News From the Art Studio

ART LINE

BY

NAN SPURWAY

 

“Two Suits”

An art project in oil on canvas was given to two different teenagers of similar age, a young lady and a young man, who have shown vast dissimilarity in content and style. Both these students are 0-level exam entrants this year, and with their thought and insight into their practice projects, there are great expectations for both of them.  Neither of them has studied art per se before.

The first, mostly black and white, is a suit chosen by the young man.  The suit is in a position of a singer performing his act on stage. The suit shows movement – fast engaging movement. There are red strobe lights in the background sending darts of red light behind the suit, and then there is the stage lighting which gives splashes of white all over the suit, sometimes slightly distorting the image.  All part of this young man’s purpose – to show a suit of a singer not only as would be on a body, but accompanied by composure and content of the surrounding area as you would imagine it on a stage.

The suit of the young lady, as she explains, would be a man sitting at a counter, yet facing forwards, in a relaxed mood.  This painting has an interesting textured background in colours complementary to the suit.  The suit is in soft shades of beige and greys as the shadow would catch it.  The suit shows gesture and mood and she has captured that rather nicely.  Her mixing of paints shows gradation, some parts heavy and some parts delicate, but well executed. This task she took on with gusto having had only a few days tuition beforehand and she has carried it out with confidence.

Young people of this age, and I am speaking generally, usually want to have their head and run with their own ideas. A number of high school teenagers who are not moulded into shape in the beginning are disappointed at the exam outcomes and wonder why.  One of the most important lessons in Art, is to climb the ladder slowly. Understand every stage properly. It sounds boring, but as for learning any other subject, Art is perhaps one of the largest subjects added to Art History that you will ever come to grips with. Art History is the back bone from whence we learn the techniques of our forebears going back hundreds of years. They had to manufacture their own art materials, grind up rock and chalk for colours, then make oils from linseed and various tree saps, thereafter make brushes from reeds, quills and animals hair, and their canvases or ‘grounds’ had to be specially woven, or  artists would make up panels from wood, on which to paint.  They made their own tempera out of eggs and chalk to protect their various grounds from the oils, otherwise in time the oil would eat through them.

Today in our fast world, we are extremely lucky to have it all done for us. Enjoy painting!