Sally Wakelin – Studies in Creativity – Page 72 – Paintings, drawings, sculpture and writing

Sunlight

I am lucky enough to live in a house which is sunlit nearly all day, intensified by mirrors. I noticed this pot of daffodils was being lit from the “wrong” side, from the north, the sunlight was no longer falling on the table but was being reflected back onto the daffodils by a mirror. It gave the room a lovely sense of being lit up from inside.

Later, when the sun had moved round to the back of the house it was much weaker but still made some interesting shadows through the wooden slatted blind on the Spode “Velamour” vase.

Painting in watercolour

Painting

I have long wanted to paint and have made many weak attempts over the years but finally the catalyst for my recent work was a visit to Tate St Ives at Easter. I happened to pick up a leaflet about the Sunday Times watercolour competition and began experimenting.

My initial approach was to think about what had learned about colour, pigment, materials and processes as a former conservator of oil paintings, their origins and uses and behaviour to make some work that was more than just another landscape or still life – of which I have produced many pedestrian examples over the years.

I played about with pure colours, simply exploring the colour and paint, making washes and overlaying, working on wet and dry paper. I had some old watercolour paper (more than 20 years stored under the bed) that seemed to be under-sized and was very absorbent. I liked the way the colour travelled when applied to wet paper and started to form a pattern of actions that resulted in a long series of works.

Langford - watercolour on TH Saunders paper — Langford

Maurice - watercolour on TH Saunders paper — Maurice

I should add that order, geometry and repetition seem to be my instinctive approach to creativity (see my Jewellery Designs)

I am exploring pure colour, to find ways to show its true nature and behaviour in watercolour medium. Only three colours are used, employing juxtaposition, overlay and tone as well as wet and dry paper and re-wetting techniques. Each colour is laid on individually, not mixed.

As a jeweller my work is very much about control, my designs are geometric and ordered, serendipity is a rare and welcome component, usually appearing whilst pushing the limits of the material. This process follows through in this series of paintings. I begin from a precise positioned grid of marks, working on wet and/or dry paper, overlaying in several passes following a strict order whilst allowing accidental or material based irregularities to occur. Colours are applied with droppers and with broad washes laid over dried dots, allowing the colours to soften and run at will.

More Stairs

Architecture, People, Photography

Tate Modern – architects Herzog and de Meuron

Stairs and Escalators

Concealed handrail lighting reflected in the glass-lined wall

I love to see so many people wearing red – there is Energy and a great deal of Processing around the galleries

Stairs

Architecture, Photography

I have no idea where this started but it seems I have a thing about stairs, maybe its the structure – I am drawn to repetion in design, or maybe its the prospect of what might be waiting up there, just out of sight. Architects these days seem to pay more attention to stairs, making them interesting as structures in themselves rather than simply a means of progression between floors.

Davis Chipperfield at The Hepworth in Wakefiel d has used polished concrete, compressed paper and unusual 12.5 degree angles and roof lights bringing daylight in through toplight strips, to create a serene space.

RIBA article

The Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto underwent a redevelopment by architect Frank Gehry in 2004, called Transformation AGO, which succesfully “unites the disparate areas of the building that had become a bit of a “hodgepodge” after six previous expansions dating back to the 1920s”. A delightfully sinuous structure clad in fine grained veneer with concealed lighting, wends its way from top to bottom through the existing Classical style building, with views within the galleries as well as the Toronto skyline.

A visit to in Paris, a friend’s house – a converted greengrocer’s shop, a simple wrought iron bannister on the steep concrete steps made by the local blacksmith compared to its counterpart in the corridor, leading to the separate apartment upstairs. Parisian domestic stairwells always seem to squeeze in a lightwell however narrow the space.

An escalator rather than a stairway on the outside of the Centre Pompidou is a lit by a continous flow from red through orange, green and purple lighting.

The Tour Eiffel being painted during its construction in the late 1880’s, the painter seemingy quite at home on these “stairs” Photo by Marc Riboud

The grand entrance Pyramide du Louvre designed by the architect I. M. Pei – again an escalator not a staircase as such but with echoes of Eiffel’s ironwork in the modern lightweight metal structure supporting the glass pyramid.