Time to catch up

Long time no see!

I can safely say that the last 12 odd months haven't been the easiest, that is to say it wasn't quite an Annus Horribilis but certainly, to paraphrase Her Majesty the Queen, not a year I shall remember with undiluted pleasure! Putting all that aside I thought I would share a recent sketch. I have never had much interest in still-life as a subject in painting but recently I had in an antique Chinese wine bottle a lovely arrangement of tropical plants and it inspired me to preserve the moment.

Firstly I just did a little biro sketch at the time, later I did the drawing properly after which I coloured using a combination of ink, watercolour and gouaches on 300 gsm cotton watercolour paper. Overall I was happy with the result but I wanted to take a risk with the drawing so I experimented with text and transferred something I had written earlier on to anther piece watercolour paper that was successful so I did that on the drawing itself.

Above left: An initial biro sketch, Above right: Here is the experiment with text, the text above is not the text in the final work rather it is another 'poetic thought' I had at the time. 

Above: The finished work.

Overall I think the text I included in the drawing creates an addition decorative interest which the composition would otherwise have lacked and so I am quite happy with the results.

Below: Here are three images of the drawing in detail. 

Sea almonds at Clifton beach

A work in progress

From the outset I want to apologise for the quality of the photos in this blog entry, this particular area in life which shall remain for the foreseeable future a weak point.
This piece which I will call 'Sea Almonds at Clifton Beach' is from a ink drawing I did a couple of years ago at a place rather evocatively know as Dead man creek a friend of mine was doing some plein-aire painting at the spot and I was kindly invited to join him.
The original drawing I haven't actually coloured yet but I will get around to that some other time. The photo below is the painting roughly blocked in with oil washes in ultramarine and burnt umbers on a beige ground like I would do if I painting in watercolour. The goal I was pursuing in this painting was to create a art work that attempted that recreate and combine the qualities I like about both oil and watercolour in oil. I wanted to keep the drawn line of the transferred drawing and all so thin washes of oils still visible but to have the glorious physical structure oil applied thickly, it is a tricky objective to pull together.
   

Above: The initial underpainting, all so this is what selfies look like when you don't intend to do a selfie.

Above: The dissatisfying, really ugly phase that every painting goes though. This is the point you think the whole exercise has been a horrible waste of energy, but whatever you do don't give up because it can only get better from this point!

Above: Almost done.

Above: Detail of the surface of the painting.

Above: Detail of the surface of the painting.

The painting is all almost finished, now it needs to be put aside and looked at. I will continue to make changes over the course of the next few months, indeed in the last week or so I have established a mental to do list for this work its just a matter of giving myself the permission to make the changes. In the mean time I entertain myself with something else!

Sturt's Desert Pea

The Sturt's desert pea (Swainsona formosa) is a very distinctive Australian native wildflower that occurs naturally as the name suggests in the desert regions. And from the age of four it has possessed a vivid place in my imagination there is all so a rather beautiful/tragic Aboriginal legend associated with it. Indeed one of the great achievements in my life has been to succeed in growing and flowering a Sturt's Pea here in the wet tropics, I only wish I had the photos to show you all but chip they are stored in is in Japan, alas! The acrylic study below is something I did for my own pleasure, we have rather dark corner in the house and I thought I might do large decorative work to not only fill the space but though the reflected light of gold-alloy leaf all so brighten it. However it appears that we will have to move in the not too distant future so I have decided to hang fire doing a larger work.
As you can see from comparing the two images here the depiction in my painting is strongly stylised and I decided to used a very steep perspective a cue I have taken from medieval tapestries and all so Ukiyo-e prints. But I find myself in a strange position, to be I am not sure whether I like the results or not. Perhaps if I continued to develop this style further I will be satisfied eventually or maybe this will prove to be a one off adventure!  

Above: Sturt's desert pea, Acrylic and gold-alloy leaf on canvas, 30.5 x 35.5cm 

Post Script:

By lucky hap I send a photo via Email of my Sturt's desert pea to my Mother, so I thought I would share it with you now,

As always yours truly,

David Goebel.

Sending a text

Recently finished painting

If you have visited this blog before you may have noted the slow but steady evolution that this image has undertaken before arriving at a finally finished state. 

The original drawing is a sketch I did at the life drawing group which I occasionally attend here at the local university and was done in one of the ten minutes sessions so the drawing itself possesses all the qualities and weaknesses one can expect when some thing is drawn so quickly, however from the first I felt that I could do something with this. 

Above: Original sketch.

 For me the interesting thing about this paintings progress has been that I had no set direction I was going to take it. Firstly I prepared a panel, the size of which closely matches the ideal proportions of the golden rectangle. Then I grounded it with a gold acrylic paint then with a layer of crackle medium over which I put a titanium white to created the lovely textured surface I like to work on. I transferred the drawing on to the panel and then I sat it somewhere I could often look at it and so for months and months I would just look and think. I must have painted and repainted the piece in my mind a dozen times. 

Above: Work in progress.

The original model for the drawing is by good fortune a friend of mine and I arranged that she come model for the painting when the time came. In this work I wanted not only use different textures and techniques to create a painting with an interesting physical presences but to gasp the zone between sketchy suggestion and areas of quite resolved painting. I wanted to use these resolved passages to guide the eye though the composition in a snaking fashion. So there are areas like the top portion of the hips and the batik in the left corner that were painted with particular care and with emphasis on detail which then disappear quite quickly and the transferred drawing emerges again to fill the gaps. However because I am a bastard I wanted to interrupt the easy flow with which the viewers eye moves along the body and subtly I hope to make the viewer uncomfortably aware that perhaps they are intruding on a private moment. I decided I wanted to paint a translucent curtain across the upper portion of the body but as you can imagine there was a massive risk I could succeed in completely ruining the work so I hesitated.  

In the end I decided I would do it and I won't easily forget that day, it was painted the day my dear Grandmother passed away back in my home town. Once I had done that I put the painting aside and and started to think again because there was going to be a need for adjustments and I felt it wasn't quite right.

    

Above: Finished artwork 'Sending a text.' Oil on panel, 

25 x 45.5cm

Finally I resolved to cover the veil with a dot pattern that changed in the concentration of the dots to give the impression of the folds in the curtain.  I love dots they are a perfect decorative device to break up a surface and fine dots over a strong colour become brilliantly dynamic, you only have to look at the skilful use made of dots in Australian indigenous art of the western desert in particular but all so Western artists as diverse Botticelli and Domenico Bigordi Detto Il Ghirlandaio to Klimt and Picasso and Matisse. I then put the work aside again and spent more time looking at it. It then became a process of making tiny adjustments whenever I gave my self permission. The last difficult thing to do was to add the blue light of the mobile telephone that the girl is curled up looking at. It had to be just right or the whole picture would be ruined. It was a matter of how strong the colour should be in the end I did it in two goes, two light washes of thinned oils. Now it is time to vanish the painting and this shall not only enrich the luminous oil colours but pull together the different textures to make the painting surface just that tiny bit more coherent.

Above: Detail 'Sending a text.' 

Whilst I have spoken quite bit about how it was painted I suppose it is time now to discuss what is the concept behind the imagery. Without wanting to impose upon the audience I will say that it is intended to be a quiet painting that when taken at a glance is just pretty, but prettiness in people and art can be deceptive and the narrative of the painting is quite ambiguous, the title announces that she is sending a text, and here she is; nude and there no indication about her emotional state, that is for the audience! I suppose if I were to distill this already slim explanation in to an artists statement I would say the ambiguous narrative of this painting is my investigation in to subtly disconcerting beauty. 

Existential crisis?

                                                 Painting and poetic thoughts .

Years ago a good friend of mine, who in a past life was prominent journalist, were talking about writing. I said to him that I was terrible writer primarily because I trended to think in short snippets thus not really capable of writing anything like a coherent story. He was polite enough not to absolutely concur my self assessment and being a passionate exponent of his chosen art said that I should write down whatever came to mind anyway, so on occasion when the impulse has struck me I have. The results are these 'poetic thoughts' and just lately I felt perhaps I could incorporate them in my paintings. So as part of my desire to be more adventurous with my painting I prepared these tiny (12 x 15cm) panels and transferred text on to which I will later superimpose a painting or drawing which will actually obscure much of the text. In that way the text will have no significance to the viewer except as a decorative device but the fact it is there may add a subconscious emotional weight to the piece. Well that is the theory!    

 

The first panel to the left was the first of this little series of experimental grounds I have undertaken. Its a lovely surface which I am looking forward to working on. The first layer was a heritage red, then on went some crackle medium, then a beige over that. Once all that had dried I smothered the surface with a gesso and then scraped that back so the different layers were revealed. I feel the results were great but when I transferred the text I was a bit heavy handed with the paint and so the writing wasn't as crisp as would have liked it to be, so I did it again on a another little panel the second image shown  and the result were closer to the desired effect I was after. The text says:

‘Jovial’

If I could wrap my arms around you like that last time I would not hesitate, I would hold you as close I could, I would press my chest against yours, I would press my cheek against yours and if I could not kiss you maybe the beat of my heart would tell you “Please let me see you again”, 

I didn’t do any of those things, our farewell was jovial and manly, I took   the prospect that we may never meet again as a challenge, that public facade numbed only then a wound scored across my ribs that now aches within me as if it were a hideous infection,

My reason can not be complete, if a decade has not dimmed my tender thoughts of you and it’s now the simplest questions that are now the most urgent, ‘Are you well?’ ‘Are you happy?’ ‘Do you remember me?’ If so, ‘Can I see you again?’ 

The third panel shown here was all so good fun to prepare. Firstly I adhered a gold alloy leaf roughly to the panel surface, then I used a silk screen with water-soluble pastels and a gel medium I transferred colours over the top on the gold. I was very happy with this because it toned down the brilliance of the gold exactly to the degree I wanted. I think one the hardest things to do is use gold leaf in painting in a way where it feels tastefully  integrated in to whole composition and not like a flashy novelty. The text I then transferred in what is called Australian red gold it says in this case: 

   

‘Bright colours’

I saw a face like yours the other day, lovely friendly eyes like dark pools of molasses matched with a easy smile, that never left their face, it was as if they had never known a moments unhappiness,

I remember yours was like that only I knew better, you knew unhappiness, risked terrible consequences, felt the pressure of secret pain, though it never marked your countenance, 

Rather you covered yourself in bright colours and moved hither and thither with charming purpose, always seeming to know how others felt about you and revelling in it,

But what is your real secret? I felt it was there, the unspoken answer to a question I never asked that makes me see your face in those of strangers.  

The fourth panel is for me an experiment to see how well colour photocopies can transfer. It is a handy little technique I used to do all time in college. The process is rather simple you take a photocopy of an image, paint the image side and the surface you going to glue in it on to with wood glue or in the case impasto gel medium and then press them together carefully leaving no air bubbles. Leave it to dry for a good while personally I think at least three days to a week. Then with a wet cloth or sponge scrub off the paper and the image is left behind. The text is in a Cab orange and it says:

 My secret is not that I have photographs of you its how often I look at them.

I hope you enjoyed this blog entry looking back at the nature of the text I had been writing it would appear that I have been battling with emotional difficulties or some sort existential crisis which is alas not the case I am afraid I am not that interesting!

Playing around

I like what I have been doing in a technical sense but I feel that I certainly be more adventurous with the imagery itself. A few years ago whilst I was studying I did these little experiments, I really enjoyed trying to make coherent pictures out rather disparate subject matter. I photocopied some ukiyo-e prints from Edo era artists such as Isoda Koryusai, Hashiguchi Goyo, Kitagawa Utamaro, some images of Michelangelo's 'David' and scientific illustrations of local wildflowers of my home town of Stanthorpe and put them to together in the pictures below.

It is an enjoyable and helpful creative process but I wouldn't present the results as my own art. Personally I have never really enjoyed seeing the work of skilled artists cut and pasted by generally less skilled artists to subvert the original conceptional intention. Often these things are done for comic effect which I must say I don't all together mind as I have, one hopes, a sense of humour. However there seems to be many serious artists today who make a career reformulating the works of real genius to who then present terribly clever artist statements which invariably at some point use phases like; 'shake the audience out of their complacent....' or 'to bring in to question the notion...' or any of the hundred variations there are on the theme.
 I remember what Robert Hughes once beautifully articulated about Hans Holbein. 'Holbein was a completely international man: he worked in Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy and, especially England. His work, despite its integrity of style, was open to all kinds of influence: portrait prototypes ranging from Leonardo to Titian, the work of Fontainebleau mannerists, Quentin Massys, English court miniaturists, Durer and Matthias Grunewald. 'It seems to range backward and forward in time, a web of allusions that seldom rise to open quotation.'
And in spite of the fact I find myself often find my views at odds with Mr. Hughes's many assertions this statement strikes me as a brilliant aspiration. The history of painting is full of excellent examples of intelligent, subtle quotations artists made in respond to the works of other masters. Rapheal of Michelangelo, Manet of Rapheal, Kokoschka of Klimt and so on. With these contemporary cut and paste painting I sometimes wonder if the artist does it not only for the shock value but all so because they don't expect much from the audience. Of course I love nuance in artistic affairs and prefer understatement to brash declarations.   

Recent Sketches

Some recent drawings

Just to start off this 2016 I thought I would post some little drawings I had finished towards the end of last year. I love to get out and just do simple pen drawings which I colour at a later date.

 Recently I have been going out at night and making drawings of different locations around Cairns. Night time  subjects didn't register to me until recently I was at a little restaurant at Trinity beach I suddenly look over there was just a brilliant sight just waiting to be drawn, it was a bar with rather purple LED lights inside, the building itself had this casual openness that suited the coconut palms that hugged the place and they were a gorgeous golden orange colour because of the street lamps across the road. Well I haven't been able to get back yet to turn that vision in to a drawing but I have been other places.    

Above: 'Cairns at night, Bernie's Jazz bar, Abbott street', 13x21cm, ink, watercolour, gouache on Arches paper.  

The first place was the exterior of Bernie's Jazz bar in town it is one of the older buildings you can still find on Abbott street and thus it has a bit of character. So one night I sat under the fig across the way and made this drawing. It was quite unforgettable primarily because a colony of fruit bats live in the tree and as charming and environmentally important creatures they undoubtedly are it can not be reasonably denied that they all so smell like a caravan full of dead hobos. 

Above: 'Cairns at night, Bolands building, Lake/ Spence Street', 13cmx21cm, ink, watercolour, gouache on Arches paper. 

The drawing above is the Bolands centre on Lake/ Spence Street corner, it is such a familiar building that it wasn't until I sat down to draw it does one realise how eccentric a building it actually is. The facade is in my opinion full of disharmonious rhythms and proportions, be that as it may it still has tremendous character and it is exactly the sort of building one might expect to find in a distant outpost of the Empire such as it was when it was built all those years ago. I enjoyed the opportunity to sit and really look at it.

Above:'Bougainvillaea on Coondoo street, Kuranda Queensland'. 13x21cm, Ink, watercolour, gouache, charcoal on Arches paper.

For me the bougainvillea is the plant that most symbolises the tropics, Belgian painter Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merpres who lived Bali  in the middle of the last century did impressionistic paintings of beautiful Balinese women (mostly modelled by his wife the famous local dancer Ni pollok) going about their business under gorgeous canopies bougainvillea it's all very sensual and romantic. This big old bush grows in Coondoo Street Kuranda, up on the range, when I painted this it wasn't in flower so much, right now however it is an absolute blaze of colour.