movement using papercuts

I have been trying to think of many different ways to try and convey movement. I have always admired the simplicity of Matisse s paintings, and in his later years, his papercuts. I thought it would be an idea to try and reproduce a cartwheel using a simple papercut of a figure, sequenced into the movement of a cartwheel. I have only experimented with this in my sketch book so far, but I think that it would look quite effective if it was done on a bigger scale. I have so many ideas for this project, some are better than others, but its good to experiment and each idea leads on to another.

movement: digital experiments in the style of Bridget Riley

Hesitate Bridget Riley 1964 Oil on canvas. Tate.






I have also been looking at the works of Bridget Riley, and have attempted to try and get a feeling of movement using completely non representational line and colour and just concentrating on pattern. I have used photoshop to do this as it is important to be almost mathematically accurate in the composition, and I am not sure that is personally something I would wish to do in paint. But by experimenting digitally I have had the chance to try out different shape and form to convey movement in a completely non representational form.

movement

I have taken a series of photos of my son spinning round and merged them together to try and get a similar image to Muybridge and his moving figures. And then another series of photos of clapping hands again merged together. From one of these images I am going to try and compose a painting of movement using the style of the Futurists as a springboard for my own version.

movement

Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, Balla.G and Rhythm of a Violinist, Balla.G 1912
This project has led me to look at a lot of different artists and art movements and how they have managed to depict movement.The first group I researched were the Italian group, the Futurists and their english contemporaries, the Vorticists. The whole movement was about industrialisation and the depiction of speed.
The painting of movement however remained a problem, to solve it, they were interested in photography, particularly the x ray which would see through the opaque bodies and would look very much like the Cubists transparency and overlap. But it was also the primitive cinematography and the sequential photographs which had been taken in the 1880's by Muybridge and Marey. These images show the successive movements of a figure.
The inspiration of cinematography is particularly evident in the above images, depicting the speed and movement of a dog on a leash and a violinist.

Day of Doom

The painting by Carel Weight, the Day of Doom. I really like this painting it is full of movement and drama and he has really managed to capture the fear and tension in the painting with his bold use of colour and almost claustrophobic composition.
When he painted this he recalled the time when he was at his most fearful when he witnessed a housefire and set about recreating the high tension.
This painting is an expression of all the fears and atmosphere under the threat of the atom bomb and the beginning of the cold war.His figures are painted from memory and they all give the impression of movement and high tension. The street setting is of places in South London where he lived and similar to Stanley Spencer he used the everyday places where he lived to recreate drama and personal stories.

David Hockney

The Room - Manchester St. 1967 acrylic on canvas, Private collection.

David Hockney's early art training concentrated primarily on drawing skills and he held a great respect for close observation from life. However having discovered different approaches to painting, he became inspired by the work of the Abstract Expressionists and experimented for a while in a similar style.
He felt that traditional figurative work was old fashioned, but at the same time he felt the need for recognisable imagery in his own paintings and eventually rejected the extreme of abstract formalism.Throughout his career he has experimented with numerous styles and his figurative paintings are diverse in style and content.

I think that some of his paintings seem to have some similarities to the work of Edward Hopper, in the way that they both manage to capture atmosphere and the objects that are included in the painting tell a story about the figure.
In the painting, The Room-Manchester St. Hockney has treated with precision the blinds and the subdued lighting to create the mood and atmosphere. Everything within the painting is painted with the same amount of importance as the figure and the figure is fully intergrated in its environment, which provides a narrative for the whole painting.

moving figures

watercolour sketch.

For the next project, Moving Figures I have decided to try a different approach to my previous figure painting. The subjects I have chosen to paint are much more personal to me, my children. My younger son is visually impaired and uses a cane I wasn't sure whether this was something that I wanted to necessarily include in my painting, but as I painted them both running, (My daughter is his sighted guide) I decided to include his cane as it is part of him and it aids his movement. This does kind of make it more of a personal painting to me, this is expressed in the much more expressive brushstrokes,and gives the painting the required feeling of movement and freedom.
It has taken a long time to work on and I have struggled with getting the shadows and the depth into the painting I am wanting to try and capture the hazy distance through the trees and get the light.
Figure painting to me is not the easiest thing to paint, the slightest thing that is out of proportion is much more obvious and the smallest mistake in the posture can throw the whole body out. So although I am slightly nervous of painting the figure it is good practice, as if it was down to me I would probably avoid it and that doesn't make for a good artist and after all practice makes perfect.
The bits of the painting that I am happy with is the way I have managed to paint them running out of the picture plane and I think I have managed to capture the movement, to me it is a happy painting and I hope I have managed to portray this to the viewer as well.

My research for Figures in an Interior has led me to look at various artists,and amongst many, David Hockney was quite inspirational to me. Although he has practised in many styles, for this project I was particularly interested in his portrayal of his figures paintings of the late sixties and seventies.
He has paid great attention to detail of both his figures and the interior setting, and he has managed to integrate the figure within their environment thereby creating an ambience of the place and the way of life of the person or persons being painted.
I believe that Hockney has an interest in photography and would often use the photo as a reference to his work. For my piece however I have decided to resist and I have tried to create a painting purely by sketches and memory. Not because I think that its a bad thing to use photos as reference, but because I wanted to use this as an exercise to see how much I could achieve just from sketches.
At the moment my downfall in using photos as reference can often lead me to paint a bit too tight and this is something that I really want to avoid.