At this point in an artist’s career (round about early 20s) there is a moment where the light goes on. The ‘what is it I’m about’ moment. If you are a painter it’s the time when you have to really go for it, the 'what is it about paint?' becomes a key question for you. You are really wanting to know about where the subject matter is coming from. Several of the tutorials surround these issues. We look at a painting, what makes it ordinary, what aspects are just like anybody else’s painting and what aspects are unique? This isn’t about newness or novelty, it’s about control. The application of the paint might be the first consideration. Often the brush sizes are average, the types of brush ‘off the shelf’ and the variation limited. By looking at just one patch of paint you can open up the dialogue. What sort of brush (knife, hand, rag etc.) would make this mark your own? We consider everything from floor brushes, through badger hair shaving brushes, to made implements. Each mark it is suggested could find its ultimate in some sort of painter’s heaven. Then it’s the surface, paint-mixture itself etc. Finally we talk colour. Why are the colours like they are? I look at the pallet being used and from that you can usually see how much mixing is going on. Usually the colour range is again too ‘ordinary’ and on the one hand ‘local colour’ can be pointed to, (look at the colour of this, that etc. point out tonal reversals, discords etc by looking out the window) and on the other hand ways of thinking around the colour sphere are introduced, anything to get good mixing done and to push the paint into difficult and unknown territory.
Perhaps the painters ought to get together and consider what they need. The college could buy in pigment (I have already spoken to Richard about this and I think he might if we can afford it), if various students wanted to use paint gels, it would be better for them to club together and buy large canisters. Just gel technology can be a whole area to investigate. Soft gels, heavy gels, gloss and matt gel technologies, clear and opaque, granular etc etc both for oil based and acrylic based paints. As gels range in consistency from brush wash consistency, through pourable to mouldable, they can be used to create glazes, extend paints and change finishes. This technology can then be thought of as an ideas carrier. The medium is the message being applied directly, then slipping off message perhaps and looking at what happens when you use gel as a glue and start adding collage into paint surfaces. It’s a pity the Hughie O'Donoghue exhibition isnt still on at the City Art Gallery, as he used gels in this way and going to look at paintings from the side is always a good way of unpicking how they were done. You can usually tell a painter is in an exhibition, because he or she will be the only person studying the paintings from the edge, trying to mentally unpick the layering.
This type of conversation mirrors others, but the technology changes. A student taking photographs and dealing with light may be asked to consider everything from how the prism works in a single lens reflex camera, to the number of pixels a medium format camera can hold. How film works and how lenses work, how light itself may be analysed scientifically, may be as important as film speed and aperture control. Cable release mechanisms may be explored as well as diffraction, zooming techniques and the nature of reflective and transparent materials. However a concept such has how all this might be applied to ‘a moment of epiphany’ gradually asserts itself into the conversation, so we move from technical issues towards content and meaning.
Problems to solve from the technical possibilities and skills development needed for building figures from glass to the markmaking meanings inherent in industrial paint removal techniques come up during the day.
Other types of issues are also dealt with, from lack of content and how this can be deepened to simply the need to just do things and work from belief or instinct, there is no right approach.
By the end of the day I’m totally drained and can hardly talk, but then I have to do a couple of dissertation tutorials.
I've still not put anything down about the dissertation process and will get round to it soon, but some of the issues are already coming up as I talk to second year students about the underpinning content to their work. If we could start building towards dissertations in year two, the whole process would be much clearer.
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