Nan Spurway

ART LINE

BY

NAN SPURWAY

 

Peace and quiet:

            The artist featured this week is a gem in our midst. He is one of the better known landscape artists in South Africa, and Benoni is indeed fortunate to have an artist of his calibre.

Although I have met him only a couple of times and spoken to him, I found him to be a quiet gentleman with few to the point words.  The vast amount of  knowledge he has stored in his memory bank, will take me more than another lifetime to gather. I have asked him questions and there is no hesitation when he gives his full bodied answers. He is indeed a person who is not shy to pass on whatever knowledge he has to future generations of artists, for which he is commended.

Watching him paint on one occasion only, gave me much food for thought. A blank canvas is no doubt a challenge to him in that you see the sparkle of anticipation in his eyes as he peers at it, probably taking in the size and summing up proportions; he is about to make his next masterpiece. He chooses his brushes and draws his paints closer, carefully picking out the first few colours. It is obvious that each stroke of the brush is a pleasure not only to him but to his audience as well. He too loses himself within his painting and as he goes along he adds a little bit here and a little bit there which somehow appears to the viewer, to have been pre-planned.

He picks up a large well used brush, loads it with a colour, or a few colours together and paints in his background, sometimes using  long strokes, which he then (as it appears), wipes away with a cloth. This is followed by perhaps a little blue swiftly applied for the sky before adding another layer of foliage colours for the trees, and lighter colours in the lower foreground for ground or rocks. Sometimes as he says, his base layer dictates what his image is going to be. I am of the opinion that over the years he has become acquainted with many South African scenes and landscapes, thus he can pick them up by memory, rather than having a reference image before him.

He will then sort out smaller brushes and begin drawing trees with his paintbrush and again put in touches of darker shades in the background behind the trees, as he goes along. Thereafter come the tree trunks and lighter, brighter foliage in the foreground and of course the best bits are all the finer details.  Thus working from the far background, he will work towards the foreground.

            I cannot confirm that this is his chosen modes operandi, but it makes sense that an artist will lay one level upon the next.

Artist’s Comment:

            “Trees supply the oxygen; water quenches the thirst”

            These few words say it all!