tomwoodartist

The Smell of the Greasepaint

My brother sent me this not long ago to remind me of our glory days treading the boards with the mighty Heckmondwike Hot Tots. This photograph was taken at our grand gala opening at the Heckmonwike Co-op Function Rooms. I can't help but feel it's been downhill ever since - see if you can spot me (or anyone else you might recognise).

Life Drawing All Day Saturday 4 February  Model Julie

9.30 -12.30   1.30 - 4.30

£10 half day  £20 full day

Life Drawing Thursday 26 January 2012

Roger donned his Harlequin suit of light and shade last night. As the light both sculpted and camouflaged his form some struggled and others soared, some saw the light as an opportunity for invention, diversion and play whilst others ignored it, a passing aberration maybe, an irritant at most. I chose the pick and mix approach using it when an advantage was to be had and ignoring it when not, at best I was an unreliable witness to Roger's dazzling presence. The dazzle as in the dazzle camouflage designed by Edward Wadsworth, Cleckheaton's own art superstar criminally ignored.

Light creates form and without form life drawing is all the poorer. When that form is de-constructed, disguised and re-made it's a chance maybe to also deconstruct, remake and re-imagine the figure, easy to say much harder to do. Tony was getting there and Roger S in what looks like a bout of liquid frenzy almost arrived. I think time was the issue when time is so short it's enough to just build the figure without then dismantling it to re-construct it in another way entirely. I would have loved more time to play with those sinuous shadows, to camouflage the form and maybe arrive at a new way of re-engineering the figure. Willem De Kooning's magnificent series of 'Women' paintings does exactly just that. It would be a journey worth taking and maybe it's the route I'll take on our two day odyssey on the 14/15th April (a few places still available, contact Tony at tony.noble3@ntlworld.com).

Special mention for Russell's ambitious new approach to life drawing, you may wonder why he has now taken to cinemascope. Well the reason is he wants to integrate his life drawing into his wider practice as a painter so taking the most direct route he has simply combined both activities with in my view, great sucesss. Exciting times!

Paintings and drawings by Barry, Ivan, Jamie, Neil, Patrick, Roger H, Roger S, Russell, Sam, Sandra, Steve, Steven, Sue, Tom and Tony.

Life Drawing Thursday 19 January 2012

Mark by Sue

Bog Man musings by Tony Noble

Another life drawing session and yet another first time model in new recruit Mark. As I’ve said in the past, I’m always excited by the prospect of working with someone new, unknown. You’re never quite sure what you’ll get, but always feel a sense of pressure to do justice to the person posed in front of you. The model arrives with no history to speak of, though in revealing all for scrutiny lays him/herself bare, literally, for speculative guesses as to who they are. I thought Mark had real ‘changeling’ characteristics, combining youthfulness with the physicality which defines the transformation from boy to man. I hope this doesn’t come across as rude or even cruel, but it’s something we each have to face as we look in the mirror every day. Personally, on my journey from middle-aged to old, I find the ageing process fascinating and, without sounding profoundly vain, love to look in the shaving mirror first thing each morning when my own face seems to have the appearance of some ancient relic from the distant past, the Bog Man of Batley! Mark did a great, professional job, and I hope he will return to work with us again in the future.

As well as a new model we also had two new artists join us, mum and daughter Dawn and Isobel. It’s always good to welcome new artists and it will be interesting to follow their development as the weeks roll on. Isobel has just started her art school career and has already mastered the modern day phenomenon of simultaneous drawing and texting! I have to declare myself too old to even attempt such an act of dexterity, and command that should I ever be seen trying to disprove this I should be removed to the car park and shot!

Looking at the work from the session I was really impressed by Sue’s painting. Sue is developing a beautiful palette, which manages to combine a richness of colour with great subtlety. It reminds me of the work of Andrew James, the artist who shot to fame with his painting of David Dickinson on Rolf’s “Star Portraits”, a series which also featured our Tom painting the lovely Barbara Windsor. Tom’s still waiting patiently for the call to reveal himself as the third Mitchell brother, but in the meantime is determined to Carry on Painting! Sorry about that. I digress. I hope Sue will join us for the two-day session planned for 14^th & 15^th April as I think with the extra time she will produce something really special.

When I arrived home after the session I spotted Chris’s painting from last week, which Tom had added to the blog. What a great piece of work. I love the theatricality of it and its potential narrative. The shadowy figure of the announcer awaiting the entrance of the star of the show, Fiona, who reminded me of Peter Blake’s “Siriol – She-devil of Naked Madness”! If we carry on like this it won’t be long before we get shut down, so I’m going to shut up and let you get to the important bit, the pictures. Enjoy!

Paintings and drawings by Dawn, Isobel, Ivan, Neil, Patrick, Roger, Sandra, Steven, Tony, Yvonne and featured artist Sue.

February - April Life Drawing Schedule

Saturday 4th February	Julie M.
Thursday 9th February	Richard
Thursday 16th February	Rachel
Thursday 23rd February	Suzi
Thursday 1st March	Sue V.
Saturday 3rd March	Rachel
Thursday 8th March	Kay
Thursday 15th March	Steve
Saturday 17th March	Fiona - Costume day. Please note 10 places only  Reserve your place early by emailing tony.noble3@ntlworld.com Payment on the day. £20
Thursday 22nd March	Joanne
Thursday 29th March	Nikki (New Model)
Thursday 5th April	Roger
Saturday 7th April	Steve
Thursday 12th April	Jannine
Sat & Sun 14th + 15th April	Suzi - 2 day life drawing Please note 10 places only. Reserve your place early by emailing tony.noble3@ntlworld.com Payment on the day. £40 for two days, no single days available.
Thursday 19th April	model to be confirmed
Thursday 26th April	Richard

Painting by Chris Fallowfield

email from Chris,

Hi, Tom.

Was going to add to blog, but don't know if you can add images. Loved the lighting last Thurs. and have developed my work into a new little watercolour/ink piece which I'll attach. I'm always looking for ways of taking work from life classes into other realms, and this was a rare occasion when it seemed to work for me. The ominous cast window shadow was from you momentarily passing with camera, now looks like model has cast a shadow somehow transfigured into He Who Would Picture Her. See you soon.
Best Regards,
Chris F.

Reminds me of an early Peter Blake print! Thanks for sending it best wishes, Tom.

Artwork of the Week No.7

What - Street Art by Christian Guémy (aka C215) 2008

Where - Delhi, India. Info about artist  other examples from different cities

Why - Almost as an axiom, I detest street art and all the fake rebellion surrounding it (à la Banksy), however in my new spirit of embracing optimism and banishing pessimism I came across this lovely image and decided to share it with you. When I was in a street in Jaipur I stood next to a large, docile white bull happily munching its way through a pile of vegetables, placed in the street to feed it. This beautiful, sensitive image reminded me of that special moment. I love the way the wall, the weathering, the colour and the stencil all come together in a harmonious and opportune whole, together creating a kind of quiet poetry easily overlooked.

Life Drawing Thursday 12 January 2012

Unintellectual ramblings of a life model (post tax return) by Fiona Halliday

Having awoken with a severe bout of melancholia, I realized the day could go one of two ways, I could indulge this neurosis and mope all the live long day or I could get off my ass, get to Redbrick and get on with stuff. And so with the best of intentions I got off my ass and went to Redbrick, though not physically producing much, Tom's provocations to be ambitious were enough to recover my own sense of excitement about the coming year and realize that in one area of my life, there is still hope.
As a stand-in model (hope you get well soon Janine!) I didn't want to 'waste' my time and not reflect on my creativity, so I dug out a painting I wanted to finish and placed it in my eye-line, this may have looked a little vain or indulgent to onlookers, but honestly I really was thinking of ways to make it better! It was a little experimental and I did wonder at it's ability to become torturous, staring at a whole 5 1/2 x 3ft canvas of my own mistakes, but I did have some practical epiphanies (too much blue, I don't even remember using all that blue, but one of Tom's recurring comments to me does revolve around steering away from this cold colour, so that makes sense).
Pulling myself out of my own self-obsessed mind, during the break I realized I had completely failed to notice the dramatic light the projector had created across my figure, which has resulted in some really theatrical looking drawings. I really admire Chris and Hadyn for tackling the challenging backdrop and lighting simultaneously and I think both paintings reflect this ambitiousness. I find myself thinking a lot about light lately, not surprisingly as it should be a pretty important cornerstone in any aspiring visual artist's mind, and as I was stood in front of everyone, unable to see the light directly upon me, I could picture it so well as I watched Tony's drawing coming together after the break, different tones subtly working their way together to create clear form. I couldn't fail to be in awe. I will leave you with that bit of unadulterated flattery, take this opportunity to wish you all a happy new year and see you all soon.

Paintings and drawings by Cathy, Chris, Hadyn, Hannah, Hilary, Neil, Peter, Roger H, Roger S, Russell, Sandra, Steve, Steven, Sue, Tom and Tony.

Life Drawing Saturday 7 January 2012

Shadows and consideration of Platonic and Plinyan matters by Anne Hutchison                                 

We were presented by our esteemed hosts with an interesting challenge today.  The model was arranged against a tasteful, if slightly random selection of fabric hangings which complemented her colouring and frame nicely, and I settled in glad to be back in my spiritual heaven after the long Christmas and New Year festivities.

Just as we thought it was safe however, out came the shadows.......a projection of patterns and shapes thrown at and distorted against her form really threw the cat amongst the pigeons.  I thought about the shadows for two minutes and eventually decided that I would ignore them, possibly adding them late in the day if the mood took me.

Then walking around at coffee time one couldn’t help notice that others had made the same decision to ditch the shadows, whilst some had boldly included them from the off.  I began to wonder whether it was worth looking for some historical context to explain this phenomenon.

For the Greeks, the shadow was one of the metaphors for the psyche - the soul. A dead person’s soul was compared with a shadow, and Hades was the land of shadows, the land of death.   This meant that shadows in art were thought to be ugly, heavy and dark.

 Plato’s story about the origin of knowledge contributed to this negative validation.  It demonstrates that you have to renounce the world of shadows before you can accede to true understanding.

The prisoners in Plato’s cave were incapable of gazing directly into the light of knowledge. They had their backs to this bright light and saw only the shadows cast on the cave walls. Plato’s point was that they saw only the shadow of reality, not reality itself. The image had a tremendously negative charge for Plato and he linked the image with the shadow—both were copies of reality. And so, from the beginning on, to attain true knowledge one had to renounce the shadow stage and progress out of the cave, into the sun.

I add to that Pliny’s story about the origin of painting which holds interesting parallels to the Platonic story of the origins of knowledge.

In Pliny,  the shadow wasn’t charged with a negative aspect:  his story tells of the maid of Corinth tracing her lover’s shadow on a wall to preserve his image whilst he was away - thereby giving birth to painting.  The maid's father filled the outline with clay and fired it with the rest of his pots in order to comfort his lonely daughter—Pliny used the story to illustrate the origins of clay modelling.   A wonderful story, a love story, and not at all negative, unlike Plato’s story about the origin of knowledge.

Based on these stories and many subsequent examples which deal with the addition of shadows in western art, I could see that our room was divided into two camps – The Optimists or rejectors of shadows (the possessors of Platonic true understanding) and the Pessimists – those who must include the shadows.

With thanks to Victor Stoichita and Tom and Tony – yesterday was a very  good day for me.

"SMELL THE PAINT" by David Mace

As a new member of the group on only my second outing it is a bit daunting to be writing comments for this blog. HOWEVER it gives me a chance to say how impressed I was with the range and quality of the work and above all how relaxed and open the group is compared to some others I have experienced. I tend to be very much a 'back of the class' person not only because I like to draw the whole context of the posing model but because I have always been fascinated to observe the relationships and interactions of people in any group - in this case of model and artists in a particularly dynamic context. It also means that from my viewpoint I can observe other artists at work and learn from the exploratory nature of their artistic processes as their piece of work develops. As a prime example - I have known Tom's work for years but never actually watched him working. I was amazed to see how slowly - almost hesitantly - and in such an enquiring way he develops his final image. Each time I looked at the painting it seemed to have gone in a fresh direction. The previous stage was buried deep under the new. I always thought he just DID it !! Sorry Tom - I know better now.

This quality was apparent throughout the group. To watch Fiona build up her 3D image - translating the literal visual reality into a parallel reality through the complex language of a plastic medium was equally impressive and exciting. How confident and brave one has to be to face this kind of challenge - particularly to do so in public. I think this is the special quality of the group - with work ranging from the intensity of observation seen, for example, in the objective drawings of Roger, Joanne and Richard to the striking abstractions of the same visual form which is apparent in the paintings of Patrick and Tony. It was fascinating to see the delicacy of perception shown in the watercolour drawing by Chris F. set against the bold handling of colour and form in the paintings of Russell, Sandra and Dick for example.

There is in the group an unflagging intensity of involvement which is special and very rewarding and I am very thankful that I discovered it so soon after moving back to the region. I also love the actual quality of the working environment - a real working studio with the ongoing work of Tom and others on the walls and the wonderful tumbling sprawl of art paraphernalia all around - "SMELL THE PAINT" as my tutor used to cry when we were being too timid. It makes one feel so authentic as an artist - however limited that may be - in such an inspiring setting - so much more so than in the Village Hall or the School artroom. Above all else I appreciate the easy relationship of individuals all facing the same challenges and experiences and struggling in their own fashion to resolve their problems - and enjoying every minute of it. Thanks.

Paintings and drawings by Anne, Chris F, Chris, David, Dick, Fiona, Hadyn, Joanne H, Joanne, Patrick, Richard, Roger, Russell, Sandra, Tom and Tony.

Life Drawing Thursday 5 January 2012

Well here we are again at the start of a new year, one session under our belt with a possible sixty one to go. Sounds extraordinary, well here is the maths. Each year we only miss maybe two Thursdays, which gives us fifty Thursday sessions, then we have twelve Saturday's, one each month, add those two together and you get sixty two life drawing sessions per year, hence one down, sixty one to go.

Why should I mention this? Well I hope it makes you smile, secure in the knowledge that potentially you have sixty one chances to get it right or better still sixty one opportunities to have fun experimenting with different materials, new techniques, different viewpoints. Sixty one chances to have a good time making art, meeting friends and eating biscuits, (sixty one chocolate biscuits!! This is not an invitation to eat them all at once, remember pace yourself). I feel excited to think what I could do in the next twelve months. I could do twenty small paintings and maybe ten of them might be OK, fifty drawings, surely I can manage twenty decent ones out of fifty, I could make some sculptures, how many would it take before they stopped falling over, I could experiment with collage or work really big, life size even, the possibilities seem endless and more important exciting...............I need a plan and a resolution to see it through, so my New Years Resolution is going to be, I will spend each session being positive, having fun and trying new things. After all, as my tutor once said. 'If you keep doing what you're doing, you'll just keep getting what you've got and that's called treading water'! (I added the last bit about water just for emphasis, but he did say the rest). Happy New Year everyone.

You might think your eyes are playing up as you look at the large photograph above but our model for the evening (who shall henceforth be known as Madame X in homage to the great Singer Sargent), would prefer anonymity for personal reasons.

Nudity is a strange and oft discussed thing, it only retains it's innocence in the life room due to the co-operation and understanding of those participating in the etiquette of the life room. This etiquette is a strict code based upon respect for the model. The introduction of anything salacious is strictly forbidden, it is a sexless space where staring is permitted but ogling is not. Those who have never been to a life class rarely understand just how sexless an experience it is and consequently conflate the idea that a naked person in the company of others has to be an encounter laced with sexual potential, hence the rash of innuendo whenever you tell someone of the uninitiated classes that you spend your evenings drawing a naked person. This as we all know could not be further from the truth, however Madame X who encounters the uninitiated frequently, sensibly feels it is too great a task to continually explain the innocence of her profession, so we have to resort to anonymity, sad but true. Your trip to Specsavers can be postponed for the time being.

Now what about the work, I'll be brief (that's probably another good Resolution). Fine start to the year with my favourite being Fiona's little head painting. It's not a good likeness, but does that matter, it's a good head with just a touch of history about it, a bit of clumsiness that stops it being slick, well chosen colours and an appropriate background of antique walnut. It reminds me of Luc Tuymans but I think it's probably a bit better. Kate (our wunderkind) was on form with a fine rendition of a hand sporting the unusual shadow of a nipple, not all the nipples were quite so subtle and Steve on present performance is already  a strong contender for Nipple of the Year Award after a single session. Clearly one to watch. Ting goes the Microwave so sadly I must leave you as the delicate aroma of last night's lasagne beckons me...............

PS. REMEMBER LIFE DRAWING TOMORROW - FULL DAY SATURDAY WITH HELEN

Paintings and drawings by Barry, Fiona, Hadyn, Ivan, Kate, Patrick, Peter, Roger H, Roger S, Russell, Sandra, Steve, Tom and Tony.

 

2012 - Life Drawing Schedule at Redbrick Mill, Batley

Thursday 19th January - Mark (new model) - 6.30 - 9.00pm £7

Thursday 26th January – Roger

Thursday 2nd February - Joanne

Saturday 4th February – Julie - 9.30 -12.30  1.30 - 4.30pm £10 half day  £20 full day

Thursday 9th February - Richard