I’ve just returned exhausted/exhilarated from our September ‘Freedom in Painting’ course at the Old Lifeboat House in Porthleven. Once again the artists - and Porthleven – delivered: 5 days of intense working resulting in a magnificent final day exhibition, inspired by the complexity of the harbour and the beauty and drama of nature, with ever-changing weather, light and tide.
As always, the course began on Saturday visits to the best exhibitions around. This time we were in Penzance to see ‘Making Her Mark: A Celebration of Women in Art’ – fabulous Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham and Joan Eardley paintings! – followed by the David Mankin PV at Cornwall Contemporary the ‘St. Ives and Modern British Art Show' at ’Belgrave St. Ives. We were all energised by the paintings we saw – back to the studio for a challenging exercise, sourced in a fabulous abstract painting by Dutch artist Ad Raats.
Ad Raats
The loose theme on the course was space and depth in painting, so we discussed the spatial possibilities and ambiguities in an abstract piece by Dutch artist Ad Raats, and how it changed as the painting was rotated. The artists weren't told which was the correct orientation! The artists were then given a black and white copy of the painting and asked to draw the composition onto a 20cms square canvas, keeping the same imperfect proportions. Then they had to do somethire with it, using the memory of colours seen on our gallery visits either from the landscape or the art, making it as abstract or figurative as they wished.
The great thing about working on a small canvas is that you can make multiple changes very quickly and after a couple of hours a remarkable range of paintings emerged, expressing the preferences and personalities of the artists. The lessons learned and the geometry continued into many of the later paintings on the course.
On Sunday morning we had a talk and demonstration about how to create space and depth in painting and how space can create focus, visual breathing, intriguing ambiguities and even elicit emotion in a painting - see the large area of the negative space framing the figures in Edward Hopper's 'Nighthawks'.
'Nighthawks' 1942 Edward Hopper
The artists began their paintings, working from drawings and memory, A drawing session around the harbour provided further inspiration, the artists picking out curves and negative space in the landscape.
Back in the studio, over the next few days, the artists developed their paintings, with group critiques, frequent one-to-one tuition, analysis, conversations, more demonstations, working towards our final-day public exhibition. As part of my teaching, I also work on a new painting for the exhibition, 'Porthleven 103', often sneaking in early before the artists to make some dramatic changes!
On Wednesday afternoon, the studio was cleared and the paintings revealed, with a very amicable group hang - no egos here!The exhibition, as always, was a great success, a chance for the artists to reflect and talk to visitors and each other about their work, after an exhausting week! The group bonded really well with most of them signing up for the course next year. Hats off to the artists!