An invitation to share the creative process

I am always searching for ways that enable the viewer to enter the creative process. The finished work is one thing but the struggles that brought it about is quite another. This time around I'm attempting to do it by means of the moving image on film. I still use the word film even though nowadays it's video. Actually the word video is more accurate, for it's derived the the latin "to see". 

But I don't want the end result to be yet another "how to do it' instructional video. What I am after is the creative interplay between artist and model. It won't be easy to get this across. One needs to be superimposed on the other. The trials and errors of work in progress will need to be captured. 

I found the clue as to how to go about it, not from watching the attempts of other filmmakers, but by re-reading the novels of Jean Rhys. Her prose style is one of searching: of picking something up and putting it down again - often in mid sentence. And that is how the creative process works.

Annabelle as she is seen in my paintings.

My book "Notes on the Nude" contains a soliloquy that I murmured while working on one of my session with Annabelle. Perhaps similar murmured soliloquies from both artist and model could be the suggestive sound to go with the vision.

I’ve ten minutes left to save the day…Just relax in whichever way you choose…Where do I start…I’m seeing a line in silhouette that runs over the left breast and down to right thigh…Just one simple line with a hint of the rib cage…Now I can place the right breast and follow the curve to the hip…What a wonderful line that is…Keep it loose, don’t play about with detail…The face is largely hidden behind the left arm but that doesn’t make it easier…First I must let the chin fall into place…Now I can tie in the arms. The complication of the clasped hands I’ll leave to take care of themselves…Okay, stretch if you need to…No more line, just get the washes down, boldly, once and for all…My brush instinctively finds the earth colours I need…Leave the washes to find their own way…Keep the lights light and don’t be afraid of defining the darks around the face…The same touch of Indian Red serves for the lips and the nipples and the merest touch where the thighs meet…No time for background and it would be superfluous for what I am after…A glance at the clock tells me our time is up…To add more would be less.

There's no going back

 

The countryside of my childhood.

A few evenings ago I searched Goggle Earth for the countryside of my childhood. But my nostalgic trip down memory lane turned out to be a nightmare. Everything had changed beyond recognition. What I remembered as green fields are now housing estates. Alas, there's no going back.

On my wife's first visit to England, she got up at the crack of dawn and wondered through the countryside shown in the above painting. She came back to my parent's house clutching a bunch of dandelions. My mother pulled a face and told her that there were better flowers in the garden - they're just weeds. But to a West Indian, a dandelion is as exotic as the hibiscus or passion flower.

As a child I remember the "pop man" coming around with Dandelion and Burdock - a fermented drink made from the roots of the two plants - that he sold in returnable one gallon stone jars. 

Preaching to the Unconvertable

Pulpit. All Souls' Church, Halifax, Yorkshire (As I see it)

 

Pulpit. All Souls' Church, Halifax, Yorkshire (In reality)

The opening painting and photograph, speak of a lifetime's preaching to the unconvertable. What most people are after is an exact depiction, as against a different way of seeing. They just can't get their head around that which is divergent to the norm.

This post, in its brevity, gives you an insight as to what I'm up against - no matter what the subject or art form.

From a distance and down to earth

The opening photograph is a satellite image of my studio and surrounding countryside and the one below is of the same location down to earth.

Award winning novelist, Jean Rhys (1890-1979) was born and grew up in Dominica. The open scenes in her literary masterpiece Wild Sargasso, relate directly to the countryside that surrounds my studio. As she rightly remarks:

Too much blue, too much purple, too much green. The flowers too red, the mountains too high, the hills too near.

My week has likewise been spent reviewing work from a distance - that being forgotten videos taken thirty years ago of work in progress - and work accomplished in more recent times, as the subject for a video documentary on working from the live model. 

The extreme delicacy of form.

The veins of a leaf photographed against a deep red background.

 

My search for variations of the diaphanous for my Bare Minimum fashion label, led me to examine at close quarters, the veins of a leaf. As mentioned in an earlier post the dictionary defines diaphanous as:

"characterized by such fineness of texture as to permit seeing through", "extreme delicacy of form", and "insubstantial, vague".  

My challenge now is to replicate that delicate diaphanous structure into something that can be worn against the subtle dark skin tones of my models. 

 

From the dark areola of her breast, brown madder and yellow ochre merge. 

While sienna reds and blues subdued, in deep purple shadows converge.