (and Padstow) never fails to inspire - hats off to the artists!
ARTISTS COMMENTS:
'I have learned more than I thought, and lots to take away. Ashley is a fantastic teacher, help me explore the new world, abstract landscape painting. Very good atmosphere, very relaxing and friendly' WEN ZHANG
'My aim was to go more abstract and I achieved that. Yet another fabulous course. Ashley is so helpful and positive' HAZEL CRAWFORD
'The feedback from Ashley is so helpful and it is also great hearing the feedback on paintings of other people. It is so good to be on a course like this and not feel as if you are painting into a vacuum' ERICA SHIPLEY
'The open discussions are most useful. Very positive supportative environment' CLIVE WOODS