Layering, Painting, and Researching Onya McCausland.

I have been working on a slightly smaller scale this week in order to trial some ideas before scaling them up.

I painted two small stretched pieces using my pigments from Loe Bar, further exploring the method of a location work sans frottage, beginning the painting process with no prior structure to build upon. ‘Loe Bar 3’, the first completed of these two pieces is the more successful.

'Loe Bar 3'

This piece is very minimal in its representation of a landscape, though despite this it seems to work, the white strip of raw canvas across the middle of the piece almost divides the ‘land’ and ‘sky’ or ‘sea’ and ‘sky’ a viewer may interpret from the image. I see this piece as a simplistic, abstract depiction of a beach, taking inspiration from the pigments’ source location, Loe Bar beach, Porthleven. The perceptible broad brush strokes add to this minimalistic affect and give a certain degree of motion to the piece, as if the viewer can see the paint being swept across the canvas, perhaps like the wind caught in the waves, or blowing the sand.

'Loe Bar 4'

The second of these small paintings ‘Loe Bar 4’ is slightly less effective in its outcome, however I do still see landscape inspiration in this piece, though in a somewhat chaotic way: there are lots of brush strokes and lines in opposing directions, blurring into one another, again creating an element of motion though it does not work as well as in ‘Loe Bar 3’. The landscape this piece inspires is more of an inland scene of rolling hills or moorland, though potentially, in line with its source location (Loe Bar), it could be a portrayal of sand dunes or the slightly hilly route down to the beach at Loe Bar. There is not a straightforward way for me to make this piece less chaotic so for the time being I plan to let it remain as an experiment to learn from in future paintings.

Some other small-scale ideas I have been experimenting with this week were based around Swanpool beach/rocks as a location, using layering to explore depth and interaction between layers in my work, inspired by collage. For these layering pieces I walked to Swanpool beach along the coast path and then completed rubbings on muslin fabric with graphite and drawings on calico in charcoal and pencil as well as taking photos throughout the journey. The drawings were to be stretched with the rubbings on muslin stretched over the top of the drawings as the muslin is translucent, so the drawings are subtly visible from beneath the rubbings, creating a layered effect.

The first of these two, ‘Swanpool Layered 1’ did give an interesting outcome, however the drawing on calico was not very visible beneath the muslin, this may’ve been due to the marks not being bold enough or the muslin being denser than expected. Though positively, this technique did give a much more textured appearance than my previous single layered paintings. The fact that the drawings are not very obvious requires the viewer to take a closer look after noticing that there is something below the surface, despite it not being clear it is a drawing.

'Swanpool Layered 1'

'Swanpool Layered 1' detail

I did like the subtlety of this piece, however I had intended to make a more explicitly layered drawing piece, so for my second of these works, ‘Swanpool Layered 2’, I used a different approach to layering, one more inspired by collage. I again stretched the calico drawing (which this time included some rock pigment paint from Swanpool) then instead of simply stretching the muslin as it is, I cut it into wide strips then stretched two overlapping strips over the left side of the canvas. This enabled me to demonstrate the layering effect of drawings (slightly) visible beneath rubbings, whilst also ensuring that the main drawing/painting remains a clear part of the piece as a whole. The muslin strips work well to emphasise this layering effect, hinting at rock strata too.

'Swanpool Layered 2'

I will take this idea of a semi layered, stretched piece forward and create a larger version, though the piece will contain frottage and drawings from multiple locations. I will walk along the South West Coast Path from Gyllyngvase beach to Durgan beach, stopping at Swanpool, Swanpool headland and Maenporth beach to complete frottage pieces and sketches on muslin and calico. The outcome of this will be a horizontal landscape collage-like piece following my journey along the coast path with the rubbings and drawings. I will collect more rubbings/drawings than I will use for just this piece for use in future pieces, potentially in a similar vein depending on the outcome of this work. I will also collect rocks and natural material to make into pigment for future works.

I attended a talk by Onya McCausland this week, an artist and researcher who repurposes natural ochre produced as a waste product from coal mine water treatment, using it as a pigment to create minimal, often geometric paintings. I also visited her exhibition at Anima-Mundi in St Ives the day after the talk to view her works in person and gain a deeper understanding of her practice. A focus on location is something both McCausland and I have in common, McCausland’s most recent body of work (shown in her solo show) is separated into four sections, each section containing works using pigment from a different mine water treatment scheme, the pigments named after the location of the disused mine.

Some 'Deerplay Hill' pieces

I jotted down some thoughts whilst sitting on the top floor of Anima-Mundi amongst McCausland’s Deerplay Hill pieces, including how her larger works had an overwhelming presence in the room, almost swallowing the viewer in a manner similar to a Rothko painting. The whole exhibition felt like a spiritual experience – whether that was in relation to their immersivity, the silence and tranquillity of being the only visitor in the gallery, or having finally found an active artist whose work resonated so deeply with me, that going to view her work in person was almost like a pilgrimage of sorts.

Deerplay Hill No. 23

There is a luminous, almost glowing quality to these works of McCausland’s, the translucency of the colours allowing the light to almost penetrate through each layer, making more and more hues visible the closer the viewer looks at the painting. This is explicit in the Deerplay Hill piece included above, as the contrast in the hues of ochre in the piece is so huge the layering and luminosity of the pigment is emphasised in comparison to the subtler differences in the tones of the rest of her Deerplay Hill pieces.

From McCausland’s work I will take influence from her use of layering and apply this technique to my own work to give it a greater depth, potentially attempting to create an oil paint from my natural pigments to experience the fluidity oil provides when layering over not-quite-dry paint. I will also experiment by using gesso to prime my canvas before painting to see whether this has an effect on the quality of my paintings. I will also try out her technique of placing paper in a tray of water before scattering pigment powder on top and leaving it over night for the pigment to settle onto the paper, creating work inspired by her softer Cuthill pieces.

'Saltburn' pigment painting and painted wall

Close up of Cuthill pigment

Cuthill mine abondonment plan held down by oil shale rocks from the site