Lady bird books and Grayson Perry

The theme of fairy tales has been investigated and painted by many artists including Paula Rego. Her prints show a darker and sinister view of the traditional fairy tales and rhymes, and they are indeed often horror stories. Fairy stories are dark and are often told to children to keep them in line . The natural imagination of a child will happily ingest the stories and imagery however dark they may be. When I was a child I did not consider the stories of Hansel and Gretal and Little Red Riding Hood for example, to be horrific . I loved the fairy stories it is only as I have become older that I realise that they were actually quite horrific.

For my painting I want to create a more nostalgic and wistful feel, that is reminiscent of the feelings and imagination of my own childhood. I want to try and capture a softness and dreamy appearance.

My research has lead me to look at some books from my own childhood. The ones that I remember with the most nostalgia are the Ladybird books. The illustrations and paintings in these books, although they are quite dated they are exactly the kind of style that I am interested in for this project. It reminds me of my childhood when I would read these fairy tales and stories, the pictures just remind of a certain time in my life which has long gone .

In researching some of the artists who created the book illustrations , I have found many of them have been trained at the RCA and taught by the artist Bomberg.

The artist CF Tunnicliffe who is an accomplished wildlife and landscape artist is among the artists who created works for Ladybird.

Another artist who is much more contemporary, that I particularly like the works of is, Grayson Perry. He is a ceramacist but the motifs and drawings on his pots are very contraversial. He has responded to his own life by creating stories on his pots, tackling overtly sexual fetishes to transvestism. It may seem a strange connection at first between his works and the works of artists in the Ladybird books. But to me the connection is about nostalgia. His work is very much based upon his own memories and he tackles issues that are shocking and possibly distateful to a lot of people but the way that they are painted onto the pots they come across as nostalgic ,and pretty even if the images themselves are most definately not . The particular images that I am referring to for this project, are a couple of pots that he produced in the mid nineties and early 2000 . The first pot is called Plight of the Sensitive Child (2003). Perry quotes,

"This pot shows a London landscape around the North Circular.Its about the way we sentimentalize children on the one hand and demonize them on the other. Its about the horrors of growing up and how if you have any kind of sensitivity, peer pressure is a horrible thing that will beat it out of you."(p92)

The images show idyllic little girls dressed up in pretty dresses doing things that every parent fears there child will get up to. Drug taking, stealing cars and and killing each other.

The second pot is called Peasants with Fridge Freezers (1995)

This pot is based upon what was happening during the nineties in Yugoslavia. Perry was listening to a news report that was trying to draw attention to the fact that the people who were massacring each other were in fact Europeans like us, who came from homes with fridge freezers. As if the fridge freezer was a symbol of our civilised society and cultures. It was an analogy that was supposed to draw parallels with our lives and the lives of the people In Yugoslavia who were murdering their own neighbours, just because they believed in different things. (p.74)

The background of the pot is covered in the motifs of the 20th Century. Macdonalds, Coca Cola , Walkers and Marlboro. That places us very much in the now .

These different approaches to aspects of childhood are interesting and influential in my own work ,for this particular project , both in style and concept .

Throughout this course I have found myself being drawn towards investigating themes that are dreamlike and of the the imagination. Inspired by artists such as Redon and Chagall I am keen on portraying the dreamlike themes of the imagination. So for this final painting I have decided to paint a scene inspired by fairy tales. Thus returning to my original ideas , I often find that I go full circle with my ideas, after a time of investigating and experimenting with many ideas I find myself returning to the original one, with a bit of a twist to it.

The above drawing and colour study are a couple of ideas for the composition of the study.

Ideas for my second childhood painting

Again for this painting I have a lot of ideas and it is a case of working through them all and getting a clear idea of what message I want to portray.

I am at the moment thinking along themes of childhood imagination again. I have touched upom this idea previously and I think that it is an interesting theme to use. I have some studies that I have previously posted , that I am going to revisit and maybe rework.

I have always loved the way little children manage to lose themselves so completely when they play make believe games and dressing up.

In these studies I have used my son as the model .When he was younger he used to dress himself up in anything that was to hand, a wooden spoon would become a weapon, and a kitchen colander would become a helmet.

I have experimented again with lifting images and collaging them into the image. Both the images have a political message of war and imperialism. It seeks to portray the contrast of the innocent childhood games of soldiers, with the real life war that that children who grow up to become soldiers.

Its a serious piece and I am in two minds still as to what direction I want to go . I am also still interested in the investigation of fairy tales.

finished painting

This is the finished painting . I have played around with the size and final positioning of the child. This was quite tricky actually, because although I wanted the child to be a major focal point, at the same time I wanted to be able to convey the feeling of smallness and vulnerability of a small child in a grown up world. To help overcome this I have painted in a path to lead the eye from the child into the tower blocks and fencing.

The painting has been inspired by the ideas of a Paula Rego and Nancy Spero. I feel both artists work are narrative and although their styles are very different, they have an underlying message which the viewer can decide upon, and it is left up to the viewer to make their own interpretations.

In this painting I feel there are many messages. To me its about the increasing detachment that children have to the natural world, and how much they miss out on natural beauty when the emphasis seems to be on the destruction of the natural environment . Its also about the loneliness within a huge city, and the smallness of a child, and the natural curiosity and wonder of a child over a small wild flower which has managed to grow and survive despite the environment that it is growing in. It could be interpreted as strength in the face of adversity.

Its not so much a realistic interpretation so therefore I have tried to manipulate the fencing and buildings so that they loom over the child to help create an almost sinister space, whilst the foreground with the child and bright flower add a sense of hope to the place....

I decided to use texture as it helped to break up the colours and added further interest to the foreground . The tower blocks were originally collaged on using newspaper, which actually wasn't as successful as I originally hoped as the image was not dark enough, in this event the newsprint was lost underneath the layers of paint. You can just about see it in places, which I think adds a bit more interest to the image.

I am aware that throughout this painting I have chopped and changed my ideas and the thinking throughout, and although it is good to have lots of ideas to work with it can be a little confusing to fine tune the final idea into a finished painting. I also feel that I have got a wealth of ideas and sketches that could well be used for a further investigation at a later time.

For my second painting I think I would like to investigate a different aspect on childhood.

I think this is kind of what I am after for the foreground , a rough texture which will help add further interest to the foreground. This is tissue paper which has been rough ly stuck down, Then I have added texture paste and pulled a pallette knife through it and into it which created ridges. When this has dried the paint and inks can be added . The raised edges have been further accentuated by pulling a pastel gently over the top of it.

childhood further colour studies.

I have scanned the original colour study into photoshop and this allows me to experiment further with colour schemes. The red overtones to the third image gives the image an overall warm feel and makes me think of a hot sun drenched late afternoon . Its quite an interesting pallette, the only thing that dissuades me is the warm reds and oranges give a comforting feel which is not what I want to portray. It is clear that I need to consider the pallette carefully for this painting.

I think the most successful colour scheme is using the blues as it lends itself to a somewhat more dour atmosphere . The use of orange coloured highlights help to further accentuate the light. I think also at this point I need to experiment with texturising the foreground. .

The overall painting I want to be painted with a freshness and a vitality which is something my preliminary work often has, but the final piece often lacks it due to my overworking the image.

Paula Rego - Telling Tales [Excerpt 1]