Freedom in Painting in Porthleven - October Course 2016

Erica Shipley

'Art exists in time as well as space. Time implies change and movement; movement implies the passage of time'

The theme for the October course in Porthleven: movement..time...tide..

The movement you can see: waves barreling in...the subtle, creeping movement of the tide, observed over time.  Movement in painting - dynamism, expressive marks, angles, repeated motifs. Symbols of time and mortality in painting. 

Turner, Monet, de Chirico, Dali, Duchamp, Boccioni, Kandinsky,....Porthleven the perfect place to observe, to record, to provoke ideas for paintings.

The Lifeboat Studio on the left and the Ship Inn (The Office)

The course began on Monday morning with a drawing exercise around the harbour following the idea of movement.  The afternoon painting session also began with an exercise- the artists asked to draw a simple arial view of the harbour and then reproduce it several times on their canvas.  We had some remarkable results (see Erica Shipley's painting above).

On Tuesday, we visited Marazion, walking the causeway to St.Michaels Mount before visiting the Market House Gallery with its its extensive collection of 20th century and contemporary painting. We had a special treat after lunch, seeing the work of Rose Hilton at the Yew Tree Gallery. One of our artists was tempted......!

Spurred on by the art we had seen seen and the landscape, the group put in a productive painting session in the afternoon, working to 7pm. Our visit to the Ship Inn was well earned. 

The gallery day was a great success and will be a feature of all the future courses in Porthleven, visiting the best exhibitions in the area. 

Strange reflections- view from the Ship Inn

The next two and a half days were spent painting in the studio, with the soundtrack of the sea, working towards the exhibition. Inspired by the landscape of Porthleven and with their own personal interpretation of 'Movement', during the week the artists produced a strong and eclectic set of paintings. 

The studio was transformed into a gallery on Friday afternoon, before welcoming visitors to the Preview in the evening.  As per tradition we then went out for a celebratory meal, this year at Kota Kai, with its delicious fusion food.

GALLERY

Erica Shipley

Erica Shipley

Antonia Glynne-Jones

Antonia Glynne-Jones

Antonia Glynne-Jones

Jane McClement

  

Jane McClement

Jane Crane

Jane Crane

Diane Bedser

Diane Bedser 

Diane Bedser

Mitzi Delnevo

Mitzi Delnevo

Mitzi Delnevo

Mitzi Delnevo

Jo Rollnick

Jo Rollnick

Ashley Hanson

New painting 'Porthleven 28'

'Porthleven 28'  50x70cms

SUN 16 OCT

A new photo with the Nikon - close to the truth.

This painting works both ways-perhaps as a portrait-landscape it defines Porthleven more with the harbour curving to the right, the distinctive flick outwards of the front pier...the rose fork, now more prominent, defining the gap between the pairs of piers...as a landscape, its more of a cubist space, with viewpoints intermingled, less defined...


FRI 14 OCT

A feeling the painting was slipping to the bottom-right corner- a few extra lines of movement lift the eye ...always looking for a stronger piece, tried something towards the end of the day- I might be tempted.....it will have to wait

a.m

I've described the end of a painting as a sequence of green lights, where each painting decision/action seems to be the right one and I think we are there or nearly there with this piece. 

A late night session after a couple of pints in the Ship turned this painting around.

I think the large angled yellow shape in the 'foreground'- a hint of image-  is a thing of beauty, its crisp edge and purity setting off the complexities of the paint and drawing behind.

The shape came from an earlier pink diamond, (below), which in itself came from a diamond-shaped patch of light on the studio floor.  It's sunny again- unreal. 

It's fantastic to able to look at the painting from 20ft away, with the soundtrack of the sea.

It's an art trying to get a good photo of a painting with an iphone!

Upcoming Workshop in Kent: 'Still - Life' 21-22 October

This 2-day workshop at Creek Creative will tackle the enduring subject of the Still-Life but as always there will be twists and challenges along the way. 

I have found in my still-life work that I seem to be able to tell what objects are important to me by what tends to stay in the painting as it develops'  Richard Diebenkorn

In my own practice, 'Still-Life' is rare -  I was probably traumatised by having to paint my first ever still-life on my art college interview!  In the early nineties though I painted collections/arrangements of pebbles,stones and shells, fused with landscape. Appropriately, with the workshop in Faversham, these paintings from the early nineties, are about nearby Whitstable, a favourite place where I lived during my time at Canterbury College of Art. 

'Tankerton'  40x50cms

'Tankerton' depicts standing on 'The Street', the strange shingle strip that is revealed at low-tide, looking back towards a pink-beach and green slopes of Tankerton.  

'Whitstable'    120x60cms    oil on wood

Looking towards the Isle of Sheppey, carved out of the paint, my favourite objects grouped in the foreground. 

detail - 'Whitstable'

'Black-Beach'   80x80cms   oil on wood

I feel 'Black-Beach' is the most successful of the series, taking the ideas further and more spatially interesting, escaping the 'tabletop'. This painting won second prize in the Observer Hunting Art Prizes in 1993. I think there is a compliment about the painting here:

Brian Sewell writes in the Observer Magazine 10 Feb 1991:

Of Ashley Hanson’s ‘Black Beach’, winner of the second prize, one of the grander judges complained that the idiom eluded him and that in it he could see nothing better than the tarred surface of a London street – to which the response of the real grandee of the occasion, ‘It is a compliment to the painting that it leaves you critically disarmed’

'Pebble/Shell/Stone'  20x60cms  oil on wood

I remember sculptor John Gibbons liking these....

'Beach'  180x60cms  oil on paper

The 1st year painting that kept me in art-college, when i finally let go of photographic imagery. I think I have this rolled up somewhere- maybe... it's oil on paper!

New painting - 'Crane'

'Crane'  40x30cms  oil on canvas

My 'demonstration' painting from the Polruan course. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they are a beginning....I had to wait a few days for the paint to settle down - to avoid it sliding off- before I could have a proper look on the wall..

It's done: love the paint, colour and the space. There is both a flat-space and a hierarchy of receding space. The pink shape establishes 'foreground'. The small purple marks at the top of the canvas, and the layers of paint tucked behind each other, together (accidentally) establish 'distance'. It says Polruan to me.

Freedom in Painting in Polruan, Sept 16 Course - Report

Gill Corden

We have just held our second Freedom in Painting course in Polruan, Cornwall - congratulations to the artists for responding to the challenges that were set and producing such a striking collection of paintings.

ON LOCATION

Polruan - Drawing the Chapel on St.Saviours Hill

The course started with drawing- in Polruan from multi viewpoints, moving through the landscape, and in Fowey, a short ferry-ride across the river. 

The artists were asked to follow a discipline in their drawings to provoke ideas about composition and design and of course possibilities for their painting. 

IN THE STUDIO

In the studio the artists explored colour-mixing, colour-theory and the process of abstraction, with reference to many of the painters of the St.Ives School, Peter Lanyon, Ben Nicholson, Terry Frost, Patrick Heron, Alfred Wallis etc. Over the next few days,the paintings emerged, the artists sourcing ideas from the analytical and the emotional response to the landscape, the drawings, the studies and the exercises transformed with imagination and invention. 

The painting-course was a great success - the landscape was inspirational, the artists worked extremely hard and bonded well, often continuing in the evening with a pint and a meal after work.  Now we have some new members in the Freedom in Painting Group

GALLERY

Gill Corden

Kathleen Alberter

Kathleen Alberter

John Robson

Cathy Hilser

Cathy Hilser

Christina Scawin

Christina Scawin

Georgie Hadley

Georgie Hadley

Julie Morrish 

Ashley Hanson

TESTIMONIALS

'Horizons in painting are getting broader'   John Robson

'Ashley gave us so much - energy, knowledge and passion for art'    Christina Scawin

'Enjoyed all - good demos - good everything!'   Julie Morrish