February 14th, 2016

Apologies for the lack of post and activity last week. I was distracted by my mother’s birthday.
One of the main issues that most amateur and beginner artists have, and that I have certainly struggled with, is getting a difference in tone in their paintings.  You see this a lot in a certain type of painting (usually of some slightly tedious pastoral scene).  It is executed well enough, often very well, but it is flat and lifeless.  This is because of a lack of tone.  The other issue is one of composition but I will deal with that another time.

My pictures, to date, do lack tone I think. Or at least they could do with more of it.  This was an issue Hugh had identified and so we decided to tackle it.  

The vehicle for this was my latest attempt at transcription. I had chosen for the subject of my transcription “The Death of Major Pierson” by John Singleton Copley.  This is a very large piece, about the size of a dining room table and is displayed in the Tate Britain.  I saw it first at the Fighting History exhibition which I attend last year.  This allowed me to see and examine the original in person which is always an enormous boon, even essential for trying this type of thing.

It is a complex painting.  There is a lot going on.  It depicts a relatively minor action in British military history, the repelling of a French invasion of Jersey.  Indeed the main square in St Helier is now called Pierson square.

The painting was interesting to me for a number of reasons.  There were lots of characters I could choose from to draw inspiration for a transcription.  It has a large tonal contrast which gives the painting much of its interest. It accords with the golden ration.  The family seen fleeing on the right-hand side where modeled from Major Pierson’s actual family. The artist is an American so it is interesting to conjecture what he is going painting British military propaganda pieces. Perhaps most interestingly. It also has one of the few representation of a black person in western art. What is even rarer is that he is pictured in a heroic role.

It is useful for these purposes to know a bit of the background. The French invaded and captured the Island governor.  Major Pierson along with his servant Pompey went to see what was going on at which point Major Pierson was shot by a French sniper.  At this point his Pepe picked up Major Pierson’s gun and shot the sniper.  This is the action you see as the main purpose of the picture.
It seemed to me that the main focus of the original is Major Pierson and his tragic death, pictured in as a classical tragedy.  I was more interested in Pompey and his act of revenge. This I decided to make the subject of my version.

I started then by limiting myself to smaller canvas and a much more restrictive view.  One of the great advantages of doing a transcription is that you don’t have to worry about composition because someone has done it for you.  Of course you learn a lot about composition by looking at what they have done.
My other major weakness is figures and this piece allowed me to further attempt this. I was most interested in capturing the flow of the action, making Pompey centre stage and making it more dynamic and abstract.  The yellow of the flag contrasting with the blue of the sky and the red of the uniforms makes a good combination so I brought the flag down into the top of the picture.  I found all of this quite difficult.  I had difficulty engaging with the piece and much less of a sense of where I was going.

The early draft captures the flow quite well and the sense of action but is very flat.  There is no sense of the figures being in the painting.  They just sit on it relatively lifeless. So I concentrated on emphasising the difference in tone.  I made the background darker and the shadows much more stark and dark, with a significant contract between the shade and the light areas.  I simplified the faces concentrating again between the difference between the light and the dark.  I also added folds and shading to the clothes.  The end result can be seen on the left.  It is not the best work I’ve ever done but I achieved the lesson and affect I wanted, to really go for it on tone.

This I was able to apply to another work with much more success.  I decided to do a landscape picture, the top of 2 Pancras square in Kings cross. The photo I took is to the left.  It doesn’t really look like England, being a strong sunny day but it has strong shadows.  This and the nice depth to the composition and the background of the crane gave me an image I could work with.

An early draft can be seen with no shadow to the left.  While there is some sense of depth, everything sits very flat on the picture.  It looks dull and washed up.  Partly this is because of course it is not complete, so the blossom on the tree has not been completed.

Contrast this with when it has contrast.  I added thick shadow not only on the low right hand wall and the floor, but on the building being constructed in the background, the pillars on the right and probably most significantly the shrubs on the right hand side.  It gives them much more definition and makes them much more substantial. I was happy with this result. In fact it is, I think, one of the best pieces I’ve done so far.  However I kept thinking it was missing something.  The foreground was somewhat empty.  There was also a colour missing.

Tone can be achieved not just with shading but also with contrasting colours.  Eventually I decided the solution was a small red ball.  An idea stolen shamelessly from Turner, although admittedly in a very different context.  The result, I think, is very good.