Tain't what you do, it's the way that you do it

The title of today's post is taken from a 1939 composition by jazz musicians Sy Oliver and Trummy Young. The verse that reads: "You can try hard, it don't mean a thing...take it easy, greasy, then your jive will swing" could well apply to painting in watercolour. In other words, it's not what you put in but what you leave out that matters.

In my book Notes on the Nude I have this to say about leaving out.

When asked what I first look for in a model, without hesitation I can answer, it is the face that attracts my attention. This holds true even though in my paintings the face is secondary to the figure and sometimes it is not shown at all. Nevertheless, the spirit of my muse is personified in her fleeting glance. Here lie her subtle moods and changes.

The above picture is a detail from a painting I made of Naomi and which was featured in my last post. Had I have left out more face there wouldn't be any face at all. Nevertheless, what's there is enough to capture her likeness - and I might add, her fetching beauty and charm. To add more would be less.

Beyond the face it is the hands of a potential model that attracts my attention. They speak volumes. When painting I put the hand and arm down at a glance and leave others to interpret it as they see best. The secrete of a successful painting is not how much you can put in but how much you can leave out.

The detail below is taken from the second painting of Naomi that was featured in my last post.

Making love and making art

In my book Notes on the Nude I refer to the similarities between making love and making art. Passion and creativity are the key ingredients of both. If the task is belaboured you screw up. 

The artist's experience lies so unbelievably close to the sexual, to its pain and its pleasure, that the two phenomena are really just different forms of one and the same longing and bliss. (Rainer Maria Rilke)

Like true love, the creative endeavours of artist and model are thwarted with difficulties and success verges on impossibility. Inspiration is dependent on the united body and soul of both. Trying too hard induces failure more often than not trying at all. Our shared muse "laughs and flies when pressed and bidden".

You can add that both endevours demand one's full attention. After seventy-six years I thought that I could paint my model (Naomi) and tutor my model/aspiring art student (Collean) both at the same time. Well, to a degree I can, but not to the nth degree. And it takes the nth degree to pull off a successful painting when working from the live model at the speed of light and to give my student the attention she deserves.

Poor light and mosquitoes that were intent on eating Naomi alive, didn't help matters.

I failed on two attempts but came close on the painting above and the one below. Thank you Naomi and Collean. Without my models my work would not exist. I can't get passionate about a photograph. And while I am still in this world I remain committed to enthuse the next generation of artists.

My initial despondency that followed yesterday's session was dispelled when I was shopping in town this morning. Two of my followers begged me not to give up...your passion and paintings make life so much more worth living.

Going back to go forward

If Michelangelo and scores of Renaissance painters and sculptors from the past were to visit my workshops and studio, here on a small island in the Caribbean, they would find that my materials and techniques have changed very little since their time. Because my nearest art shop is thousands of miles away I make many of my own materials - just as artists did centuries ago.

Today's picture is of a sketch made on pastel paper of my own making. It has taken no end of trail batches to find the colour and texture best suited to my requirements. Toulouse Lautrec  and other artists from his period found that brown wrapping paper or cardboard suited their needs. This led me to experiment with pulping heavy duty brown paper bags and adding them to my paper making mix. 

Now that I have succeeded in getting the paper to my liking I need to begin making my own pastels in colours that reflect the skin tones of my models and to a degree of hardness that suits my technique.

Incidentally, many of Toulouse Lautrec's oil sketches were painted on cardboard, as shown below.

Working from Life

It's not often you find me in the picture, and even rarer to find me and my model in the same picture. At least it gives you an idea of our working arrangement. 

My model is seated on a large revolving turntable with a neutral canvas backdrop. I keep my materials to the bare minimum: no more than a dozen tubes of colour, a No.12 sable brush and a 20" x 16" sheet of paper. A heavy duty photographer's tripod serves as my easel and allows the drawing board to be tilted in all directions - just as the turntable allows me to turn my model in all directions.  

I don't have the time or inclination to stretch my paper beforehand. I work rapidly and leave my washes to take care of themselves. Seldom do more than twenty minutes pass from start to finish of a painting and all the better if I can catch my subject in ten!

You can learn more about my painting techniques in the serialization of my book Notes on the Nude.

Painting, poetry and prose

Many artists claim that words are superfluous and that their paintings say it all. Perhaps for some it is so. However, in my attempt to portray the sensuous beauty of the nude I often resort to adding poetry and prose. 

Some years ago one of my models expressed the relationship of all three in a poem that began:  

When the painter and the poet combine,
Each searching for that illusive line,
That only a true lover can define,
Tis then they find their hearts entwine.

I might add that a similar synergy exists between painter and model. It is one that I was conscious of today as I worked on the following three paintings of Collean. 

Thank you Collean. You were inspirational!

Tuning Up

Just as musicians tune up their instruments before a performance and athletes limber up before a race, as a watercolourist I put down trial lines and throw down washes of colour on a scrap of paper before beginning the real thing - as you can see in the above picture. These initial preparations are all the more necessary when I've spent over a year writing rather than painting. 

This week Naomi and Collean came to my studio together, just as they did when they first modelled for me over five years ago. If you go to page 41 in the serialization of my book Notes on the Nude you will see across the bottom of the page an early painting of Naomi. Collean's first painting will be featured later in my book. The one I did of her this week is shown below.

The intervening five years have seen the blossoming of Collean. She is no longer the shy and reserved young lady that I first knew but a charming and confident model with considerable potential. She has an interest and talent for art and I invited her to watch me as I worked on my painting of Naomi. 

I am sometimes at my best when demonstrating my technique and this painting is a case in point. Collean followed my every line and brush stroke with rapped attention. I often talk to myself when painting but it is better when there is someone looking over my shoulder and benefiting from what I am saying...

...Before I begin I'm looking for one line with which I can tie the figure together. I'm going for the line that runs along the left leg, outlines the sensuous contour of the pudendum and terminates with the rhythmic curves of the breasts . From this line I can then add the rest. I am keeping the initial drawing to the bare minimum and, working with a No 14 brush, allowing the colour washes freedom to fill out the form. First, we will find the lights in the skin tones and then work our way back towards the dark. One brush stroke suggests the left arm and hand. We are not counting fingers. Let's stop right there. We've said all that needs to be said. The viewer can add the rest...

The paintings measure 20" x 24" and from start to finish each one was completed in less than thirty minutes. Or more accurately I should say that each one took me over sixty years!

Breaking the ice

This week I finally got around to meeting a new influx of potential models. At the end of a preliminary studio visit they have the option to go away and think about it or do a brief trial session there and then. Most opt for the latter. The purpose of the fifteen minute trial session is not so much a finished painting but the breaking of ice both for myself and the aspiring model. Today's painting is of Lyann's introductory session. 

Two of my potential models - twin sisters - told my that their introductory session gave them confidence in themselves. A feeling that is shared by all of my models. To learn more about how I work with models go the the serialization of my book Notes on the Nude.

This week brought a press release from the Christian Union Churches of Dominica expressing concern about what they perceive to be increasing public nudity. I responded as follows:

In many so-called primitive societies, the sexual experience is expressed - and released - in drama and dance. Conversely; indoctrination, taboos, prohibition and censorship focus on the sexual component of sexuality and the guilt implied can have deplorable social consequences. From an early age we are taught that the nude body is a shameful thing, whereas in fact it is the most natural and beautiful thing in the world.

I believe that the creative arts can serve as a moderator and liberator on these issues, just as they did in earlier times.

Alas, my comment didn't go down too well, with most readers in disagreement. 

Sea Grapes and Butterflies

Whether it be a sketch, a painting or a piece of sculpture, each begin as a love affair. I have to feel passionately about the subject. 

The above image is a page from a sketch book of thirty years ago. I remember well wandering over Peter Island in the British Virgin Islands, searching for grand subjects for a commission of paintings for the American billionaire Richard DeVos. The grand subject evaded me, but in its place I jotted down the romance of sea grapes and butterflies that I stumbled upon. 

The sketch below follows a similar theme: the painting never materialised, but the sketch says it all. As with making love, a painting cannot be made to order. Nor can it be made to a precise rule. Better the seeming disorder of a sketch than the boredom of a laboured painting. I have more to say on this theme in my book Notes on the Nude.  

Five hundred years ago the poet Robert Herrick (1591-1764) expressed the same in his poem Delight in Disorder. 
  

          A winning wave, deserving note, 

          In the tempestuous petticoat... 

          Do more bewitch me, than when art 

          Is too precise in every part.

    And on the subject of butterflies, I give you a choice between two classic versions of Poor Butterfly. Sarah Vaughan from sixty years ago and Cecile McLorin Salvant of today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M_fun2wy7g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ_F_potBug&list=RDAZ_F_potBug&start_radio=1&t=106

The Rainbow

I am presently re-reading what I consider to be one of the most beautiful books in the English language: The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence.

But regardless of what I consider to be the book's beauty and innocence; two months after its publication in 1915, copies were seized and suppressed under the 1857 Obscene Publications Act. Prosecutor Herbert Muskett declared that “although there might not be an obscene word to be found in the book, it was in fact a mass of obscenity of thought, idea, and action”.

Lawrence wasn't present at the trial; he wasn't even told it was taking place. He later heard about it through newspaper reports. Over one thousand copies of The Rainbow were burned by court order outside the Royal Exchange.

I quote from Herbert Reads essay The Problem with Pornography. 

"...The effect on Lawrence was disastrous...He felt as if the very springs of creation had been blocked by ignorant but powerful forces...How could he go on writing with this threat of suppression continually before him...Such an inhibition cannot be tolerated by any creative artist." 

But as followers of the serialization of my book Notes on the Nude will gather, nothing has changed!

My original Penguin copy of The Rainbow got lost and I replaced it with a recent re-print (Lawrence's copyright is now in the public domain). But the publishers of the re-print are taking no chances on being blocked by the censors. Hence the cautious and irrelevant front cover illustration.

I could do with a bath

In this week's serialization of my book Notes on the Nude I makes reference to how I take measurements for a sculpture and in particular chalk marks, both on the modelling stand and on the model.

The most reliable measurements of the figure are taken bone to bone. But when flesh comes between, as in the case of Dave, my rotund model for the lock-keeper pictured below, I resort to chalk marks to remind me of my datum. At the end of a week's modelling Dave asked me if I'd be needing the chalks marks on his torso for the following week. His question had me puzzled until I realized that he hadn't washed the chalk marks off from one session to the next. As he said, "I could do with a bath!". 

Alice, who modeled for one of my early sculptures in the series Daughters of the Caribbean Sun misunderstood when I told her to stay still I'm going to chalk you. She thought I had said choke and ran from the studio naked!

Jessica, who modeled for my bathing figure was so slim and her skin so transparent that chalk marks were unnecessary. I could see every bone in her body. 

When chalking the line that delineates Verlena's spine she suddenly yelled "STOP"...you're tickling!

These are the precious memories of incidents and intimacies that are shared between model and artist while working together to capture the sensuous beauty of the human form. 

In the image below you have chalk marks accenting the model's spine, her position on the modelling stand and the scores of measurements that are necessary to convincingly portray the figure.

When they were young

Following on from my last post that featured my daughter Trina, here are two early sculptures of my daughter Tania at age five and my son Tristan at eight months.

Tania is about to make me a grandfather in a few week's time and Tristan has just completed high school. 

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Staying still like a statue

My daughter Trina modelled for this portrait bust twenty years ago. While I worked with Trina in the studio, her sister Tania had to help her mother do the housework. None too pleased at having to do all the work, Tania remarked, "It's all right for you". To which Trina responded, "So you think its easy staying still all day like a statue!"

Today's installment of my book Notes on the Nude has a section headed "Modelling isn't Easy". It begins: I am forever searching for a model that is not a model and a pose that is not a pose...

The note is timely as this week I will be working with two new models. While I feel certain that they will enjoy and value the experience (I have never had a model who has not) they will nevertheless find that to be ones natural self for the first time on the modelling stand isn't easy.

If you scroll down the side bar to "Extracts from the UK diary pages" you will find more about Trina's portrait. And below is a recent picture of Trina.

As difficult as it may be

Today's painting is one that I made a couple of years ago of Shani breast feeding her baby. If you go to pages 10 and 11 of my book Notes on the Nude you'll find Shani featured in the role of ballet. But whoever the model and whatever the subject - and as difficult as it may be - like Rodin, I can do no other than work from the live model.

I can only work from a model. The sight of human forms feeds and comforts me. Auguste Rodin.

This is why I am all too often disappointed with the current crop of artists whose subject matter is the nude figure. One artist that I have followed and admired for years - his drawings are in the vein of Egon Schiele - I now suspect works from photographic images. His bold outlines of hands, feet and facial features are too regular and accurate to be otherwise. In contrast, Egon Schiele's drawings speak of his struggle of getting the living and breathing model down on paper, mistakes and all.

My painting of Shani breast feeding her baby was one such struggle. At the time I considered the painting a failure. But I now realise that within my perceived failure, mother and baby are alive and well! 

If only...

If today's sketch seems far removed from the normal run of my posts, let me explain...

When for a period in my life I relocated to my native West Riding of Yorkshire in the mid 1990's my first sculptural commission was for pair of bronze heraldic deer for the gateposts of a Grade 1 listed building. My preliminary sketches were made from life in a deer park, and therein lies the link with my work with the female nude: not by way of photographs but by way of life. 

If only I could have remained content to work from animals rather than humans, how much easier it would have been to find my models - and naked at that, just as God intended. 

Whether it be a shy deer or one of my Daughters of the Caribbean Sun, neither stays still for more than a fleeting few seconds. A photograph can record the instance but not the life. Both demand getting it down on paper at a single stroke, as referred to in this week's serialization of my book Notes on the Nude.

The mood of the moment

The painting that illustrates today's post shared a similar fate to the painting that illustrates page 35 in the latest installment of my book Notes on the Nude. Their common fate being that I considered both paintings a failure and cast them aside. However, as often happens, what I first perceive as a failure in retrospect I deem a success. For this reason I never destroy work no matter how tempting my initial urge to discard and have done with it. 

My watercolours of the female nude are as far removed from a photographic likeness as you can get. In a matter of  minutes my task is to capture the mood of the moment. Just as I seldom recognize my models outside of the studio, I sometimes have difficulty - unless I make a note on the day of the session - relating models to paintings. In this case I am almost certain that the painting on page 35 of my book is of Annabelle and the painting above is of Saryta. 

In Pursuit of Beauty

This week's installment from my book Notes on the Nude touches upon the pursuit of beauty, which in turn involves my endless search for models. 

A hundred and fifty years ago artists in Paris had the advantage of a weekly model market from which they could pick and choose. Alas, there is no such market on my island of Dominica but a like Rodin, Renoir and scores of artists from the past I have found many of my best models serving behind the counter in a five and ten cents store. 

When I looked in at one such store this morning I didn't find what wanted to buy - I've even forgot what it was - but I did find the attractive young lady pictured below. She is now on my list of potential models.

Irving Berlin beautifully expressed the virtuous attraction of an attractive young lady in his lyrics for the score of the 1920's Broadway Revue "Ziegfeld Follies".

A pretty girl is like a melody
That haunts you night and day
Just like the strain
Of a haunting refrain
She'll start upon a marathon and run around your brain...

Rapid response

A reoccurring message in my book Notes on the Nude is the need for a rapid response to the model's moods and changes. Whereas a watercolour might take me twenty minutes, the line drawing above was put down in twenty seconds. But either way, there's no time to worry about right or wrong. Better to capture the fleeting moment and leave moral judgement to the critics. 

My painting titled Model with hand to Pudendum featured in this week's installment of the book is a case in point. How glad I am that I seized the moment.

Sensuous similarities

There are similarities between the beauty of the human form and church architecture. Like many artists before me, I am passionate about both. I touch upon this in forthcoming installments of my book Notes on the Nude. But for now I will leave you with the following paintings. 

First the human beauty of the standing nude and alongside, similarities in the drama of church architecture.

And second, the similarities in the peace and tranquility that I find within my studio and a churchyard. This holds true even though the church rubs shoulders with recent town center development, as does the Halifax Parish Church.

Body and Soul

As I stated in my dedication to Notes on the Nude without my model's contribution to the creative process my paintings and sculptures would not exist. They have given their body and soul to my work. 

This week's serialization of the book features paintings of my models Peal and Annabelle. Here they are captured by my camera. Whether by painting, sculpture and photograph, their remarkable beauty shines through. That isn't to say that I am searching for beauty queens. Many of my best models you would pass on the street without a second glance. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder - and the artist is the beholder.

Pearl

Annabelle

The photographs were taken as the model's reference for the pose for a sculpture. 

A recent message from Pearl reads, It was a pleasure working with you.

Why Nude?

The latest serialization of pages from my book Notes on the Nude ends with the question "Why Nude". 

The note refers specifically to my attempt to rid Afro-Caribbean women of foreign concepts of facial features and dress. But the question has a broader significance.

Dress is subject to fashion but the beauty of nude remains constant. What is deemed fashionable today becomes out of date by tomorrow.  

The question "Why Nude" was raised when a party of primary school children visited my studio as work on my sculpture for the City of Leeds was still at the preliminary nude stage. During the visit one girl put her hand up and indignantly asked: "My Burnett, why are your statues so RUDE!" There followed an informed class debate on why the artist works from the nude. Their eventual understanding could have put many art degree students to shame.

Spot the difference

First Image

Second Image

Two images: I invite you to spot the difference.

Both are works on paper. The first is an original; the second is a lithograph print, number 19 of an edition of 100. 

The first has remained unsold at US$625.00 since 2001 and the second sold recently at Sotherby's for US$6,250.00.

A CLUE: The first is by Roger Burnett and the second by Tracey Emin.

The first is included in my book Notes on the Nude.

How to keep a secret

There is a saying on my Caribbean island of Dominica, that if you want to keep something secret, publish it in a book!

While this blog daily attracts hundreds of artists and art students from around the world, the sidebar link that takes you to the on-line serialization of my book Notes on the Nude is seldom clicked and the exploits of artist and models remain a closely guarded secret.The secrets this week include the agony and the ecstasy of giving birth to a painting that has involved a struggle against the odds. 

Now for another secret! 

My book Townscapes is finally available from Amazon. 

The book begins with my native town of Halifax in the West Riding of Yorkshire and ends with the towns and villages of my adopted Caribbean. Between the two I take a brief sojourn to Portugal and revisit Birmingham’s restored canal network. The book ends with a series of essays that express my concern about the present trend in Caribbean townscapes. 

For further information go to: studiopublications.blogspot.com