Focal Point Issue Seven
July 2014
In-house Magazine of the
Western Cape Artists’ Society
Focal Point Issue Seven
July 2014
Editorial Since my last issue the weather has changed and from my window instead of the strong blue sky and deep turquoise sea of summer, I now see the skies of a lighter blue or sometimes grey with storm clouds or brown with mist. The trees are either bare or still have a few brown leaves clinging on dear life, whilst the evergreens are now a duller grey-green. I have just been overseas and the colours there are very different to those we find here. Can you imagine what your life would be without the ability to see colour and emotionally feel how it affects you? The late Nelson Mandela commented on the effect of colour on his life. As a young rural shepherd he recalled the lovely colour of grass and of being mesmerized by a rainbow over the fields and cattle he was tending. For 27 years he saw only grey, the road was grey, the uniform of prisoners was grey, the uniform of prison guards was khaki – even the symbol of freedom, Table Mountain, was grey from Robben Island. When he was moved to Pollsmoor Prison he was allowed to grow vegetables and remembered watching tomatoes turn red – what a wonderful sight after 27 years of almost no colour. The first bananas, bright yellow in colour, were almost remarkable to him. Whilst I was helping at an art group for Alzheimer’s patients I was often struck by their reaction to colour. Some would look lovingly at a red crayon, and although they could not name that colour, they liked it and drooled over it. Others would always smudge everything into a mess and often entitle it as “confused”. They were expressing their reaction in colour to life in different ways.
Some of us like to work outside on our art in summer, but are driven indoors by cold and wet weather. This changes the way we work dramatically. When indoors we are using our reference photographs, previous sketches and our imaginations or turning to still life painting. The room in which we work has different lighting on our paper and pigment. Do we feel different emotionally and so use different pigments? Does our frequency of putting brush to paper or canvas alter? Colour is all around us and as artists it is an important part of our lives. But do we really understand the effect of colour to our emotions and in our artwork? We all take colour around us so much for granted until it is removed from our lives. In this edition of Focal Point we will examine the importance of colour in our lives and how to gain a better understanding of the pigments we use. Let us all look more closely as from today at colour around us. Can you close your eyes and describe in detail the colour of a shell, a pebble, the sea at twilight? We will also look at events that have happened over the past few months – some happy, some sad: and we will look to the future of our Artists’ Society.
Kathy Wivell Editor
2
Articles in this issue Page Branch member news
‘Across the Palette’ Exhibition, April 2014
4
New Signatures Competition
5
Obituary – Cherry Nicholls
6
The development of colour
7
Components of colour
8
In conversation with…
Di White
9
The artistic journey
Characteristics of different pigments
The long read
Learning points
-
using colour to express the theme or feeling in our artwork;
-
colour as symbol;
-
colour as emotion;
6 tips for colour mixing
12
14
Creating sparkling oil paintings with bright, bright lights and strong darks Creating beautiful greys From our members
You aren’t just buying a thing…
16
On becoming a Master
17
Out and About
Down on Bright Street: The Imibala Gallery
18
Last Word
New Committee members
19
3
Branch member news 2014 ‘Across the Palette Exhibition – winning paintings Best Acrylic ‘Crimson Forest’ by Di White
Best Mixed Media ‘Breaking Waves’ by Di White
Best Watercolour ‘Under African Skies’ by Marion Langton
Best Photograph ‘Send in the Clowns’ by Cliff Davies
Other award winners: Maggie Cole – Highly Commended (watercolour) and 2 Commended (watercolour); Di White – Highly Commended (watercolour); Neve Stewart – Commended (oils) Gillian Sellier – Commended (watercolour) Marion Langton – Commended (watercolour)
4
‘New Signatures’ 2014 The Western Cape Artists’ Society in-house competition Each year as we head into autumn, we hold our ‘New Signatures’ competition which is open to members and visitors alike. The only artists not allowed to enter are those who have won an award in one of our public exhibitions. Here are this year’s prize winners pictured with WCAS Chair, Di White.
First prize – Zacharia Mukwira
Second prize – Shelly Deane
Third prize – Tommi Offret
Highly commended – Herman van Zyl
Our first prize winner, Zacharia also received a book token from WCAS and the opportunity to exhibit his prize-winning painting in the Imibala Gallery on Bright Street, thanks to Leslie Downie, the gallery director. 5
Obituary CHERRILYN SYLVIA NICHOLLS It was indeed a sad day, not only for her family and friends, but for the Art world as well when Cherry after a long struggle with cancer, died on 05 June at the age of 64. Cherry was born and educated in Cape Town. Her great love for watercolour painting showed at an early age and she became involved with the East London Fine Art Society and the Watercolour Society of South Africa. Cherry has always been actively involved in various art groups and was in fact the founder of our Western Cape Watercolour Group, now known as the Western Cape Artists’ Society. She also joined the Watercolour Society of South Africa, the South African Society of Artists and the Blaauwberg Art Society. When I first met Cherry about 25 years ago I had enquired of Terry Taljaardt of Gallery 91, “who painted these beautiful roses?” Over the years I have watched in admiration as Cherry not only painted and demonstrated hundreds of paintings, but also taught with a casual but caring attitude. Cherry framed for herself and others at her home before she became ill. In fact Cherry might have been small of stature, but she had a great zest for life and a wonderful sense of humour. When Cherry was obviously not well I asked if I could do anything long distance for her – she immediately wrote back with typical optimism, and said: “Yes, you can open my next solo exhibition”. Sadly this did not happen but at her funeral, her daughter Caron had on display in the hall, many of Cherry’s beautiful paintings and this was a great way of paying homage to Cherry as a person and an artist. After the service 64 helium-filled white balloons were released in perfect weather and floated upwards, which I am sure Cherry would have enjoyed as well. Cherry will be warmly remembered not only here in South Africa but in the rest of the world where her magical floral paintings were appreciated. Another fascinating aspect of Cherry’s life, was of course her ubiquitous palette - this was a dinner plate thickly encrusted with pigments of all colours of the rainbow – and from which emanated beautiful clear floral colours created in confidence by Cherry. I always suggested she should frame it. Life wasn’t always a bowl of cherries for her, but Cherry was a feisty lady who bounced back every time with a beautiful smile. She deserved to find peace and healing so we wish her well and hope that she will continue to be creative in the Studio in that Great Studio in the Sky. Marion Langton
6
The Long Read The development of colour “I cannot pretend to be impartial about the colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.” Winston Churchill Prior to the Renaissance the choice of colour pigments for artists was very limited and derived from natural minerals (inorganic pigments). Even during the Renaissance, despite the artistic flowering of the period, there were only two major pigment developments – Naples Yellow (produced artificially for the first time) and Red Lake (known today as Carmine) which was developed into a large range of new beautiful colours. Carmine is developed from certain insects from Central America and Asia (the insects are known in India as “lac”) and it is thought that the name Lake developed from this. Late in this period came Gamboge. A revolution in artists’ colours began in 1704 when Prussian Blue was developed. Many of today’s colours have superseded these earlier colours e.g. Prussian Blue is now mainly replaced by Pthalo blue, Bremen Blue was superseded by Cobalt Blue, Turner’s Yellow was supplanted by Cadmium Yellow. During the nineteenth century two developments were of significance for colour production. At the beginning of the century the artificial preparation of iron oxides provided pure versions of the natural earths. These were originally marketed as “Mars Colours”. The second invention was the development of coal tar dyes. The first to be made into pigment was called “Mauve”, but many proved to be impermanent and so a bad reputation for these colours developed and still remains despite the excellent qualities of many modern vat dyes. The twentieth century started with new high performance organic pigments (the Hansa colours) a replacement for the poisonous Vermilion (cadmium Red) and the long
awaited non-toxic opaque White (Titanium). The Pthalocyanines were discovered in 1935 and the Quinacridones soon followed as did the Perylenes. Today we can obtain Luminescent, Irridescent, Interference and Pearlescent watercolours from Daniel Smith which give a whole new appearance to our paintings. Daniel Smith also produces Prima Tek developed with pigments found in remote locations around the world to create an exciting range of totally new colours e.g. “Sleeping Beauty Turquoise Genuine” made from gem grade turquoise from Arizona’s famous Sleeping Beauty Mountain. Now one can obtain water soluble oil paints, made from the same formulas as original oils but using water soluble Linseed Oil so there is no need for suffering solvent fumes whilst creating your favourite oil painting. In 1949 Pablo Picasso asked Henri Sennelier to create a new medium that had the qualities of oil paint and of soft pastel in an easy to apply stick form. This gave rise to Sennelier Oil Pastels, pure and intense drawing sticks. So now when we go to buy artist materials we are overwhelmed by the choice available. Massive changes have taken place since those Renaissance days – imagine what artists of that day would create with the colours available today. Check out the range available from your favourite manufacturer on line – maybe try out some of the newer colour choices? Remember that different manufacturers may produce their own unique versions of some paints and pigments. This makes colour choice difficult between manufacturers so you need to do some homework. Are we lucky artists today, or not?
7
The components of colour (extracted from article in “The artist” magazine January 2012) It doesn’t matter which medium you use, all artist quality paints start with a pigment which is mixed or dispersed in a medium to make a specific type of paint. For watercolour it is gum arabic, for oils it is linseed, poppy or walnut oil, and for acrylics it is acrylic polymer. It is therefore only the binder that separates each medium, the pigment is the same. Pigments are divided into two categories – organic and inorganic. Inorganic pigments are derived from minerals or ores. Natural inorganic pigments are obtained by refining clay rich in iron oxide or stones such as lapis lazuli. These are among the oldest pigments available to man and also known as earth colours. Earth colours range through yellow, green, red and brown e.g. raw sienna, red ochre and raw umber. Although natural inorganic pigments are highly permanent, they lack consistency and the production process is long and tedious. Today we use the more superior synthetic versions of these pigments such as yellow oxide. Many of the earth colours we use, such as burnt sienna and umber are made synthetically. Synthetic inorganic pigments, such as the cadmiums and cobalts are chemically manufactured. Most earth pigments are of low intensity, have low tinting strength and are moderately to highly opaque, with the exception of zinc. It is important to know that mixing these low chroma pigments gives you low intensity colours but with great opacity and permanency. Synthetic organic pigments are produced from petroleum, acids and similar substances under intense heat and pressure. Most organic pigments are of high intensity and offer high tinting strength and a great degree of transparency. Because many of these pigments have a molecular structure that allows the light to go through, they make mixtures of amazing clarity. Examples of these colours are pthalocyanine, quinacridnes, azo and hansa. Natural organic pigments are derived from animal oils or plants and are prone to fading. Most have now been replaced by their more permanent synthetic versions.
8
In conversation with
Di White
When did you first realise you wanted to be an artist? It was when I was eight. Our teacher had asked all the class to do a picture of her. She was so delighted with my painting that she put it up on the wall and it stayed there for months. Then at High School (in Salford, UK), the art teacher, Mr. Rice, took a great interest in me. It was because of him that I was sent to study art with Harold Riley.
Who has been your biggest inspiration or role model? Mr. Rice and Harold Riley had the greatest influence on me. I remember Mr. Rice had Picasso prints pinned up in the art room. I was fascinated by them and was always trying to copy them. I so enjoyed that while he was painting he would tell us stories about art and artists. We also did pottery and collage with him. One time we all made clay pots. Everyone in the class made little pots, apart from me. I made a huge pot, but when it came to firing them, mine blew up in the kiln. Nobody else’s did. I was very upset. At about the same time I studied with Harold Riley every Saturday morning. I loved his charcoal drawings of old buildings in Salford – both gelled with the way I wanted to work. He was such an inspiration: he had so much interest in helping children in art and he gave such a lot of himself, giving up his Saturday mornings to teach us. He gave me the first prize I ever won for art – for a pastel of pink blossoms which we had gone into the park to do. It was a bar of chocolate. When I saw Harold a few months ago he told me he remembers the occasion to this day as well.
9
When I came to leave school it was suggested I go to art school, but money was too tight. I had already stayed on at school for an extra year and I had to go out to work. I went to a number of interviews for jobs related to art and drawing and that’s how I ended up training as a draughtswoman.
Which medium do you prefer to work in? Why? Well, Kevin my husband, says it is dry rosé! I do enjoy, but not when I’m painting. I love bold colours in all mediums. Watercolour and acrylics are what I work in most, but I still get excited by oils. The problem is that I am always so impatient to get on with a painting that oils frustrate me. I am in fact doing some oil paintings at the moment. It’s such a long waiting process that I’ve started painting the flower pots in the garden to keep me busy!
What inspires you most as a subject matter? First of all, it is buildings. I love painting street scenes, which I put down to Harold Riley’s influence. From my love of urban scenes, I started to explore other subjects. Then following a big tragedy in my life, I started going to Marion Langton’s watercolour workshops. Marion is a great teacher – she has a lovely sense of humour too. Her classes helped me a lot. I really enjoyed Marion’s classes - they took me out of myself and it was here my love of floral paintings started.
10
Now my greatest passion is for what I term ‘unrealism’ – not abstract, definitely not realism, but something more impressionistic. It’s a big thrill and a greater challenge to create a painting which offers an impression or a suggestion of the subject to the viewer, rather than to create a faithful reproduction.
How do you feel about the South African art world at the moment? To be honest, I feel very confused. I have learned all about composition over the years, but at the exhibitions I’ve attended recently, so many of the paintings are devoid of any notion of composition. I don’t know what path art is taking now. There are certainly some brilliant artists and some great art work out there but some things I’ve seen are to me, completely lacking in any classical grounding. How can we call a black canvas with one little green dot on it, art?
This magazine speaks mainly to part time artists who want to improve their work. What advice would you give them? I believe that the greatest inspiration you can get is from viewing other good artists’ work. It certainly gives me inspiration. The worst thing that aspiring artists can do is be too mean with the paint. Don’t be scared of using your paints. Don’t be sparing. Move your arm. If not, you are restraining your natural creativity. I see this as one of the biggest mistakes that people make. And don’t be scared of a piece of paper. Don’t be scared of colour and don’t overwork a painting. Apply the paint and take your hand away. So what if you make a mess – I’ve made many! I paint almost every day. It’s a way of getting better…and getting away from my husband (I’m joking, of course!). 11
The artistic journey Characteristics of different pigments In order to develop skill in using colour we need to first get to know our colours. If you use colour by trial and error it is like running for ever down a dark alley and never really seeing the light. Terms we need to find out about and discover in our paints are as follows: i)
Reading labels on tubes of paint gives us the hue – not only the colour but the pigment and lightfastness.
ii)
Saturation, intensity or chroma teaches us how bright or how dull and subdued a colour appears e.g. burnt sienna has low colour intensity whilst quinacridone magenta has a high intensity.
iii)
Value refers to the degree of darkness or lightness of a colour on a scale from black to white. This is one of the most important attributes of colour and one of the main elements of design.
iv)
Temperature describes whether a colour is warm or cool. Yellow and red are thought of as warm colours and blues as cool, but within each colour there are warm and cool versions.
v)
Staining and lifting colours – If you wish to lift pigment from your paper you need to ensure that you use a non-staining colour – e.g. Pthalo blue stains the paper and is difficult to lift whilst cobalt blue is less staining and therefore much easier to lift.
vi)
Granulating pigment – this pigment has particles that settle into fibres of the paper creating a mottled effect. Ultramarine is one example. As a rule modern synthetic pigments do not granulate. Granulation can be used to great effect by many watercolourists.
vii)
Opacity and transparency – if a colour completely covers one beneath it, it is opaque, but if the previous colour shows through it is transparent. You also need to know which category your paint falls into when mixing colours.
Winsor and Newton provide a very useful chart showing many of the above characteristics of their different colours. This can be found on their website.
12
Using colour to express the theme or feeling within our artwork Some information extracted from http://artyfactory.com/
Colour as symbol NB: Interpretation of colour symbolism changes over time and from culture and country Red
-
associated with danger, anger and violence and also love and passion e.g. Paul Gauguin – “Vision after the sermon”
Orange
-
symbolizes creativity, change, energy, endurance e.g. J M W Turner “Rain, Steam and Speed-The Great Western Railway”
Yellow
-
represents life, energy, happiness, hope and wisdom e.g. Van Gogh “Sunflower” series
Green
-
nature, health and growth, envy and inexperience e.g. Paul Cezanne “The Bridge at Maincy”
Blue
-
cool and calming, freshness, purity and hygiene e.g. James McNeil Whistler “Nocturne, Blue and Silver: Chelsea”
Purple
-
royalty, wealth and power e.g. Fyodor Rokotov “Catherine the Great”
Brown
-
craftsmanship, the great outdoors, humility (down to earth virtue) e.g. Vincent van Gogh “Shoes”
Black
-
Darkness, death, evil, witchcraft, fear and mourning e.g. Kathe Kollwitz “The widow”
Grey
-
negative associations with weather, boredom, decay and old age e.g. Pablo Picasso “Guernica”
White
-
Peace, purity and goodness e.g. Kazimir Malevich “Supermatist composition: white on white”
For other colours and more information go to http://www.incredibleart.org
Colour as emotion Hope and Joy Sadness and despair Noise and activity Fun and excitement
-
yellow and orange blues bright contrasting warm and cool colours fun vibrant primary colours
“The Chinese say you need three things for painting – hand, eye and heart.” David Hockney “Who told you that one paints with colours? One makes use of colour, but one paints with emotion.” Jean Baptiste-Simeon Chardin 13
Learning points Six tips for colour mixing 1. Make a colour chart (or several charts) to test for the above qualities of your main colours – make notes against each test so that you remember what you discover. Keep the chart to hand. 2. Start painting with just one or two colours so you understand how they differ in opacity, temperature and tinting strength. You also see how they combine or clash, how they mix to make other colours – play around. 3. If you wish to learn from books, magazines, DVDs or other artists and you want to use their colours, first make sure that they are painting in the same manner as you wish to paint. For example if you pick up a demonstration of a northern hemisphere landscape artist his colours may be very different to those you should use if painting in the southern hemisphere. Decide on you basic colours carefully before rushing out and buying a multitude of different tubes of paint 4. Use a large palette – it is no use trying to mix a large wash on a tiny palette. You need to be able to mix a colour and then make portions of it lighter or darker, warmer or cooler. A large plate or tray is better than the small round versions you can buy 5. Try mixing colours on a palette and on the surface of the painting – note the difference. Colours become more dull and muddy if overworked on the surface of the painting, so many artists prefer to mix on a palette before applying to the surface. However, there are times when fresh paint should be applied directly to the surface and you need to know when to use each method. 6. Keep notes of the mixtures you have made and tried – which have been successful and which have not. It is surprising how quickly you forget which paints you used and how.
Further reading and exercises on colour i)
ii) iii)
iv)
Go to the website: http://loisgriffel.com/home.shtml and look at ‘A Modern Approach to Studying Light and Color’ under Articles and Essays (see left sidebar). Claude Monet’s Grainstacks or Haystacks series – a classic study in colour David Hockney’s work “Woldgate Woods” and video on youtube: “A Bigger Picture” – the second half of the video relates to a series of paintings during different times of the year. Watercolourists can look at the work of Shirley Trevena for excitement with colour.
14
Creating sparkling oil paintings with bright, bright lights and strong darks From Mel Elliott’s Demonstration at the WCAS meeting on 26 th April 2014 For those of you who didn’t manage to see Mel Elliott’s demonstration here are a few notes I made: Mel underpaints with several acrylic layers. He first of all tones his board/canvas with a pale acrylic wash of warm and cool colours – thinking of the composition as to where these colours will roughly go. Then he draws in his shapes and starts to build up his medium tones. He adds some darks and some lights – still in acrylics. He says that the more layers of acrylic you apply, the easier it is to add oils on top. The next part of the painting is conducted in oil paint. He mixes oil of turpentine with raw linseed oil at a ratio of 50:50 and dips his brush into this mixture before going to the pigment. This helps the oil to flow better. Mel’s example certainly showed how the colours were unmudded and he had lovely brights and strong darks in his work. Visit Mel’s website
Creating beautiful greys A simple way to create beautiful greys is to add the other two primaries of the first primary. For example the complement of blue is a mixture of red and yellow (orange), the complement of yellow is red and blue (purple) and the complement of red is a mixture of blue and yellow (green). There are many different shades of grey – there are cool greys, reddish greys, soft and warm greys. The secret is to keep the ratio of pigments in the mixture unequal. Make another colour chart showing the range of grays you can create and keep a careful note of the colours mixed. This will help you in future to use a wide variety of beautiful greys instead of the dull grey from a tube or created by incorrect mixing of equal quantities of all three primaries. Exercise – create a picture using only greys – e.g. a rainy or misty day. Use your chart and carefully decide which greys, and of what value, and where to use them in order to create a lively picture. 15
From our members Thanks go to Marion Langton for sending in the following:
16
Also thanks to Ann Selbach for the following:
On Becoming a Master Each level in your personal development is a level of complexity that you need to fully absorb and integrate into your thinking before you can proceed to the next level. If you try to skip a level and attempt to do too much too soon, it will only slow down your progress and create a lot of frustration. You may be surprised to hear that the more you learn about painting, the harder it gets. The more experienced you become, the more effort and time it takes to get to the next level. In the words of Monet:
My painting…obsesses and torments me. I don’t know which way I’m going. One day I think I’m at work on a masterpiece, then it turns into a nothing. I fight, I fight on without making any headway. I believe I am seeking the impossible, but I’m filled with confidence”.
Monet, 1888
This is the wonderful thing about painting – there is always more to explore and learn about so you never get bored. We are all on a journey up a ladder that reaches to infinity. All we can aspire to in our lifetime is to climb a few rungs of the ladder.
Ann extracted this from The Virtual Artist Newsletter in 2013. I think it sums up the feelings of many artists. It is always great to receive suggestions, comments, articles and inspiration from fellow members, so please keep sending them to me. Kathy Wivell kathywivel@gmail.com 17
Out and about…down on Bright Street: The Imibala Gallery
We are all very much looking forward to our WCAS exhibition which opens on 29 July! Gallery Director, Leslie Downie, has some other treats in store for us too. Here’s the programme for the rest of the year: 13 JUN TO 5 JUL:
SOMERSET COLLEGE STUDENTS
8 JUL TO 26 JUL:
IMIBALA CHILDRENS ART - “THE DONNA DOWNIE EXHIBITION”
29 JUL TO 17 AUG:
WESTERN CAPE ART SOCIETY EXHIBITION
19 AUG TO 27 SEPT:
“THE MICHELANGELO EXHIBITION”
30 SEPT TO 8 NOV:
SONJA STEYN/OTHER – “BOTANICAL EXHIBITION”
11 NOV TO 31 JAN 2015:
“ANTON SMIT AND LIONEL SMIT”
Visit the Imibala Gallery facebook page
18
Last Word – New Committee Members We are delighted that we will be welcoming a new Chairman and some new committee members who are full of ideas and enthusiasm to carry on the excellent work of the past committee and to take our Society forward. In the next issue we will introduce the new committee members to you.
The Western Cape Artists’ Society
19