The Opposite of Tomato: photorealism

Showing posts with label photorealism. Show all posts

Friday, March 06, 2020

Half an Update...

The recent absence of blog updates does not mean hands have been idle by any means, and the drawings for the Seventies project have continued at a regular pace as will now be illustrated.

First of all, and continuing with the Northern theme that had been developing within the project, a double portrait drawing - also incidentally incorporating a still life element - from a source image that nostalgically recalls the early evening local television news programme that was broadcast into our homes in the north east corner of Wales, courtesy of the transmitters that brought us Granada TV rather than its Welsh equivalent (for which we required a special aerial adaptor that still proved unreliable). Thus are depicted two of the presenting team of ‘Granada Reports’ in its mid-1970s’ heyday, a young Tony Wilson as apprentice to the legend that was and remains Bob Greaves, with all fashions of the day on display.

Tony Wilson and Bob Greaves, 'Granada Reports' 1970s

graphite and putty eraser on 'Seawhite' cartridge paper/42 x 30cm

Next, the hip, young cultural gunslinger Tony Wilson is his other contemporary television presenting guise as more casually-attired host of ‘So It Goes’, introducing new music to the north west region, including a selection of the punk and post-punk bands from Manchester and environs that had been formed and developed in the wake of the Sex Pistols’ legendary appearances in the city in 1976. As ‘So It Goes’ fell victim to a notorious appearance by Iggy Pop at the conclusion of its second series, so Tony Wilson’s dissemination of the new sounds found other outlets, within ‘Granada Reports’ and also, of course, with the founding of Factory Records, both of which came to feature Joy Division as they grew and became such an icon of the time and place, and proceeded to transcend both as they remain synonymous with.

Tony Wilson, 'So It Goes'

graphite and putty eraser on 'Seawhite' cartridge paper/42 x 30cm

The recently-published volume of Paul Slattery’s photographic record of Joy Division at Strawberry Studios and around the town of Stockport on 28th July, 1979, features the source image for this drawing on its cover. ‘Here are the young men’ indeed, but creating some of the most powerful and resonant music of the era. If I’m absolutely honest, I didn’t acquire my first Joy Division record, the ‘Transmission’/’Novelty’ 7” single, until the February of 1980, after which obsession took hold, but the seeds of my devotion to them had undoubtedly been sown in my soul during the previous autumn, via the auspices of the John Peel radio programme (of course), so their inclusion in the project is entirely appropriate.

Joy Division after a Paul Slattery photograph

graphite and putty eraser on 'Seawhite' cartridge paper/42 x 30cm

More musicians pictured standing (and squatting) around can be found on the cover of The Stranglers’ (my very favourite group of the time) ‘Black and White’ LP, and this image, along with the band’s iconic logo, that I would have drawn/copied often then, forms the content of the next drawing which, in effect, illustrates one of the three music albums that I received as presents for Christmas 1979 (so we’re really pushing at the limits of the Seventies here!).

The Stranglers 'Black and White'

graphite and putty eraser on 'Seawhite' cartridge paper/30 x 42cm

The others were Public Image Ltd’s ‘Metal Box’, originally released as a collection of three 12” vinyl EPs contained within a tin canister (as very sadly I no longer own this object of desire, the substitute utilised as the model for this still life is in fact the reduced-circumstances and feeble impostor CD-sized version of the can, but I’d like to feel the spirit of the original can be inferred from the representation) - I have blogged about this on a previous occasion - and The Clash’s masterpiece double LP, ‘London Calling’, the front cover of which is faithfully reproduced in pencil here. In time, one learnt of the genesis of the latter artefact’s design, by Ray Lowry, in the artwork accompanying Elvis Presley’s debut album, and of such concepts and practices as artistic influence and postmodern ‘appropriation’, but I’m sure that wasn’t of particular concern to my 1979 self!

'Metal Box'

graphite and putty eraser on 'Seawhite' cartridge paper/42 x 30cm

The Clash 'London Calling' LP sleeve (front)

graphite and putty eraser on 'Seawhite' cartridge paper/42 x 30cm

Friday, November 22, 2019

Sounds (a bit) Like...

'Gabrielle Drake and Kelly Monteith'

graphite and putty eraser on Seawhite cartridge paper/42 x 30cm (A3)

Continuing the Seventies project and particularly the drawing aspect of, upon which I most definitely seem to be concentrating, quiet a pleasurable turn of events after largely neglecting this area of practice over the last 3 - 4 years in favour of oil painting.
The subject on this occasion represents what might be considered a curious byway but one that nonetheless forms a distinct recollection from the decade, at its cusp with the following one, and which came to mind from a tenuous word-association with a recently-featured figure. From Kenny Dalglish, the name of Kelly Monteith suggested itself, dredged-up from the idiosyncratic reserves of the memory bank and it is the latter personage who is represented as the right-hand aspect of this double portrait, his female companion being the actress Gabrielle Drake, publicising as they would be in the original photograph from which the drawing was processed the BBC TV series ‘The Kelly Monteith Show’, which was first broadcast in 1979. Kelly Monteith was (is) an American comedian who first appeared on UK screens as a guest on the ‘Des O’Connor Show’, wise-cracking his way through a short stand-up routine, before progressing to playing a fictionalised version of himself, an American comedian living in London, sharing a home with his wife Suzanne (Drake), in the eponymous sitcom, flickering briefly across the British consciousness (or some of ours, at least) before disappearing, in the early Eighties, wherever. I do seem to recall something about the show featuring Monteith addressing the audience directly during the course of the programme, as an observer-commentator of/on the narrative, and although this could have been during stand-up segments of any given episode, research seems to suggest that there was an element of ‘fourth wall’-acknowledging to the production that might well have granted a certain ground-breaking aspect to it. A curiosity all-told, but clearly something registered sufficiently for the name at least to have lodged. At the time, of course, I would have had no idea that Gabrielle Drake had had a brother, Nick, who had passed away five years before her co-starring role in the Monteith show and whose music I would come to discover in the later Eighties and love ever since, or, indeed, did not realise that she had featured as a character in numerous episodes of one of my favourite television shows from the beginning of the 1970s, Gerry Anderson’s ‘UFO’...

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Back in Time

The Seventies project continues here with a slight deviation from its course (which is pretty random!) to take into account a suitable period image of a subject who has ‘enjoyed’ recent topicality. Here is represented Neil Warnock – who last Monday mutually agreed to part ways with his most recent employer – as pictured some time between February 1972 and March 1975, when his football playing career took him to Scunthorpe United ( also the first club of recent subject Kevin Keegan) and long before he came to resemble Mrs Doubtfire: note the hairstyle as being particularly du jour.

‘Neil Warnock, Scunthorpe United (c. 1972 – 75)’

graphite and putty eraser on cartridge paper/30 x 21cm (A4)

Monday, November 18, 2019

Kenny Killed Us...

As mentioned at the conclusion of the previous entry, Kevin Keegan‘s replacement in the Liverpool FC team for the 1977-78 football season was Kenny Dalglish, on whose purchase the club didn’t stint in their pursuit of continued success, as might be gleaned from this portrait published within the pages of the match programme for the Wrexham v Liverpool Football League Cup quarter-final tie played at the Racecourse Ground on Tuesday, 17th January 1978.

This was a match at which I was fortunate to be present, a big occasion and distinct memory in a season of much excitement and great days/nights at Wrexham that season, competing that evening against the reigning domestic and European club champions. Alas, Liverpool and Kenny Dalglish in particular, were to poop Wrexham’s giant-killing party by inflicting a 3 – 1 defeat not least courtesy of Dalglish scoring all three of his team’s goals, and here the Seventies project continues with a representation of the man celebrating one of his hat-trick during the course of the 90 minutes of the match. As Liverpool supporter John Peel‘s favourite player of the era, there’s thus a link between this and a previous subject to be featured in the project. As also mentioned before, Youtube footage of the highlights of the match and the damage done by Dalglish, is available).

‘Kenny Dalglish, Wrexham v Liverpool, 16/01/78’

Graphite and putty eraser on Seawhite cartidge paper/42 x 30cm (A3)

A tangible souvenir of the occasion, a portal to a variety of memories, here’s an image of the front cover of the match programme and also the rear, featuring the team line-ups, both full of fine players: if only Dixie McNeil, goalscorer par excellence, hadn’t been cup-tied and thus unavailable to represent Wrexham, though…(we can still dream of what might have been).

Monday, January 08, 2018

Photorealism #5: Richard E Grant

‘Richard E Grant After a Photograph’

oil on canvas/20″ x 16″/December 2017

Continuing with the photorealist portrait ‘project’, this painting in fact being completed prior to Christmas, the image subject here is a monochrome representation of a print of a photograph of the actor and perfumier Richard E Grant, whose Instagram feeds are closely followed around these parts in addition to the enjoyment gained from his acting performances.

Again, the technical approach is intended to foreground a painterly surface, keeping things pretty loose, whilst at the same time attempting to capture a certain expression.

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Photorealism #4: Mr Cave Again

Continuing with the recent series of photorealist portraits, and having another source image featuring Nick Cave amongst the available model stock, this one with a few more years on the subject’s visage, thus the painting process proceeded to a point of resolution, again soundtracked by the many wonders of the Bad Seeds’ back catalogue.

The source image seemed to offer the possibilities of a more expansive mark-making approach than the previous example, thereby resulting in what I’d consider to be a more satisfying painting experience and result, although, regarding the latter, that underlying dread doubt always nibbles away, of course.

‘Nick Cave After a Photograph #2’

oil on canvas/20″ x 16″/December 2017

Pictured below is the painting adjacent to the source from which it was produced, the actual working environment…

And also, in an amusing juxtaposition, one of those serendipitous moments, with the first Nick Cave portrait in the background, at its shoulder (it’s just something about the pose and expression of the latter)…

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Photorealism #3: Tove Jansson

Continuing with what seems to have become the project (of sorts) of painting from photographic sources, the latest product on/off the easel features an image of the artist and author Tove Jansson, another of the favoured cultural icons around these parts.

Again, the emphasis is primarily on the process, the materiality of the paint and its mark-making properties, the rendering of tone and tonal transitions, but the image-content, and some form of faithfulness to and resolution of, is of course ever-present.

'Tove Jansson After a Photograph'

oil on canvas/20" x 16"/November 2017

Thursday, October 26, 2017

'Big Sam': A Conclusion

The luxury of four painting sessions over an extended weekend allowed the Samuel Beckett photorealist ‘portrait’, after a print of Jane Bown‘s original photograph, to arrive at some form of resolution, presented here below upon the easel in a state of repose and in various details.

Although I’d previously spent a couple of years, individually, on drawing-from-photographic-source projects (please refer to the 2008 and 2014 (actually March ’14 – February ’15) archives of TOoT), developing technique between, I’d not worked in oil on canvas and on such a scale in such a manner (although the recentish series of ‘woodscapes’ referred to compositional photos in support of other empirical sources) – obviously there are many different stylistic precedents that one is aware of (even, to take such as Gerhard Richter or Chuck Close for example, within the work of a particular artist) and it became very much a matter of working towards interpreting the source image in a way that had integrity as ‘painterly material’ (and technique) for want of a better phrase, achieving that balance between painted mark as painted mark and a certain fidelity to the source as image, the former as ‘actively contemplated’ response to the latter, of course.

‘Samuel Beckett After Jane Bown Photograph’

oil on canvas/40″ x 30″/October 2017

[detail]

Finally, here’s the painting in position as it was ‘processed’, alongside the source image.

Thursday, October 19, 2017

An Update

The Samuel Beckett portrait (see previous entry) in its current state after a long session’s painting on Saturday afternoon and another hour on Tuesday morning: a long way still to go before any form of resolution is reached, and the scope/need for many a revision along that way.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Slow Painting A-Coming...

‘Samuel Beckett’ oil on canvas/40″ x 30″ (in progress)

Currently, I’m attempting something in paint that I’ve not done previously, in transposing a photograph – and an iconic one, at that – in oils on a large scale, in response to what we shall term a domestic commission. The challenge, to begin, has proved itself to be exactly how one might go about such an endeavour, with a few false starts thrown in, before things have started to make some sort of visual sense and progress is being made, albeit in stately fashion.

The starting point, the subject, is of course a print (A3 and squared-up to be drawn on to the canvas) of Jane Bown’s famous and rather wonderful portrait of Samuel Beckett, taken in 1976 when Beckett would have been seventy years of age, delightfully craggily expressive of features. The good thing about such an enlarging is that it allows a freedom with the application of the paint, to make of a mechanical photographic print something hand-made and painterly – whether the result in any way does justice to the original and subject will be another matter.

In an act of what might be termed ‘method painting’, I’m currently reading Beckett’s novel ‘Molloy’ and will soon be taking up ‘Malone Dies’ in order to in some way ‘inhabit’ the author/subject and the world he creates – that this experience is a pleasurable one only enhances to the experience, the creative process.