I can’t sit around doing nothing

While waiting for corrections to my book Notes on the Nude to be accepted, I can’t sit around doing nothing. My hands and mind have to be busy at something. Today’s picture shows what has kept me occupied.

The history of the three stools is as follows:

The small stool is one that I made a few years ago as a replica of a family heirloom that ended its days by being eaten away by wood-worm.

The stool to the left is well over a hundred years old and began its life as a weaver’s stool in a Yorkshire mill. I rescued it some years ago and it has since served as a favourite stool in my studio.

The high stool to the right is one I made last week in order to keep me from going bonkers while my darling daughter resolved errors in Notes in the Nude page layouts – patience is not one of my virtues! The stool is made from two contrasting Dominican hardwoods and will have a lifespan of hundreds of years after my time on earth.

I designed the stool specifically for one of my models to perch upon. Just as the sculptor Enzo Plazzotta’s Jamaican Girl perched almost fifty years ago when I made this sketch.

And coincidentally, who should I bump into in town this morning but Verlena, the very model I had in mind!

   

Doodling is good for you

This post was originally intended for my Notes for Art Students blog. But despite my attempts at resurrection, that blog fails to catch on. Perhaps my art student followers resent being demoted to a secondary site. From now on I'll stick to these pages.

The doodle that illustrates this post came about as I was trying out a box of crayons and felt tips that cost me no more than a few dollars. Many artists of the past worked with whatever materials came to hand and I tend to do the same.

Many years ago, George Prince (1918-2009), the world's acknowledge expert on creative thinking, was my next door neighbour. Entering his house was a mind boggling experience. Every inch of wall space was covered with page after page of random thoughts and doodles. 

Doodles are the outlet for spontaneous and unconscious creativity. Like water colours, they resent being controlled.  

One skill leads to another

This week I found myself using my grandfather’s clock making tools, but not for the kind of clock mechanism that he would have known, it was quartz rather than clockwork.

There was no way that I could bear looking at the quartz clock that I had bought for a few dollars, so I set about modifying its appearance. In place of the horrid plastic case I mounted the mechanism on a brass and mahogany stand of my own making. All went well until the hollow shaft that turns the minute hand broke within the shaft that turn the hour hand. To make a repair I had to turn and bore a brass insert no larger than the head of a match – hence my grandfather’s clock making tools and his critical eye looking down on me from the next world!

The picture is of the modified clock on the shelf in my studio with the plastic case of its predecessor shown as an insert.

Why, you may ask, do I need to tell the time while painting? The answer being that I work from the model for no more than one and a half hours and in that time I attempt three paintings. The clock tells me when enough is enough. To paint more would be to achieve less.

Reinventing the (potter’s) wheel

After fifteen years of earning his living in other spheres, my son Karl has courageously declared himself a potter and his recently opened pottery is the first of its kind in the British Virgin Islands.

My children’s careers range from Chartered Accountant, Sport, Environment Management, Music and Computer Programming. But Karl is the first one to follow in his father’s footsteps and risk toiling on the forge of art.

Yet there may be another. The picture below is of his son (my grandson) and I understand they claim: “He’s just like his grandfather”. If that is so, he will certainly give them something to think about! On the strength of that I am keeping him in mind as my future apprentice. 

 

The word "apprentice" relates to the word "reinventing" in the title of this post. Apprenticeships have sadly become a thing of the past. Without the benefit of an apprenticeship those now wishing to learn a craft have to reinvent the wheel. Text books, on-line instruction and college courses come nowhere near to learning a trade at the workbench of a master craftsman. 

Photocopying

Portrait by Vaughn Anslyn

Two portraits: the first doubtless copied from a photograph and the second, undoubtedly drawn from life. They illustrate the difference between precision and passion.

Without a photograph to copy from, most of today’s artists would be at a complete loss. The work of the copyist may be technically perfect, but the work of the artist that draws from life is genius. I stress to my students: no copying and no rubbing out…every line counts.

But it takes an artist of the calibre of Feliks Topolski to spontaneously capture the mood of Hastings Banda from life.

PS If my DGS students turn to my Notes for Art Students there is a posting for your eyes only...no one else is allowed to see!

In art there is no right or wrong answer

This morning I hosted a studio session for eleven students from the Dominica Grammar School who this year will be the sitting CXC exam in Visual Art. The school deserves credit for rounding up eleven students. For the remainder of Secondary Schools in Dominica the tally is virtually nil. Creative Arts are low on the Ministry of Education’s agenda. Sport is compulsory, but art is not. It is perceived as non-essential - something you can do in your spare time, a bit like playing dominoes. 

No matter how hard the students try at this late hour, they have a difficult task ahead of them. In previous years, the results from Dominican students sitting the exam have been abysmally low - and it’s not the fault of the students. Without a culture that is not steeped in art, it is difficult to relate to the subject. For the sake of these students I am resurrecting my blog: notesforartstudents.blogspot.com.  You will find the link in the sidebar.

I began this morning’s session by telling the students that in art, unlike other subjects, there is no right or wrong answer: creativity is different.

Here are my eleven brave students and a quick water-colour sketch that I made of one of them. 

Shayla is not studying art but was standing in for a student that was absent. Pity, because her interest in art was aroused and I feel sure that she has potential.

Working on it

While waiting impatiently for my computer to complete a task, I get a message on the screen that says: working on it. For those impatiently waiting for the release of my book Notes on the Nude I promise, we’re working on it.

When I started collecting and assembling the notes and images for Notes on the Nude last October, I had in mind printing the book in landscape format. Most of my images are of the reclining nude, and it stands to reason that my models recline horizontal. However, to keep to the printer’s preferred format, I switched to portrait, but portrait with a twist. The twist being, you turn the book through 90˚ to view the right-hand full-page images. The notes are on the left hand pages and are viewed upright. We tested the arrangement out on a proof copy and it worked. Moreover, it left space at the bottom of the text pages into which I could add more images. I’ve lost count, but we are looking at 150 full colour images in all.

While I worked on the content, my ever faithful daughter Tania worked on the computer page set ups. A week without internet access (the joys of living on a small Caribbean island) and other emergencies, further slowed down the process. But we’re working on it and we are nearly there.

Today’s picture shows the revised book cover.