These projects are the last in the three-month series that have made up our various what’s ap group interactions and exchanges.
The images and responses that have come out of the last months have been informative and inspiring. Thank you so much for your involvement, your work and your empathetic comments. There is a large group of people working in the background too. I am happy for the involvement in any way and encourage you to share your practice with others.
Once again, I must ask you to please ask questions. I don’t set projects and exercises, rather I suggest a way forward from various starting points, and then guide the process. This encourages each artist to think about which way works best for their practice. It also assists the group to think laterally and not simply follow my direction. This results in more creative involvement and encourages “soul searching” or an exploration of “inwardness”. The images made reflect this attention and consideration. (in my opinion.)
JUNE;
it is getting colder and we have done some preparation in terms of finding images that “talk” to us, we are “taken” by or that we reflect on. The common elements that have come to the fore are colour, beauty, scale…some images have been remembered and researched others are contemporary images, all spark enthusiasm and, yes really interesting discussion and extension of our “personal galleries,” in our memory banks or reservoirs. Once again thank you for all this exchange.
The following project is in three parts.
Please start with an image of your choice; one that you selected or an image that someone else put in the Monday gallery. (or a new Image!)
First task; copy this image by carefully looking at the structure/composition. If you want to print it out and fold it into manageable sections this will assist your looking. Carefully copy the colours and brush marks, (if visible), the tones and the lines. Work carefully by first setting the proportions of the images to scale. For example; if the image you have chosen is 75 x 30 cm, you can use a piece of paper or a canvas the same size or you can make it smaller or larger but it must be in the same ratio so that you can copy it well enough. ( perhaps start with a few sketches to get into the task; it must hold your attention).
This new piece will not be a photographic copy, it will be your best try at giving the image a similar feel by trying to find similar colours and tones, using line and structure as in the original image. So this image, number one will be called “after Matisse” or “after Kandinsky” or “after Masaccio”. We will be able to recognise the original image in your work.
Please go at your own pace and explore the image you chose in-depth. Write about what you discover, it helps to focus.
Send to Monday gallery what’s ap or /and #orangeartgroup
Second task; working from your new image and the original image start a new one; same scale, same medium. Start by redrawing the composition to give you a starting point.
The task is to change the colour completely. This will be done by using contrasts. Where there is light red, use the same tone but in green. If there is a deep blue, find the deep orange equivalent. If you need to know more about the colour wheel and which colours are complementary to one another please let me know.
Once again this is a very specific task that requires diligence. No short cuts, no options; exactitude and consideration. Good, healthy work during winter. This image will also be recognisable in relation to the selected, copied image.
Post to Monday gallery.
Third task; how will you make your own image with reference to the one you have been working from?
Your chosen image becomes a springboard for you to bounce as many ideas and imaginings as you possible can. (write all your ideas down so that you can see which ones are actually doable but remember the undoable ones; you can refer to them when you are in doubt.)
Then settle on one of your ideas; it may be a new painting but with different mark-making, different medium, different colour and scale… You may decide to make a print or a photograph from the two images you have made. (task one and two) combine them and add a third? A still life painting of sunflowers in a vase may become a vase of roses from your garden or even a papier mâché sculpture of sunflowers in a vase or origami flowers in a vase. A group of people may be updated; people in Cape Town 2020 at a bus stop or market? An interior; you could use the same colours as the original but describe a room in your home. If you have selected a more “atmospheric work” like Turner, or a landscape, (Barbara Rea) do a similar landscape but using your experience of colour and place. (Turner from Sea point in the winter? Barbara Rae in the KZN midlands?)
Surfaces can be built up too. A tree can be collaged onto a canvas and tell the same story as the tree in your selected images. Use pattern to activate colour fields….
Please send questions to the group when you get to this stage; use Monday extra group.
Post work in the Monday gallery group.
I look forward to seeing how two artists interrupt the same image if that happens.
Please work at your own pace and know that we are very interested in what you are doing. If you work quickly then select another image and repeat the three tasks, once or twice starting from different images. (It was ok that you could make up your mind about the one and only! you did a lot of valuable thinking.)
I hope these tasks keep you warm and well, mentally and physically.
Best wishes from Jill Trappler.