Thank you for your report!
We have received your report and it is currently under investigation by a forum moderator.
Inspiration from Artists Wk 110 Featuring Artists : Robert Newton and Sarah Ross Thompson
Welcome to the forum.
Here you can discuss all things art with like-minded artists, join regular painting challenges, ask questions, buy and sell art materials and much more.
Make sure you sign in or register to join the discussions.
Hang on Studio Wall
This is a Studio member-only feature!
Join our Studio membership and save your favourite Painters Online content, from gallery artwork to step-by-step guides, to your own online mood boards. Create your go-to place for inspiration and learning. Plus, members can also enjoy a range of exciting features including monthly art videos and a digital magazine library.
If you are already a Studio member, simply login to your account.
Not a Studio member? Why not try our free 30-day trial - no commitment, no credit card required
Message
Posted
Constable's sketches are preferred by some to his polished works, because of their energy; but they were sketches - this last one shown, just above Martin's comment (which I think perceptive, by the way) is too sketchy given the colour: in other words, I might have appreciated it as a study in near monochrome, but the added colour gives it the impression of being an attempt at a finished painting that actually isn't finished at all.
Really, this is not a fair way to judge Newton's work - we're seeing paintings on screen which, however well photographed, can't represent the textures achieved by the brush; and we're judging ... well, perhaps I'm judging .... what we should just be appreciating, because Mr Newton hasn't asked us to comment at all; I'd have no problem writing this way of a deceased artist, but it's a bit different speaking of a fellow toiler at the easel who's still very much at it. Still - in general I'd say that he's at his best with clean colour, i.e. not over-mixed and muddy, or too dully dark, and a subtle approach; being a slave to gesture and sweeping strokes isn't really what I'd call brushwork: more akin to playing the piano by hitting the keys with a hammer.
It's hard to do anything original in representational painting - Malevich did have a point about the tyranny of content, though concept can be just as oppressive; take that concern to its extreme and you get Howard Hodgkin, for good or ill. However - maybe the striving to be different from other representational painters can become self-defeating.... deep waters, and I'm drowning in them again....
Posted
Robert, I think you make a very good point about commenting on living artists who haven't explicitly asked for a critique.
Re Hodgkin, I'm not sure I'd see is work as 'conceptual' in the same way that some would regard a pile of bricks as such. For me his paintings are a celebration of the power of colour and colour relationships, and I'd happily have one on every wall. Each to his own!
Posted
Martin - unless you're much wealthier than I think you are, you can't afford a Hodgkin on every wall. Neither can I - indeed, I couldn't afford a little one on just one wall. No, I wouldn't call him a conceptual artist, but he's certainly not a figurative or representational one; words can be a bit inadequate when they've been co-opted to serve the purposes of a genre, but I'd go with "abstract", if I wanted a choice.
On screen, and on the page - I have a book of Hodgkin prints - one gets neither the scale, nor the reality of the colour, not the brushwork either. I've never seen one in the flesh; Brian Sewell, he who looked as if he were perpetually chewing a wasp, and spoke as though the wasp had won, detested Hodgkin and very rarely held back in saying so; frankly, make of either of them what one will - BS (apt initials) was a bundle of sometimes prissy prejudices, Hodgkin had worked through numerous iterations, entirely satisfied with none of them. I can't say that I particularly "like", as opposed to appreciate, what I've seen of his work at one remove; but then I felt the same about Cy Twombly and Mark Rothko until I saw their work in context (actually, I've yet to see Rothko's work other than on screen - I did think a recent exhibition [was it publicized here, or is my memory failing me again?] wasn't, so far as I could see, in the ideal setting: those big red paintings, for want of a better description, seem to me to need an austere, high-ceilinged environment; not a glorified shed with fluorescent lighting - which describes rather too many contemporary galleries: without space, and natural light, very few works look their best. But then, as I rarely visit galleries these days, I may be tottering to a mistaken conclusion. I just know my stuff looks better in natural light, which is odd because it's never painted that way ... and neither was Hodgkins).
Forgive this ramble, I'm wandering all over the place... and I've only been drinking tea....
Posted
SARAH ROSS-THOMPSON is a collagraph printmaker based on the south west coast of Scotland. She completed a degree in English and Classics at London University (1983-1986), then returned to her first love of art when she moved to Dorset in 1992 and studied printmaking at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design. She has been fortunate enough to live in some of the most beautiful parts of Britain and, having recently moved from Argyll to Dumfries and Galloway, now finds herself with a lighthouse view from her new studio window. She specialises in hand-inked collagraph prints and constructs her printing plates using various materials including string, salt, corrugated card, porridge oats and lichen.
Collagraph is a basic form of printmaking. In its simplest form it merely requires the application of materials to form a collage plate which can be used to print from, unlike other forms of printmaking which require the removal of material from the plate or block such as in a linocut or wood block. In a collagraph, textural material is added to the surface of the substrate or base plate, although the latter may form an integral part of the design through peeling and scoring. The end result of all these forms of printmaking is a plate or block covered with raised or indented areas which will hold varying amounts of ink which is then transferred to the paper via pressure either using a press or by manual burnishing. Further information on making a collagraph plate can be found on her website rossthompsonprints.com.
The last two images show a work in progress and the final print.
The last two images show a work in progress and the final print.
Edited
by Jenny Harris
