I quite often have dreams which are just striking images.  Irritatingly often, come dawn, they have slipped my mind.  Only two have I managed to hold onto long enough to get the down on paper. The pictures on the left are all rendition of one of them, a sort of hourglass shaped pink structure, supported by a strut over a red background.

I rendered it first in pastel (top left) and was very satisfied with the result. The smeared grain of the pastel captured quite a good ethereal quality, but I wanted to see what it would look like in different media. 

Next came charcoal.  It has a similar feel and texture to the pastel but the stark black and white, with shades of grey produces quite an evocative result, quite bony like a portion of an x-ray.

Watercolour formed my penultimate attempt.  I don’t think it works in this form, it lacks substance or verve and seems clunky.  Somehow there is not enough contrast and the spectral quality of the first two, which I like, is lost.

I was hoping that oils, in which I did the final picture (bottom right) would produce a translucent effect which would be good.  I suspect if I had a different medium it might.  As it dried it grew on me but I was never completely satisfied.  Had a gone the full Rothko with strange media and extracts of egg it might have worked but this is not something I’m very interested in doing (or frankly have the skill to pull off).
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My initial view the pastel was the best, however having view them all in composing this post it is the charcoal that I am most drawn to.  Often I think, ideas done in a different way to that which you originally envisaged, produce striking results. 

I recently created this painting of a bat (left).  I was using my usual strategy for creating such works, which is to use the paint left over from another piece (in this case a commission of a large dog which, unfortunately the commissioner has asked me not to show).

Most of the time, I paint these Left Over Paintings using thick slashes of paint with a palette knife.  This time I wanted to do something slightly different: I wanted something more contiguous, more of a whole piece, although I still used a palette knife. I started with the green circle in the centre. From this evolved the wings and eventually the piece as a whole.

This is the part where you come in.  You can choose the title of the painting, with or without a name for the bat.  Leave your suggestions below by the form on the Contact page or tweet me @williamjmackenzie.  I will pick my favourite and the winner will get a special mention.

All of this got me thinking about the naming of paintings. Previously I always thought that artists who didn’t name their pictures were just being lazy.  Now I think differently.  Naming a picture influences your perspective of the piece and you cannot help but perceive it differently.  So for example I named the picture left “The Pinta”, consciously borrowing the associations that name has with Columbus and exploration.    I could have called it something different, for example “Model boat on a duck pond”, and both mine and other people’s reactions to the piece would be quite different.

The name of a piece also places it in an artistic genre.  Prior to the 20th century most paintings were simply named after what they were depicting, Venus and Cupid for example, or had no name at all, either because everyone was supposed to know what was being depicted, or because the name was lost.  Even then they have acquired names, like the Mona Lisa.  Would we think of that painting differently if it was called “Unknown Lady from Fritton?” I suspect so.

So then if you are confronted with a painting called for example “The Moon Woman” then you know you are likely to be looking at a modern (or even Modern) work.  The Moon Woman incidentally is by Pollock, who rumbled this issue and switched to using numbers.  But even using numbers, or such names as “Untitled” or “Untitled 4”, comes with its own bundle of preconceptions.  You know you are looking again at a modern work and probably an abstract one. In many people just that name will initiate eye-rolling. I imagine when people first started using it, it didn’t have this issue but now it does.

I like using humour in my titles, so for example “A view from my window” is of course no such thing and you know this instantly, but it draws a different reaction from calling it “Mad plant in Africa”. I have developed two solutions to this issue: 1) look at the work before the name and 2) don’t worry about it; the name (or lack thereof) is just as much a part of the work as anything else.  So by entering this competition you can influence in quite a significant way what this painting actually is.

The big museums have been receiving quite a bit of stick of late in the ongoing debate of whether they should charge or not.  One of the allegations is that they focus too much on big money spinning exhibitions at the expenses of the public exhibitions.  Certainly this is the view of Bendor Grosvenor in the 18th August post of his Art History New Blog.

I don’t agree.  Certainly in respect of Tate Britain I don’t agree.  I find the public exhibition to be excellent and it is periodically updated.

I also greatly enjoy and find to be well worthwhile the paying exhibition.  The current excellent example of this is Barbara Hepworth currently at Tate Britain.  The exhibition is very well laid out, taking you in an ordered thoughtful way through her life from the early more figurative work to the later larger abstract pieces, and including of course probably the work people will be most familiar with, the cored out shapes with lines of string or wire passing through them.  The whole experience finishes in a re-creation of the Rietveld Pavilion sculpture garden.

The only part that caused me pause was in the second room where her work is contrasted with that of her partner.  It was justified in the narrative terms of her life but this is something that I only seem to see with female artists.  Tate Modern did it too with Sonia Delaunay (although to a lesser extent).   Male artists don’t seem to get the same treatment.  Often their partners fade into the background.  Perhaps there is a good reason for this but I find it suspicious.  I also, frankly, was not interested in seeing his work and neither did I think it added much to the exhibition.

I do like Hepworth though.  I can tell when I am in the presence of great art.  I causes, in me, a sensation of calmness, a sort of psychic relaxation and a sort of scratching sensation at the back of my head.  This exhibition caused it in abundance particularly two pieces (reference).  I do recommend you go.

…. the story of a commission.

As with most of the work that I do it begins with being emailed a series of photos taken either by the owner of the pet, or in this case by a friend who has commissioned the portrait.

From these I choose the one I find most striking or appealing. I am looking for two elements: 1) that the pose of the pet convey as much personality as possible and 2) that the setting draws you into the picture.  The second is less important as if it is not present then I will invent my own background.

In this case I chose the picture of Dan in a doorway.  His body position and the expression on his face is interesting and the doorway makes a natural frame while the corridor beyond it gives a good perspective.

From this I do a couple of brief sketches, one in charcoal and one in pencil to get a better idea of the shape of Dan and what elements would bring more of sense of personality to the final painting.

In this case I also did a watercolour sketch to help me decide on what colours to use in the background and Dan himself.

I then proceed to the final picture, in this case done in oils on board.  I sketch out the background and Dan in pencil on board.  I then do washes of colour for the background and the floor.  Slowly building these out.  This piece had two particular challenges, the wooden effect of the floor and the bright sunlight on the wall behind them.   When I have got the background to a point I am happy with I start working on Dan himself, using various versions of yellow and pink based greys mixed with impasto medium to slowly build up the image, and give a texture and impression of fur to the picture.  The element that gave me the most difficulty here was the shadow line down the centre of his torso.  I went for the version in the blog but then after discussing it with the person commissioning the painting went for what you see on the portraits page.

As you can also see the painting was well received by the subject himself