April 2019: Acrylics demonstration with James Tatum (view the follow-up workshop here)
Thanks, Chris for this write-up
SouthWestArts academician James Tatum, coming from an engineering and design background, retains a focus on how a painting 'works' structurally.
He moved from representation to pure abstraction but now focuses mainly on nature and landscape and the 'feel' of fleeting elusive impressions.
Thanks, Chris for this write-up
SouthWestArts academician James Tatum, coming from an engineering and design background, retains a focus on how a painting 'works' structurally.
He moved from representation to pure abstraction but now focuses mainly on nature and landscape and the 'feel' of fleeting elusive impressions.
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He brought a number of sketchbooks filled to the margins with amazing plein air sketches for potential paintings. A painting may lie waiting there for weeks, or even years, in gestation but when ready the actual execution is fast and intuitively spontaneous. |
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James paints not only with a wide decorator's brush but a squeegee and even a paint-laden paper plate! If the colours are in the painting the result should be harmonious.
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James's first demo of the evening sprang from a moment - captured in his sketches above - when waters flooded a meadow near the source of the West Dart river after heavy rains when the sky and water were suffused with the same light
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Using acrylics on smooth Sanders Waterford 300lb hot press w/c paper, James uses a big brush to block in the main structural marks of the painting (effectively a rhythm of black lines angling down from the horizon on the left of the picture) using black, burnt sienna and ultramarine.
The marks were quick and bold and then restated. James advises to step back at this point and consider the picture as an abstract composition.
Does it work? If not, leave it!
The marks were quick and bold and then restated. James advises to step back at this point and consider the picture as an abstract composition.
Does it work? If not, leave it!
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Some thoughts:
Think in Shapes, not in Words. I want a painting to aspire to music. Is there a visceral impact? If you're going to paint, make it 'interesting' - and make it MORE interesting! Think about 'flow' -how things move through the painting. Does it have 'spark' for YOU (the painter)? This is your concern only. This, this painting, is my story, a story without words. |
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Left: A squeegee moment! The quick creation of a thin horizon which gives the painting an important marker and depth.
Soon after, James alarmingly took a Stanley knife to the surface to create some high contrast whites of ripped paper. What could possibly go wrong? The results suggested maybe distant cattle and some tufts of bog cotton. Very effective - if risky!! Right: A 'squashed paper plate' detail plus 'bog cotton'. Rather exciting! |
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James and the finished article - though a painting often needs a further 3 days of studio work before completion.
The dazzle of vertical light on the right was a moment James wished to capture. |
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James's second demonstration was a semi-abstract picture of grass, riverbank and water, "the objects allowing us to see the light" in a clever reversal of the conventional physics of perception.
He began with some oriental calligraphic marks in Turner's Yellow, broken by black marks smudged with a J-cloth.
He began with some oriental calligraphic marks in Turner's Yellow, broken by black marks smudged with a J-cloth.
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An expressive detail
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"A photo is a dictionary. We want to create a poem"
