Day 1 28 Drawings Later, 2014

Here we are again.

For the first day of the 28 Drawing Later Challenge I though I'd draw me so I would be eaasy to identify.

This year I am working on a big project, based around people exploring aspects of themselves through clothing and props.

On Thursday I had a rumage around in the prop box and found this jester's hat that I had made from paper, and thought being a joker would be a rather fun thing to be - and hopefully be entertaining for the rest of you. Originally this was only to be for today's drawing, but I think that this may well make a good painting - perhaps with some else posing, though, we'll see. (Although, yes, I know it isn't a brilliant likeness - the jaw line is wrong, amongst other stuff.)

Anyway, hope you like it and good luck with your own drawing - you are all taking part, aren't you?

Paused

Is this photograph too dark?

This morning on my laptop it seemed fine - but now, on a different computer, it looks far too dark. This sis a problem I have had before - and as I use my laptop for most image manipulation etc it is important for me to work out. For example, I find the image shown on the camera itself is often too small to judge, so I take the laptop too, download an image or two, and adjust from there.

The worry is that doing this makes all my images too dark - reference material, publicity shots (ha! as if!) as well as the photographs of the paintings that I take. Although I do try and get most of my work professionally photographed these days, there are always some that slip through the net . . . or there isn't the time before a competition deadline.

What do you guys think?

Recent Paintings by Jane Gardiner

My most recent paintings - properly photographed by Lighthouse Photographics.

Self Portrait at 38 - Winter

Reflection - Self Portrait

In The Louvre

University Blue

The Guard Chair

The Ghost Mirror

A days painting - and there are still little touches to do, thin lines etcetera which will have to wait for the paint to dry again.

But it is very close to done and once again not quite what I wanted. Why not will niggle and niggle at me until I find an answer - probably in a future painting. Guess that's what keeps us going - if I could paint the perfect painting, would I stop?

Before I went I knew I'd be tacking photographs for reference, but did not expect Enki Bilal's The Ghosts of the Louvre exhibition.

The Louvre's ghosts seem particularly near to me, too. Odd, when I live in building that is over a hundred years old. But something about the building as well as the objects now on display brings to mind all those past lives. D'Artagnan, Napoleon, royalty, revolutionaries and artists (amongst others) have all walked these same stairs and maybe paused to look in this mirror. Even film makers have been here, with Goddard setting his threesome runnning through the place in Bande a Part. We could spend all day summarising the works of fiction set at least partially in the place. The list of famous people that have visited is even longer . . .

Some of the ghosts are of the makers rather than visitors - Leonardo coming to die, bringing with him what would become the most famous of all paintings. Rubens painting incredibly skillful and rather boring wallpaper for Marie de Medici. Gericault's frustration at the (initial) rejection of the Raft of the Medusa, echoed later with the Impressionists and Manet's Olympia. Degas drawing Mary Cassatt looking at the works. For some reason I feel the friendly presence of all the creators here more than in other gallery I've been in - maybe partly because I know that most of them would also have stood and admired other's work in much the same place and manner as I do.

And then there is the ghost of me. When I was thirteen and first visited the place, probably as bored as the teenagers lurking around the Nike are today. Sixteen, appreciating both the art and the foreign totty. A big jump to mid twenties and just beginning to awaken again to art making. A couple of years ago, just having started using oils, and eager to see what is possible. Now, when I am more focused in my appreciation and thinking about creating art of my own out of the place.

And so it goes on.

Photographing Paintings (Badly)

A little demonstration of how much photography of art work matters.

The first image I photographed yesterday, looked at it afterwards and decided to change the hairline on the left and the corner of my eye on the right a little bit - which I duly did, then re-photographed today. Nothing else changed.

Some of the difference in colour will be becasue the paint has "sunk" a little but most of it is the photography.

Why is this important? Because most artworks these days are seen by more people online than in real life. So much is therefore missed. Professional photography does make a big difference - but having just been in Paris I can see what is missed from the paintings in Google Art Project, for example. Don't get me wrong - Google Art Project (and the increased availability of images online) is a wonderful thing, better than books which fade or (to go back in time far enough) engravings after the original.

But I worry a little that work that reads well online and photographs easily will push out work that depends more on subtle contrasts. Possibly a needless worry, since everybody is struggling anyway. Also possibly a good thing - things must change, after all. But more open competitions are depending on online submission. This may be a good thing, allowing folks like me who don't live in London a better shot. We'll see.

One Eyed Jane - WIP

Remember my first post this month? Well, I did some more wrk on it, then hated it. The left eye was wonky. So, after fiddling and fiddling and getting no-where, I decided to paint it out and start again.

Teachers do say that one of the secrets of painting is being brave enough to destroy. Sometimes whole paintings, but the more I paint, the more often it is one section that gets the chop. Or the colours are changed, the background tone altered, stuff painted out or in . . . it is rare for me not to make some kind of fairly big change at some point.

Anyway, this is today's effort - the eye repainted, background lightened and made bluer, hair softened, and pretty much everything re-done. Then after the photo I think i did a little more and still don't think it's done yet.

Now it moves into the hall, for me to pass several times a day. Hopefully in a few days I will realise what it is that is bothering me (apart from bits of the hair, that is!). When will it be done? When I don't have that niggle anymore.