The Artist - UK (2021-03)

44 artistMarch 2021 http://www.painters-online.co.uk

?????????

I

particularly enjoy still-life painting

at this time of year. Playing

with objects, flowers and their

arrangement is a wonderful testbed

for ideas, let alone images, and I can

work in the comfort of the home/studio

whilst the weather wrecks its havoc.

Before I start painting I go gathering. I

look for objects and flowers that I need

to reflect a mood or an attitude. Lurking

in the back of my mind are recollections

of dreams, passages of poetry or pieces

of music. In fact what I am doing is

beginning the process of abstraction,

the process of distillation.

Abstract process

My gathering process works on two

fronts: the physical, where I am looking

for shapes, colours, tones and textures;

the other is about thoughts. Many of

Abstracting the still life

Let your thoughts wander as you think of ideas for a still life,

advises Paul Riley. Here he shares his own thought processes

along with tips for getting started and watercolour techniques

to employ in your painting

these thoughts are jotted down in

a small notebook by way of thought

sketches. One idea leads to another,

then progresses to another and so on,

and eventually I come up with a unique

idea. For example, as demonstrated

(pages 46-47) I thought of autumn, then

colour. During my gathering process I

came upon some mushrooms, old gold

in colour and rotting. I knew that much

of the disintegration was due to slugs

and snails – which led to spirals, and

on to fossil ammonites, which then led

to the Fibonacci spiral, known as the

golden spiral. I then thought of gold

and back to autumn with the Fibonacci

spiral implying the Golden section. This

led me to geometry and its relationship

to disintegration, etc.

As you can see I enter the realm of

abstract thinking. This is thinking of

associations and juxtaposition triggered

by objects. The objects don’t need

to be directly associated, I could add

my grandmother’s porcelain teacup

by way of dislocation or purely as a

p Flowers and Fantasy, watercolour on

Saunders Waterford High White Not, 140lb

(300gsm), 221/2 3 30in (57 3 76cm).

Here I have tried to reduce forms into

gestures. The fruit was wiped with a sponge

and dipped in colours ranging from cadmium

red to permanent rose and orange. The plate

was dealt with similarly in blue. I invented the

large dish to create a fantasy image outside

the still life. Note how the decoration invades

the space. Each item of pottery has been

depicted in a different way and the flowers

expressed in a wild way to contrast with the

handling of the ceramics