I will set up a separate section of my blog to highlight additional paintings that I have completed whilst working through ‘Studio Practice’. These are often an idea or an image that I have found that I want to try and draw or paint. However I will start this blog with a painting that I had completed during Part Two that I wasn’t happy with. It is a painting of a sunken tree. I was drawn to the image whilst out walking. I took a photograph of it and committed myself to reproducing it in paint. I returned to it during Part Three and having made some improvements to the painting I felt that it fitted in with the brief for Exercise 1.3. The topic is as much about the reflective property of water as it is about the tree.

The background , its colour and image is a creation made up in the studio. In earlier versions of the painting I had dispensed with a horizon line which made the painting look flat and lacking depth. The addition of the horizon line and the blurred, misty background brings the whole composition together.

The second painting in this series exploring reflections is a more formal representational painting. It is a self portrait painting using a mirror against a window. The view through window, the objects on the table and windowsill along with the background behind myself. I have described the image in a literal manner. The self portrait whilst representing a likeness does make me look sombre with a vacant expression. Perhaps this is a reflection on the time that it was painted, during Lockdown. I feel that the painting works as a composition, maybe it lacks interest to the left side. I was tempted to add some plants but decided to leave these out to emphasis the empty feeling of Lockdown.

Painting 3 is a study in the reflective qualities of water. The painting is taken from a section of a photograph where I was looking into the water and seeing the refection of the grasses and reeds. I feel that this is important to point out as when I showed this painting it was commented that it wasn’t obvious what it was or what it was supposed to represent. To me it was obvious but then I knew of the source material and how I had arrived at the image. Despite this I feel that it works as a painting.

Painting four, the last in this series, is another exercise in trying to depict the reflective qualities of water. This painting, a Fenland landscape, attempts to capture how the reflections amplify the size and scale of the landscape. In hindsight I made the greys slightly too dark which has taken some of the life out of what I wanted to convey and made the painting more gloomy than I had intended.

As I mentioned in Blog One on this exercise the Fenland landscape, its atmosphere, the water, the reflections in the water are all aspects that I want to explore further in my work. It is amongst the confusion of ideas that I will focus in on a topic for my parallel project.

Before I started work on my painting for Assignment Three I completed a further two quick studies examining the topic of reflections in water.

…and the second one

In summary I am happy with the outcome of this Exercise and the differing ways that I have approached the topic of mirrors and reflections. I suspect, that it is a subject I will continue to return to often as I find the topic offers endless fascination. It forces me to look carefully and consider what I’m looking at.

I wanted to explore this Exercise in more than one direction. The idea of using paint as a mirror or reflective surface was one topic. The second was the use of a mirror to construct a composition and the third was to incorporate reflections into a painted study.

Experimental paintings, the two paintings below were produced simultaneously. Working from light to dark using thin washes of water soluble oil paint, Jackson Aqua oil, I built up the two paintings. There was very little preconceived notions other than in one I would use fluid movements and in the other I would restrict myself to straight lines.

Both of these paintings are fairly small scale 21 x 29.7cm. In the first I feel that I went one step too far and lost the translucent quality that I had built up. The addition of the dark, heavily oiled paint was an attempt to rescue the work. It reflects the light. I’m not sure it entirely works. The second painting ended up being more about the light and dark rather than reflections. It reminds me of the thick glass skylights that are found on city streets, but with colour.

Whilst completing the paintings above I remembered some painting trials that I completed earlier in the course. These were not enacted with any preconceived idea but they did now have a link to the challenges of this exercise. The four paintings were constructed using a thin, nearly wash like paint. Allowing the paint to be absorbed into the paper and using different ways of spreading the paint the resultant four paintings contrast with each other. There is a symmetry to them. Returning to the previous exercise of storyboard, the paintings could a series, the evolving of shape from a gaseous mix.

Following these painting experiments I turned to a more considered approach to the task. I set up a mirror in my studio and proceeded to make a number of sketches looing into and around the mirror. The aim was to make a pictorial study of my surroundings whilst working. It was whilst performing these sketches that I decided that I would try to produce a self portrait using the mirror to provide the setting. The last of the sketches below became the main idea for the composition.

The other topic that I wanted to explore as part of this exercise was to look at reflections in the landscape. This is something that has been an interest for me for sometime and as mentioned in Blog 1, on this exercise, it may become the topic for my parallel project. I reviewed the photographs I had, see blog 1, and choose two to make preliminary sketches .

This point was the end of sketch and experimental stage at I now looked to produce some paintings which explored the topic of mirrors and reflections. The results of which can be seen in the third blog on this exercise.

I have separated the blog for this exercise into three parts. The first, this one, will look at the research and inspiration that I referred to complete the exercise. This research lead, in turn, to the sketches and experimental paintings and then onto the two paintings that I completed.

The subject of reflections, reflected images, reflective surfaces is a source of interest and fascination for me. I find interest in how light is turned upon itself to create mirror images of objects. The flat landscape of the Fens, where I live, is magnified in the reflected light in the water. This creates a grand canvas upon which the landscape and nature of the Fens can be observed. As I work through this course and consider potential topics for my parallel project I am increasingly drawn to focusing in on reflections in water.

I have used mirrors in my paintings and sketches in previous courses as can be seen in the sketches and paintings below.

The topics explored in these sketches and paintings will be explored in the first painting that I produced for this exercise, see blog 3. The use of mirrors is a device that has been used extensively in art history. I am reminded of both Van Eyck and Massys.

Having attempted to bring reflections into my paintings with varying degrees of success I looked for examples of artists who performed this successfully.

The first example, which I recalled from visiting the David Hockney exhibition at Tate Modern in 2018, was one of his large charcoal drawings of Yorkshire. A rain puddle on the roadway is used to give the drawing depth, scale and interest.

A further example is the work of Covadonga Valdes who, it was suggested, that I research as part of the feedback I received from Assignment 2.

Just two examples of many that have helped to inspire and challenge me.

The continual source of inspiration and fascination, as touched on earlier, is the Fenland landscape where I live. I have numerous photographs which I have taken over the years which explore the reflections. Some of these are close ups others look at the landscape from a wider, larger perspective and use the reflective qualities of the water to expand the view. The examples below are recent additions.

I will continue to use this resource to educate my practice.

I found this exercise an interesting challenge and ultimately a rewarding outcome. Initially, I found the limitations set in the exercise of creating a narrative using the paintings made in the previous exercises problematic. I could imagine a whole range of different scenarios regarding the ‘Man with a guitar’ painting but none that I found grabbed my interest.

Rejecting this train of thought I turned to the prop that I had constructed for Exercise 1 and the subsequent paintings that I had made.

I considered whether I could incorporate any of these paintings into a narrative but this seemed limiting. A better option would be to try to construct a new narrative involving the T-shirt and the Lab coat. The Lab coat would soon become a proper coat as I tried to imagine how they two garments could have come together. A storyboard narrative seemed to be the best way of articulating this and the days of the week seemed to be a good way of forcing the story into a chronological narrative. I put my ideas down in a sketched storyboard.

There was nothing subtle about the story and the narrative was obvious but I enjoyed its playful aspect. It would also be interesting to paint the different scenes. There would be certain constraints in that the same scene is observed on consecutive days and therefore there would be the need for consistency in the way the paintings were constructed. I created a further set of sketches.

The project was certainly coming together. However I thought that the story needed a conclusion on the Sunday. I made a final sketch.

At this point I set about working on the paintings. Each painting would be in landscape orientation painting on 21×29.7cm acrylic paper using acrylic paints. The paper would be primed with Gesso. Securing the individual sheets to a large board I worked on the Monday to Saturday at the same time. Concentrating on Monday to Thursday to start with and then Friday and Saturday. Lastly I worked on Sunday and the cover. When complete the separate sheets would be joined together to create the complete storyboard and also to enable them to be stored together as one.

The whole process was a joy to work on. There was a discipline required in trying to keep the consistency in the paintings. I had adopted a flat comic book come pop art style which helped in maintaining the conformity. Using colour more or less straight from the tube with very little mixing helped. Additionally the use of words and dialogue with the addition of symbols assists in the telling of the tale and makes the narrative obvious.

Each of the paintings is shown individually in chronological order below followed by the complete storyboard.

Conclusion and final thoughts. I’m tempted to make a short video with perhaps some music or dialogue however I have resisted this as I don’t feel it will add to the project. The aspects of creating as series of paintings on a theme is something that I have embraced before particularly in my Assignment 5 paintings for Painting 1. It will be my aim to produce a series of paintings on a theme for Assessment. I very much doubt that they will have such an obvious narrative but will be linked.