DRAWINGS & PAINTINGS: September Edition

Reece Bell
2 days ago
3 min read

September Reflections

All my life, us British have complained about the weather. We point to it’s unpredictability, timing of the seasons, some seasons going missing altogether and it always being wetter, hotter, colder than we had every right to expect. Most of my day time is spent indoors so I’m not much affected by these changes because my studio is a haven of predictability. Much of my understanding of the drama and enjoyment of climatic events is derived from images, painted or photographic. It’s interesting to note that weather as a subject is nowhere near as prevalent in painting as it was in the 18th and 19th centuries. Think of Turner, Constable, Dutch marine painting and many impressionist works. The obvious mythic possibilities and dramatic uses as narrative backgrounds help Romantic painters get across the sense of us being in an all- powerful ambience.

And there’s me, away from all that, unaffected until I get home to my wife moaning about the rain, or lack of it, and for which by some strange logic she manages to blame me.

Much of my work involves interiors but the Caprice series demands some reference to weather as the background. Most of that comes from calm and sunny holiday photos since I don’t want the environment to be obtrusive to the action, but a support to it.

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Here's some images of what I'm working on

New This Month

Revisiting the private worlds

As a reminder, my book Drawings collects examples from throughout my career, from early sketches to anatomical studies, still lifes, self-portraits, studies for later paintings and sketchbook pages, many appearing in print for the first time.

It also includes an introductory essay where I discuss the theory, practice and uses of drawing today — offering insight into how I approach my work and the way I think about seeing and recording the world.

Buy Your Copy Here

Studio Insight: The Subject of Light

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A visual ramble or, dithering your way to a painting.

I did a sketch from life of a model (Sarah) with jeans and trainers sitting on folds of fabric, looking away because I didn’t want to have to deal with any facial features (fig 1.). It was a long (3 hour with breaks) session and I was reasonably happy with the result. A couple of days later I decided to take it a bit further and finish it, since I’d taken photos and drawings(fig 2). Again the result was acceptable. But then it seemed too good a thing to leave at that size (53x42cm) so I started to make a bigger one at 60x48cm (fig 3). While doing this I thought to enrich the idea so I replaced the context to a rocky cliff overlooking the sea (fig 4). So far so good. Then I started having misgivings about whether that did justice to my appreciation of the initial model setup etc and changed back to the original environment (fig 5). Currently I’m trying a different narrative that keeps that background (fig 6).

Which gives some idea of how paintings are developed to a finished state. Mind you, I may have a more unfocussed mind than most!

Looking Ahead

Plans are to carry on with current work but I can feel a big shift in the Lead white / Titanium white roundabout I have been on for about fifty years. Perhaps it will have matured to something worth talking about in the next issue.

Best wishes,

– Harry