Exhibition day
The springboard for this years two October Porthleven courses was the sizzling colour in the Patrick Heron exhibition at Tate St.Ives and the lineage of colour through Bonnard and Matisse. This year, our 'gallery-day' was at the beginning of the course with a colour-exercise on canvas on our return to the studio late afternoon. Many of the exercises then became paintings during the week.
From the studio
Day 2 began with a drawing session around the harbour, which never fails to inspire. Each artist worked on a single sheet of paper, with several drawings superimposed, which undermined the idea of 'truth' from a single viewpoint with repeated motifs and unexpected rhythms providing another way into painting.
As we moved around the harbour, the artists were asked to pick out shapes and shadow and negative-spaces. Manipulations/editing and collage were encouraged to strengthen and simplify the drawings, a process designed to provoke ideas and specifics for painting.
Over the next few days, these ideas extracted from the landscape were developed into paintings, the artists also responding to incident and phenomena such as the gig-race and the extraordinary shadows thrown by the clocktower seen from the studio.
Each artist found their own Porthleven, and as always, the paintings were displayed in a one-one day exhibition at the end of the week, this year attracting a record number of visitors (and sales!).
GALLERY
