Process - "Shipping at the Mouth of the Thames"

I wanted to discuss briefly the following painting, completed actually some days ago. It is

Shipping at the Mouth of the Thames c. 1806–7

THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (2702)
Canvas, 33 3/4 × 46 (86 × 117)

This painting is, according to the Tate Britain site, apparently one of
seventeen sketches on canvas from Turner's various pictures of 1807–9 of shipping in the Thames Estuary, particularly off Sheerness.

Though carried to different degree of finish, are all similar in technique, being lightly painted in unstretched canvases over a dry chalky ground, and are all roughly similar in size. The poor condition of some of these attest to this. The notion, of course, of walking around with canvases capturing the power and majesty of the Thames is very awe-inspiring, and dear to the heart of any plein air painter.

"There is reason to suppose that, contrary to Turner's usual practice, some if not all of these sketches were at least begun out-of-doors. Thornbury prints some reminiscences of the son of Turner's ‘oldest friend the Rev. Mr. Trimmer’, who had been out fishing with Turner when a child. ‘He had a boat at Richmond ... From his boat he painted on a large canvas direct from Nature. Till you have seen these sketches, you know nothing of Turner's powers. There are about two score of these large subjects, rolled up, and now national property ... "

These paintings furthermore seem inspired, or based on an earlier inspiration of Turner's on the Flemish painter Van der Velde, and his son - he approached the work from these traditions but found a way to make them his own, both in terms of subject matter and execution. These sketches of the Thames estuary look back to this tradition in any event.

My version is significantly smaller, maybe 6 x 8 inches, on a slab of walnut or some other hard wood. The slab has these deep vertical gashes, which to me added to the compositional value of the painting. Martin Butler, author of my slim reference volume (seen here), seems to agree when he notes on page 7, re. this work: "The sketch, though fresher still than the exhibited picture, is nevertheless consciously pictorial in its carefully controlled diagonal stresses of sails and beams of sunlight."

I also noted in this one something I've been grappling with with all the works from the period I'm now covering (1806 - 1809), that the painting itself is used with very thin layers of linseed oil or other diluting agent - thus producing an almost watercolor-like effect.

This has been my first time really working with oils in such a diluted way, aside from my utilizing galkyd mediums to create glazing effects.

I started out with a brown underpainting - then added blue and yellow. The composition seemed to allow for a white slash near the larger boat, done with a pallette knife. The final effort led me to add in details, boats, etc, with all available colors. All, from the spirits-diluted underpainting to the layers of paint, use this watery form of painting.

Preferable? Problematic? One can say many good things about this painting methodology, especially if the muse has one straddling a boat or a fence or some other less-than-permanent construct in order to capture a fleeting moment. The effect will often be, well, 'sketchy', light, and possibly a little vague. Am glad to have given myself the experience, however, of painting with oils in this way - it's one of the great things about this project - I have already done 4.

Official Painting Day: Feb 24, 2012 & some thoughts

I have decided to begin on February 24st, a good New Moon time to begin any venture. Plus this would be the JH + AA anniversary date, which bodes well.

Not that I have not begun already - I have spent much time poring over various books, documents, so as to get a technical sense of what I am undertaking. Am also sketching out a schedule. The wood has all been found - the last difficult thing involves ordering the materials, which has involved poring over a vast, often confusing website - True Blue Art's supplier - so as to ascertain what is really essential, not just for the oil painting process, but for rewards fulfillment. The last slightly difficult thing before actively beginning will be the wood prep process which I supposedly will have little or nothing to do with.

So saying, would like to briefly share my thoughts about what I hope to capture, from an artistic perspective, in this project:

• full, total immersion: the artistic benefits of subjecting oneself to full immersion beat almost any other attempt at skill and crafts acquisition. From instructors assigning 3 paintings a week, on top of other projects, art students come to learn the inevitable rhythm of creation. As well, Gladwell's writings give food for thought: 10,000 hours of focused practice creates a foundation for mastering any complex skill. In particular, what interests me about immersion is what happens when you reach a point of saturation (always happens - you want to throw the thing as far away as you possibly can), you find it in yourself to work through it - and come to find you've achieved a huge breakthrough, and broken through a previously unbreakable plateau.
  
• absentee mentorism: in a word, I would like the experience of learning from a true master's process. Obviously JMW Turner is no longer with us - however much can be gleaned from following his process, from his first paintings which still had some of the dark atmospheric weight of El Greco works, through to those works in his last years which come to resemble Chagall. This is an artist who left more than 500 oils, 2,000 watercolours and more than 20,000 sketches to posterity - thus the surprising divergence from his earliest styles to his latest cannot surprise. By painting each work chronologically, I hope to experience in true flesh some of the stylistic processes and even psychological changes he might have undergone, leading him to his maturation as an artist.
  
• daily discipline: I seek, through this project, to embrace a challenge requiring most of my time and attention, with a stated goal and time period. This project will be my version of an Iron Man marathon or NaNoWriMo or a Buddhist meditative retreat. All these differ widely in aims and results, but have a similar aim: to temper impatience and mold the temperament in service of something larger. I understand that at some point the process will seem burdensome, tiresome, and even unnecessary. Some days will bring obstacles in my way which will seemingly prevent the daily production. No matter - the obstacles must be borne. Part of what's so spectacular about tying this project to a fundraising campaign involves the stakes involved - over 60 people have hedged their bets on my ability to complete this enterprise - this will 'keep me honest', and provide that needed kick to get me going when I really really want to quit!
• art history: I would like to learn more about this artist, about his personal life and how it intersects with his creativity, and how all of this was formed by and helped shape the larger world he inhabited in 19th century Britain. I am sure to find out that, though things are radically different in his Britain than they are in 21st century Madison County, NC, many similarities - cultural, economical, creative, etc - also exist. More than that, I would like to find out exact pointers regarding his style, habits, techniques, process, etc.

I also have serious reservations - the biggest one being an inability to come through. Branching off that big one, other little fears crop up when thinking about this project - that I have overshot my mark and that my designs are wildly impractical, that force majeure prevents the completion of this project, that 70% of it will be garbage and not worth looking at, that I will go crazy with the process, that the generous backers will come to seriously regret their generosity, etc - thousands of things. But in the end, as in life, fears must be borne as best one can and brushed aside when the time comes to work.

For today's image I submit a fun portrait our friend and local Appalachian artist, Freddie Henderson, made of me when he found my article in the local paper. Freddie's a cool and talented guy, and has overwhelmed me with wood besides! In particular these cool rounds, cross sections of trees on his property, which I MUST find a way to integrate.

Preparation - hunting & gathering

What have I been up to the past few days since the successful launching of my campaign? On the one hand, tending to other important matters re. life in general and this project in particular - some of that has included what I am coming to share today.

Jim is an inveterate lover of wood. All sorts of wooden objects already exist in our lives - a lot of them interesting shapes not appropriate for the project, but yes useful for one of his projects, homily sticks & ponder panels.

Nevertheless, we have found many panels and other wood objects amid our own stash of 'treasures'. We have also gone on walks through the Ivy River trail and the Laurel River in search of great canvases - we're pretty sure we have enough raw materials to begin our process.

However (as can be seen here) finding wood is only part of the battle!

What remains is the need to

1. clean and de-bug them (yes, nature at work!)


2. cut them down to size


3. sand the actual wood itself


4. gesso them - a process involving gesso, waiting for it to dry, gessoing again, sanding down what's been gessoed, then applying a new layer


Amid discussions with the parties involved, we have decided to prepare 'canvases' on a weekly schedule. My associate for the project thinks he can get 6 of them to me before the beginning of the week, which would allow me to grab them and get to work.

An additional interesting tidbit comes re. the choices for sizes. When I first conceived of this project (and came up with the three prototypes) I was planning on making all of these on small pieces of wood - not much more than 6in x 12in in size. However, as I study the images on the book, I have come to see some of them as requiring a bigger canvas - some of them because they originally were in huge canvases, others because the level of detail demands a bigger surface and, paradoxically, some of them prove so simple and impressionistic that I fear that any artistic merit would be lost in a smallish display.

This image, from around 1840 titled "Sun Setting Over a Lake", shows some of the trademarks of his later work - a translucent use of light and the Impressionistic consciousness that no doubt influenced or informed the work of later Impressionists in France and elsewhere. It measures 35in x 48in, thus is essentially a large piece - but more importantly to me, how to reproduce it on wood without completely losing any pictorial or artistic merit? This is a difficult style to replicate - even more so than the earlier pieces where the pictorial nature of boats and oceans and whatnot carry the piece through.

I feel like a larger canvas would at least lend greater meaning to this piece, as well as a purposefully textured piece of wood - i would gesso and sand it lightly so that some of the shapes would shine through.

This is a fundamental reason for undertaking this project, though... to ask myself these questions from a painterly and historical perspective, to remain faithful to what the artist sought to produce, as well as to find a way to make the pieces compelling in their own right. By asking and answering these questions, through a long-term unrelenting process, I have faith I will find a new relationship with painting in general and this artist (and his many guises) in particular.