Barbara McManus

Venue: Berwick Artists Society

Topic: Landscape in Oils

We had the pleasure of seeing Barbara at work for the April demonstration at BAS. She was a little late for the session but was professional enough to call and advise us how long she would be so we could get on with other things whilst we waited if we wished. I have experienced a lot of other demonstrating artists who are either late or don’t turn up at all – without any notice or apologies, which to my thinking is not only rude but not something a professional should do.

One thing with Barbara is that even when a little late, it doesn’t matter as she is so efficient in her application of pastel that you know you are going to get a good result in any case. Which is what we got on the night. A lovely completed scene with figures in it, which when placed behind a matt board, looked sensational.

I am borrowing from Barbara’s bio to introduce her here:

Born in 1936, Barbara McManus became a member of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors in 1981. A painter in pastels and oils and an art teacher, Barbara was awarded the AME Bale Travelling Scholarship in 1986. She is also a member if the Vic Arts Society and the Pastel Society of Victoria (both of which I am also a member).

For this demonstration Barbara drew from one of her photos from her travels in Morocco. The scene looked at two female figures in traditional clothing in a small lane way or courtyard. Their clothing and head coverings were of beautiful blues and one lady had a small child in a swag on her back.

Working on black paper, which is something not a lot of artists tend to do, Barbara likes to start of her work with broad blocking in rather than line work. By loosely blocking in with mid tones the general shapes can be established early but not so firmly that they can’t be altered. By very light application of the pastel a lot of layering can be done before the pastels refuse to take to the surface. By blocking in around the figures with a warm mid tone the general look of the background can start and the colour can be worked up to and into the edges of the main figures.

Before making a finished mark on the artwork Barbara tested each colour which is very important when working on coloured paper as what you see in your hand is not always what you will see on the paper. The paper was allowed to show through the mark making as layers were built up and in some cases this can be left in the finished piece as a part of the composition. If you have a good coloured paper you don’t have to completely cover every square millimetre.

Barbara likes to move around the whole work keeping everything at about the same level. She mentioned that she has students that paint or draw in the main subject and then ask, “ok I have done that so what to I put in the background?” The artworks is a complete scene, and the materials need to integrate with each other and work together as a whole. By doing it all together you can find and lose edges, work one colour into another and get an overall “look” to the work.

When doing longer forms such as the long dresses and scarves, Barbara draws across these in the beginning rather than following the shape, other directions can always be added later. A good mix of directional mark making in pastels makes a more interesting and textural artwork.

Blue violets and grey greens were used to “neutralise” the warms in the background as the layers built up. This was to help “push” the background further back and help to make the foreground figures look further in the foreground. this use of colour perspective is used by a lot of oil  painters and watercolorists as well.

By stepping back to check her progress Barbara looked at the overall look as well and analysing any parts that needed adjusting. This is a good habit to get into as we all at some stage tend to get so absorbed in our work that we forget to take a break to step back to think, reassess and get another view. It may surprise you how something you hadn’t noticed pops out when you are a few metres away or across the room.

After checking her work, Barbara went on to do the finishing touches to her artwork. She reserves the lightest lights and her use of pure white to her last stages in a work. This is where the small details go into a piece. They may only be a dot or a small line to highlight an edge, but these last marks are what can make a painting “sing”.

A tip here from Barbara is that Colorfix now have pastel colours that match their papers, so if at any stage you want to wipe back and go to the colour of the paper, there is a pastel available to help you achieve this.

Decisions were now made about how the edges would look and the final modelling of the clothing. Barbara also used a clean tissue applied to the base of the work to blur and soften it. rather than working in detail edge to edge, the background is scumbled and kept with little detail and the top and bottom of the work is done to match. This technique of keeping little thick pastel on the edges also helps when putting on a matt board and framing as there is little pastel to drop off.

Barbara recommends checking your work behind a mount before framing as a rule to see how it looks. You may find that you are overcooking your work and stopping a little earlier gives a better result. So just before you think about adding more finishing touches, check it behind a mount and you may find it needs nothing else done.

This is what she demonstrated, and wow, the artwork was stunning. My thanks to Barbara for her professionalism and an interesting demonstration of pastels. I also would like to thank her for awarding my artwork first place in Section A for the night.

McClelland Survey and Current Exhibitions

Chisholm students and teachers took the time this afternoon to visit the McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park to go through the 2012 Survey with a guide from the gallery. This is another role that volunteers can do in the gallery which I may take on as well as I learn more about the works in the park. Just think… in a few years I may be that person who guides TAFE students around to describe all the works on display!!

Anyway back to business! We were split into two groups and went through the Survey from opposite ends of the trail. The group I was in was interested in many of the works and I really enjoyed showing off the extra bits that I have learnt about them during my previous visits. Especially good are the interactive sculptures with sound.

For the sculpture by the winner I had the honour of introducing the piece to the group. It was a good opportunity to use some of the skills I am trying to improve by volunteering at the gallery as I have been a very nervous speaker in the past. I hope I did OK and the guide is happy with me (as well as the group and David!).

As I have written about my visits and the art chats in other blogs in this site I am not going to repeat myself as to my favourite works, or about the exhibitions, other than to say that you can go through the park several times and discover new things every time. There is no such thing as “oh I have seen that’ with these artworks, some are changing all the time, and were made to allow the weather and natural environment impact on them. Others have a lot to them and are worth another look.

As for going to all the artist chats, I am finding out more and more about what motivates each artist to create what I have seen. It also gives a little insight into the type of people they are and how they run their arts practises. So I will be going to al lot more. Hopefully in the future, I may be successful enough to be giving them instead of attending, so I am also trying to learn as much as possible.

We were told about a sculpture competition at McClelland for the end of the year whilst there, which got nearly everyone’s attention as there is a very nice cash prize. The information is going to be sent to TAFE in the near future!

I have never entered a sculpture in anything as it has been a little sideline indulgence for me when I could get the materials. As it is my minor for studies and I will have a few works, I think I may take a few out for a run and see how they do. As they say, you never know if you don’t have a go!

I hope everyone else enjoyed the tour as much as I did. McClelland is a local asset we have as artists and we really should make the most of it.

Art Chat

Art Chat by Greg Johns Winner of the 2012 Survey

Date: April 21 2013

Venue: McClelland Gallery

Today we had fantastic weather for an outdoor chat by the winner of the current McClelland Survey Award. A good sized group attended the talk which was held in front of Greg’s sculpture. The afternoon sun was highlighting the bush setting around the piece and looking through it to the trees and sky gave a new appreciation of how much thought had gone into not only its creation but also placement in the park.

Greg was born in Adelaide and still lives there. He has been a practising artist since the 1970s and has a desire to reflect the organic in his work through an understanding of the Australian landscape down to the smallest level. Greg feels that  true “Australianess” isn’t always reflected in our sculptures, as much as it has been in painting. He is looking for a type of holistic look and feel to his work which has been developing over the past thirty years.

From Australian flora and fauna the patterns of the organic can be seen translated into the work that Greg is producing. He tries to understand where his works will be put when completed so that during the design process, which includes a lot of sketching, maquettes and measuring, fabricators don’t drift off design specification. This instinct and planning means that the finished product will be as suitable for the site as he can make it whilst still being very creative.

The use of Corten Steel is a deliberate decision to show up the natural colours in Australia’s iron rich soil. As the piece is allowed to naturally gain a rusted look, it picks up colours from the environment around it.

As you walk around this sculpture, the scene behind it changes. The shape is not symmetrical so that also changes. With every step you get something new to look at.

Something that you gain from attending a chat like this is the amount of thinking, planning and effort goes into production of an artwork – especially of this size. The thinking from the artist’s perspective is far better than getting an opinion from someone who has never been involved in the creative process and possibly doesn’t even know the artist. It makes walking around the park more enjoyable and each piece more interesting.

As an artist, you gain more understanding of your own profession and processes available to you that you may not have explored before, or how to achieve things that you are trying but not getting the results you want, by taking the time to attend these sessions.

I highly recommend these to any art students or even practising professional artists who are interested in broadening their skills.

Behind the Scenes Offer to Chisholm

As I am a volunteer at the gallery and a student, Imogen has suggested that Chisholm might like to bring the art students over for a Behind the Scenes tour of the gallery. This would take us where visitors are usually not allowed, and we would see archiving areas and what is done in the day to day running of a public space.

I haven’t had the opportunity to talk this over with any teachers at TAFE yet, but am hoping that when I do they think it is a good idea, especially as it is so close! I think it would be an enjoyable activity for the second and third years’ especially. Feedback about this is most welcome. Look forward to a blog about it if it goes ahead! (If it doesn’t I may ask if I can do it as a solo effort anyway as I am really keen to do it!!)

Analogous Colour

David Chen’s 9 Monthly Art Workshops

These notes are from my second all day workshop with David Chen. Each full day covers over five hours of theory and practical work, and are planned by David to help us to understand an important aspect of planning, composing and creating our paintings so that they not only look beautiful but also look “right” as far as tonal contrast, perspective, composition, colour mixing and application of our paint.

I am not expecting to copy David’s style, even though I think it is stunning, but wish to learn from his years of experience and training to improve my own painting techniques. My style has been less than I want for a while and I feel that my paintings are lagging behind my pastels and drawings even though I have been painting with oils much longer than I have been using artist’s pastels. Somehow I am much looser with the pastels and layer the colours on more effectively. I am hoping that by learning from David I can learn to make one stroke work instead of many and broaden up the strokes with cleaner colour and a more impressionistic look to my finished paintings. There are some aspects of his style that I am keen to add to my own to get it to the standard that I am happy with. Hopefully by the end of this year I will be well on my way.

Day Three

Workshop Plan:

• The five colour schemes
• Analogous colour schemes
• Demonstration (seascape done in all one warms and then in cools)
• A warm analogous scene – paint a scene in warm colours (an autumn scene for example)
• A cool analogous scene – paint a scene in cool colours (a seascape for example)
• Practice
• Paint-on critique

What is Analogous Colour?

When learning about colour and how to use it and be creative with colour, we often just go to copying or trying to, nature or subjects around us.

Observational art is good for training the eye. You learn to create shapes accurately and transpose them on to paper or canvas. After you have started to master this process, what then? This is where you start to push your materials and your creativity.

Does the sky always have to be blue? Does a tree always have to be green with a brown trunk? We know even from nature that tho is not the case, so why not push it even further?

Let’s go back to the basic colour wheel. This is where an understanding of analogous colour begins.

Often when we decide to paint we try to include complimentary colours. Which are those using opposites on the colour wheel. For example blue and orange or red and green. Analogous colours draw from the same side of the colour wheel and never exceed 5 steps in a direction. So if we decide to use warms starting with red as I did for this exercise, and go to the warm side of the colour wheel, I would be choosing from Cadmium Orange, Cadmium Yellow and Burnt Sienna (the tertiary colour on that side of the wheel). We were asked to select only three colours for our exercise and these are what I decided on.

For the cool colour exercise, I chose Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Green (which I mixed myself as I didn’t have a tube of it) and Viridian plus white. I also chose to paint the same subject but by using the previous painting as a reference and not the photo. This way I was able to loosen up my application of paint even further and not be so precise, enabling concentration on what the colours were doing. The subject and composition became, for this exercise, of lesser importance.

Keep in mind that you also have all the tonal ranges of these colours to use by the addition of white, so you are not as restricted as you may think at first. In one way, taking away the confusion of colours (as so many are out there) leaves you free to be more creative with your painting. If you keep in mind your tonal values the colours are not of any importance.

This is a great exercise to show up your colour bias when painting. With me I had a good idea that I was biased towards cool colours and I was correct. This just means that more practice painting in the warm side of the colour wheel will make me better as a tonal artist no matter what the colour I am using. I will be free then to use any colour I like for any subject and get an excellent and believable result.

Exercise

Try painting a scene with only 3 colours from one side of the colour wheel plus white. The colour straight out of the tube will be your darkest tone, and you can lighten it using the white to get as many values as you like. You can also mix two of these colours with each other, then start adding white which gets you even more colours and tones. Choose any subject and paint it with these colours. It doesn’t have to be photo realistic, in fact use the photo as a guide only, not as the rule to stick to. It may be a good idea to discard the photo after you have the basic idea and paint creatively and not as a slave to your reference.

During these exercises composition is not the aim, I was totally unconcerned with creating a finished painting but learning the lesson of using the colours.

Below are the 2 works I did at the workshop. They could always be improved but I was not aiming at completing a finished artwork, but at practice pieces. They reflect process and not completion and as such I am happy. You may note that I have a wider tonal range in my cools than the warms and the modelling on the “vase” is much better. This of course may also be attributed to the fact that this was the second work of the day and I was more awake! It was also my second stab at the same subject so I had worked out a few of the kinks from the first. But I should have realised that the background was too light and I could have modelling the vase better in the warm painting in reds, yellows and red/browns.

David looked at all our works at the end of the day and showed us where our paintings could be improved. Apart from a couple of little marks at the base of one, he left my work alone and showed it to the class (especially the cool work) to show how the paint and colour could be manipulated. He did say my weakness for the warm colours needs some practice but was sure I can master it! I was more than pleased that he thought I had done well on the day.

I have promised that I will spend some time during the next month practising on my warm tones at TAFE, so on painting days get ready for some warm paintings based on this shortcoming I have discovered in my method!

Thank you David for another fantastic workshop!

Outdoor Art Chat

Art Chat by Anton McMurray, Antonia Goodfellow and Zoe Amor

Date: April 18 2013

Venue: McClelland Gallery

Today the wet weather cleared up just in time for us to enjoy a walking tour and art chat in the Survey Park with three of the artists who were selected to display for the current McClelland Survey Award.

Anton McMurray

It was a great pleasure to meet the artist behind my favourite piece which also happens to be the first one you see when you enter the Survey. The two majestic columns topped by organic upturned tree roots is a beautiful mix of the man made and  natural worlds meeting. Anton McMurray, the creator of this sculpture told us the story of his travels through Italy and Europe after his father’s death. He was determined to use his inheritance wisely as his father wished, by experiencing the world. From his views of Mount Etna framed by Greek style columns, to the ancient tree roots on the sea shores in Canada the ideas for this artwork were formed.

Anton has had an interest in history all his life, as I am finding that many artists do, and was moved to create a piece that combined his interest with what he had seen. During 2009 and 2010 he began sketching his ideas and during 2011 had access to the tree roots that would form the top of his columns. About six people helped him to finish the various tasks involved in creating his sculpture. He learnt how to do the measuring and lathing out of the flutes around the columns, which also required research into how the ancient Greeks measured and carved out the original ones we see on ancient temples. The finish is aqua oil with a lime wash solution to give an overall unified look. “Seed 2012” looks like an arch welcoming you into the Survey and is very striking. I wish it had been around when I got married, as I used a garden arch which I would have happily replaced with this stunning backdrop!

Antonia Goodfellow

Antonia’s work “Consilience” is the second piece in the survey trail. It looks like a huge rubber ball in the middle of the bush. It is actually made up of many bicycle tyres over a recycled wood substrate.

The textures of the tyres give this work a very interesting look, and it encourages you to get quite tactile with it. The idea came from a natural history publisher who talked about the decline of various species of animals and the impact of humanity on the environment. The aspect of what we do with our waste became a part of this and the subject of “dead space” was introduced when she read about rivers that now have no life in them at all and are called “dead”.

So what do you do with bike tyres, which come from vehicles being used in an effort to be more friendly to the environment? For Antonia, she began coming up with smaller ideas to use them to tell artistic stories about the environment, which eventually led to the creation of this large piece. In it you can see the micro, as in the patterns on a tiny plant pollen to the immensity of a planet. The story is for the viewer to interpret.

Zoe Amor

Zoe’s piece “29” (A memorial to all that is good in the world) is a bronze interpretation of a tree which stands about 2 metres tall. the upturned leaves make “cups” which can catch the rain to fill and spill over and also have beautiful individual etchings on the underside of each leaf. As she lives in central Victoria, there is a lot of the natural world around her as well as farming industries. Zoe takes the time to talk to everyone living in this area to learn about it’s past and what the locals know about the animals and plant life that was and is still there.

It was her wish to convey her understanding of nature, as a kind of memorial like we have for our heroes in society. People can come along later to see what we have and what we care about. Her love of ancient cultures such as Egypt and Etruscan art and architecture were a vessel for combining with the wish to tell a story about our endangered and protected wildlife. With the back to basics idea of the skill and shape of the human hand, Zoe formed her tree, it’s branches and leaves from wax which was then cast and welded together in bronze. The green patina is going to be allowed to age to give the work the ability to blend in with it’s surrounding.

Personal Impressions

I very much enjoyed today’s art chat. I learnt about my favourite piece in the collection and got the opportunity to meet the artist. He seemed very happy that I told him how much I love his work and why – and that I had taken the time to talk to him about it. I also got some handy tips about manipulating wax from Zoe.

Something that I notice when listening to more and more successful artists is their passion, not only for their art but for learning, for history and the natural world. They are passionate about combining their interests, some of which they have had since childhood. A love of ancient history seems to be common as well as the desire to keep discovering the world and protect what can not protect itself. They are very inspiring people and a morning in their company is time well spent.

Behind the Scenes Offer to Chisholm

As I am a volunteer at the gallery and a student, Imogen has suggested that Chisholm might like to bring the art students over for a Behind the Scenes tour of the gallery. This would take us where visitors are usually not allowed, and we would see archiving areas and what is done in the day to day running of a public space.

I haven’t had the opportunity to talk this over with any teachers at TAFE yet, but am hoping that when I do they think it is a good idea, especially as it is so close! I think it would be an enjoyable activity for the second and third years’ especially. Feedback about this is most welcome. Look forward to a blog about it if it goes ahead! (If it doesn’t I may ask if I can do it as a solo effort anyway as I am really keen to do it!!)

Portrait Composition

Venue: Pastel Society of Victoria, Australia

Artist: Penelope Glibert-Ng

The April meeting for the PSVA had Penelope demonstrating portraiture from a photograph of her grandson. As with many kids, she found it easier to do his portrait from a photo as it was hard enough to get him to sit still for the photo let alone over an hour or so for pastels!

Penelope started her art career at a very early age showing her parents that she had serious skills. She went on to later study at Sydney Tech and acquired a Diploma in Painting and has painted in places such as New Guinea for thirteen years. She has been a finalist in the Archibald and loves using a few different mediums including oils, acrylics and pastels. Pastels being her favourites.

Penelope started her work  for this demonstration with pencil work. She measures the face carefully, as this foundation will determine how accurate and lifelike the finished portrait will be. It was very nice to see Penelope not only working from a hard copy of her photo, but also from her new iPad and a sketch she had done to work out the “kinks”. I think Penelope loves her “new toy” as much as I love mine!

Getting back to the subject, an understanding of the muscles and bone under the skin is important when doing people. Penelope says that she likes to show the ethnic traits of her subjects in her work. A well defined cheek bone, beautiful lips or large hazel eyes deserve to be rendered well.

After the drawing was to her satisfaction, the next stage was done with water colours. This is another technique used by a lot of pastelists to block in a work, give some great colour under the pastels and if you have white paper, it covers it very quickly. We had a chance to see these in just their tonal values because of a technical hitch with the video, but it worked out really well as the application of warm and cool colours on the work were actually all of the same tonal value. We got to see it all in colour on the screen later but I found this little bit most interesting.

Along with applying the first layers of pastel Penelope talked about using pastels safely. We all should know that blowing on your work to get rid of dust is a bad idea and she confirmed this point again talking about how it gets into the lungs. Tap or shake is the message, please try not to blow on your work.

As the first layers went in Penelope used a variety of makes of pastel which she had very nicely organised in a box on her easel. The Schmincke 048B (red/purple) was a lovely rich colour to start with and each colour was tested in a small spot before they were applied to any part of the composition. Applying Schmincke pastel in very light layers meant that other brands were easily used over the top. It is a very “buttery” pastel and can be difficult to go over if used too heavily too early.

The side of the pastels were used a lot and there were very few lines. Penelope likes to build up “planes” to create the modelling of the face. She said we need to think about how much blue, red or yellow is in the colours we are selecting when drawing in a face for all the warm and cool areas. Remembering that things like the ears and nose have very little fleshy bits to them so the light shines through them more making them “warmer” than other parts of the head.

I very much liked seeing the vivid oranges, yellows and even purples used in the hair and side of the face. The cool background was also done with wide sweeps of the side of the pastel which modelled the face and brought it right off the page. The use of various directional blocks of colour overlaying each other gave the skin texture and pushed the eyes back under the brow and the nose and lips forward, with the lovely rounded cheeks that children have.

Without the use of a lot of blending Penelope was able to achieve graduations of colour and tone with mark making that defined things like the details in the eyes and division of top and bottom lips. When a colour was a bit strong she knocked it back with the use of a green/grey which she said we all need to have in our kits as it binds colours together and “calms” areas where the colour is too intense.

The “jewellery” as Penelope called it were the little finishing touches. With thought and process of stepping back to continually assess Penelope created a lovely portrait of her young grandson. She was a very enjoyable and knowledgeable demonstrator with a great sense of fun.

The Triplets of Belleville

Context and Culture 17th April

An animated Video.

IMDB is my friend… a bit like Google for searching out things! According to this site “When her grandson is kidnapped during the Tour de France, Madame Souza and her beloved pooch Bruno team up with the Belleville Sisters–an aged song-and-dance team from the days of Fred Astaire–to rescue him.”

I saw the likeness of fred Astair in the beginning… being eaten by his tap shoes. There was a lot of hidden meanings and exaggerations of the typical gangster figure and Americans in what was unmistakably a send up of New York City.

As far as French humour goes I think I like Minuscule on Channel 2 a bit more.

The artistic direction of the movie was clever with a lot of use of three primary colours. The views from above and floor or street level also gave scenes an interesting angle.

The drawing was very nicely done but some of the humour was a bit gross for my taste. Over all I found a lot of the movie to be rather sad instead of funny. I felt sorry for the poor old dog, so faithfully following his owner all over the place including crossing the Atlantic in a paddle boat and hauling her and others up a steep road and replacing a flat tyre on a truck! I guess some humour just escapes me a bit – or I just miss having a dog…

With many of the scenes done in yellow and blue, I was reminded of the book about Turner I am reading and only learnt today about his use of these exact colours in many of his works – much to the annoyance of the art galleries and other artists of the time, and how research into colour later discovered what he had really been on about with them. I have been experimenting with these same two colours this year which I suddenly felt rather good about!

I am not sure where the name Bellville came from apart from a place in New Jersey having it, so am not sure about the connection to New York for the name in the title.

In the end I guess it is good that the good guys won and the baddies didn’t. I am accustomed to watching animations, in particular, without dialogue so this wasn’t too different for me. Story telling has always been more a visual thing with words secondary. Not a bad afternoon for study but I wouldn’t go out and buy the DVD.

April Art Chats

Next week McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park have two art chats for you to attend.

Thursday April 18
at 11am

$5 includes a coffee and muffin at 10.30am.

A walking tour on the survey sculpture trail with artists: Zoe Amor, Antonia Goodfellow and Anton McMurray.
(wear comfortable shoes)

Sunday April 21
at 2.30 – 3.30

An art chat with McClelland Award Recipient 2012 Greg Johns.

I hope to be at both, so will be looking for some art students and professionals to come along!

Oak Hill Gallery Gala Event

Oak Hill Gallery in Mornington (near the MPRG) are holding a special fundraising event for improvement and future expanding of the gallery.

This little gallery is run mostly by volunteers, made up by a lot of the artists who exhibit their works there. They hold workshops and art lessons and are a great entry level for poeple wanting to learn more about art and also for those wishing to support local artist by purchasing their works.

Well known artist and art teacher Margo Vigorito asked me if I would like to contribute as I joined the gallery last year. Of course I was very happy to donate a little oil painting for the cause! As many artists, we keep painting and they do pile up in the studio sometimes! The oil painting is of a scene on the Mornington Peninsula looking toward Arthurs Seat (with some artistic licence!) and it is nicely framed.

Entry to this event is $100 which means you get a ticket to put on a painting to make your own for that price of $100. You also get some lovely drinks and food and a fun night out! All paintings are worth well over the price. Mine was for sale at $275 if memory serves (I have a list which I haven’t looked up).

So if you would like to purchase a painting by a local artist at a price you would never normally get it and have a great night out with other art lovers, please read the attached letter from Oak Hill Gallery for further details.

By the way Margo tells me that three people are already expressing interest in my painting!

Oakhill Poster

Poster Competition

Has everyone seen the competition on the Chisholm Web Page?

This is a great opportunity to design a poster using skills you picked up in Digital Studies last year. The first prize is an iPad Mini which would be very useful for students or anyone wishing to show off their art as they travel around to prospective buyers or galleries.

I am attaching my attempt in here to give you some encouragement to have a go!

Good Luck!!