I went through a number of stages of ideation with this assignment. My initials plans were all various levels of crazy ambitious, and I walked them back until I finally settled on Octopus Salad. I’ll walk through each before concluding with the process for the above.
Idea 1 : Follow on from prior course
In Drawing 1: Assignment 4, I explored self portraiture with a few symbolic items. One of which is the coffee mug that occupies my desk while I’m working. I drew up some ideas revolving around that mug and its symbolic weight. I decided these were too ambitious for my current skill level with paint, but perhaps I’ll return to them later.
Idea 2: Florals
As usual it takes me forever to figure out what I want to do for my assignments. Overthink is definitely something I am susceptible to. I’ve been taking photos in my garden since early spring, as I figure that flowers are good inspiration if I want to learn more about colour. So I started with this archive, as well as what is currently blooming.
The blue flowers in the really grab my attention. I refer to them as my ‘doctor seuss’ flowers. I began some sketches of them, but then moved on.
Idea 3: Parkside landscape
Then, I was walking through one of the many parks in Toronto. I turned a corner and there was this incredible zig-zag pattern of tree line, stone wall and gardens. I snapped a few quick pictures, and sketched some quick ideas on the value structure.
I got as far as painting swathes of tone on a re-used panel, indicating the value structure, before losing my confidence.
I had decided I was going to work “back to front”. I got blue tones into the sky and was reasonably happy with that. But moving closer was the tree line. My greens were weird, and I struggled with where to start with the shapes. In frustration, this panel got set aside.
Instead of circling the drain, and obsessing about how to move forward with this, I picked up another idea.
Idea 4: Octopus Salad
The idea for this piece came together very quickly. I had purchased some octopus salad from the market. As I was looking at the shapes, I found myself quite enchanted with the tiny forms. I took a number of photos, from various angles, to see what shapes were interesting to me.
The things were incredibly tiny, so using a direct reference just wasn’t going to be possible — my eyesight is good, but not that good. So I set my camera up as a video feed for my studio laptop. Now I could look at the octopus under controlled, real light, while still being able to see it.
I recalled my first assignment for Drawing 1. I figured that, almost exactly a year later, I could take some inspiration from the organic forms and looping shapes.
In colour they are very light neutral pink. There are pink-grey dots along their surface, and they glistened in the light. The colour didn’t interest me — I’d been looking at celadon pottery and decided to go with something approximating celadon — if I could do it. And the green tones would let me play on words around the meaning of ‘salad‘.
In their shadows, they begin to look neutral green or yellow. That was enough to set me off to the races.
I was thinking about the chiaroscuro exercises when I began drafting the image. I started with a page that I had stained with burnt umber, and work from there. I began by mixing a very dark red/black to give me a background. I figured red would help the green come forward.
Stopping point session 1. I’m fairly happy with this state, though I continue to struggle with contrasts and choosing colours. I still feel
My original drafting was too small, and I spent a bit handwringing over that before just knuckling down and redrafting. By this point I’d had to resort to my reference photos, as the subject matter had been eaten. That said, this let me really uncramp the forms, and exaggerate some of the widths.
The state of the palette. Greens are majority hansa yellow and ivory black giving a nice neutral grey-green. Where I wanted variety, I added viridian to the mix. I was thinking how transparent celadon porcelain sometimes looks blue in its shadows, and was running with that.
I’m fairly happy with where I ‘finished’ the work. During session two I came in to refine the contrasts and think about hard edges versus soft. I darkened the background and surface — probably too much. I had mixed Alizarin & Viridian, thinking that the viridian would help tie everythign together, but I got this awful plastic purple when some white got into it.
I didn’t realize this until after it was on the paper, so I went in with a brush laden with thinner then worked alizarin back in. Its… okay. But definitely another area for me to work on.
I also pulled the final image into my photo editor, to strip out the colour information. Does the image still read in greyscale? I think the answer is ‘yes’ but the subject itself could perhaps be better modelled.
There is definitely more I could do. For instance, the parallel tentacles that wrap over the back of the subject. they are a bit unformed, and could use some help. I could also do something to define the surface beneath the subject more. It doesn’t present any sort of ‘solidity’ or ‘space’. But I was reaching a point where I was losing focus and didn’t want to mess anything up.
Perhaps I’ll return to this once it fully dries, and use some washes to change the contasts or remodel some of the arms. Perhaps a brush stroke of lighter paint to define the curve of the plate that the octopus rests on?
All in all, however, I’m pretty happy with this.
I’ve been looking at a lot of impressionist paintings lately, mostly due to the Art Gallery of Ontario’s large collection of Canadian impressionists.
I’m trying to figure out how they select colours. There is a dreamlike quality to the colours they choose, when viewed up close. I get the idea of optical mixing, but I don’t quite understand how to start.
I need to do a longer write up of my recent visits to the gallery, and to the art fair this weekend. more for the to-do list.