Patrick Caulfield -positive and negative space

PATRICK CAULFIELD (1936-2005)

Patrick Caulfield was a painter and printmaker known for his Pop Art canvasses, and was a contemporary of David Hockney and Allen Jones.

For many years I had a postcard of Pottery (1969) without ever finding out more about the artist, but I always liked the strong colours and at the time was working on ‘O’ level screenprints and lino cuts using a similar linear style.

There are many images of his work on the Tate website and it took me over an hour to browse through them in order to get a feel for his work. I particularly liked the breathtaking simplicity of Bathroom mirror (1968) .

Many of his pieces are screenprints, and the same image or element may be used in several ways and with different colour choices, but a large body of these are characterised by bold outlines and flat, saturated colour.

Later in his work he combined the strong linear graphic with areas of photorealism, as in After Lunch (1975) .

In certain works he breaks the tonal areas down to a minimum, typically using black, white and a third colour, and these are best seen in his series known as the “White Ware” prints (1990) of which all eight images are listed below. The links go to the Tate website images.

Large White Jug

Lamp and Kuan Ware 

Lung Chu'an Ware and Window 

Chu'an Ware and Black Lamp 

Lamp and Lung Chu'an Ware 

Arita Flask 

Arita Flask - Black 

Sue Ware Jar 

The strong contrast of tone is carefully balanced into positive and negative areas, with the focus being on the white areas describing the vase and the light source. The odd one out here is Large White Jug, as the backlit shape appears solid white with only the shadow thrown by the handle to describe it.

EXERCISE IN POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE SPACE IN THE STYLE OF CAULFIELD

My brief is to produce a drawing in a similar style, and as the need to define clear tonal areas calls for a drawing with plenty of contrast, I’ve selected a still life study I did some months ago to develop.

The first process was to define the shape of the light and dark areas and to decide what elements to include. I opted to use the jug and pot and leave out the china mug which seemed a bit too clean lined for inclusion. I used the marks on the background (pentimenta from old masking tape under the paper) to suggest a door which helped break up the large area of negative space in the background.

I started by making a line drawing of the basic shapes through tracing paper from the original- it helped me to see the likely dividing lines between tones more easily. After I had familiarised myself with the shapes I moved on to developing a series of thumbnails in my sketchbook, using 4B and 9B pencils to give two distinct tones. The 9B has caused some light-bounce in the photograph.

Of the second two studies, I first completed a negative version to compare the relative balance of tones. I’ve learned to do this when painting- a quick black and white photograph can highlight areas with insufficient contrast and can easily be flipped into negative for an alternate view.

My first tonal sketch seemed to have too much white so I reworked it and made the table a mid-tone as well. While I was working on these I realised how dependent the image was on complete accuracy of tonal shape in order to make it readable, as I had now lost most of the linear information from the drawing. Details such as the lip of the jug and a tiny curl of light around the base became crucial to get right.

Finally I did two more versions, one in marker pen and a colour version in sepia and sanguine Indian ink. The inks bled slightly on the cartridge paper so they are not as crisp as I would like, I will have to repeat the exercise on marker pad for a clean finish.

I was rather surprised that I succeeded in producing an end drawing from this project as I was more drawn to Caulfield’s earlier linear style and could immediately see applications for it from sketches I have in development. The White Ware series was in complete contrast and I took a long time to find a way in- I’ve been working periodically on this project for nearly a month, and up to last week was still reading other student blogs to see how they had approached it.

It’s been interesting to focus on the extreme contrast of tone. The White Ware prints tend to have two relatively dark tones and the contrast of the white areas gives them a very intimate focus. Their elegant simplicity has echoes of Yin and Yang and complements the subject matter- seven of the series are titled for the Chinese pottery which is their focal point.

(10th Aug) I've now completed a final version of the still life, in marker pen. I chose a slate purple colour to echo the desaturated reds and browns which Caulfield often uses in his backgrounds as I didn't have a suitable brown.

Time to put Caulfield to bed for the time being and progress to the next exercise, although I'll be using what I have discovered in other work of his to develop other pieces.

Shopping and still life

I've had a very good day today, having managed to produce three decent drawings, finding some wonderful books in the charity shop and stocking up on sketchbooks at the art shop who conveniently have 25% off everything for the next few weeks.

My first endeavour was one I'd been thinking about all week. Having seen quite a few indian ink studies recently by fellow students, I thought it was about time I tried the medium, as I usually only use disposable drawing pens in terms of ink. I also chose to use a brush, which up until now I've avoided in case I got sidetracked into painting when I should be doing coursework!

I decided to follow up on the reflected light and shade exercise for this and placed two tankards side by side in the window.

I mixed up several strengths of ink in a palette before starting, and briefly sketched the outlines in pencil before inking. It took a while to get the right amount of ink and water on the brush, and it behaved rather like watercolour- a medium I dislike. It was only after i'd finished that I realised how wrong the left side of the left-hand tankard is, possibly because it had a fair amount of light bouncing onto it from the window and wall and I misjudged the profile. The most effective bit is the handle of the right-hand tankard, in fact, the other could have done with some stronger tones on the handle too. However, I was fairly pleased with it as a first effort in ink.

Changing track, I picked out some pieces of pot pourri and arranged them in a loose group. I wanted to practice concentrating on the outlines rather than on what I was drawing, and the only way to develop this technique is to do it over and over until it starts to become second nature. I can feel I'm getting better at it, and was pleasantly surprised how all the elements came out more or less as they looked and in their correct relative positions. (Especially the complicated woven twig ball!) I decided to shade in the shadows in order to anchor the pieces to the surface- they looked a bit abstract without them.

Next up was the shopping trip as I wanted some watercolour paper on which to work with my coloured pencils, and while we were in town I went to a couple of nearby charity shops to scout for useful still life accessories. One shop I find always seems to have a good selection of art books, and I was delighted to find a clearly laid out manual on drawing domestic animals, for a fraction of the price I would otherwise have had to pay.

Also, hidden away on the shelf, was a charming old cloth-bound book "Hints for Sketching Trees from Nature in Water Colours". It's a 16th edition of a guide published by George Rowney and Co, with no imprint page to tell the date of publication, but the catalogue pages in the back state that prices are correct as of April 1st 1919! A red sable brush, size 4, would have set you back 1s (that's 5p in today's money) although there is a rider that sable price was fluctuating. I particularly like the Victorian style of prose, complete with capitalisation of key words, and I'm also sure that some useful advice can be gleaned from it which is still relevant today. There are a number of charming sepia plates in it by way of illustration.

Having arrived back home somewhat lighter in the wallet than when I left, I returned to work with a dragon fruit and soon discovered that the shape was far more challenging than I had at first thought, eventually, after well over three hours, I managed to bring it to some sort of completion before I lost the remaining daylight.

Hopefully I may have enough time to do a colour study of this later this week. And yes- I realise I'm jumping forward into Assignment 2 areas! Watch this space...

Further reflections

I took the opportunity whilst shopping to grab a few interesting still life items from the supermarket, as although we have lots of clutter at home most of it is either too fussy in shape or heavily patterned, and not ideal for practicising the tonal exercises I'm working on at present. I found a black cereal bowl, a delightfully shaped plain white jug, and  a silver-finished ceramic bird objet. Having dumped them on the table in the studio I decided to draw them just as they were, looking down at them while working at the easel. I worked in charcoal on A2 paper, starting with a toned ground and used a plastic eraser to lift out highlights.

Having more reflective surfaces than the tankard I drew earlier this week, I found it much easier to distinguish between direct and reflected light, particularly the ones inside the bowl thrown by the silver bird. I had the most trouble with the handle of the jug, it still floats a bit above the surface, and I've also just seen that the ellipse of the neck is too flattened in comparison to the bowl. No doubt I'll improve as I draw it more often and become familiar with its shape.

I liked the bird so much that I thought it would be fun to draw it next to something coloured. There was an over-ripe mango in the kitchen so I put the two together and opted to work with my new conte pastels to see how they behaved. The paper is a grey shade of Murano.

 Scaling down from A2 to A4 paper threw me off a bit and the mango shadow has nearly fallen off the paper. I tried to remember not to overload the surface and build up thin layers, and also tried to resist the urge to blend each stroke to within an inch of its life!

I'm reasonably satisfied with the way the mango came out although the red-yellow divide line isn't correct for the foreshortened viewpoint. The highly reflective bird really needed more fine blending and building up of definite hard edges to show its surface quality but the reflections of the mango (and my purple shirt) do at least describe the shape.

Anyway, the sun's out, the tide's out, and I'm going to take a break and take my sketchbook off to the beach now.

Reflected light and shade

This has taken me a while to start as I couldn't find a suitable metallic surface, until I unearthed this tankard from the depths of the sideboard. I used charcoal on A2 paper and stood at the easel in order to have a higher sightline than previous drawings. I tried to use a putty rubber but have always found the crumbly nature of them difficult, and reverted to a plastic eraser to achieve the highlights.

I enjoy drawing reflective surfaces but I found it hard to categorise which was direct and which reflected light- I tend to study the shapes and then apply relative tone values. In hindsight I think I should have started on a toned surface, so I'll have another stab at this as soon as time allows.

Platonic solids 2

As promised here is the cross-hatched version of the platonic solids, using an 0.1mm sepia drawing pen.

I found it easier to decide on relative tonal strengths having the graded boxes above for reference. The light source was very close and I couldn't at first make out very subtle differences in the lit surfaces. Having been forced to wear my reading glasses while using the pen, I then discovered that as the objects were then just out of focus and it was easier to discern the very faint differences towards the edges of these areas.

Tonal study of Platonic solids

I've had these lying around courtesy of A&I magazine for a few months as an accessory to a tonal painting exercise. As I couldn't otherwise put my hands immediately on "simple shapes" I thought that these would get me started on the exercise.

I drew the double pyramid (octahedron) first, and used a lot of blended shading. As is obvious, I used more cross-hatching in the other dodecahedron. I had set them up on a white card base with a table lamp to give directional lighting to the right-hand side, and it was surprising to discover how much of a double shadow was created by having the light source so close. Not having much knowledge of what these shape's properties were they proved quite challenging to draw- I moved the dodecahedron from its original position in order to relate it to the double pyramid shadow as I found I couldn't get a sense of scale without this. After that I learned quite a lot about the relative measurements sighting various measurements with my pencil at arm's lenght, especially the common measurements which proved to be not (too) far out in the final accounting.

Later that evening I made myself use a drawing pen (and my glasses) to develop the required tonal range in cross-hatching- I haven't done it yet but will do the cross-hatched Platonics yet!

Variation on cylindrical objects

I'm probably getting a bit carried away with cylinders but my original intention with this was to use contour shading. Having drawn in the basic shapes in pencil I sent a pot of markers flying while hunting for my drawing pens (serendipity) and decided to go for a tonal treatment instead, as I have a graded set of 5 cool greys, with the black provided by a (self proclaimed) Manga brush pen- it's a Pentel goodie I picked up in my local art shop and has a true and very sensitive brush tip made of synthetic fibres- still getting used to it for drawing usage but the ink is the densest black I currently have.

Having decided to leave the labels and markings off all but the small round pot, which looked a bit bland without any, I really enjoyed doing this, so much so that my husband came to see why I wasn't downstairs watching the run-up to the British GP (The one sport I follow!)

Although there are some visible wobbles I'm quite pleased with this as a whole, and including the table with its angular shapes gives a nice contrast to the objects used. The wall pattern is invented just to break up the area- I've painted the studio matt white for maximum light.


(thought) I'm probably getting a bit ahead of myself in the assignment sequence- oops, back to the shopping still life.

The cylinder theme will be continued shortly, as while at work I remembered that an endless supply of differnet sizes are available from our label printing room (cardboard roll centres), and I have great ideas of stringing them up to form a still life after painting them white...so I robbed out the rubbish bag tonight, I always did have a thing for abstracting designs...although I may digress into sculpture in the process...maybe this can be carried forward to printmaking...