Wednesday 28 November 2007

Objects of transition




Wherever I go around my house I find juxtapositions of things that reflect my gypsy life.. These two sketches (A3, pencil and coloured pencil on paper, 2007) show a bunch of ficus pods, picked up under a tree near the Ledra Crossing Point in Nicosia, casually sitting on an antique Delft tile. Delft, the pictureque town of Vermeer, is at the end of a tram line that passes by my house. Two small objects from two small countries.. there the similarity ends!
a bientot
Jane

Wednesday 21 November 2007

Amy Winehouse stole my beehive

Henriette is always discernable by her black beehive hairstyle which pre-dates Amy "Wijnhuis", by quite some time. This little scribble from last year (oil on paper 30 x 40) looks like an excercise in using up whatever was left on my palette and I think it had better be the last yellow nude I ever make as I can't think what possessed me to make her such a billious colour. All the same I thought to post it because, simplistic as it is, it's an affectionate and enthusiastic little piece. Tomorrow its the print studio and the call of the acid bath again...
a bientot
Jane

Thursday 15 November 2007

On acid


I've been on acid.. I have lost my acquatint virginity.. I'm a rebel with a cause: a process full of lovely rules all made to be broken. This, (Cypriot Ficus Pods, approx 20 x 30 cms: acquatint) is my first attempt at printmaking in a real chemical hazard zone, or should I say graphics studio. (Apart from a few lino prints made at home, that is.) There are some wonderfully engineered machines, some of them quite mediaeval in character, and lots of dangerous looking bottles and bins and tubs and acid baths. I cannot think why they let me loose in there but Henk is keeping an eye on me. Next project? The etching needle meets the male nude... could be painful for someone. Watch this space.
a bientot
Jane

Tuesday 13 November 2007

Ebrace


Um.... a page from my sketchbook about 2005 I think.. an ink dream of an embrace with a little goblin on the left hand side to prick the consciences of the couple..
Tomorrow another look (3rd) at the wonderful Dutch Portraits Exhibition at the Mauritzhaus..
a bientot
Jane

Monday 12 November 2007

A model model..


A model model. There is so much I would like to do with this pose if I was not constrained by the limitations of time and knowing there is only so long a guy can stare into a mirror at his beard going grey without getting cold, stiff and grumpy. (30 minute pose, approx A2, chalk on grey paper, made this morning) Model sympathy? I am working on it. For example, I tried posing myself. A one-hour pose. It is not an easy job.
a bientot
Jane

Sunday 11 November 2007

Sympathy for the model?

I have been told by one of my criticallest critics that my work suggests I have issues about model sympathy. "You need to suffer as a model yourself", says he, "to understand how to empathise with the model working for you". Well here is a strange picture - very very quickly made. I can be detected in the background right, looking pretty menacing I would say, and not too sympathetic at all. I admit I was probably thinking less about the model's discomfort than how I was going to get all that down in such a short time. But the pose was her own choice. I have since tried modelling for a colleague and found it an interesting experience having the boot on the other foot.. I am not sure how I would rate my colleague's model sympathy but gratifyingly the result was sold almost immediately ....
a bientot
Jane

Saturday 10 November 2007

Petra


Petra looks as though she has escaped from a production of Wagner's Ring of the Nieberlungen: fortunately she laughed when I told her that. Definitely a Rhine Maiden - long chestnut hair in bunches, round face and wide apart blue eyes with the most curvacious body that makes you think of drawing a fluffy white cloud. This is just a ten minute pose with some of the lines a bit overdrawn I am afraid.. and then the long pose didn't work out because I should have stopped at a certain point but carried on and killed it... it happens. Can't wait to get her back for another session.
a bientot
Jane

Monday 5 November 2007

Sharon's painting

I am just back from Cyprus catching up with my friends' work and enjoying temperatures touching 30 degrees and a warm sea. I made some sketches of Agnieszhka and her dog and cat who posed more co-operatively than some models i can think of. Never work with children and animals? Not this time. I will begin those paintings this week. In the meantime the very last of the chalk nudes on torn painting series which Sharon bought from my last exhibition. She kindly made me this photograph...
a bientot
Jane

Saturday 27 October 2007

Last nude in space


Maybe I was warming up at the beginning of a long session. But in retrospect I find it a pity the figure here has distortions. However there are some nice things going on in it. So here is the last posting from the little series of short poses I made in chalk on a large chopped-up old acrylic painting last year. They seemed to put the model on her own rocky planet. In this one a few nervous little ochre lines seem to etch her into a stratum of the rock like a kind of cave painting from another universe. Off to Cyprus tomorrow then back to earth and reality next Sunday. Have just spent a fortune on chalk pastels so there will be drawings of Agnieshka for sure.
a bientot
Jane

Friday 26 October 2007

Figure in a landscape


This is Henriette near the beginning of a series of poses where she gradually disrobed from pose to pose. These all set her in accidental rather lunar landscapes. In posting them I realise I have got them completely out of sequence since by yesterday's painting she had draped that skirt over her shoulder and in the one before that she was completely nude. This is a different kind of order.. possibly order of preference. (chalk on recycled acrylic painting on torn paper approx 35 x 35 cms. 2006) Last one tomorrow and then I will be in Cyprus for a week painting Agneszka and catching up with artist colleagues and friends.
a bientot
Jane

Thursday 25 October 2007

Nude on recycled painting


This is the third picture from this series of chalk nude studies on a torn acrylic ex-painting (approx 35 x 20, 2006) and shows a favorite model - Henriette - holding a two minute standing pose in which she appears to be half way through an undressing sequence. These present a faming problem of course which Sharon seems to think could be solved by mounting them on slate... intriguing!
a bientot
Jane

Wednesday 24 October 2007

The nude inhabiting the space

That woman on her planet again. (Chalk on acylic on torn paper. approx 35 x 20, 2006)An infinite sky, a voluptuous body, warmth and solitude, in an arid but not featureless landscape. The nude inhabiting the space - in more ways than one.
a bientot
Jane

Tuesday 16 October 2007

What planet is she on?


Strange incoherent model study... (chalk on acrylic on paper about 30 cms square 2006) I think she is sitting on her own planet in outer space. I wonder why I deformed the figure so much but I like her introverted mood. She seems to be gathering herself up into herself with a protective and reflective gesture.
a bientot
Jane

Monday 15 October 2007

Baygin (Fainting)

As you were.. we are back in the erotic.. This painting's Turkish name - Baygin - means something like fainting.. and since I made it three or four years ago when I was living in Cyprus and learning Turkish that is no doubt where the Turkish concept comes from. (A2, mixed media on paper 2003) As an antidote to the roses of yesterday, and while my next roses paintng is giving me hell, I offer this strange work which is probably a lovemaking scene. You may well wonder why I don't know for sure but then I was only the person painting it through whom it flowed. As with many works from that period I am also not too sure how I made it (charcoal, white acrylic, ink...) but the feeling was right and a womanly passion comes over, I hope.
a bientot
Jane

Sunday 14 October 2007

Another look at Roses

A tiny painting of roses (24 x 30, oil on canvas, 14/10/07) which were a sweet gift from a friend. As once before, (see July 4th) I thought to preserve their memory two ways: by painting them and by hanging them up to dry. This activity is a good way to wait for the tulips, which feature significantly in my new subject for the winter months. I will make line drawings also, a totally different way of looking at them.
a bientot
Jane

Saturday 13 October 2007

Henriette sitting



Two works today from Friday morning's session. A line drawing from the series of quick poses to warm up and a more developed drawing that includes the model, her reflection and my colleague at work on the same scene. The colour drawing has an intensity in the centre, especially where the light falls on the model's reflected shoulder, from which the rest of the drawing radiates .... light bleaches everything as we have an immense, very light airy studio and work in the mornings. Soon I am going to be working in candlelight with a couple so there will be totally diferent results.
a bientot
Jane

Friday 12 October 2007

Nude


Me drawing a model new to me -a lovely personality that shone off her whole body. (Nude, charcoal pencil on paper, A2 2007) A real warm person who is "bien dans sa peau" I hope the drawing captures my concentration on that aspect - it was an excellent morning in the studio despite some technical problems (hands and feet) about two weeks ago. Today was most absorbing, with a familiar model, Henriette - results on the blog tomorrow
a bientot
Jane

Thursday 11 October 2007

Quick study male nude (2)

Well, I am finding it quite difficult to convey volume purely through line but I can see the point that is being made to me that working through the mass can cover a multitude of sins. So I will continue for a while like this until I am sure that my eye has stopped lying to my hand. Tomorrow a good female model, as good as this much appreciated male one.
a bientot
Jane


Wednesday 10 October 2007

Quick study male nude


I am trying to draw primarily by the line at the moment. Some way to go but luckily I have a very good model.
a bientot
Jane

Friday 28 September 2007

The blue picture

I seem never to have posted this and, oh dear, it is not such a good photo, but let us say it is a kind of sculptor's study without the sculpture.. I did a number of them at the time.. I went autour de la statue with the pencil and sketched the models and then they became this painting (60 x 50 oil on canvas) which has running down through the middle a kind of sentiment that may express the couple.. in greek, but my translation of the poet Seferis's original would be : "Just a little longer, we will see the almond trees blossom, the marble gleam in the sun, the sea breaking into waves... just a little longer.. we will rise a little higher..
a bientot
Jane


Thursday 27 September 2007

Pen dancing into figure


One of my favorite one minute poses with Koula from my time in Nicosia. It is about 30 cms square on lovely smooth Sennelier paper. 2003. Tomorrow a new model - Claire - I know, its another female, but I am determined to redress the balance very soon.
a bientot
Jane

Wednesday 26 September 2007

Nude study;

Here's a nude study I made yesterday with a male model for a change. (50 x 70 mixed media on paper). I am afraid he thought the pose was torture, poor chap. (45 mins) I think it shows that I have been largely been drawing females as I feel I feminised him a bit, (maybe the pretty sheet doesn't help) and it has inspired a worry that I am losing my grip on the male anatomy. Oh dear, possibly an unfortunate way of putting it but you know what I mean. Really must do something about this. Could willing male models please form an orderly queue? Usual hourly rates apply.
a bientot
Jane

Tuesday 11 September 2007

Pen, ink, figure, water, brush

An abstract ink painting no more than 15 cms square which is pretty obviously derived from a group of figures.. I rarely make these dreamy abstractions but when I do they are genuine abstracts in that they start off as a 'real' image, usually of figures, and then are abstracted out and away and often back again.. to restate the figures after a process of transformation... or you could forget all that and just look at it. Its merely a sensual little dream in a sensual medium. This particular ink leaps ecstatically on contact with water and becomes all sorts of colours.. you have to chase it to bring it where you want it and accidental elements are always present to work with and against.
a bientot
Jane

Monday 10 September 2007

Christina drawing Brigitta

A drawing I made on Friday (7/09/07, 50 x 70 charcoal on paper) when over-enthusiasm at the gym earlier meant my shoulder would not permit working at the easel. I sat so I did not have to raise my arm but as a result had no "recule". I liked working in that position though. Maybe the front foot is too small and God knows where the right arm is - guess I could not see it - but it was an hour of good absorption. Sorry about the photo - one day I will get my husband to teach me about white balances.
a bientot
Jane

Sunday 9 September 2007

Khosia spreadeagled

Very large brown paper from the Limassol factory again .. a drawing from the same sort of time as the previous post when I was trying to make something very big in an hour. (Chalk on brown paper, 100 x 130, 2006) Maybe i am a closet scene painter. ... It is unmistakeably Khosia, facially a very good likeness, and that is me in a mirror in the background, obviously contemplating something other than the model's foreground arm to which I really ought to have been devoting more time.
a bientot
Jane

Friday 7 September 2007

The day size mattered

Our life room has a rhythm of working towards a longish (one hour) pose at the end of the session. I wondered how far I could get with a stick of charcoal in an hour if I worked big - well this is brown paper stuck onto a huge canvas, (130 x 150 cms, charcoal and chalk, 2006) which is great cardio-vascular excercise if you are going to cover it in an hour .. you need a rather statuesque model for this kind of thing.  And you need to make a zillion, trillion decisions in that time.. unfortunately they won't all be the right ones, but it is certainly a challenge. In my limited experience (about 750 hours) I have never seen anyone work this big in the life room - Go on.. spend paper .. would you really rather have a tree than this? Yes, so would I, but this was cast offs from a factory in Limassol so at least my drawing was a better idea than chucking it on the tip. Call it a stay of execution....
a bientot
Jane

Thursday 6 September 2007

Figure in movement


A quick nude study on brown paper.. (about 80 x 50 cms. Charcoal. 2006.) One of my favorites from my July installation of life studies although not everyone agrees with me. I will be sad to take this one down and return it to its portfolio. At least it gets a little outing on the world wide web...
a bientot
Jane

Wednesday 5 September 2007

Imaginary Portrait


A conjuring trick.. an imaginary portrait of a friend of mine. (chalk on paper 40 x 30, 2005 ) which I made completely from memory one day. Although I have never seen him sit quite like this he has this kind of feline suppleness and a way of living loosely inside his clothes and always, to me, comes with a red background. I have never caught sight of him asleep either. As I say, it is made up. If he sat in front of me I could never achieve a likeness like this. A mystery.
a bientot
Jane

Tuesday 4 September 2007

Pambos and Koula

Pambos and Koula posed under what looks like one of those typical cypriot woven ceilings as light flooded through the shutters. (Oil pastel on paper 40 x 30 approx. 2006) The original sketch did not contain the distortions that emphasise the feeling in this pastel drawing. Light has became a sort of silvery liquid, the flesh is pulled and exaggerated in all kinds of ways, the man's hands seem disproportionately large as if to fit them for the purpose of seizing and grasping the woman's ample flesh. The cat, the symbol of lust and desire, seems almost transparent. When the painting's new owners come to re-frame it they will discover the cat who is almost concealed by the frame in which it left me, probably because i was nervous about the off-balanced compositon and wanted to centre it more on the figures. A strange work and a rather soft photograph this time, sorry!
a bientot
Jane

Monday 3 September 2007

Couple

Well it is just a pastel coloured embrace.. a sketch .. a glimpse.. the woman is the focus. Maybe she is imagining the man. I put it here because I just want to show it before the purchaser takes it away. A moment in reality or dream.
a bientot
Jane

Saturday 1 September 2007

Alter Ego


A work very highly textured by my standards...(50 x 40 mixed media on canvas, 2004) in fact it began as an exercise in Nicholas Panayi's life room following one of his trips to the DIY shop in search of those guns extruding plaster and polifilla etc for the purposes of experimenting with texture and glazes. Rembrandt would probably have killed for one of those... As for me, as the accompanying sketches all reveal, I made a work where Pambos's somewhat anguished pose is seen reflected in a slanting mirror behind him. It was highly coloured at one point and then I attacked it with what i used to call the Turkish White Glaze of Death, (because some of my Cypriot colleagues had a tendency to paint secrets and then veil them. )
I feel so proud that Alter-ego has joined the wonderful art collection of the Maltese Ambassador to The Hague.
a bientot
Jane

Friday 31 August 2007

Emotional desert: no oasis


This painting may well not be finished (Together-alone; 50 x 60 cms, oil on canvas 2005) but I have been living with it for a long while. I have already shown you a more close-up version of the same composition on June 15th in a smaller format in oil pastel - the original long sold and gone. In this oil painting I wanted to create a desert-like emotional landscape in which the alienated couple is marooned, cast adrift in their tension and the woman clinging to the man as if desiring to let down anchor into his spirit. He stares outwards in pain, fearing the closeness, unable to feel it. Smudgy things going on in the space are my "together-alone" trademarks, shoes, candles, shutters. A sad painting; compositionally rather wilfully lawless. I am still waiting for it to tell me why.
a bientot
Jane

Thursday 30 August 2007

Blue dream embrace


A soft pastel dream of an embrace from 2004 (40 x 30 cms chalk pastel on paper) which was lurking at the back of my studio on my open studio evening along with other works pushed out of the way to make room for the show. Nevertheless someone found it, seized it and bought it. So it has gone now. I must say I always liked the pensive mood of the woman, (me, maybe.....?)
a bientot
Jane

Wednesday 29 August 2007

Striking the show - with a lightening pose.


As I take down my show - another one that I thought had some merit - a very, very fast look at the model, her reflection and my own... the complimentary bright blues percolate down through the image to duett with the orange background. And I am linked to my model in terms of colour and treatment ... my pencil outstretched like a wand. A charm, a spell, an enchantment. The relationship is always special.
a bientot
Jane

Tuesday 28 August 2007

Drawing Titi


After a long break at my second home in the depths of France where the internet is so slow there is no chance of adding to the blog..... now I take up my daily entries again.
As I take down my July exhibition and unite works with their purchasers I realise how strongly the theme of artist and model was underlying all the work. At the time I had a much vaguer notion of what was developing. But I am learning that you must trust yourself and work - eventually the concept or tendency will reveal itself.
So before I throw myself into something new, a few thoughts from the striking of the show. Here is a rare work with a male model - usually my co-model painters in our studio prefer females. I must have had a couple of minutes to grab the essentials in that magic medium charcoal - Statuesque Titi, his reflection, and my own reflection. A certain, almost oriental, calligraphic feel to this.. which made me think of finishing it off with a chinese stamp, since discovered to be the wrong way up, which had been in our family for many years, together with my signature, bottom right, just before I framed it. Too bad the photo was made before that; that accent of red made the whole thing sing.
a bientot
Jane

Thursday 26 July 2007

Tracey's technique, Gericault's idea

A small, quick, monoprint capturing a moment. Surprised in the act, maybe... I have just been in Venice looking at Tracey Emin and Tintoretto. As well as the sheer bravura and emotional power of the works there is something so exciting about seeing almost the whole output of an artist whose work is mainly in his home town of Venice and fixed in its various locations... as for Tracey Emin her UK pavillion at the Biennale was very moving. She included a large series of very "less-is-more" little monoprints in blue on pages torn from notebooks. Exactly the technique I am using in this picture from 2005 which is based on a scribble by Gericault who made some life sketches very like this, presumably in a brothel, unless he had some very adventurous models. As with the ink drawing I posted a few days ago the man is like a convict hiding from the tv cameras, wanting to repel the artist, maybe fearing identification - "remove that sketch book, this is private..."
a bientot
Jane

Wednesday 25 July 2007

Tomorrow, that poisoner


Tomorrow, that poisoner, Jane Walker 2004. Oil on canvas 50 x 60 cms.
An airoplane is flying towards them,
Shut their eyes
Show instead how those insolent tulips
Unfurl new magic every time,
Keeping at bay
Tomorrow
That poisoner...
A composition that I interpreted several times but only this time with that poem. And only this time with Tulips whereas usually where you see tulips there have been candles. Tulips..... the Turkish symbol of perfect love... and a powerful image in Holland too - so another of my transitional objects? Flowers.... The quotation from the poem is mine and the reference to 9/11 disturbing but beyond my control. Survivor problems... All the grey paint is a layer of emotion laid down in seconds. I hope it comes over...
a bientot
Jane

Wednesday 18 July 2007

Leave us this is private..


One of my ink drawings from about a year ago made very quickly from imagination but in oblique ways containing references to some erotic drawings I sketched from a book belonging to friends in India.. these were attributed to Gericault and thought to have been drawn from life. This composition is in a similar vein but is my own - apart from one borrowing from Gericault which is the gesture of the outstretched hand of the man, seeming to say to the artist "leave us, this is private.."
a bientot
Jane

Tuesday 17 July 2007

Red Scarves..


This was the day that Henriette turned up in a red bandana to set off her extraordinary highly-piled hair. And, funnily enough, I was wearing one too,which you can see tumbling down over my shoulder as I am reflected in the act of forging the model on to my memory. (A couple of weeks ago: chalk on paper 40 x 50) . I exhibited and sold it at the weekend so its time to hang it in my virtual exhibition as well....
a bientot
Jane

Monday 16 July 2007

Model and Frits

One of my earliest drawings from the Rijswijk studio, (58 x 74 cms chalk pastel on paper) a litttle over a year ago .. i was fascinated by all the paraphenalia on the table in the foreground which is nowadays usually occupied by Alberto's painting materials so i don't have it in my frame. Frits though, is always right there, in front of the table, making an oil portrait in the second half of the session., where I captured him in this drawing. I am not reflected this time - it is a third-party artist model relationship .. Frits looking intently at Henriette. It belongs to that time when I was first so captivated by the immensity of the studio space and way it is bathed in light.
a bientot
Jane

Sunday 15 July 2007

Djoa

Djoa: (68 x 83 cms. Chalk pastel on paper) This is one of the pastel drawings I exhibited in my open studio on Friday. Djoa falls into poses of such ecstatic abandonment. Alberto enhanced the sensuality by placing it in a pale pink passe-partout and quite a large frame. Felix, the purchaser, was really unsure about that but I really think it worked with the golden yellow in an audacious way. Sometimes these sketches of a few minutes can take on an almost monumental quality - it comes from having a very good model.

a bientot

Jane

Saturday 14 July 2007

Open Studio

My Open Studio was last night and this image comes from preparing the installation I made about the role of life studies in our work. We don't usually exhibit this kind of work but it has some value and I think occasionally we should - if we can find a good way to achieve it. Meanwhile I also exhibited about 55 framed paintings in my studio and along the corridors... it was great to have nearly 100 people come and share the work and enjoy an atmosphere that they created. Jan-Willems brought me a huge bunch of slightly tinged pale pink roses so they will be the subject of the next rose painting.. not that the human figure will be abandoned as the next two posts will show.

a bientot

Jane

Monday 9 July 2007

A life study


Something I made in the last twelve minutes of a model session a couple of years ago - with a great model called Pambos - (see side panel photo) I guess it is about A2 size with charcoal and white chalk. For my Open Studio this weekend I am wallpapering a room with drawings like this .. it is a big room and a lot of work - but the drawings are not lacking - in fact I could probably manage several of these rooms before i run out of them - I think I would like to show how we artists have our scales and arpeggios and limbering up too - and need to keep in practise like musicians and gymnasts.
a bientot
Jane

Sunday 8 July 2007

I will miss you


The woman is clasping the man tightly as if for the last time. The sense of place is pretty much absent - not even my usual shutters - but the space is interesting. It is one of the first works I made when I came to the Netherlands and it will be in my exhibition next week along with its companions from the same "red/blue" series. (A4 oil pastels on paper 2007 ) Really I must think of a better series title before that!
a bientot
Jane

Saturday 7 July 2007

The spirits of love


A mediaeval quality to this one I think, but then, the red interior that I had in my mind is a shuttered room in an old city within a medallion of fifteenth century Venetian walls. It is a composition I keep returning to (30 x 40 oil on canvas 2006) and the greek writing built into the texture of the background is a Cavafy poem that tells how in old age one could light a candle to create an atmosphere for the spirits of love to arrive....bearing images from our past sensual experiences.......
I will exhibit it next week.
a bientot
Jane

Wednesday 4 July 2007

My Roses

These flowers are still alive and I am still enjoying them. (40 x 30cms, oil on canvas). I told the friend who gave them to me that I longed to paint them. It is a total departure from my usual subject .. but yes, that is the point - it may indeed become a total departure from my usual subject. Since I have a whole exhibition to mount right now, and I just feel I want to run away, I have eloped with a subject that has a virginal quality for me - there is so much deflowering of these flowers for me to do. When I see a human figure I think I should know by now where to start ... but with roses I know I have everything to learn. There is one picture by Morandi and one picture by Asik Mene that I keep in my mind. Otherwise only the flowers themselves can teach me. From time to time you are going to find out what they imparted.
a bientot
Jane

Tuesday 3 July 2007

Indolent creature

Such an indolent creature! Unlike in the previous post, this very quick study is pretty big - 100 x 130cms, I think - and in chalk on heavy brown paper. When I have my open studio in ten days time I am going to take the opportunity to show some of these studies that are just our scales and arpeggios but have value despite never ending up behind glass .. sometimes I feel the weight of those burgeoning portfolios and want to let them out as envoys from that region of our process...
a bientot
Jane

Monday 2 July 2007

A minute to draw Koula

Sometimes you just have a one-minute pose, ruby ink and a dash of bleach....

a bientot
Jane